His excitement didn't last long.

The Crystal Lord Mark II's effect against Venerable Joshua's was incredibly weak. It was the equivalent of parading a shiny gem in front of the expert pilot's eyes.

Ves retrieved one of Lucky's gems from his hidden pouch. He swung it around and allowed its facets to shine in the brightness that illuminated the observation room.

These twinkles might be able to distract an expert pilot in certain situations, but truthfully the effect was negligible.

Ves could perceive much more hindrances just by walking on a street on a sunny day!

The Crystal Lord Mark II's glow wasn't harmful enough to be considered a weapon. Let alone regular mech pilots, there was no way that expert pilots would let themselves get distracted by some spiritual glinting!

In order to explore the exact effects of the Illustrious One's glow, Ves began to perform more tests.

He continually changed the Quint and the Crystal Lord Mark II's settings in order to explore the rules of this newly-discovered phenomenon.

He discovered a couple of interesting rules.

First, the Illustrious One's ability to affect Venerable Joshua's perception somehow acted on a spiritual level.

In other words, the design spirit affected Joshua's spirit, not his eyeballs.

The exact consequence of this remained unknown as the glow was too weak to produce a concrete result.

Second, the luminar crystals incorporated in the Crystal Lord Mark II played an essential role in enhancing the effects of the Illustrious One's glow.

Ves already knew that luminar crystals amplified the Illustrious One and vica versa. Their synergistic relationship was so clear and obvious that he couldn't help but mess with the crystals.

He brought some bots and tools and carefully removed them whenever possible. He then performed the same test over again.

"It's weaker now."

"It's weaker than before."

"I don't notice anything anymore."

It was too bad that the current testing environment only allowed Ves to remove or disconnect the luminar crystals embedded in the Crystal Lord Mark II. It did not allow him to add more luminar crystals because that would require him to modify the design. The crystals needed to be connected to the systems of the mech.

Once Ves dismissed Venerable Joshua and the Quint, he fell into thought.

"According to my observations, the Illustrious One can definitely affect an expert pilot, bypassing both the mech and the man-machine connection. This is the greatest and most hopeful sign that I can fulfill my goal of designing a mech that can debilitate an expert mech on the battlefield.""

He thoughtfully rubbed his smooth-shaven chin.

Lucky floated around his head and landed on his shoulder.

"Meow."

"Yeah. It's no use if the effect is not good enough. The Crystal Lord Mark II failed to affect my test subject's combat effectiveness for two reasons. First, the mech's isn't designed with a blinding function in mind. Second, its glow is too weak in this aspect."

The Illustrious One used to be a weak design spirit until Ves forced it to merge with the spiritual remnant of the Blinding One.

Not only did the design spirit of the Crystal Lord line gain a massive power boost, it also inherited much of the properties of the fallen dark god.

"Blinding One…"

Weren't the names of the dark gods indicative of their greatest or most defining strengths?

The naming scheme of the Hallowed Abyss Temple was hardly a mystery. Ves could tell or guess what a dark god was capable of just by studying their labels.

As ancient alien entities that had lived for many eons, their actual names were probably incomprehensible or lost in history. The Watchers who named the dark gods could only come up with simple descriptive names in order to make sure they prayed to the right entity.

After all, wouldn't it be embarrassing for a Grey Watcher to ask for help from the Unending One only for his prayers to reach the Blinding One due to translation errors?

In these cases, simple but straightforward descriptions worked best!

Having witnessed three of the dark gods in battle, Ves could easily understand their labels.

The Unending One likely referred to the tentacled whale's endless hunger. His label was a bit more abstract than the other ones, so Ves wasn't completely sure the 'Unending' part referred to the dark god's appetite, bulk or something else.

The Inexorable One was easy to explain. Ves accessed the dictionary stored in his implant and called up a definition.

[Inexorable - impossible to stop or to prevent.]

The huge avian exobeast was not only fast, but difficult to slow down. Ves found it curious that the Hallowed Abyss Temple chose this particular strength to describe the Inexorable One. Did this mean that speed wasn't its forte, or that some other dark god had beaten the big bird in terms of speed?

Compared to the labels of the aforementioned dark gods, the Blinding One couldn't be simpler.

This dark god's very presence was too bright!

Bedecked with crystals and shining with bright, white light, the Blinding One seemed to defy the stereotype that evil creatures needed to be surrounded by a gloomy, dark aura.

With a name like this, Ves did not doubt the ascended luminar alien's ability to blind those looked directly at him. Of course, the Blinding One was capable of doing more than that. The light beams he released possessed enough strength to threaten starships!

Yet at the root of their existence, luminar aliens appeared to be masters in manipulating light, or more precisely electromagnetic radiation.

The luminar race developed a civilization based around distinctive crystal technology that allowed them to do a lot with light. For some reason, any light unleashed by a luminar crystal possessed additional properties that increased their lethality in unfathomable ways!

"It's not gamma radiation!"

If luminar technology was based around raising the frequency of electromagnetic radiation, the MTA would have never allowed Ves to publish his Crystal Lord models. What actually took place when a luminar crystal became excited and released a light beam even caused the MTA to scratch their heads!

According to the classified research files that Master Willix once transferred to him, one of the principal reasons why the MTA studied luminar technology was because of its potential to qualitatively improve directed energy weapons.

If a regular laser weapon outputted 100 points of damage, then one that incorporated the principles of luminar tech might be able to output 200 or 500 points of damage!

It was too bad that the alien crystals the luminars left behind were too complex! The MTA only deciphered the most basic portions of their incredibly complicated internal circuitry at this point.

While it was possible that Master Willix hid the MTA's success in reverse-engineering luminar technology, but Ves had a hunch that the MTA researchers were not too far ahead.

This was because Ves discovered that luminar crystals were spiritually reactive!

The crystals were much less impressive if they hadn't come in touch with spiritual energy.

Ves also achieved modest improvement gains with the Crystal Lord Mark II for this reason. By letting its luminar crystals get in touch with the mech's spiritual foundation, the crystals were able to absorb more energy and unleash slightly stronger light beams.

The more the Crystal Lord Mark II grew over time, the greater the amplification!

The reverse relationship also held true. The greater the luminar crystal, the stronger the glow. The quality of the crystal also played a very significant role.

"Unfortunately, Master Willix didn't give me the good stuff."

Frankly speaking, the luminar crystals integrated in the Crystal Lord Mark II were equivalent to third-class components.

If the MTA passed on its research on stronger luminar crystals, then Ves would readily be able to embed them in his counter against expert mechs!

He scowled. "I'm still in trouble. I have no choice but to work with fragile third-class crystals. Fridaymen mechs can easily break them with casual attacks, especially if they employ physical force."

Yet Ves had very little alternatives. While he could seek out other ways to hinder expert mechs, he would merely be following up on solutions that were already proven to be bad. The costs were simply too great to make them viable.

Ves spent hours thinking over whether he should follow up on basing his anti-expert mech around luminar crystals.

"Fragile or not, I have several unique advantages when it comes to implementing luminar tech."

He bet that the MTA probably hadn't been able to arouse the full potential of luminar technology due to their limited expertise in spirituality.

He also bet that combining the Illustrious One and luminar crystals in a more targeted fashion might deliver greater results.

Maybe Ves might succeed in drawing out the Blinding One's strength over the course of the design project!

"It won't be easy, though."

The glow of the Illustrious One was sparkling and beautiful, but its offensive properties weren't apparent. Ves would have to transform it just like he did with the Valkyrie Redeemer.

Without its ability to narrow its glow into a narrow beam, the Valkyrie mechs would never have been able to affect enemy mechs at range!

Ves hoped that a similar concentration attempt might be able to cause someone like Venerable Joshua more discomfort.

This was one direction of strengthening the main effect of his anti-expert mech.

The other direction was to integrate more crystals onto the mech frame. The Crystal Lord Mark II was far from saturated when it came to this aspect. Back when he designed it, there was no need to increase its production cost and unbalance the mech by piling on an excessive amount of crystals.

Now that Ves wanted to do the opposite, how would his anti-expert mech look like?

His imagination immediately conjured up the image of a mech bedecked in crystals. Its entire chest glittered in the light as the crystals embedded on its surface were impossible to ignore!

The imaginary mech carried a powerful energy rifle that integrated numerous crystals.

Yet before this mech was able to discharge a light beam with the aid of all of its crystals, a single enemy rifleman mech fired its gauss rifle at the attention-grabbing machine.

A powerful gauss round immediately punched the chest of the obvious, glittered target! Almost a hundred different crystals shattered as the incredible kinetic energy transferred by the projectile was too much for them to cope!

"This is not good!"

Then what if Ves adopted a more defensive design?

The ruined mech disappeared from his mind. In its place was a bigger, fatter knight mech. While it did not show many crystals on the surface, its internals were filled with them! Ves also made use of special cushioning materials and shock-absorbing systems that mech designers usually employed in lancer mech designs.

If these systems were able to protect the mech pilots and the delicate internals of a mech from impact damage, then they should also be good enough to protect the fragile luminar crystals!

The knight mech held no weapon. Instead, it carried a single, broad tower shield.

When the same enemy ranged mechs fired a couple of gauss rounds at the defensive mech, its sturdy shield withstood the blows while only incurring a couple of dents!

Once the ranged mech stopped firing, its target began to activate a setting.

The surface layers of the tower shield parted to reveal an entire surface of luminar crystals!

Like a giant mirror, the crystal-encrusted shield projected the Illustrious One's powerful, focused glow at the enemy!

The ranged mech instantly froze as the mech pilot closed his eyes and moaned in pain!

"I can't see!"

The illusion ended after that. When Ves pulled himself back to reality, he evaluated the ideas he just considered.

"Can this even work?"

The mech he just imagined looked so silly and impractical that Ves didn't have much in the concept. Yet according to understanding, the mech might be able to affect an expert pilot.

"Maybe not by itself, but what about a couple of hundred?"

Ves briefly imagined a majestic shield wall consisting of hundreds of mechs.

As an enemy expert mech swaggered forward, the shield wall suddenly turned bright as the tower shields all revealed their crystal surface!

So much light poured in a single direction! Even if the shields didn't precisely land on the expert mech, at least it left the target with few escape routes!

The expert mech stumbled and dropped altitude for a few seconds. Though the expert pilot quickly managed to recover from the unexpected disturbance, the blinding effect continued to hammer at his mind!