Chapter 5687 What Is This Thing? 5687 What Is This Thing? The Premier Branch located on the surface of New Constantinople VIII had become a lot livelier in the span of a few months. The Larkinson Clan had gradually started to hire more first-raters to run its various offices in this first-class branch. Many of the new hires were Terrans. The Premier Branch had to filter out a lot of unsuitable people in order to end up with a relatively small batch of personnel that was both competent and willing to commit to the clan. The Design Department had also become a lot more active than before. The 25 second-class Journeyman Mech Designers recruited on Bortele III had acclimated to their new lives and truly saw themselves as Larkinsons. Gloriana carefully supervised them and made sure to put all of their skills to good use. There were a lot of existing mech lines that needed to be updated to the Hyper Generation. Fortunately, each of the new hires were competent enough to be able to work effectively in design teams. The technological complexity of most older mech models such as the Ferocious Piranha and the Crystal Lord was not too high. Ves only occasionally had to drop by in order to upgrade the living mechs to the fourth generation. Different from living mechs of older stock, the fourth generation introduced a lot of advantages, such as an easier transition to a third order living mech, mech cultivation methods and Ascension Runes. The early generation mechs had all been designed during the Age of Mechs, so they missed out on many of the benefits that became available at the start of the Age of Dawn. Ves couldn't wait to transform all existing living mechs into their most modern hyper mech versions! He predicted that his products would become even more powerful and popular as a result! 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂 As development of these mass production models continued according to schedule, Ves also spent a lot of time and effort on studying high technologies typically used in first-class multipurpose mech models. There was so much for him to study in depth that he simply did not have the time to master each and every field as extensively as he would have liked! So many new possibilities opened up for him as he gradually became proficient in the application of plasma weapon tech, support link tech, minidrive tech, active field repair systems and more. High technologies were extravagant in cost, but their power was usually worth it to those that could afford them. The power gap between first-class and second-class mechs was so great that they shouldn't even be treated as products of the same category. The technological diversity was also so much greater due to how much crazy stuff suddenly became possible that the variety in first-class multipurpose mechs was practically endless! First-class mech designers no longer strictly adhered to the definitions of the classical mech archetypes. A heavy mech equipped with lots of artillery weapons might look as if it was vulnerable in melee combat, but that was not necessarily the case when it suddenly transformed into a bipedal form and started to swing absurdly long plasma swords in wide, sweeping attacks. A lighter and smaller mech may look vulnerable when struck, but when it was equipped with a powerful azure shield generator and an energy link receiver, it could continually keep its mech frame spotless as long as there was a supporting unit nearby that continually supplied energy. There were many examples such as these that completely defied the logic of lesser mech design. Creativity and imagination became a lot more important as first-class multipurpose mechs had to rely on massive synergies between their miniaturized parts to defeat the competition. Ves understood that even if he obtained the bare minimum qualifications to design a first-class mech, he would only be able to develop a very limited range of competitive mechs by himself. He would have to team up with other mech designers who possessed much greater expertise in other advanced fields in order to truly realize a mech that was powerful enough to match the exceedingly high standards of the first-class mech community. It made him feel more excited because there would always be new and fancy tech for him to discover and incorporate into his designs! As a mech designer who craved novelty, first-class mechs sounded like a dream to him because he would never get bored by running out of original new mech concepts one day. As Ves continued to progress on multiple levels, the only priority that was not making as much progress was the Dark Zephyr Mark III Project. Gloriana's decision to commit to upgrading the Dark Zephyr into a true archemech added a lot of difficulties to what should have been a more straightforward upgrade project. Even when Gloriana was spending MTA merits like water, her Arache 01 implant set could only do so much in speeding up her comprehension of the more advanced and obscure facets of archetech. Most researchers that had delved into archetech only excelled in one specific aspect of this alien tech base. They had very little to teach in other areas, which forced Gloriana to hire many different tutors, some of whom were not immediately available for one reason or another. Aside from these difficulties, it also took a lot of effort for her to pass on her teachings. Since Ves declined to commit too much in archetech, he had much less time to devote on studying archetech. It took longer for him to comprehend the basic principles and simple applications, but that was far from being able to design a mech entirely out of archemetal. There was no way for him to make major contributions in the design of the Dark Zephyr Mark III for the foreseeable time, so it was no surprise that this upgrade project fell behind schedule. Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson would just have to wait a few extra months for his living expert mech to get its long-awaited upgrade. The other Larkinson expert pilots also had to wait longer as well because there was little point in upgrading their aging machines without mastering archetech to a sufficient degree. While Ves increasingly began to question his decision to support Gloriana's initiative, he suddenly received an unexpected visit from the mechers. "What... is this?" He questioned shortly after he got teleported inside the cargo bay of a fast destroyer. "This is one of your products that we would like for you to investigate." Professor Vector Loban explained. "Its former owner calls it the Yuri Machine, named after the original pilot that has mysteriously disappeared when the mech has undergone a completely accidental transformation, or at least as far as we know." "Uh, I think you need to start at the beginning." Professor Loban obliged the request. He summarized the circumstances of the battle where the recently acquired Ultimatum UDS-550 piloted by Yuri Enfame abruptly transformed into a half-organic monstrosity. "So your greatest guess is that the Ultimatum has actually merged with the mech pilot?" Ves puzzlingly asked. "That is... an interesting theory. I thought that only peak ace pilots can start the Mech Body Merger Process." "That is not entirely correct, Professor Larkinson. There have been instances of operation union and corporeal union in the past. They usually involve experiments centered around boundary-pushing biomechs. Most experiments ended in failure, but there are occasional cases of partial successes. If the Yuri Machine was the result of a deliberate experiment, then it can be considered a partial success as well. This makes this case much more interesting." Ves made his stance clear. "I am not involved with what has happened to this mech! I am already busy enough. I have no reason to randomly induce a mech that I have never come into contact with to start a weird and uncontrollable transformation process that has somehow caused it to absorb a lot of E energy and merged with its own mech pilot! Even if I want to conduct such a crazy experiment, I would do it here where I can supervise and monitor the entire process." "We are not suspecting you of any impropriety. We merely wish to obtain answers. Is this a unique accident, or should we expect this to happen again in future battles? If it becomes apparent that this is a possibility that is inherent to the Ultimatum model, is it possible to replicate this transformation process in a lab environment? We have many more questions." "I get it." Ves said. "I can understand why you guys are so concerned, but why bring this to me? You could have kept this to yourself." "Our faction prizes your continued association with us." Professor Loban responded. "You are one of our most effective agents of change. Many of your inventions have begun to make a greater impact on our society. We do not want you to slow down your progress because you have been beset by major scandals that have put the safety and stability of your living mechs under question." That caused Ves to frown. He could not explain what had happened to the so-called Yuri Machine. His living mechs were supposed to grow, but not in an extreme manner! He could think of no reason why the growth of a seemingly normal copy of the Ultimatum UDS-550 went out of control to the point of disregarding the safety and wellbeing of its pilot! "Let's get this over with." He sighed. "I suppose the first answer that you want to obtain is to figure out whether the original mech pilot is still alive in there, am I correct?" Professor Loban nodded. "Yes. According to my own examination, the Yuri Machine has gained a large amount of biomatter, so much so that approximately 39 percent of her total mass is organic. A part of the biological tissue is converted from metallic mech components, but much of it is actually generated from the large-scale conversion of E energy as far as we know." "What?! Really? That... should not be possible." Ves said in a disbelieving tone. "As far as I know, only god pilots and maybe a few other similar entities should be capable of this feat." "I am only sharing our own observations with you. We do not have any further answers. We hope that your investigation may provide us with the answers to this question and more." Ves no longer stalled and cautiously began his examination of the so-called Yuri Machine. Even though the mechers had implemented a lot of safeguards to prevent the machine from lashing out and inflicting damage to its surroundings, Ves was reluctant to get close. He cautiously observed the Yuri Machine from a comfortable distance and began to make a lot of interesting observations. "This machine is a mess." He said. "What do you mean by that, Professor Larkinson?" "I always design my living mechs with a specific focus and purpose in mind. I try to avoid adding irrelevant stuff to their spiritual foundations because that causes them to disperse their strength. The Yuri Machine... is the opposite to what an Ultimatum should be. It has absorbed a lot of destruction energy, but it is of very mixed origin. The mech has also absorbed a lot of other related junk in the process. I bet that these are the primary culprits behind the Yuri Machine's highly chaotic and random transformation process. There are parts to its spiritual foundation that remind me of aliens and their warships. They don't belong in an Ultimatum at all. I am completely in the dark why this living mech has malfunctioned so badly to the point where it has become part alien and part warship." The Yuri Machine had become an impossible existence. Ves could not imagine himself replicating this exact mech even if he utilized all of the same materials. Reproducing all of the parts as closely as possible before assembling them together into a near-exact replica of the Yuri Machine was useless as the mech would not even be able to function! As Ves continued his examination, it became increasingly clearer to him that this monster machine had transcended its nature as a mech! It had become a completely new kind of object that superficially resembled a mech, but was actually an entirely different thing altogether!