Chapter 725: Pilot

Chapter 725: Pilot

“Yes… Not just fluctuations,” Rhona clarified.

“I’m talking feedback loops—dangerous ones. The kind that can cause a reactor to overclock itself into a meltdown… The worst part? It’s intermittent. We’ve seen the same output under identical conditions—sometimes stable, sometimes not.”

She brought up a live feed from one of the monitoring bays. AEGIS-03 stood motionless in the testing bay. But its core pulsed unevenly. Instead of the expected rhythmic hum, its energy output blipped and surged, almost like it was… resisting calibration.

Shane wasn’t sure if it was due to the newly introduced Mana Stones that he obtained in the pocket dimension or the Fairy Realm.

Shane’s eyes narrowed. “This wasn’t happening in the simulations.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Rhona agreed grimly. “Which is why I dug into the integration layers. Remember the new device, the stabilizer, that the elves created and used to bridge the Mana into our more human-standard circuitry?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“I think that’s where the problem lies.” She expanded the schematic and pointed at the thin glowing thread connecting two circuits. “It’s not compatible under long exposure. The stabilizer’s overcompensating for energy flow, trying to equalize mana between the human control interface and the elven arrangement or magic or whatever they used on it. It worked during bursts, but over time, the core starts interpreting it as a magical parasite—and fights back. That is how I interpret it at the very least…”

Shane gently nodded after hearing this. When he had introduced the Mana Stones and asked the Elves to create an item to make it a power source, he knew that it would not be easy. The Elves he recruited weren’t really full-time Craftsmen. They only knew a few things about it.

Because of that, he expected some troubles to come up. However, it seemed that Mana Stones could only be used as a simpler Energy Source. If it were used as a power source for Mech Frames, some complications might appear.

Shane cursed under his breath.

“This could be a huge problem…” Shane muttered. He was already considering whether they should abandon the Mana Stones. However, he was really hoping for this to work since he had plenty of Mana Stones. Furthermore, the World Tree sprout was already in this world. Soon, they would get more supplies of Mana Stones, not just in his pocket dimension.

Rhona nodded. “Exactly… I’m thinking if we have to ask the Elves to redo their device.”

“What about AEGIS-05?” Shane asked.

“That one’s worse,” she admitted. “Unit-5 is showing signs of external broadcast attempts… Which should be impossible.”

Shane stopped walking, now deeply focused. “Broadcast attempts? Is someone trying to access the mech remotely?”

“We can’t be sure,” she said, tapping her gauntlet again to pull up another waveform chart. “The broadcast signal originates inside the unit itself. No external source, no antennae. And yet, these pulses? They’re structured—like a call… or a response.”

Shane was silent for a few seconds.

“Could be legacy code from the Anima Civilization’s neural imprint protocols,” he said, voice low. “If there’s an echo of the old AI framework in those shards we recovered… it might be waking up.”

Shane muttered as he recalled that this problem was quite similar to some experiences he had in the Anima Civilization.

However, Shane immediately smiled as he recalled that such problems were also resolved if it was piloted by someone with at least 95% Sync Rate.

It was something that couldn’t really be explained even during his time in the A.I. Rebellion.

The matter of the sync rate and how it was being calculated was simply too mysterious. Furthermore, the chasm of 94% Sync Rate and 95% Sync Rate was actually a huge problem. There were only 1 out of a hundred Pilots who were actually able to reach this level.

This was a huge issue considering the fact that Pilots are already quite rare.

Still, with the leveling system, Shane believed that it would just be a matter of time for the pilots to reach this state…

“You think they’re sentient?” Rhona asked, half-joking—half not.

Shane didn’t laugh. “Not sentient, but… intelligent enough to resist certain configurations. Especially if those blueprints were meant to be used with something else originally. Anyway, it will be resolved once we find a pilot that could reach 95% Sync Rate…

“That high? That’s not going to be easy…”

Rhona cursed softly.

Shane stood quietly for a few moments, eyes scanning the flickering displays still showing unstable feedback patterns from AEGIS-03 and AEGIS-05…

“Alright… We’ll call in the Elves. Get Lora and that other elf–what’s his name?”

“Elden,” Rhona replied as she immediately sent someone to find the elves.

After all, she doesn’t have the authority to manage the Elves. They were quite special for a good reason.

Now that Shane had a go signal, she could finally just call them out.

“He’s the one who crafted the first prototype stabilizer.”

“Perfect. Have them report to Engineering Bay 7. I want them to work directly with you to dissect that stabilizer—reverse engineer it if they have to. No shortcuts. Tell them we need full mana compatibility or nothing at all. No more patches.”

“Understood, sir. I’ll break it down to them,” Rhona said with her tone shifting into her professional zone.

Shane gave a tired chuckle as there was nothing he could do about this anymore. “Good. Now… I’m going to try something…”

Rhona raised an eyebrow. “Sir?”

“I’m getting in the cockpit,” Shane said flatly. “AEGIS-04 Bastion should be fine, right?”

There was a pause. Even Rhona looked momentarily surprised. “You? Commander, I have never seen you attend any training…”

“Hey… I made those training materials, you know?” Shane replied.

“Although I’ve never tried piloting one ever since you created them. I think I can still do it.” Shane added he couldn’t tell her that in his past life, Mech Frames were quite common in their battles against the Anima Civilization.

He began walking toward the next hangar bay, motioning for Rhona to follow.

“I won’t stop you,” Rhona said with a shrug. “But just so you know… Bastion isn’t the most forgiving of Frames. She’s heavy, grounded. Takes a lot of control to finesse.”