The Mech Touch

The Everchanger changed.

This was not an unusual observation in itself. The expert hero mech frequently altered his more subtle characteristics by changing his glow.

If he wanted to focus on ranged combat, then he would switch to the Illustrious One. The design spirit was able to make his relatively weak Vitalus rifle luminar crystal rifle inflict considerably more damage than usual.

If Joshua wanted to increase his hit rate and strike at targets far beyond his normal range, then he would channel the prophetic capabilities of Ylvaine.

If he wanted to break through pesky transphasic energy shields, he would tap into the power of the Phase King. This happened a lot more often as of late.

While Joshua most definitely formed a list of favorites, there were no useless design spirits as far as he was concerned.

Each of them had been vetted or created by the patriarch. They were all capable of making contributions in the right situations. Joshua had developed a rich appreciation for the diversity that was already available.

Yet had he done his best to exploit the capabilities of those design spirits?

He used to think so, but he thought much differently this time!

Right now, he was making use of the combined capabilities of himself, Willy, the Everchanger and the Bitter Scimitar to simultaneously channel 4 design spirits and 4 E energy attributes at the same time!

It would have been difficult for one of them to do all of this work, but Joshua already realized that there was no need for him to do all of the work.

He instead decided to split up responsibilities and hoped that their cooperation was good enough to mix the different elements together.

This was the most complex operation that he attempted to pull off at this time. The burden was considerable as the effort to combine all of these elements together was exceedingly difficult due to their inherent differences and lack of compatibility.

Yet as Joshua continued to work, he found that it was remarkably easy to make all of it happen.

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"This is because I am never alone."

The four of them were separate existences, but their spirits were also tied to each other. This made it much easier for them to understand and cooperate with each other.

Joshua worked to evoke the power of life, which was the attribute that he was most familiar with. Life brought vibrancy, resilience, vitality, growth and other positive aspects. It was the attribute that defined living mechs and represented his ethos of growing stronger through cooperation. It was the lubricant that gave him the capital to work with a diverse array of entities.

Willy called upon the power of Helena. The companion spirit was the most suited to manifest the Daughter of Death and evoke her chosen element. Death was the opposite of life and enhanced the lethality of every weapon when included. Joshua had grown more accustomed to leveraging the power of death in his solutions.

The Everchanger had already been channeling the Phase King from the start. As the design spirit that possessed the deepest comprehension of space and phasewater, he was by far the most suitable design spirit to employ when fighting against a phase lord that relied enormously on spatial barriers for protection.

The Bitter Scimitar channeled the power of darkness. It was quite dangerous to leverage this E energy attribute, but since Joshua was on the offensive, he wanted to make use of an element that could amplify his offensive even further. The D-arm was steeped in darkness, so the weapon was especially good at drawing it in and shaping it into different forms.

Darkness was an ominous and corrupting force that Joshua would never want to touch under ordinary circumstances.

However, ever since he formed a Life Sword Pact with the D-arm, the darkness E energy attribute was no longer as foreign and dangerous to him anymore.

Had Joshua become a little more evil due to getting exposed to so much darkness energy?

He didn’t think so! He just made use of the talent of his new ’life sword’.

Since this was the case, shouldn’t it be natural for him to gain control over his sword artifact’s capabilities?

This was how he was able to handle darkness energy without suffering an immediate backlash.

Joshua did not keep the different energies pooled in their own little silos.

He actively attempted to mix them together in his Everchanger.

The machine was by far the most suitable vessel for this purpose.

Joshua became pleasantly surprised that the decision to invest in multiple Ascension Paths made it a lot easier to host several elements at the same time.

Whereas other Larkinson expert mechs only accumulated Ascension Runes in one or two Ascension Paths derived from different design spirits, the Everchanger had invested in as much as 12 different Ascension Paths!

The disadvantage of this was that the Everchanger was never able to specialize in any specific attribute, but Joshua always wanted his battle partner to become more flexible and fluent when using different attributes.

Now, this strange development strategy paid off as the Everchanger was more easily able to balance and combine the different energies.

As a result of this effort, the expert mech not only gained more power, but also acquired a combination of additional advantages.

The corona around the Everchanger changed in tint. Joshua’s characteristic true resonance always produced a vibrant green glow, but after blending in the other elements, it had begun to grow darker. This was an unmistakable sign that the expert mech had undergone a profound transformation in power expression!

This was not all. As the Everchanger continued to get closer and closer to removing the final obstacle that stood in the way between him and the Eight Lord of Takansha, the corona around the masterwork mech began to expand and take on a different shape!

Instead of maintaining its current contours around the expert hero mech, the darkened corona began to morph into a larger and more animalistic shape.

It looked as if the Everchanger had birthed a new form of life that amalgamated all of the different elements together!

This was not far from the truth. Venerable Joshua did not know why he did this, but as he struggled to mix the different E energy attributes together, he suddenly felt inspired by the artistic conceptions of qi cultivation to try something similar!

Joshua did not consider himself to be a particularly imaginative or creative individual, but the only sort of creature that he could think of that encapsulated all four chosen elements was a strange bird!

Dark wings extended from the sides of the Everchanger as the silhouette of a crow-like creature settled across his mech frame.

The crow was not an illusion.

It was alive, if only partially.

As soon as the different energies blended together with the help of Joshua’s evolving willpower, the dark crow not only gained life, but also purpose!

When the Everchanger next struck one of the remaining spatial barrier in the way, the energy silhouette launched forward and pecked the spatial barrier at the same spot with its beak.

The energy defense broke in an instant!

The power and the effectiveness of the crow’s attack almost matched that of a single strike from the D-arm!

If the strange corona given life was able to do this everytime the Everchanger swung his scimitar, then his attack power had effectively doubled, but only for as long as Venerable Joshua was able to maintain this state!

Right now, the expert mech had become even stronger! Each of his attacks effectively dealt double damage with the help of this powerful new apparition.

What was even more impressive was that the crow helped in other ways as well.

The crow-shaped corona was originally derived from the Everchanger’s resonance shield. It had only become more effective at resisting damage.

Incoming attacks from numerous orven warships easily bounced off the crow as if they collided against a strong spatial barrier.

The living resonance shield also amplified the effect of the Everchanger’s space suppressor, which weakened all of the Eight Lord of Takansha’s spatial abilities even further.

The crow also enhanced the Everchanger’s mobility. Each time the energy bird flapped its wings, the Everchanger almost seemed to skip through space!

This capability reminded people of the Dark Zephyr Mark III.

While no one argued that the Everchanger had suddenly become faster and more maneuverable than the famous expert light skirmisher, the power granted by the crow had somehow caused Joshua’s battle partner to close the gap!

"What is going on?" Ketis asked in confusion. "How is the Everchanger able to do this? With the appearance of that energy crow, his effective combat power has surpassed the level of a second-class mid-tier expert mech. Has Joshua broken through and formed a special domain?"

The energy projection of Ves shook his head. "No. Joshua hasn’t broken through yet. He is merely relying on several different assets to combine different attributes together into a single amalgamation. It is normally difficult to force the elements of life, space, death and darkness to get along with each other, but Joshua has somehow managed to replicate the same solution that I like to use when trying to combine different elements together. He used his willpower to turn his mixture alive."

"What? Did he just give birth to a new design spirit!?"

"Not so dramatic, Ketis. I can clearly feel that this… fusion spirit of his is only alive for as long as it is sustained by true resonance. As soon as Joshua withdraws his willpower, the fusion spirit will be unmade… probably."

"You are not sure?"

Ves adopted a thoughtful expression. "I am already thinking about ways to ’capture’ the fusion spirit and stuff it into a vessel. Don’t you think it will make for a good precursor ingredient for a new D-arm?"

"Don’t even start, Ves."

"Fine. It is too premature to think about this when we hardly know anything about the latest rabbit that Joshua has pulled out of his hat. Anyway, Joshua has clearly gained an epiphany or three. He has drastically changed his approach towards combat. It’s rather surprising that he hadn’t broken through yet. Maybe his power application is too new and unrefined for him to reach his limit, or maybe he needs greater external pressure to turn from coal into diamond."

As Ketis continued to observe the Everchanger’s dramatic performance, she also paid attention to the telemetry transmitted by the expert hero mech.

The numbers did not make much sense anymore, but one measurement that hadn’t been distorted by all of the latest weirdness was the resonance meter.

It was still below 67 laveres, and the latest data readings did not show any indications of a rising trend.

In fact, it had dropped by 0.3 laveres!

Ketis frowned at that. "I think your second guess is most likely accurate. For whatever reason, the new abilities that Joshua has devised has swelled his confidence so much that he no longer feels threatened by the Eight Lord of Takansha. There is no challenge in this fight anymore. It doesn’t help that the lesser phase lord has refused to meet the Everchanger all of this time. In fact, he is currently trying to flee from the Everchanger as much as possible."

The two mech designers grew disappointed. A lesser phase lord was supposed to be sufficiently threatening to stimulate Joshua’s breakthrough. All of the other pieces were in place now that Joshua had found his true pathway towards power. The fact that he was ultimately being denied a breakthrough because he had grown too strong in his current rank was absurd!

Yet… it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to Ves.

His living mechs and companion spirits had always been designed to complement their users and generate new synergies through cooperation.

The addition of a life sword in the form of the Bitter Scimitar allowed Joshua to generate even more synergies!

When all of these different synergies combined together in a single expert mech, they also had the potential to produce another layer of synergies!

This was why the Everchanger was so powerful at the moment!

Venerable Joshua and his partners concentrated so many different elements together in a single machine that the whole far exceeded the sum of its parts!

In fact, Ves was surprised that the Everchanger hadn’t attracted a lightning tribulation already!

"Why are the heavens blind?"

"What was that, Ves?"

"Oh, it’s nothing."

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