The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1785

Three Wodins and one Larkinson settled down at the lounge.

To the consternation of the Hexers, Gloriana chose to sit besides Ves and compel him to wrap his arm around her. Though they often sat together like this, how could her brother and cousin feel at ease when a grubby third-rater put his paw on an exalted Hexer?

Though Ves noticed their dissatisfaction, most of his attention was placed on the strange activity exhibited by Brutus’ force of will.

He encountered several expert pilots over his lifetime. The most recent one besides Brutus was Venerable Ghanso, who possessed a very offense-oriented force of will.

Both Ghanso and Brutus appeared to be ranged mech specialists, but they adopted different convictions.

Ghanso’s force of will mostly centered around himself. His offense-oriented force of will was an expression of his belief that defeating his enemies was the best way to do his duty!

His force of will mostly honed his aggression and strengthened his commitment to duty. Part of the reason why he obsessed so much about obeying authority and completing his mission was because these values formed the spiritual foundation of his force of will!

In contrast, despite specializing in an offensive mech, Brutus piloted mechs for a very different purpose.

His main priority was to protect his family or the people he cared about. As Ves carefully sampled the ’protective blanket’ that Brutus unconsciously formed around Gloriana, he knew that the brotherly love the expert pilot held for his sister was incredibly strong!

Ves quickly realized that this kind of love and devotion surpassed most instances of affection between brothers and sisters!

When any expert pilot to dedicate the essence of his will towards a cause, they formed a lifelong obsession around it. Their spirituality, their personality, their thoughts and their emotions had all gathered together to birth this force of will, and in turn the incredible might of an empowered will fed back to its originators and warped them further into its image!

In essence, when expert candidates and expert pilots formed their empowered wills, the latter essentially began to hypnotize the former!

When a force of will further contaminated the rest of the mind of an expert pilot, their mentality became more and more compatible with the force of will.

This was a mutually-reinforcing cycle and one of the ways for expert pilots to advance and grow in strength.

As long as an expert pilot dedicated himself further towards the pursuit he had chosen, he would be rewarded by increasing the foundation of his strength!

Just like Pavlov’s dog, the positive feedback stimulated the expert pilot into dedicating himself further towards his conviction!

What did all of this mean? Expert pilots placed a very high emphasis on sticking to their values and acting according to their principles!

This made them incredibly stubborn whenever these core values and principles were involved. It was virtually impossible to change their minds on the matters that touched their hearts and wills the most!

So when Ves witnessed Venerable Brutus caring so much for Gloriana that his force of will freely enveloped her like a shield, he knew that he had no choice but to overcome this hurdle!

An overprotective brother was bad enough, but when this person also happened to be an expert pilot, Ves could not brush him aside like he planned to do with every other Hexer!

No matter what, Ves could not avoid this test!

Once Brutus opposed his relationship with Gloriana in earnest, how could Ves rest easy?

Even if Brutus was just a ’boy’, he was still a Wodin and an expert pilot! His ill impression towards Ves would definitely affect the stance of the rest of the Wodin Dynasty!

On the other hand, if Ves managed to gain Brutus’ approval, he would get a very powerful helper.

While winning Brutus over was not as good as winning over a female Hexer, at the very least his protectiveness towards his sister could be exploited for many ends!

Once Ves made these silent calculations in his mind, he suppressed any dissatisfaction towards Brutus. When his interests were at stake, what did it matter if Gloriana’s brother was less than enthused?

The only complication was that Brutus’ dislike towards Ves actually affected the operation of the protective blanket.

Even as Ves kept trying to make small talk, as long as Gloriana’s body continued to press against his own, her protective blanket continued to prickle him! It was as if a thousand spiritual needles were pressing against his skin!

A normal human would have felt incredibly uncomfortable or even pained if they faced this manifestation of Venerable Brutus’ force of will.

Fortunately, Ves was very experienced in spiritual matters and possessed a certain degree of strength in this aspect. The protective blanket may be threatening, but it mainly attacked the minds of those Brutus regarded with hostility.

Ves was very confident in his mental strength. Compared to spiritual attacks he experienced in the past, this kind of pressure was not enough to shake his intentions!

His continued proximity to Gloriana began to annoy Brutus further. Perhaps he wasn’t used to seeing that the pressure he exerted had failed to make a difference.

"Gloriana." He spoke up, directing his attention towards his loving sister. His previous frown turned into a gentle smile now that he faced his sister. "When will you return to the Hegemony? We have all been waiting for you to go back. There is no point in continuing to meddle in the Sand War when the Komodo War will soon reach its peak. Our home state needs you! Continuing to play in this impoverished region and remaining vulnerable to Fridayman predation is highly inadvisable!"

"I already told you, brother. I’m staying with Ves until we are ready to return! Right now, we are still in the middle of exploring our synergies and finding ways to strengthen our specialties! You’re not a mech designer, Brutus! You don’t know what it’s like to finally find a mech designer who can enable my passion! Let me show you what we have done in the last year."

Gloriana enthusiastically activated a central projector and began to highlight all of their successful design projects, starting with the Desolate Soldier!