Chapter 4133 Initial Weapons Test Patriarch Reginald did not appear to be in a hurry to wipe out the bots that unloaded enough firepower to threaten a capital ship! The volume of fire was incredible. Even if the drones and battle bots weren't particularly strong on an individual basis, their numbers exceeded that of a full mech regiment at the moment! This meant that the new Saint already displayed the ability to effortlessly resist the firepower of a full ranged mech regiment! It did not even look as if Patriarch Reginald was breaking a sweat during the ongoing bombardment! His Saint Kingdom or domain field remained remarkably stable. No matter how many mosquitos attempted to pierce this large spherical energy field, if Reginald did not want their attacks to pass through his zone, he could impose his will onto reality and make it happen! "Amazing." Gloriana uttered. "This is the most distinguishing difference between Venerables and Saints. It is not surprising to regard the former as preparatory ace pilots." An expert pilot was highly limited in their ability to distort reality by leveraging his force of will. They heavily relied on their mechs to amplify their strength exertion through resonance, and they only managed to do so reluctantly and in a limited fashion. Ace pilots on the other hand possessed an abundance of power and control. Their domain fields were not only larger versions of resonance shields, but they also marked a territory as the exclusive property of the ace pilot. These characteristics had caused the mech community to refer to these extraordinary energy fields as Saint Kingdoms. Every Saint was a ruler of his own domain! In general, there were two effective ways to overcome the insane defenses of a Saint Kingdom. An opponent could rely on another ace pilot to compete against an opposing one on an equal basis. If ace pilots were hard to come by, then the only other way to overcome a Saint Kingdom was by relying on massed firepower. The latter was the more common if stupidest means of breaking open an ace pilot's defenses. Right now, two whole minutes had gone by and the Saint Kingdom around the Mars still didn't show any signs of destabilizing! "This is ridiculous!" Ves gasped. "I get that Patriarch Reginald is really strong now, but the Mars is still an expert mech!" Professor Benedict did not look surprised, though. "You know just as well as I that the Mars already straddles the line between expert mechs and ace mechs. Most of the tech and the materials that we have invested into it already meets the standard of an ace mech. The greatest shortcoming of the Mars at the moment is that it is lacking in ace mech-grade resonating materials. The ones that we have put into our mech are mainly attuned to the strength of expert pilots." There were different ways to categorize resonating materials. One of the most important ones was to determine which kind of high-ranking mech pilot could best leverage their extraordinary properties. The majority of resonating materials were expert mech-grade. That meant that they were effectively utilized by expert pilots as long as they were compatible with the specific materials.𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚 There was a higher grade of resonating materials that were not so easy to make use of. Expert pilots who attempted to resonate with them would find that they were trying to squeeze water from a stone. Even if they were compatible, the difficulty of resonating with ace mech-grade resonating materials was too great at their stages! This was also the main reason why Professor Benedict did not choose to integrate any ace mech-grade resonating materials into the current iteration of the Mars. It did not matter if Patriarch Reginald's chances of breaking through were high. He would not have been able to resonate with the Mars to begin with when he activated the mech for the first time! None of these considerations applied anymore. The current reality was that Reginald had advanced to ace pilot. This meant that the current configuration of the Mars had already fallen behind the times! "You'll need to replace the old resonating materials with ones that are suitable for ace pilots, right?" "That is correct, Ves. This will be an incredibly difficult technical process. First, I need to obtain the right materials, but they are much rarer and they are also far more demanding as a rule. Trying to integrate them into the Mars without ruining its configuration or breaking its masterwork state will be one of the most difficult upgrade projects that I will be embarking upon in my career as a mech designer." "Do you need any assistance?" "Hahaha. No." Professor Benedict firmly shook his head. "These matters are far beyond your level. In fact, many of them go over my head as well. Only an exceedingly small proportion of mech designers possess the qualifications to develop ace mechs." "Will you be able to accomplish all of this by yourself, then?" "Not a chance in hell, but who says that I will be alone? I have already formed an arrangement with the Unbounders. While it will still take years to elevate the Mars into a proper ace mech, I will get it done eventually." Without the help of Ves and his fellow colleagues, it seemed. That was a pity. He would have liked to take part in this interesting endeavor. Meanwhile, the new Saint apparently had enough of testing the strength of his new domain field. After letting the bots expend their firepower towards the Mars without any clear results, the Mars finally began to make its first offensive move! Ves completely threw every other consideration aside and leaned closer in order to observe the powerful expert mech closely. "The Mars is priming the ARCEUS System!" Ten powerful integrated energy weapon modules charged up at once. With two on the wrists, three in the chest, two on the lower legs and two at the sides of the head, the Mars had more than enough weapons to unleash devastation! Different from the Olympus Mons which was primarily geared towards melee combat, the Mars was a hybrid mech that excelled at throwing up massive firepower from a distance. This meant that its threat radius was extremely wide. As long as any opponent was within its line of sight, they turned into eligible targets to the Mars! Once the ARCEUS System had charged up and locked onto the various targets, all ten integrated energy weapons fired at once! Each of the sophisticated weapon mounts possessed the ability to split their beams. Patriarch Reginald took extensive advantage of this feature to split the firepower of each of his energy weapons so that they fired at least ten lesser laser beams at different targets! In other words, the Mars effective fired over a hundred resonance-empowered laser beams at once! Each of them soared through space at the speed of light and hit their targets with unerring accuracy! Despite the fact that each beam only possessed a fraction of the firepower of the originating weapon, the high base power of the ARCEUS System along with its transphasic and resonating properties meant that the shots already surpassed the power of that of a typical ranged expert mech! Ves and many other observers were completely astounded by this amazing sight! Some of the bots that got struck were high-quality machines that were clad with premium armor. Yet even then the incoming beams managed to pierce through their frames entirely, devastating every armor plate or vital internal component in and around the path of the deadly lasers! Although the more knowledgeable among them already understood that the Mars was theoretically able to achieve this outcome, seeing it happen in reality was still a major shock. It might not be a big deal to destroy over a hundred bots with a single salvo this time, but on an actual battlefield the Mars would likely be able to achieve the same result when fighting against actual mechs! "The Mars only needs a single moment in order to put a hundred combat machines out of action. What if it fires its weapons repeatedly?" Patriarch Reginald was evidently curious to know the answer as well, because he was far from done with testing the ARCEUS System! The integrated energy weapons charged again before they fired an identical salvo, this time aiming at a hundred different targets! Every bot in the ARCEUS System's sights went down without exception. The accuracy displayed by the Mars was also impressive in itself. Part of that came from the superhuman skill of an ace pilot. Another part of it came from the excellent sensor and targeting systems of the high-tier expert mech. When both of these elements were excellent, it would be hard for light mechs to evade the expert hybrid mech's attacks! The Mars fired again and again. Though it took a few seconds for it to be able to engage its ARCEUS System again, the consistency and reliability of the transphasic energy system was commendable. It was not easy to output so much firepower without straining the expert mech's more delicate components! However, the exceedingly powerful ARCEUS System as well as the incredible efficiency and tolerances of the Magma Vein System ensured that the Mars could fire its weapons like this for a long time! Salvo after salvo tore out entire chunks of the bot swarm. The volume of fire that was pouring in the direction of the Mars visibly weakened at a rapid rate. Once the final set of resonance-empowered transphasic laser beams took out the pathetic-looking bots that remained, none of the swarms that the Cross Clan had procured at great cost remained intact! A lot of people turned speechless due to the sheer amount of awe they felt at this overwhelming display of superiority. It was nearly impossible for a mech force to rely on quantity to overcome an ace mech! Even if the Mars was not able to output so much fire at once, it could easily leverage its superior mobility and defensive power to circle around and whittle down the enemy cannon fodder over time. Either way, the advancement of Patriarch Reginald completely turned the Mars into a beast on the battlefield! One that was capable of defeating entire mech forces by itself! "If the Mars in its expert mech configuration is already this powerful, how much more dominant will it be once it becomes an ace mech?" Ves shuddered at the thought. The performance of the expert hybrid mech's resonance parameters would receive a major boost, allowing it to distort reality much more extensively than was currently the case! Paired with the fact that Reginald would definitely be growing his unleashed resonance strength at a steady rate, the Mars was destined to become an unfathomably strong ace mech in a few years! Professor Benedict grinned. "Now that we have seen how well the Mars fares against a tide of mechs, let us see how well its ARCEUS System can defeat an enemy starship." The Cross Clan would never volunteer an actual starship for target practice. That was far too wasteful. In order to provide the Mars with an approximate target, the Crossers instead decided to conduct the test in the vicinity of an asteroid belt. There were plenty of chunky targets in range that could withstand a heavy amount of punishment before breaking. Now, the Mars had set its sights on one of them. There was an asteroid with a high metallic content that happened to be several kilometers thick. Even if its material composition was not as tough as that of a typical warship, its mass and thickness were still difficult for other weapons to drill through! However, the Mars only charged its central chest weapon. It was the largest weapon module of the ARCEUS System and was designed for just these occasions. This time, Patriarch Reginald pulled out all of the stops. He did not order the chest weapon to split its output, but instead wanted it to remain whole and concentrated. After charging and empowering it with multiple forms of energy, the chest weapon finally outputted a dazzlingly bright red energy that struck the target asteroid and burned straight through its rocky interior as if it was made out of paper! Though the massively empowered beam took its time to melt through all of the material, it eventually escaped right out of the opposite side of the asteroid before striking another one floating further into the distance! "...Imagine if that was a starship."