"So these are the living chs of the new generation."
"Mhmm."
"How much do you know about the new Fey Fianna?"
"Not as much as you think. I mainly involve myself in swordsman ch designs. I have little motivation and reason to push myself into other ch design projects, even if they are assigned a sword or a knife as a backup weapon. Ves' latest pet project is clearly oriented to mid-ranged combat. The battle has clearly taken the wrong turn. The Fey Fianna is primarily designed to avoid close confrontations."
"I see." Venerable Joshua responded as he enjoyed the warmth of Ketis' hard and athletic body. "Are you interested in designing a lee variant of the Fey Fianna? It might be fun to make a ch that indirectly controls 4 extra swords that can swing in any direction and in different places at once. It might be difficult to make the sword fey strike hard enough, but I am confident that your swordmaster expertise can solve this problem."
Ketis shoved her elbow against her silly husband's side with more than a little force.
"ch design doesn't work like that. We can't magic every difficult problem away. My gifts as a swordmaster can only do so much."
As the married couple enjoyed a rare day off, they settled into the couch as they watched the projected feed that dominated half of their stateroom aboard the Spirit of Bentheim.
anwhile, a pair of cute and growing kids went off to play with each other. Currently, big brother Kirian was trying to teach basic swordplay to his adorable little sister.
"You need to swing your sword this way!"
"This way?" Little Mayra asked as she swung her fuzzy sword-shaped toy in a wobbling manner.
"You're doing better, but you should control your grip. Don't hold the hilt too tight, but don't loosen your fingers too much either. Do you get it, sis?"
"I'm bored. I want to play with my dolls."
"Dolls are boring! Don't you want to beco a cool swordmaster like mommy?"
"Mmmmm.... No." Mayra shook her head.
"You're stupid!"
"No, you're stupid!"
"Nuh-uh, you're stupid!"
As the children started to feud against each other, their father reached out and gently drained their frustrations with his soothing force of will.
"Settle down. No one here is stupid. Kirian, if Mayra wants to play with her dolls, just let her. She is not old enough to begin her swordsmanship training. Give her ti."
Once he was done with admonishing his children, he resud his observations of the product reveal that had already produced a lot of excitent.
The patriarch unveiled all kinds of new and improved features with the introduction of the Fey Fianna.
"Fourth generation luminar crystal technology. Fifth generation living chs. Multi-spirit living chs. All of that sounds amazing. How soon will those improvents roll out in the expeditionary fleet?"
"You are in for a long wait." Ketis replied in a flat tone. "It takes ti to update all of our existing ch models. Many of our lead designers have left to undergo EdNet training. I would like to help, but I only design lee chs. Ves is the only ch designer in our clan that can implent his improved solutions, and his schedule is always full."
That caused Joshua to frown. "He should hire more ch designers if that is the case. He used to be a lot more relaxed and approachable in the old days. Now, he is not in the sa location as us anymore."
"The clan has grown, and so has our patriarch. His burden of responsibility has beco much greater than before. I predict that it will take at least a year before he even thinks about updating your Everchanger. There is a chance it may even take longer before he gets around to improving your living ch." Venerable Joshua dramatically threw his hands up. "That's too long! Not just , but the rest of the old gang have heard little about any anticipated updates to their old expert chs. Our machines aren't weak, but ever since our resonance strength started to grow like a rocket, many of us feel like our own battle partners are starting to fall behind. We can do much more if we have room to express our expanded power. We at least want our expert chs to keep up with the tis and take advantage of all of the new hyper tech."
Though Ketis pretty much knew what her husband was talking about, it was best not to ntion the experintal general cultivation elixirs out loud.
Half of the people in the expeditionary fleet knew that the expert pilots of the Larkinson Clan benefited from an amazing opportunity.
The general cultivation elixirs could be hidden, but their effects were far too obvious!
Every working resonance ter could easily detect the discrete jump in resonance strength right after the expert pilots recovered from their latest elixir ingestion.
Joshua happened to be the expert pilot that derived the most benefits from the general cultivation elixirs!
Whereas the other expert pilots only managed to grow their resonance strengths by 2 to 3 laveres, Joshua never failed to boost his own resonance strength by 4 laveres!
That was not all. He recovered considerably faster than anyone else. Though the traumas induced by the illusions created by the elixirs could push any expert pilot to their limits, Joshua possessed qualities that enabled him to bounce back with greater ease.
This has caused his schedule to go out of sync compared to the other Larkinson expert pilots.
Whereas Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson and Commander Casella Ingvar had to wait at least 3 months before they could safely ingest another elixir, Joshua was able to restore his condition back to his peak in less than 2.5 months!
It might even be possible to push the interval down to just 2 months, but not even the chers dared to endanger Joshua's health to such a degree!
They were much more interested in keeping track of his progress over a longer period of ti.
In any case, Joshua's growth over the recent months had been nothing less than record-breaking.
Starting from around 24 laveres, Joshua swallowed 3 elixirs, which combined with his 'regular' progress caused his resonance strength to asure at 38.8 laveres on average last he checked!
This ant that Joshua went from a fresh mid-tier expert pilot to almost reaching the threshold of a high-tier expert pilot!
He did not know of any other expert pilot in the past that managed to race through the ranks in such record ti.
There were far more expert pilots who stagnated and eventually never managed to push their resonance strength past 40 laveres due to many different factors.
Not even the Chosen Human could match's Joshua's growth rate at this stage!
Of course, that did not an that Joshua beca conceited enough to think he was superior to a god pilot.
He had mixed feelings about the general cultivation elixirs. They were certainly effective, but they made it too easy.
If not for the fact that the expeditionary fleet still remained active in the border regions of human-occupied space, Joshua would have started to feel that he did not deserve to receive his rapid boost in strength.
In any case, it was due to this extre occurrence that Joshua yearned to pilot a more powerful version of the Everchanger even more!
Though the ch had received minor upgrades every now and then, the core technical features and attributes of the machine remained the sa.
Ketis did not entirely agree with this assessnt.
"Technically speaking, the Everchanger is already a hyper ch. The sa goes for all of the other older Larkinson chs. We did not know it back then, but when Ves incorporated Unending alloy into your machines, he turned them into pri chs, which nowadays is regarded as a variation of a hyper ch. You should feel grateful, Joshua. You are far ahead when it cos to harnessing E energy. Your combat effectiveness has skyrocketed ever since we entered the Age of Dawn. Your ch has almost fully kept up with the tis. The only changes that are truly necessary is to bring your armor system and a number of other systems in line with the standards set by the Red Association."
Joshua pressed his fingers against his forehead. "I know that my Everchanger is special and has grown a lot during the Age of Dawn, but it still feels back that my battle partner is still working with tech that is a decade old. Many other expert pilots like those from the Cross Clan and the Boojay Family anwhile get to show off their completely updated expert chs in front of us. I don't even have to look outside of our clan. Have you seen what the new Blood Star Mark II and the Lionheart can do?! Those expert chs are on another level than the rest of our machines."
"The Blood Star Mark II and the Lionheart are indeed technological marvels, for different reasons." The female ch designer admitted. "Both of them are designed as high-tier expert chs from the start. They are also quasi-first-class chs that push the limit of what their power reactors can support in their ch fras. I would not say your Everchanger has fallen too far behind compared to them. Your expert hero ch is ard with the Scarlet Ember and has access to the Gray Lotus as well."
"Those are nice weapons, but they don't really fit my expert ch. The plasma sword is an energy hog, and the Gray Lotus hardly makes a difference when I don't know where all of the important alien officers and leaders are located inside their huge warships."
Venerable Joshua did not want to wait much longer. He was on track to beco a high-tier expert very soon. This was where all of his accumulation so far would begin to produce qualitative changes that significantly boosted his combat effectiveness!
If his prodigiously fast growth rate persisted after this crucial turning point, then it would only take a little over a year for him to beco an ace pilot candidate!
By then, his demand for a proper high-tier expert ch version of the Everchanger beca most acute!
Not being able to pilot a properly upgraded Everchanger by that ti would be as painful as trying to fight a sparring match against Ketis while ard with a skinny little knife.
His wife picked up his growing need. She placed her calloused hand over his palm.
"I will let Ves and his wife know. I think Gloriana will be especially eager to test her new cranial implant by working on multiple expert chs."
Joshua smiled and relaxed. He gestured at the projected live broadcast. "If you do manage to get in touch with Ves, can you ask if he can add a few of these spurs to my machine? My intuition tells that I can do a lot with them. There should be enough room on my Everchanger, right?"
"Ves and Gloriana will have to redesign the rear sections of your Everchanger depending on the size of the new spurs. Are you sure you want to add this extra complication to your expert ch?"
"I am sure." Joshua spoke with greater firmness in his tone. "I don't need too many spurs, but the possibility of having a pair of them by my side makes excited. Just imagine what it would be like to pilot an expert ch version of the new Fey Fianna. Maybe I can produce amazing decoys, or maybe I can produce a really big energy shield that can cover an entire starship."
"Keep dreaming."
Every ch pilot of the Larkinson Clan dreamt of piloting more modern and powerful chs.
The Fey Fianna model had already begun to roll out in the expeditionary fleet, but that only satisfied a small group of Larkinson ch pilots.
The rest still yearned for updates of their established chs. As the battles against the native aliens continued to intensify, the Valkyrie Redeer, the Ferocious Piranha and many other ch models were all starting to show their age.
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