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In fact, the Mars was more valuable than several fleet carriers put together. Ves could even make an argument that all of the ships of the Golden Skull Alliance weren\'t as valuable as a single combination of an ace mech and a mech pilot!

This was because a functional ace mech could defeat entire pioneering fleets on their own, particularly if the latter did not enjoy the protection of an ace mech itself.

In the past, ace mechs at least required the support of a carrier vessel in order to transport it to the battlefield and back, but even that rule was no longer mandatory.

Although the Mars was not expressly designed to engage in interstellar travel, it could travel to another star system in an emergency.

The speed and efficiency was awfully low, though. The Pulsvar V-1 was mainly designed to function as a battlefield-oriented transphasic flight system. This meant that it was good at making a mech move rapidly in short to medium ranges but was not the best at longer cruises.

Warp drives were also around 10 times slower than FTL drives when it came to star hopping, so it might take an ace mech several months to reach a destination!

"We don\'t need the Mars to engage in superluminal travel." Master Benedict Cortez told Ves as both mech designers stood before the powerful ace mech in question. "It only has to remain fast enough to outspeed the tracking of the Tower of Babel\'s primary and secondary gun batteries and the rotation of her hull. It also helps if the Mars can outrun the pursuit of the alien phase lord that previously protected the alien battleship against the Unrelenting."

Ves looked up at the Mars. He could just see the elements of the Pulsvar V-1 sticking out of the back of the masterwork ace mech. It looked different than before. It received additional elements that bulked up its construction and likely boosted its performance parameters.

"What did you do to the flight system?" He asked.

Benedict pressed his lips. "Reginald has requested us to find a way to make his ace mech faster. Personally, I am of the opinion that the configuration of the Mars is already optimal, but its pilot does not agree, so I had little choice but to take additional time off my schedule to make the requested changes."

Perhaps an ordinary mech pilot might not be able to force a Master Mech Designer to implement changes to a mech, but an ace pilot was a different story, especially when he also happened to be the leader of the clan that owned everything!

"So the Pulsvar V-1 is stronger now, Master?" Ves guessed.

"Correct. I worked together with the Godwin Institution to develop a more powerful version of its original product. Together, we came up with a variant called the Pulsvar V-1HE. The HE stands for High Energy, as the additional structures added to the base version significantly increases the forward acceleration of the flight system in exchange for consuming substantially more energy. The Pulsvar V-1HE is a hungry beast, and the main reason why I agreed to its inclusion is because I managed to improve my Original Energy Bridge System to compensate for the increased energy consumption."

Ves nodded in understanding. In short, the Mars became a lot faster, but also became a lot more energy inefficient in the process. Improving the Original Energy Bridge System which essentially exploited the skull of a dead expert pilot to extract more energy from… somewhere… prevented the ace mech from running dry too soon!

"I assume that\'s not the only upgrade, right?" The younger mech designer remarked as he sensed another significant change in the flight system.

"Ah, you are sharp if you managed to deduce that little detail. The Godwin Institution also helped with designing a way to integrate more phasewater into the flight system. The Pulsvar V-1 originally came with 400 grams of phasewater, but the Pulsvar V-1HE now has 600 grams of phasewater. That doesn\'t mean that the Mars can move 50 percent faster than before, but any incremental speed boost is helpful."

Now that Ves had gained a much greater understanding of phasewater, he realized how impressive that sounded.

While it was easy to stuff more phasewater into a relatively small object like a mech, it became exponentially more difficult to keep it all stable!

Significant concentrations of phasewater had a tendency to mess up the surrounding space. Expensive measures needed to be taken in order to suppress their spatial fluctuations and prevent the mech in question from tearing itself apart.

If this factor didn\'t play a role, then Master Benedict and the Godwin Institution could have easily stuffed several kilograms of phasewater into the transphasic flight system.

In fact, they could still choose to do so, but they haven\'t because most of the \'phasewater quota\' was already taken up by the Abasis Armor.

One of the reasons why the Mars performed so well in its duel against the Neo Amadeus was because 11 kilograms of phasewater stuffed into the Abasis Armor allowed the ace hybrid mech to withstand a lot of punishing blows!

There was no way that Master Benedict was willing to compromise the excellent defenses of the Mars in exchange for a bit more speed.

Survival mattered the most. The previous Cross Clan had gone from heaven to hell in a single go after Lord Hemmington Cross met an untimely demise.

A repeat of that outcome had to be avoided at all cost!

Once Master Benedict filled Ves in on the changes to the flight system, they moved closer to the mech itself and discussed the other tweaks made to the ace mech.

High-ranking expert mechs always remained in development. Perhaps Master Benedict didn\'t work on the Mars non-stop, but he should definitely get back to its design from time to time in order to optimize its design, apply incremental improvements and replace outdated parts with newer versions that just became available.

Ves learned a lot from this tour. Though he had taken part in the original design process, he no longer remained up to date on the state of the Mars. His wife received much more information than him because the Mars also incorporated her god body solution.

Though many of the changes were rather incremental in nature, Ves could see what they represented.

The Mars was alive in more ways than one. Not only had it turned into a spiritual incarnation of its ace pilot, its physical configuration was constantly evolving by design.

What was happening to the Mars was a mirror to what happened to a powerful human like himself.

Ves gained part of his strength through advancing through the ranks, but he also derived a lot of help from purpose-built augmentations such as his cranial implant.

Both kinds of improvements were essential to him. They complemented each other and allowed him to produce astonishing works that couldn\'t be made by baseline humans.

After gaining a decent understanding of all of the improvements of the Mars, he estimated that its overall performance had roughly risen by at least 12 percent!

Though the changes to its flight system had made it a lot faster, that was only valid when it was traveling in straight or gently curving lines.

All of the additional parts added to the Mars had increased its mass. In addition, once it was moving at high relative speeds, it became a lot harder for the machine to make radical changes in direction. This compromised its dogfighting capabilities.

Fortunately, the Mars was about to fight against a battleship. Raw speed was more important than greater agility.

Ves and Master Benedict hovered closer to the shoulders of the ace hybrid mech. The modular slots that allowed the shoulders to mount any compatible weapons systems were currently empty, but that was bound to change soon.

"What weapons will you mount on the shoulders this time?" Ves curiously asked. "Will you put in a pair of gauss cannons?"

Master Benedict smirked. "Not this time. We have already seen from the Unrelenting that gauss cannons generally do not achieve great results when fighting against the transphasic energy shields employed by the native aliens. It is better to mount a different weapon system onto the shoulders so that the Mars has access to additional solutions that cannot be matched by its fixed loadout."

That made Ves curious. "Are you going for a pair of flamethrowers? I recall that the Unrelenting\'s own wrist-mounted flamethrowers managed to blind the alien phase lord to an extent. This can help with allowing the Mars to distance itself from this annoying opponent."

"We thought about that, but we rejected this option. We have a much better and more appropriate option in mind. After a lot of thought, we have decided to mount it with a pair of missile launchers."

Ves widened his eyes. "There is little point in equipping the Mars with modular missile launchers unless their payload is significantly more useful than a pair of regular weapons. Let me guess. Are you making use of special missiles this time?"

"That is correct. Good guess." Master Benedict smirked. "You see, we aren\'t the only humans who are struggling to defeat powerful alien warships that are protected by multiple layers of strong transphasic energy shields. Most pioneering fleets simply do not have the firepower to overcome such defenses. The demand for weapons that can effectively break or bypass all of these energy-based defenses have grown stronger, and the market has finally begun to give us answers. Let me show you what we have recently acquired."

The Master Mech Designer led Ves away from the Mars and towards one of the secure storerooms where a lot of powerful ordnance was being stored.

After entering a new compartment, Master Benedict stopped before a highly secure and robust crate that was marked with lots of warnings as well as the logos of several companies and brand names.

The Master Mech Designer had to input a secure code before he could open the crate.

A single dangerous missile rested inside.

As soon as Ves studied it, he immediately sensed a lot of danger!

His phasewater affinity allowed him to detect the substance, and right now it told him that the warhead contained a significant concentration of the material!

"How much phasewater is stuffed inside this missile?!"

"This is a Stormsurge Missile, an experimental missile product developed by Immace Energy Armaments, the same company that made the ARCEUS System." Master Benedict explained as he gently caressed the surface of the high-end ordnance. "It was solely developed to provide parties such as us an easy and relatively low-barrier means of overloading strong transphasic energy shields. It is already powerful on its own, but it will truly shine when it is empowered by resonance, hence it is mainly meant to be used by expert mechs and ace mechs."

"You didn\'t answer my question, Master."

"Oh. I apologize. I try my best not to think too much on what it cost to procure a batch of missiles. The warhead of a single Stormsurge Missile is laced with 363 grams of phasewater. However, due to a convention that I am sure you are familiar with, our clan had to pay 726 grams of phasewater in order to commission a missile from Immace Energy Armaments. We also had to pay 15,000 MTA credits on top of that to cover the cost of the high-grade exotics needed to amplify the destructive power of the missile and make sure its volatile elements are contained until the time is right."

Ves stared at Master Benedict with a shocked expression!

A single Stormsurge Missile was worth as much as a mech regiment if not more!

In fact, Ves could have built enough mechs to double the numbers of his elite Nullifier Battalion with this much money and resources!

"Damn… how many will the Mars equip on its upcoming mission?"

Benedict sighed. "Only two, one for each launcher. I would love to add in more, but the Mars cannot carry so much phasewater equipment. Immace Energy Armaments also haven\'t been able to supply us with anything. The product is still experimental in nature, so mass production is far away."

"I see. Well, it\'s better than nothing. I\'m a lot more confident in our ability to breach the defenses of the Tower of Babel if we have access to this new trump card."