The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

As his mech took shape, Ves wondered on how he should address the later stages of the design process.

Ordinarily, it would have been irresponsible of him to finalize his design and begin with fabricating a copy intended for consumers.

However, his Devil Tiger project was not like any of its other design projects. Its exorbitant cost, illicit nature and various radical design aspects meant it was a bad idea for Ves to produce and test a physical prototype!

Besides, Ves was confident that the Devil Tiger's theoretical performance wouldn't diverge from its actual performance.

Why should he adhere to a traditional design process anyway? Even if his mech came with a major flaw or two, Ves wouldn't incur any penalties.

The target audience for his Devil Tiger consisted of Nyxian pirates! Ves cared nothing for their wellbeing! In fact, Ves considered them as potential test subjects ready to be subjected to various experiments such as his Devil Tiger!

"Even if there's a couple flaws, my mech is inherently self-correcting! I'll intervene in person if necessary!"

As a mech meant to serve as an experiment, Ves wanted to access the data his Devil Tiger accumulated. He knew that it would be very hard if nigh impossible for the mech to transmit its data back to him, especially if the machine failed to piggy back a connection to the galactic net.

Ves tried his best to program some hidden routines inside the core programming of the mech. Once it connected to a local network with access to the galactic net, the Devil Tiger would immediately compress and encrypt its log data before uploading them to a random, publically-accessible storage site.

As long as this happened, Ves would always be able to retrieve the log data through anonymous means. This way, he could keep track of the Devil Tiger usage and whether it performed as intended.

"This is a two-way street." Ves smiled. "As long as my mech can access the galactic net, then it isn't limited to uploading data. It can also receive new instructions!"

Ves programmed in various obscure addresses it had to keep an eye on whenever it accessed the galactic net. Once it encountered an encrypted file on one of those addresses, the mech would download and decrypt it in order to process the new instructions he provided.

This way, he could continue to tweak, update and modify the Devil Tiger's design from remote! The malleable, smart metal nature of his mech meant that the mech required no human intervention in order to adjust its own design!

"It's brilliant!" He grinned.

Of course, these measures also came with various downsides. The exchange of data took place within the most open and insecure communications network in the galaxy! Ves could not have picked a less secure network than the galactic net!

Though Ves incorporated heavy encryption onto the data packages, he was under no illusion that it would hold against determined decryption attempts.

Ves couldn't do much about attempts to crack the encryption of the log data. There shouldn't be too much harm in it as long as nothing in the logs contained any clues that led back to his identity.

What he worried about more was if some joker mech designer figured out a way to imitate the process that Ves used in updating the instructions of the Devil Tiger. If this third party utilized the same encryption method and uploaded a new set of instructions onto a specific address, then they would easily be able to hijack Devil Tiger!

"I need an extra layer of security!"

After a bit of thinking, he came up with a novel way to reduce the chances of third party interference.

Even if a hacker managed to upload some instructions onto the data banks of his Devil Tiger, the mech would not accept them unless its design spirit inputted a code that unlocked the final pass!

"No matter how good a hacker is in intruding in electronic systems, they can't do anything to influence a design spirit!"

Manipulating them was unique to Ves, thereby granting him sole control over the most core aspects of the workings of his mech.

Of course, Zeigra's spirituality shouldn't be the one who decided which instructions to accept. Instead, Ves configured the arrangement in a way that it would only be able to unlock the final pass if Ves intervened directly!

"The Pride of Dusk can help!"

His new overcoat housed an active spiritual fragment of Zeigra. Ves noted that it shared its consciousness with the main spirituality that was locked in his P-stone.

"This essentially means I can observe and manipulate Zeigra's spirituality from remote!"

This was a very novel arrangement and Ves felt very enthused about implementing it for the first time. If everything went well, then Ves might apply this arrangement to his other works.

"Keeping pieces of my design spirits close to my person is a good way to rein in my more unruly design spirits."

The approach swung the pendulum away from the path of life and closer to the path of determinism, thereby injecting a crucial measure of control over his Devil Tiger!

Ves would not allow anyone, not even Zeigra's spirituality itself, to ruin his experiment!

Programming all of these additional features into his mech entailed a lot of extra work. Ves recognized he had to do a thorough job in order to close as many loopholes and exploits as possible. As long as he left out a single opening, some clever hacker or mech designer would surely jump in to take advantage of his Devil Tiger!

He especially encountered a lot of difficulties in envisioning the interaction between his design spirit and the systems of his mech. Ves had to revisit some of his existing mechs, study the extent to which their design spirits influenced the operation of his mechs, and extrapolate from there.

Trying to get both spirituality and technology to work together felt like trying to make magic work with technology. Ves had to wear two hats at once in order to figure out the means for one to influence the other.

Still, Ves already made some strides in this new and uncharted territory by figuring out how to grant exclusive control over the tail of the Devil Tiger to the design spirit.

While he wasn't sure whether it was a good idea to give Zeigra direct control over one of the aspects of his mech, the tail was one of the least consequential limbs of his mech.

Whether all of this worked as intended remained to be seen. Ves would only be able to find out once he finally fabricated the mech, which was a challenge in itself.

"I need a secure and private mech workshop to put this mech together!"

He already had some plans in mind for that.

"I'll be picking up the final batch of materials as well as Gloriana's pure ASMAS shipment in my next stop. Once I've gathered all of the materials, I can begin to find a suitable workshop."

As for finding a workshop, there were plenty of underground workshops and manufacturing facilities on major manufacturing planets. Trying to rent a reliable one that wouldn't screw him over was his biggest concern, but Ves was confident he could navigate the murky swamp.

The next point of difficulty was trying to sell his mech. Previously, Ves considered entering the outskirts of the Nyxian Gap in order to pass off his Devil Tiger somewhere, but this was exceedingly risky.

"It will be a lot more convenient for me if I can sell my mech through the Circle of Mota!"

Ves initially knew little about this mysterious organization, but Crindon managed to collect some scraps of information on them. The Circle of Mota mainly served as a trading channel between Sentinels and Nyxians.

Because such trade was very illegal and highly controversial within the Sentinel Kingdom, every transaction occurred with the highest level of privacy possible. The Circle developed several traditions that made it harder to track the buyers and sellers of the illicit goods between trading through the Circle's marketplaces.

Considering the special nature of the Devil Tiger, Ves knew he would never be able to sell the mech at a profit. The cost of its pure ASMAS alone was enough to bankrupt the LMC! How could Ves possibly expect to sell his mech at such an exorbitant price to the ruthless but shabby pirates that inhabited the Nyxian Gap?

It was likely that Ves would have to share his mech at an enormous loss, but he never intended to profit from its sale in the first place. The techniques he invented, the lessons he learned and the solutions he developed represented his real gains. As for the money? That came extra.

Even so, if he ended up selling his Devil Tiger for just 30 million bright credits or so, there was no way he'd end up satisfied!

"I have to do my best to sell my mech at a fair price!"

From the stories that Crindon collected about the Circle of Mota, Ves knew that the underground organization offered various avenues for him to get what he wanted.

First, a lot of goods offered by the Nyxian pirates consisted of unknown exotics and strange curiosities. Even the best appraisers in the employ of the Circle of Mota struggled to estimate the value of these prices.

Due to their uncertain value and applications, these goods tended to pile up in warehouses as their demand was nonexistent.

"I can obtain a lot of strange exotics in exchange for my mech!"

While Ves wouldn't know if he got the better of such a transaction or not, there were a lot of uses to expanding his collection of exotics. Even if none of them reacted to spirituality or contained any useful traits, he might still be able to find a use for them in his future mech designs.

"Every successful mech designer builds up a collection of exotics for this reason."

The other, more uncertain alternative would be to submit his mech to the auctions that the Circle regularly organized.

Ves pursed his lips at the thought. "Mechs like the Devil Tiger are often sold in auctions."

The idea intrigued him, but who knew if anyone would recognize the actual worth of his mech? What if the bidders in the auction only possessed a paltry amount of money?

"Will the Circle even allow me to submit my mech for auction?" He wondered.

Auctions only accepted the submission of great and unique mechs. It was meaningless to auction bog-standard mechs that could easily be bought through other channels.

Considering all of the features as well as the overall performance of his Devil Tiger, Ves was quite certain that the Circle would love to put it on auction!

However, if Ves ever exposed the Devil Tiger to so many auction goers, then he'd have to be really careful not to leave any clues behind that exposed his hand in its design!

This was difficult!

Ves had already taken a lot of precautions. For example, one of the reasons why he waited to pick up the shipment of pure ASMAS was because he wanted to obtain it in a secure and anonymous fashion from a Shadow Courier.

"With how much Gloriana paid to the Shadow Couriers, they better keep their mouths shut." He muttered.

While Ves was confident he could hide the collection of materials and obscure the fabrication process, all of that would be moot if his Devil Tiger radiated a similar aura to that of his other mech designs!

"I have to find a way to suppress this effect!"

This was the final headache he faced before he completed his design. Normally, Ves did everything he could to maximize the external influence of his mechs. The more impressive their auras, the greater their ability to influence allies and enemies alike! This was one of the core strengths of his products!

"How can I go against my instinct and suppress my Devil Tiger's aura?" Ves frowned.