Chapter 2738 - Insufficient Input (1/2)

The first attempt yielded a disappointing result, but Ves already anticipated this outcome.

It was too much to ask for a single copy of the Blinding Mech to debilitate another mech pilot.

Theoretically, it made little sense. The Ill.u.s.trious One was not as powerful as the Superior Mother and the Blinding Mech wasn’t capable of channeling a lot of spiritual energy.

The Blinding Mech was not a prime mech. It did not carry an entire reserve of spiritual energy transferred from the Ill.u.s.trious One in advance. Even if it did, it wouldn’t be of any use as only expert pilots were capable of utilizing such mechs.

There was no way the Hex Army had enough expert pilots to spare on the Blinding Mechs!

Even if it did, the Hexers would never put these precious individuals in cannon fodder mechs!

Each aspect of the Blinding Mech was either cheap or disposable. At its lowest level, the model was merely a vehicle to channel one of the Ill.u.s.trious One’s unique spiritual characteristics.

On paper, this meant that it didn’t matter whether the mech was cheap or expensive in construction. Its spiritual characteristics wouldn’t be any less potent if Ves designed it as a third-class mech instead.

While Ves wasn’t wrong in thinking so, he was hoping a stronger effect than a negligible fluctuation.

”Ready nine more Blinding Mechs.”

Once a squad of Blinding Mechs exposed the luminar crystals embedded into their shields, their mech pilots simultaneously triggered the same ability!

This time, the effect on the target mech pilot was a bit more noticeable. While the ordinary mech did not experience anything except for moderate visual flashes, the pilot actually blinked his eyes for a moment.

Yet that was all. While the distance between the observation room and the testing ground was a bit far, Ves could still see that the overlapping Blinding Pulses hardly resulted in a stronger impact.

”Prepare all 40 Blinding Mechs.”

It was only when an entire mech company worth of Blinding Mechs activated their Blinding Pulse abilities at once that the target mech pilot experienced actual differences!

”Ahh!”

The mech pilot blinked several times while trying to nurse his head through his helmet. His discomfort was evident as the telemetry transmitted by his mech showed some concerning fluctuations.

The effect was moderate enough to affect the mech pilot’s performance in battle, but not enough to knock him out of action entirely.

”Okay, let’s put an expert pilot in front of the Blinding Mechs. Who is on duty this time?”

Catherine Evenson ”Ah, let me call up Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson. He is on standby right now with his prime mech.”

The Piranha Prime walked out of a mech hangar with slow, light steps. The mech stepped in front of the formation of Blinding Mechs and simply stood in place.

Ves shifted his gaze to the camera feed of the c.o.c.kpit. Tusa looked incredibly bored. He didn’t want to waste his time on serving as a practice target for an experimental new mech. The only reason why he showed up with his prime mech at all was because someone had to do the job and he happened to get the short end of the stick.

”Let’s get this over with, please.” Venerable Tusa flatly said.

Though his attitude could use some adjustment, Ves didn’t care too much about what the expert pilot thought. The Blinding Mechs had an expert pilot to try their abilities out and that was enough.

”Commence the test!”

The luminar crystal-encrusted shields flashed yet again. Different energy waves washed over the low-intensity resonance shield Piranha Prime.

Nothing else happened!

The reason for the former was because he confirmed something that was very helpful to the effectiveness of the Blinding Mech.

Though the sensors hadn’t been able to detect any spiritual interactions, Ves clearly perceived that the combined spiritual emissions from the Blinding Mechs succeeded in passing through the Piranha Prime’s resonance shield!

For some unfathomable reason, the resonance shield failed to designate the spiritual emissions as an attack. The barrier let the spiritual flashes pass through as if they were just harmless rays of light.

This was a pretty confounding interaction. Ves couldn’t help but rub his smooth-shaven chin as he tried to figure out how resonance shields worked.

Who or what determined the defensive parameters of a resonance shield? Were all of them the same, or did they only block attacks the expert pilot deemed harmful?

For now, it seemed that the latter was true. Ves never programmed anything related to resonance shields when he developed his prime mechs. They only emerged when expert pilots interfaced with his primer mechs.

This indirectly suggested that a lot of spiritual manifestations were rooted in the mech pilot rather than the mech. The former had to be strong, but the latter didn’t necessarily have to be the best.

This was an interesting little insight, but not one that changed the overall outcome of this test.

Catherine issued a single request over a private command channel.

”Venerable Tusa, please describe your experiences during the brief event.”

”I... dunno really. I feel like someone flashes me in the eyes, but my mech automatically filtered out the excess luminosity captured by its optical sensors. I still felt a bit strange though. Maybe some of the sensors got damaged during the Battle of Reckoning. Please tell someone to inspect my prime mech after this is over.”

”Ahem.” Catherine slightly coughed. ”Did you experience any discomfort or debilitating effects at all during the brief interval when the Blinding Mechs were flashing their shields?”

”No.” Tusa replied in an impatient tone. ”I felt a little weird, but not enough to affect me in any way. It takes way more than a strange twinkle to distract me from my goal.”

After asking a few more questions which yielded several more disappointing answers, Catherine eventually turned to her superior.

”As you can see, sir, a full mech company of Blinding Mechs failed to debilitate Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson in any way.”