Chapter 7440  Blessed Recovery

The Carmine System already granted a lot more humans the ability to pilot mechs, yet that was not enough for most leaders and commanders.

The addition of the Hibiscus System neatly solved the critical training problem, thereby allowing soldiers of all stripes to control Woodsap mechs as if they were larger versions of their own bodies.

Such levels of control was very different from the more traditional methodology of mech piloting.

The degree of body substitution was so much higher that there was no equivalence. It took so little time for most Woodsap mech pilots to reach an acceptable degree of control and precision that this factor alone could immediately strengthen the Terran Alliance national power in the short term!

Many people couldn't get used to the thought of living in this new reality.

"If these Woodsap mechs are truly easy to control, then there is no way that the Terran Alliance will run out of qualified manpower."

Unless the Terrans lost all of their territories and almost became extinct, they would always be able to spare enough soldiers for conversion!

This was a massive change!

One of the persistent bottlenecks that prevented states from expanding their mech forces at a higher rate was the limited supply of potentates and trained mech pilots.

There was no easy way to expand this inherently limited manpower pool. The requirements for first-class multipurpose mech pilots were especially harsh.

Not only did they need to possess higher-than-average genetic aptitude to adequately control more complicated machines, they also had to undergo extensive augmentation and master a large variety of skills and knowledge!

Even if the Terrans lowered their standards and focused on fielding large amounts of specialized first-class mech pilots, the inherent power and technological sophistication of their machines still demanded a lot of time and effort to transform them into worthy combatants.

For centuries, these conditions along with the prohibition on fielding warships limited the degree in which first-rate states could project their strength.

The rules had changed.

While the Terran Alliance had recently begun to reintroduce warships of their own make into their armed forces as of late, this was still a reluctant process.

The long years of the Age of Mechs had caused them to lose much of their institutional knowledge and traditions related to fielding a formidable space navy.

The Common Fleet Alliance had stolen everything they could grab at the end of the Age of Conquest while eradicating all of the stuff that they could obtain.

Under the four centuries that followed, the CFA meticulously tried to stamp out any hint of warships from the ranks of the subjugated states.

Of course, the Terrans did not give up so easily, and unlike most groups, likely possessed the means to engage in warship development in secret.

Still, such covert activity could never match the splendor of the previous ages. The Terrans undeniably lost much over the generations. It would take even more generations just to regain their strength in this newly restored sector.

Not that it mattered all that much. To be honest, the Terrans no longer possessed the eagerness to regain the awesome and indiscriminate might of warships.

The Big Two had a good job of suppressing humanity's yearning for warships and encouraging the worship of mechs.

Even if the Age of Mechs had passed, many people still looked up to mechs and their heroic pilots!

The ultimate dream for many children and adults was not to command an indomitable battleship, but to ascend as mech pilots and become the new gods on the battlefield!

This also aligned better with the Terran Alliance's strategic direction. Unlike the Greater Terran United Confederation, the colonial successor was only a fraction of its parent's size.

It took a huge amount of territory, resources, industrial capacity, population and more just to pump out warships in great numbers.

The current Terran Alliance could not produce entire fleets so easily, let alone replenish the hulls lost in the ongoing conflicts.

For better or worse, mechs still remained the most practical and cost-effective means of waging war in the current place and time.

The heavy investment in the Arboreal Project made a lot of sense from this perspective.

The only complication that threw these calculations off was the elf variable. It seemed almost unnecessary compared to the existing foundation of Woodsap mechs.

Many people hoped to obtain a satisfactory explanation from the Terrans by the time this presentation had reached its end.

Not that the hosts were in a hurry to provide an accounting for their controversial moves. They first had to get the essentials out of the way.

After demonstrating how fluently the rookie elven test pilots could translate their human body movements into biomech movements, the Woodsap mechs began to demonstrate actual combat maneuvers.

They demonstrated various integrated armaments, which weren't all that special in the greater scheme of things.

To Ves, they just looked like the organic version of integrated laser guns, kinetic guns, plasma guns and small-scale missile launchers.

Their melee combat performance was nothing special either. Though they demonstrated greater flexibility and agility than expected, their physical force exertions were quite mediocre.

The Woodsap mechs may have incorporated a lot of advanced and ultra-modern Terran technologies, but there was not enough capacity in their designs to excel in these areas.

Ves and the other mech designers involved in the Arboreal Project had no choice. When faced with limited capacity, they could only pick and choose the goodies they wanted more.

The products of the Arboreal Project therefore aligned closely with the characteristics of the wood attribute.

The Woodsap mechs did not excel in terms of offense, but made up for it in other ways.

Unless Ves or the Terrans went out of their way to design a more radical offensive variant, the Woodsap mechs could only be expected to punch within their own weight class.

However, it was not the weapons themselves that attracted the attention of the guests, but the targets that got struck.

The Woodsap mechs unreservedly pointed their weapons at each other!

The defensive performance of their azure energy shields did not appear noteworthy. While they exhibited slightly greater regeneration rates than normal, their capacity to resist damage was not better than other standard models.

It was only when the various weapons struck the exterior of the Woodsap mechs that their defenses began to shine.

The tough but flexible bark-like material covering the surface of the Woodsap mechs resisted greater damage than expected.

Even if the attacks eventually managed to overcome their resistance, the underlying ebony wood still managed to hold on for a while.

"Every biomech of the Arboreal Project is mainly composed of special compositions of wood derived from an impressive calamity plant." Master Laila Rebecca Devos explained succinctly. "Our biotech researchers have refined the original formulas and developed more improvised versions of the original samples. The most notable formulas incorporate a large amount of helpful substances such as phasewater as well as a rarer material called Solus Gas."

The Master Mech Designer gestured towards the darker-tinted biomechs among the prototypes demonstrating their capabilities beyond the large window.

"Phasewater is available in enough quantities that we have no intention of producing Woodsap mechs to us that do not incorporate this essential exotic. However, Solus Gas, which originates from the same untamed planet as the aforementioned calamity plant, is currently restricted in supply. The stockpile that we have exchanged with the Larkinson Clan is still large enough to raise a core force of Woodsap mechs that possess additional properties, most notably the complete inability to detect them with most sensors."

Those augmented with advanced sensor systems or special tools on their person had already noticed this remarkable property.

Despite being able to observe all 12 Woodsap mechs with the naked eye, half of them either did not show up on their sensor systems or returned very scrambled results!

This was quite remarkable!

While the Woodsap mechs fortified with Solus Gas could not function as proper stealth mechs, the difficulty of detecting them still made them useful in many other ways!

From launching ambushes to letting them creep up to enemy units while hiding behind other friendlies, many military officers could think of a dozen different ways to take their enemies by surprise.

Even if these biomechs fought in the open, the strange inability for most sensor systems to lock on to them meant that it became much harder for automated weapon systems to land their hits!

This might not matter too much when fighting against other enemy strike craft, but this particular advantage could play a much more decisive role when fighting against warships, which relied much more heavily on automation regardless of whether they were human or alien in construction!

Many Terrans understood very keenly that if the Terran Alliance directly raised powerful Mech Corps comprised of these 'undetectable' Woodsap mechs, this could easily become a new trump card that could achieve astonishing victories in the most critical battles!

Master Laila Rebecca Devos must be smiling in anticipation of the performance of this special unit.

"Before you ask, work is underway to study and reverse-engineer this so-called Solus Gas. It possesses many remarkable properties, so much so that even partial results can be used to develop lesser but still valuable gains. I can say no more on this topic. What is much more relevant at the moment is how fast our Woodsap mechs can recover. Regeneration is the archetypal advantage of biomechs. What makes our particular work special is the efficiency of their restoration."

After the Woodsap mechs shot or hacked at each other for a while, they no longer looked as pristine as before.

Their chest plating had been cratered. Swords had cut off entire limbs. Kinetic projectiles had drilled from one end of the torso to the next.

The damage looked so serious that most typical mechs would have lost their combat effectiveness outright at this stage!

Yet when the same measure of damage was applied to these Woodsap mechs, they still exhibited a remarkable degree of functionality.

Even if they could not fight or maneuver as well as before, they hadn't turned into outright liabilities!

Not only did the Woodsap mechs show off how well they preserved their fighting power after suffering so much damage, they also began to demonstrate their ability to heal their wounds in the field.

Large amounts of wood and life-attributed E energy surged in their direction. The Woodsap mechs readily absorbed these extraordinary energies and combined them with other resources to conduct rapid triage!

TE Wood began to shift from less essential sections to more essential ones. All of the external E energy combined with the biomech's own conventional energy reserves fueled the regeneration, making it so that the living machines did not have to endure their suffering for an unnecessarily long period of time.

While many people were not unfamiliar with the sight of rapidly regenerating biomechs, not many of them could reach this level of speed and efficiency!

What impressed Ves and others even more was that the Woodsap mechs actually managed to increase their mass!

Although the scale was very small, numerous mech designers and other senior professionals still noticed a discrepancy in mass over time!

"This is impossible!" One of the mech designers uttered in shock.

"It is not." Master Laila Rebecca Devos responded with a smile. "Every Woodsap mech is blessed by Gaia. Even the more basic variants are capable of regenerating small amounts of their structure with her blessing. The Woodsap mechs piloted by our elves carry a stronger blessing. Hence, their regeneration capabilities are even stronger. We will show you exactly what they are capable of in our subsequent demonstrations."

So far, the Woodsap mechs only showed off how well they could restore essential functions by cannibalizing lesser functions.

This was a desperate measure in the absence of external supplements.

What if they did enjoy additional help?

Then their ability to recover was much greater!

The Terrans directly showcased this advantage by towing Gaia Trees in the vicinity.

As soon as the weird-looking trees approached the damaged biomechs, they quickly began to break down!

The Woodsap mechs actively absorbed the fragments of TE Wood and rapidly restored their pristine looks!

"Fast!"

Even the most seriously damaged biomech only took less than half a minute to return to full functionality!

If the attendees hadn't seen the Woodsap mechs attack each other with live weapons, they wouldn't have believed that they had become half-crippled a little earlier!

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