The Mech Touch

Ves could immediately tell that he was no longer in a normal place as soon as the shuttle entered the other side of the portal.

There was something… different to his senses that only more sensitive people such as himself would notice.

It was as if he had long lived in a realm where his body was completely aligned to a specific frequency.

Now that he had entered a different space, the frequency of the new environment was a little… off. The difference was relatively minute and his body and mind did not become negatively affected by this change, but it still produced a sense of discordance that was hard to describe.

Ves had no idea whether this would produce any negative side effects. For now, it was like a faint high-pitched tone in his ear that would never fade away but one that he could easily disregard as long as he did not concentrate on it. The altered frequency only became a detriment if he considered it a bother.

He quickly set aside this odd little interaction and focused on the other changes. There wasn\'t much he could observe from within the armored shuttle and the projected footage of the outside environment did not do Purgatory justice.

He resolutely issued a command.

"Halt the shuttle and open its hatch. I want to go outside and take a look in person."

Though his command disrupted his itinerary, he didn\'t care about that at the moment.

The pilot steered the shuttle to the side so that any subsequent mechs and vehicles passing through the portal did not collide with it. Once it hovered in a safe space, the hatch slid open, allowing numerous armored figures to float outside.

Ves took a deep look at the majestic vision above his head. Throughout the mysterious gray fog that hid the boundaries of the pocket space, he could see numerous different asteroids floating in place as they had done for many years.

Naturally, these asteroids had to be fixed in place in order to remain in their exact positions without shifting the entire time. They also received other forms of protection to make sure that the fish-whales or other other destructive influences did not shatter them into pieces.

All in all, Purgatory was indeed a remarkable pocket space. Only a peak power such as the Big Two could rival such a creation.

Ves already began to exhibit more awe towards the phase whale that created this large and private playground. Alien or not, to be able to wield science and power to such a grand degree was proof that the creator had reached the pinnacle in its field.

Even if the phase whale was long dead and gone, Purgatory served as an enduring monument of the creature\'s greatness. It was a grand design that other creators like Ves would feel privileged to come in touch with. He already began to gain inspiration from this sight, and this was when he had just passed through this portal!

"I knew it was the right choice to venture inside!"

For a moment, he did nothing except to keep his gaze upwards and let his imagination run free.

He began to think about the formation of the pocket space.

He imagined what it was like when it was still operating in its original form.

He thought about the diverse kinds of tech he needed to master in order to create a similar pocket space.

He visualized how the passage of time affected Purgatory\'s internal situation.

He crafted a story around the fish-whales, who originally served as test subjects for some kind of biological program but had now broken free and taken control of their own destiny.

He thought about the emergence of many different native kingdoms, only for the Swarmers to gain the upper hand and swallow up enough rivals so that only four distinctly different groups of fish-whales remained.

The entry of humans into Purgatory represented a new chapter of history to the native life forms of this pocket space. For the first time in millions of years, outsiders had come. The status quo that had existed for many generations was about to undergo a drastic change.

Thinking about all of the gains he came to make in this pocket space caused his imagination to take a completely different turn all of a sudden.

From the moment he thought about how he could apply his potential gains to his future mech designs, he began to generate the strangest idea that he had come up with for a while.

"What if… every living mech I design comes with its own \'pocket space\'?"

It was an absurd thought and one that was clearly impossible to be realized!

A single mech that carried a whole pocket space the size of a moon was an absolute treasure that was no less expensive than a CFA battleship!

Naturally, Ves did not waste any time on such an unrealistic fantasy. He instead interpreted the \'pocket space\' attached to his mechs in a more figurative sense.

"It is clearly impossible for me to design a mech that can match the creation of Purgatory, but what if the pocket space is an imaginary rather than a real space?"

It was an interesting thought experiment and had so much potential that Ves seriously tried to play it out. What would he do if he could impart an illusionary pocket space to his mechs?

He thought about his upcoming mech design projects and honed in on his intention to design a commercial training mech.

Ever since he developed the intention to start this mech design project, he had always felt a bit dissatisfied with its concept.

It was easy enough to take the Chiron design as a base and convert it into a more universal mech design.

However, Ves would never be satisfied with such a straightforward conversion. The potential of growth mechs was more than that and his urge to innovate needed a greater challenge in order for him to feel fulfilled.

He already lined up a few ideas to enhance the value and functionality of his commercial training mech, but none of them were groundbreaking compared to the existing functions of his Chiron design.

The potential to impart an illusionary pocket space in his training mech was different!

As long as he was able to accomplish this, he could shape this pocket space in any way he wanted.

The application that would fit a training mech the best was to create a simulated battleground.

It would function similarly to all of those virtual piloting simulators that his Larkinson mech pilots regularly used to practice their skills and build up combat experience.

Of course, Ves was well aware that those sophisticated simulation programs always possessed shortcomings.

The first biggest shortcoming was that they did not correctly interpret the less straightforward aspects about mechs. The functioning of more esoteric exotics and the effects of various design philosophies such as his own translated poorly into simulators.

The mech pilots of the Larkinson Clan complained more about this fault than others. The virtual versions of the living mechs they were familiar with not only felt dull and listless, their unique characters did not grow nor persist in any way.

To put it more simply, a virtual mech of his own design lost one of its greatest appeals, which was the capacity to grow and adapt to its mech pilot!

Hence, the Bright Warriors, the Ferocious Piranhas, the Valkyrie Redeemers, the Transcendent Punishers and all of the other mainstays of the Larkinson Clan always remained at the start of their growth period in the virtual simulators!

Perhaps the mech pilots did not feel bothered by this in the beginning, but as their real living mechs slowly developed and unlocked their hidden potential, the disparity between real and virtual mechs became more and more evident!

This was why the various mech legions conducted so many live practice sessions despite the hefty cost they incurred. The mech pilots simply didn\'t gain as much if they practiced their piloting skills in a simulated environment.

The second major shortcoming of piloting simulators was their lack of real consequences. Every pilot who entered a simulator pod knew they were entering a false environment that was completely devoid from reality.

Death in a simulator only meant that the pilots had to reset their false mechs so that they could try again.

Perhaps the software program or the organization they belonged to might impose costs and penalties on their own, but these were only pale attempts to instill the consequences of losses into the mech pilots.

No matter what, those flawed simulation programs could never instill the threat of true death to those mech pilots.

Without the fear of suffering permanent consequences hanging over their heads, the mentality and attitudes of mech pilots during their simulation sessions were never as serious as they were in actual battle.

This was also one of the major reasons why mech pilots during times of calm rarely broke through. It was too difficult for them to receive enough stimulation and spark a chain reaction in their hearts and minds that caused them to squeeze more potential out of them than they had ever done before.

"The current state of simulator programs is not good, but it isn\'t bad either."

Simulator programs specially developed for mech pilots existed as long as the Age of Mechs. The underlying tech already existed for the most part. Developers did not need to add much more in order to make them suitable for mech pilots to practice their skills by piloting virtual mechs.

Yet even though it was easy to develop simulations that emulated the actual piloting experience by 80 percent or 90 percent, closing the gap any further was an extremely difficult endeavor!

Ves did not specialize in virtual reality nor possess too much knowledge in the related fields, so he only possessed a general understanding of the challenges facing piloting simulator developers.

He did know that few of them accomplished breakthroughs in the generations that followed. The simulator programs of today might be a lot more advanced and fully-featured than the ones that came out a few centuries ago, but they were still largely the same in essence!

"That also means that the actual benefit that mech pilots can gain from them has also remained stagnant."

All of the iterative improvements and additions definitely improved the piloting experience, but the fundamental problems related to imperfect modeling of reality and the lack of real consequences remained.

This was where Ves believed he could make a difference with his latest idea.

12:05

"What if… virtual reality no longer holds the answer anymore?" Ves wondered as his eyes tried to As a mech designer, it was not his job to change this situation and improve the effectiveness of piloting simulator programs.

Under ordinary circumstances, mech designers like Ves had no choice but to accept that they could only go so far in representing the full charm of their mech designs in a virtual environment.

Yet as Ves continued to gaze at the majesty of Purgatory, he began to form a different stance towards this long-standing problem in the mech industry.

"What if… I can create a better and more realistic piloting simulation environment?"

He thought about how his first foray in mech design started with designing virtual variants of a then-popular game called Iron Spirit.

Fantastic mech pilots such as Joshua King, now Joshua Larkinson, rose to prominence due to piloting his earliest works at the time.

Naturally, Joshua no longer played that silly game anymore. Iron Spirit was a game that was marketed towards citizens of third-rate states. The simulator pods were cheap and provided an inferior virtual piloting experience compared to the more high-end models owned by his clan.

Yet even the second-class piloting simulator programs did not provide a fundamentally superior practice environment. It cost a huge amount of money to improve the realism of the piloting experience by a couple of percentage points.

Naturally, there was only so much that money could accomplish. Mech pilots were only able to make gains in more technical aspects such as weapon handling, instrument management and other mundane aspects.

More profound aspects such as polishing their willpower and testing their courage against true threats remained absent in virtual reality.

This was where Ves believed he could make a difference with his latest idea.

"What if… virtual reality no longer holds the answer anymore?" Ves wondered as his eyes tried to roam the depths of Purgatory. "What if the answer lies in creating an entirely different reality? An illusionary reality?"

It was an idea worth exploring.

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