When Ves notified Maikel and Zanthar Larkinsons that he wanted to have a discussion with them, the two Apprentice ch Designers understood quite well that their reckoning had co.
This was the mont where the two younger Larkinsons had to account for their decisions and the progress that they had made since the start of the Age of Dawn. Many people had welcod the Hyper Generation and managed to take off like a rocket after they successfully took advantage of the new opportunities.
Ves was the definite example of this kind of a success story. It took remarkably little ti for him to develop many useful inventions, most of which did not seem to have any direct relations with ch design!
It was only after he released his historic Yellow Jacket models that he cented himself as the most successful ch designer of the younger generations.
No one dared to accuse him that he had gone astray in his ch design career anymore!
It was not easy for other ch designers to grow up in the shadow of such a giant of the industry.
How could other Larkinsons possibly harbor any pride and conceit towards their own works when they paled in comparison to the celebrated works of their patriarch?
In that sense, Ves had a negative impact on the workforce of the Design Departnt. ch designers were humans as well. They possessed the capacity to feel envy, jealousy and inadequate.
A lot of ch designers working for the Design Departnt must be suffering from a case of inferiority complex. Continuing to work for a highly successful ch designer who had not yet managed to realize his own design philosophy must have exerted a lot of pressure on all of his juniors.
Ves was only just beginning to comprehend the severity of what it was like to work under him, Maikel and Zanthar suffered the worst from this problem as they had received his personal tutelage. It was absolutely unacceptable for them to end up as ordinary ch designers after receiving so many privileges!
Whether Ves had inadvertently 'ruined' the two trueblood Larkinsons that he once hoped could inherit his burdens and prop up the Larkinson Clan would soon beco clear.
Zanthar did not take much ti to compose his words. He began with an apology.
"Before I explain the current direction of my research, I want to say sorry to you for failing to et your expectations. You must have looked forward to having take
over your knowledge related to luminar crystal technology and carry forth your research. The alien tech fascinated for a ti, but the more I studied it, the less I cared about it. Energy weapons don't excite as much as big explosive cannons. I never beca satisfied with the chs that I have designed that made use of luminar crystal weapons."
That was a regretful outco. Ves felt a little disappointed that Zanthar failed to embrace luminar crystal technology, as it had lots of promise.
The sting was not as painful as it should have been.
"It's okay." Ves said. "Another ch designer has taken over the mantle of furthering the developnt of luminar crystal technology. We are far past the point where I have to rely on an Apprentice like you to develop the future iterations of luminar crystal weapons."
"I am glad that you managed to bring Harry Haikkonen into the Design Departnt." Zanthar said with a smile. "He talked to multiple tis in order to collect my own opinions and insights on luminar crystal technology. The more we exchanged with each other, the more I beca impressed by his love and diligence towards this alien tech. I already concluded by the end of our first talk that he could take luminar crystal technology much further than I can ever manage."
"Okay, Zanthar, Since you have decided to abandon luminar crystal technology, what have you been doing instead?"
The younger ch designer assud a more eager posture as he was ready to share his true passion.
"As I have ntioned a mont ago, I adore big guns. I want to arm all of my chs with large and heavy cannons so that they can blow apart enemy chs, warships or whatever else they are assigned to destroy. I think that I will mainly design heavy artillery chs in the future, but I am also willing to design other ch types if there is enough demand. I don't necessarily love the cannons themselves, but the explosive munitions that they can launch towards their targets. I like anything that explodes. It doesn't matter if they co in the form of artillery shells, missiles, rockets, torpedoes or mines. My design philosophy is all about making them stronger and deadlier. That is what I have been spending much of my free ti on. I have dedicated years to developing an original new technological paradigm of explosive munitions that requires a completely different form of defense to withstand."
Ves imdiately grew intrigued. The focus on munitions sounded familiar. He had recently completed his collaboration with Lord Richard Brownstone, who reveled in developing exotic new rounds for his kinetic weapons.
So far, the biggest difference between the two was that the Rubarthan Senior ch Designer preferred to work with solid projectiles, while Zanthar had taken a liking for explosive projectiles.
That was not enough to make the latter special. It was easy for ch designers to develop new explosive shell types. What mattered was that their solution offered superior performance at affordable prices. Not many professionals were able to et this standard.
"Oh? I can hear the passion in your voice. You also sound confident in your current research direction. What is it exactly that you have been working on as of late?" Zanthar Larkinson used his comm to call up footage of a test run of his munitions. He had taken a generic heavy artillery ch and replaced the standard munitions of the artillery cannons with his own custom-developed ordnance.
The test involved a heavy artillery ch firing the new explosive shells at a target dummy protected by a fixed azure energy shield.
Under normal circumstances, a heavy artillery ch had to fire dozens of explosive shells to exhaust an azure energy shield of this strength level.
Boom!
When the generic artillery ch fired the first shell, the projectile slamd against the surface of the energy shield and exploded, just as predicted.
There was nothing special about the blast. It was moderately powerful but that was all. The azure energy shield rippled slightly and in a pattern that suggested that the explosive shell was laced with hyper materials.
So far, Ves had not seen anything that distinguished this shell from the ones that any
ch force could buy off the shelf.
What was special about Zanthar's work?
It was then that he noticed a subtle detail.
His gaze only strayed briefly towards the target dummy, not expecting to find anything amiss, which was why he beca surprised that he noticed a change.
"Did you manage to spot it, teacher?" Zanthar grinned.
"The damage unleashed by that detonation... partially bled through the azure energy shield and affected the target dummy! Even if only a fraction of the power of the explosion has ultimately managed to dent the exterior of the dummy, this is already a major accomplishnt!"
It was not unheard of for weapons and munitions to be able to partially or completely bypass energy shields.
It was a lot more difficult to accomplish with the most powerful transphasic hyper energy shields, but as long as the circumstances were right, there were still ways to penetrate or bypass this layer of projection!
The most familiar instance to Ves was Saint Tusa and the Dark Zephyr's ability to
employ the Leap of True Freedom to bypass every obstacle on a conceptual level and reach their destination on the other side of a powerful energy shield in an instant! Whether Tusa managed to pull it off by phasing through a completely different dinsion or a more direct form of teleportation, he was one of the few ch pilots that could completely ignore any barrier.
The Phobos piloted by Venerable Zimro Belson also possessed a similar if lesser capacity to bypass active transphasic energy shields. So of the fiends spawned from the GEIST System were able to pass through these barriers and quietly infiltrate the interior of enemy starships and find a way to open up a gap in the defenses to let in other destructive fiends.
Then there was Lucky whose phasing ability had continually improved ever since he gained this power. As far as Ves was aware of, the gem cat was able to pass through weak to moderate strength energy shields with difficulty.
Given that he already witnessed instances where stuff got through energy shields in the past, Ves shouldn't be particularly surprised that Zanthar had also managed to find
a way. There was a huge difference, though.
As the footage of the test continued, the heavy artillery ch slowly fired its heavy
artillo
cannons ond
one.
Every explosive shell launched by this machine struck the do-shaped energy shield
at slightly different angles.
Much of the explosions ended up getting blocked by the energy shield, but there was
always a small proportion of destructive energies that sohow managed to pass through the protective layer and impact the target dummy!
After firing over a dozen explosive shells, the dummy still managed to retain its original shape, but it clearly looked as if it got beat up by a mob.
Ves grew impressed. No matter how Zanthar managed to attain this result, the use of multiple shells that otherwise did not appear to be remarkable indicated that the cost
of his new innovation was not too high!
This was incredibly significant as the previous examples were all special cases that demanded a huge amount of investnt in order to produce those results!
As for the heavy artillery ch in the footage, all Zanthar needed to do was to load in experintal shells that were probably economical enough to mass produce!
The biggest issue was that the explosive munitions were clearly half-baked at this
stage. The bleedthrough rate was not high enough to grant the attacker any advantages, but this was just the start.
The difficulty in this line of research was the first step!
As long as Zanthar managed to figure out a way to pass at least a tiny amount of
damage through an energy shield, he had successfully created an opening which he could expand in his follow-up research!
He just needed to figure out how exactly he managed to bypass the energy shield and
how to multiply the yield until he created a form of munitions that could inflict effective damage onto targets protected by barriers!
"How did you manage to produce this result?" Ves eventually asked.
"E energy." Zanthar straightforwardly answered. "I took inspiration from the Destroyer of Worlds and how she is able to make her main cannon attacks so amazingly
powerful. I don't dare to hope to reproduce what she is able to do with her god-like power, but what I wanted to create for the ch community is a more affordable and widely available ans of enhancing the power of explosive munitions that anyone can use. The answer I ca up with is to imbue the explosive ordnance with their spiritual equivalent. Think of it as implanting E-bombs into physical bombs. If everything goes right, I will eventually be able to develop a Class II Design Philosophy that will probably be called E energy Explosive Munitions or EEE Munitions in short."
"That... might actually work."
Ves never imagined that E-technology could be used to produce such an interesting
concept!
"It took a lot of ti and experintation for to get this far." Zanthar said in order
to explain why he remained stuck as an Apprentice for so many years. "I studied much
of the internal notes, articles and textbooks that you have written on living chs in order to develop the right E-munitions. That was not enough for to achieve a breakthrough in my research, so I also approached the researchers over at the T Institute for advice and additional study material. That helped a lot, but what truly allowed to get so far is the use of my companion spirit."
In order to prove how much he had dedicated himself to this line of research, Zanthar
proudly unveiled his companion spirit.
"Mawah! Mawah!"
A green cat made out of swirling and volatile energies erged from Zanthar's
forehead! "et Alfred. I took inspiration from the Destroyer of Worlds and focused on growing a cat that could enhance the power of any explosive device. So far, he is able to do a decent job at that. In fact, the main reason why I have been able to achieve limited success in my research so far is because I have attempted to reverse engineer the explosive imbuent ability that Alfred has naturally developed according to my own
desires."
Ves had a sense of deja vu when he gazed upon Alfred.
The green cat reminded him a lot of a much more powerful orange cat!
Ves found it rather shaless that Zanthar attempted to solve his problem by copying
the companion spirit of the Destroyer of Worlds.
It was also incredibly cheap for Zanthar to produce his research results by trying to
reverse engineer the ability of his own companion spirit!
However, no one could fault him for figuring out a much more convenient way to
realize his ambitions.
"This is... brilliant." Ves honestly expressed. "I applaud your ingenuity. You have
managed to produce a result that hardly any other ch designer can imitate by relying on the resources and advantages at your disposal. You have not wasted them at all. I have much greater confidence that you will be able to break through as a Journeyman as long as you have managed to raise the bleedthrough rate above single
digits!"
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