Chapter 6644 Illusionary Power For the next 10 minutes, Barrow and Idni were practically having a religious moment. They could scarcely believe a day like this had come. Before they arrived at this nearly empty warehouse, the two leaders of the NMRI had no idea that they would get to skip through all of the scientific effort they thought was necessary to complete their cause and directly pilot a mech on the spot! "Hehehehe..." Barrow was doing it. He was actually doing it. For the first time in his life, he finally became a real mech pilot! "Hahahaha..." It was everything he expected and more. Barrow no longer felt weak and frail in his small human body anymore. Instead, after forming a mysterious pact with his living mech, he was able to borrow the other party's senses and gain the illusion that he was in control of a much larger and more powerful mechanical frame! "Hahahahaha! This is all I ever wanted!" The rush of power he gained from this experience was intoxicating. It was no wonder that mech pilots always regarded norms as weaker and more inferior than themselves. How could ordinary people ever measure up to mech pilots when the latter gained the power to topple structures and devastate landscapes in their artificial new bodies? There was no substitute to this kind of exhilaration. Spacers who crewed warships may arguably be in control of far greater firepower, but the reality was very different from one's imagination. The larger and more powerful the warship, the more people necessary to crew her stations. The individual power held by a single individual was ultimately split between hundreds or thousands of officers and ratings. Due to humanity's general paranoia against automation and hacking, these human crew members were essential to operating any warship. Mandatory human operation was baked into the designs of the ship classes from the onset, making it so that no single unhinged human could throw a weapon of mass destruction onto a city with the press of a button. Therefore, Barrow never thought of substituting the unique experience of piloting a mech with serving on a warship or operating other weapon platforms. What mattered the most to people like him was to gain sole control over a responsive war machine. The control system also had to allow for direct data transmission between human to mech. Trying to operate a big machine through buttons and levers just did not cut it, and letting an advanced Al do all of the hard work discredited the experience. That was rather ironic, as the only reason why the two Auto Heretics were able to walk and move their arms was because they were relying heavily on the autonomous control of the living mech! Of course, Barrow and Idni attempted to pilot their Carmine mechs on a fully manual basis after they got tired of letting their new battle partners do all of the hard work. They quickly found out first-hand why mech cadets needed to study for at least 10 years before they were deemed ready and able to pilot combat mechs for a living. "This is really difficult!" "The data is overwhelming!" "How can I possibly keep track of so many moving parts?!" "The differences between human and mech body structures is making me feel confused!" Even the barest of motions was enough for the completely green Carmine mech pilots to botch their controls and cause their machines to overextend and lose their balance! Most mechs were able to maintain their balance with the help of gyroscopes and other devices on an automatic basis, but the two overconfident fools had accidentally deactivated it when they insisted on going 'full manual"! As a result, their mechs tripped on their feet and crashed onto the warehouse floor in an undignified manner! "Hahahaha!" Radagast laughed as he observed the clumsy Carmine mechs attempting to right themselves. "Now you have a taste of what I felt when I tried to operate my Carmine mech manually. We are still a couple of years too early to be able to move and fight with our new partners without relying so much on autonomous assistance." "I understand now why the mech designers granted so many control rights to the living mech." Idni spoke with realization. "A living mech is not comparable to an AI at all. I know how artificial intelligences operate. I have participated in the programming of a few of them myself. A living mech is greater than an Al because it is sentient to the point of being able to feel and understand emotions. This has always been the forbidden realm of Als. When all of those Al-oriented research institutions discover that living mechs have already exceeded their cutting-edge experiments on this front, they will eagerly purchase as many Auto Heretics as possible just to decipher Professor Larkinson's proprietary tech!" It did not matter that Larkinson had developed a Class IX design philosophy. Those who had been working towards the holy grail of AI technology could not resist the urge to study real examples of machines gaining enough sentience to become as smart as animals! However, that was not the extent of what the Auto Heretics could become. Radagast smiled as he explained the essence of living mechs. "If you have studied Professor Larkinson's works and design philosophy, then you should know that living mechs are a means to a goal for him. The point of their existence is to grow alongside. mech pilots such as yourselves, thereby helping you grow faster in turn. From the moment you formed a Blood Pact with your personal Auto Heretic, it will grow stronger, smarter and more capable in many ways. They are sort of like the familiars that frequently show up in all of those magic and wizard dramas." According to the old and horribly outdated record of Professor Larkinson within the MTA's database, his design philosophy was officially classified as Mutual Growth. Many people did not fully understand what that meant, but once they piloted any of his living mechs, they understood. The living mech that Barrow had partnered with was like a juvenile that was constantly soaking up information from his mind. He felt as if he was a parent all over again. However, instead of taking years to carefully raise a child to a competent adult, he was able to accelerate this process many times over merely by relying on the Blood Pact as a direct transmission channel! Each time Barrow piloted his living mech in the future, it would definitely absorb and digest much of what it learned. This should not only make the mech stronger, but also understand its mech pilot a lot better. The only point he was unclear about was how Barrow exactly benefited from this relationship. He suspected that Mutual Growth pointed towards a more profound form of progress. Was it called that way because mech pilots who made use of living mechs broke through more frequently than others? That shouldn't be true. If this was the case, then Professor Ves Larkinson would have become a lot more famous! As Barrow and Idni continued to try out their mech with heavy assistance from their living mechs, they eventually had their fill and reluctantly disengaged their machines. If they had their way, they would have preferred to keep piloting their machines all day, but they could not ignore the greater implications that this subversive mech would have on the rest of human society. Once they exited the cockpits and left their new partners behind for the time being, the pair of guests found themselves inside an office that was more heavily shielded and jammed than the rest of the warehouse. "Radagast." Idni spoke to his old friend who he hadn't contacted for a long time. "Let me thank you for giving us the opportunity to acquire and pilot these Carmine mechs so soon. How much time has passed since they have been released?" "I am not clear about this." The host said while shaking his head. "I only received them more than a week ago from another source that you are better off not knowing. Your NMRI is among the first priority customers that I thought of introducing you to the Auto Heretic mech line. I used to consider you all fools for wasting so much of your lives on mechs that could not possibly exist. Now, even if none of your work is responsible for the successful development of the Auto Heretic, I have changed my stance. You are the people who appreciate this opportunity the best. I believe I can entrust you to help spread the new Carmine mechs without doing anything that can impede their spread." Barrow looked skeptical. "The Auto Heretic is obviously a mech that flagrantly violates several of the most important rules of mech design and human technological development in general. I do not believe the MTA is blind to the point of missing the existence or the spread of these mechs." "You are correct." Radagast nodded. "There are many agents like myself, and more and more true believers such as the two of you who have pledged their full support towards our common goals. The mechers may have already identified many of us, but they have yet to take action on a widespread scale because they still need to form a new policy around this emerging issue. However, once the MTA has decided on its policy, you should be aware that your good days are over. If you still reside in a prosperous and highly developed star system, the mechers and any authorities they hire will be able to find you with case. You will have to relocate to more remote locations if you want to work with Carmine mechs in the future." "Is that the plan of our ultimate benefactor?" Barrow wondered. "You seek to overwhelm the MTA's response forces by recruiting us across the galaxy and splitting us up and having us hide on so many obscure planets that the cost does not outweigh the benefits." "Exactly." Radagast never intended to hide such details in front of a pair of smart leaders. "This is not a flawless plan. The mechers have already taken people into custody, though their numbers are small for the time being. Sooner or later they will come to you. Piloting the Auto Heretic makes you a heretic. Unless you find a way to join one of the forbidden organizations that openly resist the Big Two but still manage to eke out their living, your time will come to a faster end." Barrow simply smiled as a response. "I am not unwilling to end it all if that point has arrived. I have already completed my initial life's mission. Any additional piloting sessions that I can fit into my schedule are icing on the cake." What a fatalistic mindset. He truly felt this way, though. "This is not about the two of you, but all of the other norms across the galaxy." Radagast said. "Every norm deserves to experience sound on a different level. I will leave the strategizing to the professionals. I alone cannot defeat the pervasive influence of the MTA, but the two of you are different. You have the research capabilities, the production facilities, an enormous relationship workshop and other favorable conditions to do what is right for everyone." "We will localize the Carmine mech templates and develop mech designs that we will spread to everyone free of charge." Barrow decided. "Hoarding the mech templates and mech designs is completely counterproductive. We should spread it and encourage those with starships to leave for other destinations before spilling the word." "We cannot settle for using mech templates and mech designs, my friend." Idni warned. "We need to produce large quantities of Auto Heretics. Only by giving all of the skeptics access to real Carmine mechs will it gain credibility. While several trustees have decided to start their own factories in their corner of the galaxy, the delays are too long. It is better to use existing mech factories for this purpose. The two greatest issues related to production is that the biotech components Carmine System can only be grown, and that living mechs cannot be made with the use of materialization technology?" Idni looked mildly surprised when he heard that. "Ah! That will make it harder for large companies to produce Auto Heretics en masse. It may actually be the smaller and independent workshops and mech companies that can proficiently produce mechs through more conventional methods." If this was the case, then they were better off spreading the localized mech designs of the Auto Heretic to a large number of messy and chaotic workshops and other small-scale production facilities!