The Mech Touch

There was no time pressure in the initial test. The Avatars, which had been assigned to play as the adversaries for this mock battle, did not launch attacks or move from their positions.

This allowed the sixth expert pilot of the Larkinson Clan to take her time with exploring how to resonate with the key resonating exotics of her expert mech.

Having been exposed to the thoughts of the designers of the Minerva through the design network, Casella possessed a decent understanding of the two most important resonating exotics in her new machine.

She could already feel a material called Talasmir reach out to her so that she could expand her willpower and presence across a wider area.

Even when she wasn\'t actively resonating with this material, her influence had already expanded to a modest extent.

From the theories she had inadvertently learned, this was a sign of excellent compatibility between herself and Talasmir. It was incredibly lucky on the part of the Larkinsons for being able to find an excellent match and be able to acquire a sufficient quantity of this rare material back in Chance Bay!

As her willpower ranged even further throughout the frame of her expert mech, she was able to sense a different resonating material with a strong response.

This one stimulated her willpower in a different way. Instead of expanding it, the material known as Pecker Carbon concentrated it to the point where she felt that she had gained increased dominion over a smaller area!

Both resonating exotics strongly affected her willpower but in different ways. It was easy for Casella to distinguish between them and resonate with them without making the wrong choice.

She briefly tried to see whether she could resonate with both Talasmir and Pecker Carbon at the same time, but the burst of pain and the feeling of tearing from her mech quickly disabused her of this notion!

Talasmir essentially expanded her reach over a larger area while Pecker Carbon concentrated it in a single location! Anyone could figure out that their effects were mutually exclusive!

"Since that is the case, let\'s start with Talasmir."

This was the most compatible and gentle resonating exotic to her senses. As Casella closed her eyes and steadily figured out the knack to resonating with it, the Minerva golden glow became more diffused.

The resonance glow initially surrounded the expert mech like a bubble. After Casella resonated with Talasmir, the glow expanded like an inflating balloon and became more diffused over a wider area.

Seconds passed by as the bubble grew at a brisk but steady pace. Its radius reached hundreds of meters but did not slow down in the slightest.

When the radius of the diffused golden sphere around the stationary Minerva surpassed a kilometer, many observers became a lot more impressed at the sight!

The expansion continued until the sphere had reached an impressive radius of 8 kilometers, only slowing down near the end as Casella had clearly reached her limits at this time.

This meant that a large chunk of space that could easily fit hundreds if not thousands of mechs turned into a special field where Casella held sway!

It just so happened that the mech companies of the Living Sentinels that had sortied into space were all within this 8-kilometer sphere.

Although the Sentinel mechs did not glow or exhibit any special signs of empowerment at this time, Commander Casella was not finished with her attempt!

"What is your current state, commander?" Ves asked.

"I am under moderate strain at the moment, patriarch." Casella answered. "I can keep this up for a time, but it is much less exhausting for me if I rein in the expansion of my Command Field."

That did not fall outside of Ves\' expectations.

"Try and retract your \'Command Field\'. At what point can you comfortably keep it up for several hours?"

This required a bit of experimentation on Casella\'s part. She reduced her effort and had to feel how much easier it became to maintain this state.

The Command Field steadily shrunk until it had reached a rather disappointing radius of 300 meters.

"I can maintain my Command Field without getting exhausted if I keep it at its current state." Commander Casella reported. "If I get more practice and increase my resonance strength, I think I can increase the range of my Command Field when in equilibrium and when exerted to the maximum."

That was to be expected. Every expert mech grew stronger as their expert pilot rose in strength.

Masterwork expert mechs just happened to help their pilots grow stronger at an accelerated pace, so Ves did not have to wait too long for Casella to become a monstrous existence in the Larkinson Army!

"Alright. We can explore the nuances of your range later, but right now I want to know what your Command Field can do. Can you apply your power to one of the Sentinel mechs within your range?"

Commander Casella had already been exploring this idea herself. She had already made a bit of progress in mastering her Command Field and focused on a random Sentinel mech.

It was strange to describe her power. She felt she could latch a portion of her willpower onto the mech pilots in her range.

When she explored this facet, she found out that her willpower easily latched onto the minds of her Sentinel mech pilots. Not only that, but she was also able to extend her influence to the mech itself!

It helped a lot that the mech was alive. The living consciousness of the mech served as a hook that Casella could grapple without too much effort.

She figured that it would be a lot harder for her to do the same to a lifeless mech, if it was possible in the first place.

As Casella slowly tried to infuse the power of her Command Field in a specific mech and mech pilot, she gained a lot more awareness of them both.

She understood their conditions, their moods, their inclinations, their conditions and more. Although she did not understand them on a detailed level, what she managed to learn from them could definitely be useful in the right circumstances!

Casella knew she could do more than that, though. When she began to push more of her power into the new bonds she established, the mech and mech pilot she had chosen began to acquire a faint glow!

"Commander! I… I can feel you! I can feel your strength!"

When the lucky mech pilot received an order to launch an attack, his mech pointed its rifle at a piece of scrap and fired a laser beam that was clearly more powerful than usual!

"True resonance!"

The mech designers in the observation room were all ecstatic when they saw what Casella was capable of! Her special resonance ability was similar to that of Ghanso when he piloted the Charlemagne.

However, unlike Ghanso who was a pure rifleman mech, Casella was a command-oriented expert pilot who could extend her power to others in a much more natural fashion.

The use of spiritual networks and resonance abilities also enabled Casella to \'bless\' another mech with her strength without involving any complicated neural interfaces and other dangerous technology.

This was the goal that Ves had been chasing with the Minerva. Seeing that all of his hard work had paid off made him a lot more jubilant!

ɪғ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs, ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴠɪsɪᴛ ᴘᴀɴᴅᴀ-ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ.ᴄᴏᴍ ᴛᴏ ᴇxᴘᴇʀɪᴇɴᴄᴇ ғᴀsᴛᴇʀ ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ sᴘᴇᴇᴅ.

Several minutes passed as they tested the capabilities of the Command Field. Every Sentinel mech was able to receive an enhancement. Though the magnitude of strengthening was not that strong, Casella was able to extend her power to hundreds of mechs before the strain grew too great!

With so many mechs carrying a portion of her will, the attacks they could unleash were much more powerful than the attacks launched by the Minerva\'s Irvan rifle!

"Casella and the Minerva are in their element this time!"

Ves and many others were shocked at how much stronger the Living Sentinels became!

Even though the mechs only launched attacks on cheap target bots and worthless pieces of scrap the Larkinsons had tossed into space, all of the sensors and analytics showed that the Sentinels became at least 50 percent deadlier!

That was a huge leap in combat power!

Even though Commander Casella indicated that she could not sustain the expenditure of infusing so many mechs with her strength for long, the use of her Command Field at this scale could definitely overturn a crisis!

This wasn\'t all, though. Ves thought up an interesting idea that he wanted to test out. He just needed the cooperation of an expert mech.

"Venerable Joshua, please move your expert mech closer and resist the incoming attacks with your resonance shield as best as possible."

"Can I skip this mission this time? My Everchanger already got beat up earlier. My mech isn\'t happy about being treated as a target dummy. Isn\'t it a better idea to use the Shield of Samar?"

Ves grew annoyed. "Get moving, Joshua! Consider it practice!"

After the Everchanger begrudgingly moved into position, Casella had retracted her power from most of the Sentinel mechs.

Her willpower wore out at a faster rate when she bonded herself with so many mechs and mech pilots.

By limiting her command field\'s effects to just a single rifleman mech company, the strain became a lot more tolerable.

"Fire!"

The ranged mechs that were surrounded by Casella\'s characteristic dark gold glow began to fire plain and boring laser beams at the Everchanger!

Although ordinary laser beams could not pose a threat to the expert hero mech under ordinary circumstances, the ones fired by the empowered Sentinel mechs were different!

Even if their rifles hadn\'t switched to light beam mode, the resonance-empowered laser beams dealt considerable damage to the Everchanger\'s resonance shield!

The attacks from the ordinary mechs already contained a touch of Casella\'s extraordinary will. Although the magnitude was weak, this extra property was enough to pose a real threat to the Everchanger\'s considerable defenses!

"My resonance shield is draining fast!"

The Minerva\'s Command Field was an amazing ability. As long as the friendly mechs were close enough, Casella could turn them into her \'surrogates\' who were able to channel a small amount of true resonance!

This ability possessed a lot of potential!

"Please shift your Command Field\'s active effect to a different unit and see whether it is just as effective." Ves instructed.

When the Minerva began to empower a squad of Avatar mechs, the strengthening was almost just as strong.

The same applied to the mechs and mech pilots of other mech legions such as the Avatars, Battle Criers and so on. The only disappointment was that the strengthening effect was not as powerful with certain targets such as the Swordmaidens.

Commander Casella was able to figure out the reason after personally experiencing the differences.

"My Command Field ability works best with mechs and mech pilots that are close to me. My Sentinel mech pilots already respect and revere me to a greater degree, so I don\'t feel any hindrance when I work with them. The Swordmaidens on the other hand largely believe in their own strength. Our attitudes are different and we don\'t align with each other that much."

"I see." Ves replied. "That makes sense."

"There is another matter that I should say. I think it makes a huge difference whether the mechs are alive. I can only channel a limited amount of power to any single individual with my Command Field. If I can bond with both the mech and mech pilot at the same time, I can channel at least twice as much power!"

"Well, that should be easy enough to verify."

Ves requested the Cross Clan to dispatch one of their ordinary mechs to the testing site.

When the Command Field tried to latch on to the lifeless mech, the strengthening effect was much weaker!

"It\'s a lot more difficult to channel my strength in a non-living mech." Casella explained with a touch of frustration in her voice. "I can sense that the Crosser mech pilot respects me, but we are too different from each other. We also aren\'t a part of the same \'network\', so I have to put in extra effort to establish a bond with his mind."