Chapter 7355  Strong Resistance

The critical time had come.

After multiple days of hard work and ingenuity, the Larkinson mech designers managed to cobble together a large and clunky device that promised to generate stolen resonance that could mechanically be harnessed like any other force mastered by human technology.

Everyone grew nervous. Ves truly had no idea what might happen. Their theories were half-baked because everything was still brand-new.

The Ixith Goliath in stasis merely provided an alien blueprint to its captors. Interpreting it and figuring it out could not be done in a handful of days.

The time pressure forced everyone to cut corners.

They could not invest the proper amount of time and attention on conducting exhaustive experiments to validate their theories.

The Larkinsons could only rely on their own judgment and hope that their confidence was not misplaced.

As the experimental device began to draw in a large amount of energy, a change suddenly occurred!

Many of the scientists present in the control room stared intently at the resonance meter.

These resonance meters received very recent updates.

They could now distinguish between true resonance and stolen resonance.

The devices also gained new settings which enabled them to measure and convey very specific data on a number of interesting traits that were unique to stolen resonance.

For a few seconds, the resonance meters all registered a few errant blips.

It looked as if the experimental device was struggling to climb over a very tall hurdle.

The machine began to produce a few stress noises that sounded very disconcerting.

"Heat levels are rising! Energy consumption is continuing to spike!" Gloriana alarmingly said. "We may have to initiate an emergency shutdown if this continues!"

Nobody knew what was taking place. This was one of the downsides of skipping so many steps. They had no way to explain the excessive energy consumption and why the resonance meters barely registered any activity.

Gloriana turned to her husband. "What do you see?"

While everyone else had been looking at their control panels, Ves chose to rely on more direct observation.

He utilized Blinky's senses to observe and track the flow of extraordinary energies within the massive device.

Ves could clearly feel the central willpower chamber becoming increasingly more active. All of the stimuli caused the CWC and its captive willpower source to become a lot more agitated than before!

He could also observe that under the direction of Titania, the CWC attempted to form simultaneous connections with all of the surrounding SICs.

This turned out to be a much more difficult task than expected.

The CWC behaved too reluctantly. It was as if Titania had to resort to force in order to make it connect with the SICs.

The sentient inorganic components also exhibited anomalous activity.

The sentient inorganic components also exhibited anomalous activity.

The spiritualities instilled in their relatively small forms previously proved to be stable, but as soon as the CWC began to exert its influence, it was as if these small and weak units met a hurricane that threatened to tear them apart!

This was hardly the only problem with the experimental device, but Ves felt this was the most serious of them all. The CWC and the SICs had been designed to work in unison. They were not supposed to be at loggerheads!

The experimental device began to convey more distress. Red alerts began to chime in the control room as multiple sensitive parts had begun to overheat.

The experimental machine was not that fragile. Even if it had been designed in haste, the extensive use of mid-to-high-grade materials should have made it very resistant towards overheating and other stresses.

Even so, it was not a good idea to let the device grow its energy consumption without limit.

"Should we throttle the energy supply?"

"Not yet, Gloriana. Wait a little longer. Something will definitely happen once it gains the strength to break the current equilibrium. I cannot tell whether the impending result is benign or catastrophic, but stopping now is too useless. We need a real outcome to verify as many theories as possible."

His wife frowned as she looked back at the increasingly more strained device.

Energy shields already surrounded it, but she felt more and more uncertain about whether these measures could contain the damage in the event of a sudden explosion.

"Can you ask Titania about the current state of the experimental device? I can tell that she is active and at work, but I cannot determine her specific actions and challenges. What difficulties has she encountered? Is she confident that she can keep it all under control?"

Ves started to look concerned as he silently communicated with Titania on a spiritual level.

"Our design spirit is not doing so fine at the moment. The strain of trying this messy device is incredibly strong. She is also facing strong resistance from many different sources. The experimental device is actively rejecting her influence."

"What? How?"

A few seconds of silence passed. Ves did not have a clear idea of what was going on, but he had a few guesses.

"I think… we have underestimated the potential conflicts between the disparate elements." Ves responded. "Our selection of the willpower source has introduced an adversarial and outright hostile variable to the equation. I had hoped that the design of the CWC and the active intervention of Titania would successfully suppress any potential problems from this angle, but I may have been mistaken."

Gloriana grew upset. "The central willpower chamber serves as the core of our experimental device. If anything significant has gone wrong, our entire model will collapse!"

Everyone grew more concerned. As the activity of the experimental device continued to grow without any sign of moderation, the researchers grew increasingly more concerned about accidents.

Only their own curiosity and need to allow the initial trial to proceed without interruption prevented them from initiating an emergency shutdown procedure.

Ves suddenly gasped. "Be careful!"

For a split-second, the central willpower chamber radiated a lot more strength than before!

A very brief wave of oppression swept across the workshop and the adjacent control room.

Multiple individuals groaned and buckled as they experienced an invisible force that seemed to crush their souls!

Fortunately, none of them were particularly weak. Even if they were noncombatants, they were all Journeyman Mech Designers with companion spirits that engaged in one form of auxiliary qi cultivation or another.

Alexa fared better than the rest. She winced and tried her best to straighten her posture as quickly as possible. Her superior upbringing granted her a great advantage despite her relative youth and inexperience. Just her ego alone did not permit her to bend her knees at the slightest!

Gloriana only showed a brief frown before she continued to study telemetry. Whether it was her pride, her strength as a Senior Mech Designer, her extraordinary cranial implant set or her experience in dealing with crises, she had experienced worse events in the past. The current incident did not even rank in the top 5 as far as she was concerned.

Of course, none of them fared better than Ves. Not only did he remain completely unaffected, his companion spirit also deployed a basic protective field that blunted the sharpness emanating from the experimental device.

Shortly after the wave of oppression passed, another sudden event occurred.

The experimental device abruptly lost power and crumbled into pieces!

"What is happening?!"

Their expressions sank.

They previously feared the possibility that their painstaking work would explode, but what was happening in front of their eyes was not much better.

The oversized machine seemed to have lost its shape and collapsed in a pile of disorderly metal!

Ves' eyes sharpened as he looked closer.

"It's not as bad as it looks." He said with obvious relief in his voice. "The central willpower chamber does not appear to be heavily affected. It is made of high-quality solid components, so it won't fall apart so easily. It is only the smart metal aspect of our latest work that has lost their integrity. It appears that our initial activation attempt has scrambled them to the point of losing their power, programming or both."

Since nothing appeared to be blowing up, the mech designers steadily relaxed.

They continued to observe the unfolding disaster until all of the dead nanomachines had settled onto the deck like a pile of metallic snow.

The unexpected collapse of the sentient inorganic components largely exposed the central willpower chamber, which showed slight signs of damage but otherwise looked intact.

An awkward silence ensued.

Nobody in the control room had any words to describe what just happened.

Why did the experimental device suck up so much energy?

Why did it release a very brief wave of oppression?

Why had the SICs behaved in this manner?

While the first outcome was most definitely a failure, it still yielded a lot of data.

Once the mech designers confirmed that the situation had stabilized and that there were no obvious hazards, they quickly began their investigations.

"Have the resonance meters registered any resonance activity?" Ves asked.

"No." Gloriana shook her head. "Just before we all got swept by a suppressive field, the resonance meters registered a brief blip, but the amplitude is so weak that it is difficult to take seriously. I cannot say with certainty whether our experimental device has succeeded in generating stolen resonance, even if it lasted for a fraction of a second."

Ves called up the data and had no choice but to agree with her assessment.

Perhaps she was speaking a little too conservatively, but science demanded greater rigor than what he was satisfied with. He might be satisfied with unsubstantiated assumptions, but many others could never accept a new theory without obtaining ironclad proof.

A small bot soon arrived in the control room and presented a box that contained a small heap of metallic dust particles.

Blinky appeared from Ves' forehead and carefully examined the remains of the sentient inorganic components.

"What did you find?"

"It's strange, Gloriana. These SICs are dead. I will need to use instruments to check their physical integrity, but I think that the nanomachines are probably intact. What is more baffling is that they have lost all signs of life. Their spiritualities have disappeared. That alone shouldn't have caused the smart metal to lose its shape and collapse in such a dramatic fashion, so I suspect that their programming may have become compromised as well. I will need to use instruments to know for certain. All I can say for now is that I will need to put in a lot of effort to bring these sentient inorganic components back to life."

Mysterious.

The initial trial presented several mysteries.

"Titania must know more." Gloriana asserted. "Please ask her to explain what she experienced when she tried to command the experimental device."

"Already on it, honey."

Ves wordlessly communicated with the design spirit. He soon started to frown.

"Well?"

"From her perspective, the willpower source put up so much resistance that it was impossible to form a harmonious connection with the SICs." He explained. "This is a problem with our experimental design. The Ixith Goliath may have been able to succeed at harnessing the willpower of hostile expert pilots, but our experimental device is unable to do the same. Either the CWC that you have developed for this project cannot replicate all of the functions of a Mentalist Crystal, or we have overlooked other variables."

Gloriana did not look too pleased at hearing that her work was chiefly responsible for the failure, but she was not the kind of mech designer who could not withstand criticism.

The ability to recognize one's own shortcomings and striving to reduce them was an essential step in the path to perfection.

"I think that both may apply in our situation." She expressed her own view. "It is undeniable that the central willpower chamber is a poor substitute for the Mentalist Crystal. It is also difficult to argue that we have faithfully replicated the mechanisms of the Ixith Goliath in another form. We need to conduct a thorough examination to map out these problems and discrepancies as much as possible."

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