As Ves glanced at the time, he noticed that he spent a bit more time on upgrading the Promethea than he initially intended. He did not regret it as he managed to come up with a handful of new discoveries and inventions that had massive implications for his future work! So long as the Promethea lived up to his high expectations, then that meant he could turn other expert mechs into more effective prime mechs that were much better adapted to the Age of Dawn! "The best part about all of this is that these prime expert mechs will continue to produce more dramatic effects as their expert pilots grow in power!" Venerable Isobel Kotin was still a low-tier expert pilot. Many of the other Larkinson expert pilots had barely grown into mid-tier expert pilots. This meant that each of them still had a lot of room for growth in this aspect! The only exception was his own grandfather. Venerable Benjamin Larkinson was not lacking in resonance strength, but it would take a long time before he could obtain a proper high-tier expert mech that could fully exert his might! "Maybe it's a good thing that I haven't completed an expert mech for him yet." Ves suddenly thought. "I can upgrade his Blood Star into a much more effective prime mech from the ground up rather than in an ad-hoc manner like I did with the Promethea." Ves could have done a lot more to improve the expert rifleman mech if he could do more than upgrade a single attack phase crystal. He at least wanted to upgrade the Ignitron into a quasi-first-class transphasic luminar crystal weapon! "It might not be necessary to make the weapon transphasic, though." Ves loosely guessed. "Venerable Isobel's fighting style does not rely so much on penetrating defenses as that of Venerable Stark." As Ves worked with different mech pilots and mechs, he gradually understood that it may be better to focus more on reinforcing their existing strengths than to obsess too much over mitigating their weaknesses, especially with regards to prime mechs! "Let's see whether I can whip up anything comparable for my next mech." His steps slowed a bit as he entered the smaller and more enclosed bay that held the most powerful mech in the Spirit of Bentheim. "We meet again, Macharia Excelsia." He softly greeted the ace mech with a smile. He reminded himself that it was a great honor and privilege to get into contact with such a high-end mech. As Ves continued to get closer, he noticed that the strategically valuable mech was guarded by a dedicated troop of elite infantry soldiers dispatched by the Vraken Matriarchal Dynasty. Although these guards probably wouldn't be able to do anything against hostile mechs, they at least signaled how much the dynasty cared about this incomparably powerful asset! "It is exquisite." Only the best Master Mech Designers of a state received the honor of designing such a potent machine. Although Ves prized the Mars a lot more, its technological sophistication was actually inferior to a 'proper' ace mech like the Macharia Excelsia. It couldn't be helped. The latter was designed as an ace mech with the full backing of the entire military-industrial complex of the Hex Federation. The Mars on the hand was cobbled together by combining a lot of third party parts and systems. Though Ves and Benedict Cortez put them together in a brilliant fashion to create a fantastic masterwork, that did not change the fact that the mech still suffered from a lack of access to the best and most cutting-edge technologies developed by advanced state-backed R&D institutions. This was what made it so valuable for Ves to get into close contact with the Macharia Excelsia. The Hexers may be an odd group of people, but their Master Mech Designers followed all of the proper rules when it came to designing an ace mech that their state wanted to depend upon for a long time. As the only legal equivalent to a superweapon that states and organizations were allowed to possess and use, every single part about the Macharia Excelsia was a technical accomplishment by themselves, but that was not enough to elevate the entire package. A team of experienced and accomplished Masters carefully put them together and applied their own expertise to elevate its firepower, mobility and defenses. Although the Master Mech Designers did not possess any particularly unusual specializations that could give the ace mech a special edge like the Mars, it wasn't necessary to make the mech strong. So long as its core performance in every aspect was good enough, the Macharia Excelsia was fully qualified to duel against other ace mechs! As Ves continued to inspect the ace mech further, he noticed that its overall configuration was likely based on the urgent need to fight against the ace mechs of the Friday Coalition. This was evidenced by the configuration of the Hexfire Transphasic Positron Beam Assault Rifle. Similar to the Ignitron rifle that he just modified a short time ago, the Hexfire rifle was designed to steadily erode the defenses of individually powerful targets. Its firing rate was quite high, which was helpful in landing hits on fast-moving light mechs. Its ability to effectively damage slower but tougher targets was significantly worse, but that was not as bad as it sounded. Ves recalled that Saintess Ulrika Vraken's specialty was her ability to erode the defenses of anything she struck. This worked best against armor but was also reasonably effective against energy shields. The issue with that was that the more advanced alien races often employed segmented transphasic energy shields. Whenever the Macharia Excelsia opened fire on an alien warship, the ace mech was actually damaging a small portion of the total energy shields covering the entire vessel. All of the effort that Saintess Ulrika put into eroding a single 'scale' ultimately did not affect the rest of an alien warship's defensive coverage! This meant that the indigenous aliens unintentionally managed to counter the Macharia Excelsia's greatest advantage! This was quite inconvenient for Ves and the Golden Skull Alliance to say the least. At least the Macharia Excelsia was armed with a pair of proper high-end transphasic weapons. Its plasma sword was especially damaging against transphasic defenses, though the ace rifleman mech was only supposed to use it as a last resort if any enemies got too close. As Ves gained a good understanding of the ace mech, he began to think about how he could quickly upgrade its effective combat power. "I can't use the same approach I used on the Promethea on this ace mech." Blinky was in no condition to produce another sympathetic material. Even if the Blinkyverse started to bleed a lot of spiritual energies of a different attribute, the shaky stability of the internal universe would deteriorate even further! "Besides, the Hexfire rifle is not a luminar crystal weapon. It is a more conventional positron beam rifle that I don't fully understand." Ves knew better than to mess around with the parts of an intricate weapon system. Arbitrarily changing the parameters of a single part might cause the entire weapon to overheat or explode! Just as Ves started to think about improving the ace mech in a different way, its pilot finally walked into the bay and moved closer. He could feel the strong force of will that was typical of a junior ace pilot. Whereas Patriarch Reginald tended to unconsciously suppress and force the people around him to obey his will, Saintess Ulrika Vraken sought to erode and weaken anything and anyone she regarded as her foe. Ves was not among her enemies, but his high spiritual sensitivity still caused him to get a taste of Ulrika's potential. If she was a sword saint rather than an ace pilot, he bet that she would have been able to cause a person to melt in front of her just by holding a sword! "Saintess." He politely greeted her. "I have just applied a quick upgrade to the Promethea in order to give her an additional edge in the upcoming operation. I came to see if I can do so for your Macharia Excelsia as well." It was customary to address ace pilots by the title of 'Saint' without making a distinction of gender, but the Hexers clearly had different ideas. Ulrika glanced towards her machine. "I have learned that you can improve mechs in different ways by making them more alive." "That's right." Ves smiled. "I already did that a little bit with your two weapons just so that they can call upon the power of the Phase King. This is not the extent of what I can do, but it will take a lot more time and design work to turn your Macharia Excelsia into a proper living mech. It is not that useful for you if I spend a short amount of time on it. You'll just end up with a weak first order living mech that can hardly benefit you at this junction." The female ace pilot frowned. "I see. What else do you have in mind, then?" "I need to understand your situation a little better. The more I know about you and your ace mech, the more I know where I can intervene. Tell me about your career. I heard that you used to participate in many battles during the Komodo War." A melancholic expression appeared on her face at the mention of that infamous war. "That is true. I do not particularly like to revisit those days. I fought and challenged the Fridaymen on many different battlefields. I sought to do my part to repel the Fridayman mech armies as they crossed the border and toppled one stronghold after another. I used to be proud of wielding the might of a high-tier expert mech at the time, but as the warring went on, I realized that for every Fridayman expert pilot I defeated, others would always take their place. The scale of the Komodo War was so great that expert mechs ultimately devolved into high-level cannon fodder." "Only ace mechs have the individual power to sway the outcome of entire battles in a theater." Ves remarked. Her expression darkened. "That is correct. I knew that and so did everyone else. I worked hard to attain my breakthrough. I picked my battles, I confronted Fridayman high-tier expert mechs whenever I could in a desperate attempt to trigger my second apotheosis. The more casualties the Hex Army suffered, the more my heart bled for all of the fallen women. The more star systems fell into the hands of the Fridaymen, the more I feared for the future of the lost Hexer civilians. I finally managed to reach my tipping point and broke through, but... time was already running out. It was too late to make a difference." This was her greatest regret. If she broke through a year or two sooner, she would have been able to improve the Hexadric Hegemony's strategic situation! At the very least, its collapse wouldn't have happened so quickly! Ves quietly listened to her regrets. Though he already heard her backstory from different sources, it hit differently when the ace pilot voiced her thoughts and feelings in person. He gained a much better understanding of Saintess Ulrika Vraken as a person and as a soldier. "How is your relationship with the Vraken Matriarchal Dynasty?" He eventually asked a different question. "I see myself as a servant and a member of the dynasty." She replied. "I enjoy the greatest respect from the Vrakens. My formal authority is not high, but that is what the matriarchs are for. I am a professional soldier and I have taken a vow to defend and fight for the Hexer people." She sounded like a typical straightforward soldier that gradually gained a lot of individual strength. There was nothing wrong with that. Ves quite liked these kinds of high-ranking mech pilots actually. They were more obedient and less prone to go rogue. Their thinking patterns weren't too whacky and their only fault was that they couldn't shake the indoctrination that shaped their values and principles. Once Ulrika completed her little story about herself, she took the initiative to issue a request. "I have spoken to expert pilots such as Brutus Wodin and your own Larkinson ones. They all boast of receiving a useful 'companion spirit' from you. Is it possible to grant me one as well?" That caused Ves to pause and gaze at the Hexer ace pilot. Despite his recent boost in strength, he did not dare to stare too closely at her fortified will and spirit! What was even worse was that Blinky was in an exhausted state at the moment, so Ves couldn't count on his companion spirit to perform the difficult operation! "I would love to do that, Saintess, but it's not as simple as you think..."