The Mech Touch

Since Ves was the parent of the Solemn Guardian, the spiritual product trusted him a lot. While it already started communicating with hundreds of early adopters of the Desolate Soldier and Holy Soldier model, none of their voices weighed as much as the voice of its creator.

Ves didn't have to resort to drastic measures to influence the Solemn Guardian's development. He merely instructed the Solemn Guardian and prodded certain aspects of his spiritual makeup.

Of course, He held no illusions that he would be able to exert total control over the Solemn Guardian's development. It was already good enough to discourage it from developing a couple of undesirable habits.

"Hopefully, it's enough to prevent it from converting to the Ylvainan Faith. That would be a true disaster!"

For now, sales of his new products were already on track to smashing the LMC's previous records. The production of his mechs reached an even higher figure as Ves and the LMC made a very costly bet.

They bet that the demand for Desolate Soldiers would take off. They bet that the market would quickly order the mech in such large numbers that the LMC could never possibly contract enough third-party manufacturers to keep up with demand!

Though Ves possessed a lot of confidence in his work, he still doubted whether the market would be able to recognize the merits of his mech design. The LMC already blatantly promoted the Desolate Soldier's ability to inspire duty to mech pilots and bystanders, but would everyone else believe this outlandish claim?

When Ves met with Gloriana at the workshop compartment, he voiced some of his concerns.

"Hmm. I'm not really familiar with third-class mech markets, but in the Hegemony it's not unusual for Journeymen to sell hundreds of thousands of copies a year. Our mech market is much bigger, but our market is also more competitive. When you are forced to compete against Master Mech Designers, only the most exceptional mech designers are able to surpass this threshold!"

"Why would a mech buyer opt to buy a mech designed by a Journeyman as opposed to a Master?" Ves curiously asked.

"They're not irrational, if that's what you're thinking. There are perfectly rational reasons to buy a mech designed by a Journeyman. In general, every Master abides by the unwritten custom to price their products in relation to their value. The better they perform, the more expensive it is to buy them. Journeymen are still able to achieve considerable sales figures by severely discounting the prices of their products. Sure, their profits aren't anything to boast about, but proving your ability to sell lots of mechs opens up a lot of opportunities."

"Is that the only reason?"

"Well, sometimes the specialties of Masters can be rather peculiar. Not everyone needs a mech that is able to absorb a huge amount of shock or can transform into an alternate configuration. Lesser mech designers are able to fulfill thousands of different niches that Masters don't bother with. Do you understand now?"

Ves nodded. That was similar to the situation at home.

"Do you think the sales projections of our Desolate Soldier design are overblown?"

"Nope. It's clear to me that our work is incredibly valuable." She replied with absolute confidence. "If the mech market doesn't accept our Desolate Soldiers, I will make people appreciate them! No one gets away with disrespecting our precious mechs!"

Her words alarmed Ves. "Let's not do anything drastic, Gloriana! I think it's best to wait and see how it goes."

The LMC and by extension Ves claimed total ownership of the Desolate Soldier and Holy Soldier designs. Even though Gloriana contributed considerably to their designs, she was already satisfied with receiving credit.

As a result, Gloriana did not even earn a single credit from the sales no matter how high they reached.

She simply didn't care about the amount of money she stood to earn this time. She knew that the margins of the Desolate Soldier and its variant were already low. If she claimed a 20 percent share of the profits which she rightfully earned, the LMC would be put under more pressure.

Of course, not even Gloriana foresaw that the sales of the Desolate Soldier and Holy Soldier could reach the hundreds of thousands.

At such a height, the monthly profits reached a figure that even Gloriana could no longer remain impassive!

Still, she did not show any signs of wanting to claim any share. She knew that Ves and his mech company needed the money more. The only thing she could do with her share was to put it into a pot reserved for funding their expeditionary fleet.

While the money required to fund the fleet was incredibly high, they still had a decade to go. At this stage, it was much better to invest the LMC's current profits into expanding its reach and production capacity.

The greater the LMC's capabilities, the more impressive Ves became in the eyes of the Wodin Family. While selling lots of third-class mechs was not enough to earn their approval, his success at least increased his resume.

Besides, it was not impossible that the LMC earned so many profits one day that it could cover a considerable share of the cost of their expeditionary fleet. Even if the money the LMC made could only lessen the burden by a tenth, that still made life a lot easier for the pair!

They set aside their speculation for the time being and moved on to their current design project.

Ves knew that he wouldn't be able to do much to influence the sales of his Desolate Soldier model. He might as well distract himself by working on another mech design.

As for Gloriana, she simply enjoyed collaborating with her boyfriend. Ves had the impression that she was happiest when they worked together on a mech design where they could both express their specialties to their fullest.

As they went back to overhauling the Desolate Soldier design to fit William Urbesh, both of them learned from each other's specialties.

Just as Gloriana taught him some of the basics on how to customize a mech to suit a specific mech pilot, Ves reciprocated by teaching her some of his tricks of the trade.

"You're not concentrating enough." He frowned at her. "I thought we agreed on adopting the prior vision design method. Why is your mind beginning to wander off?"

She sighed. "I just can't help it, Ves. I've dreamt about working together on a custom mech design project for almost a year! How can I not enjoy this precious moment of ours?"

This prompted Ves to pause his work and turn towards his girlfriend sitting next to him. He grasped her soft and slender fingers and squeezed them. Gloriana let out a delighted squeal.

"I love you, Gloriana. It's all well and good to revel in your emotions, but you should take care not to put too many inappropriate thoughts into our mech design."

"Why so? I'm happy! I enjoy working like this! Whenever I design a mech with you, I can't contain my excitement!"

"Try as best as you can to temper your excitement. Your thoughts will reflect on your mech design. While it's not very obvious, it's highly related to my design philosophy. Each mech we work upon carries an imprint of our thoughts and emotions."

"Why does this imprint matter?"

"Because it sets the foundation of my specialty? Remember how you feel when I imparted our designs with their spiritual components? The truth is that we attach this spiritual component to the spiritual internal frame I've formed by applying my mind while I worked on a design."

The explanation started to make sense to her. "So the quality of the spiritual internal frame will drop if we add too many distractions?"

"Right."

In truth, Ves still needed to test this assumption, but he had a strong hunch he was right. In any case, the spiritual foundation of his mech designs still played a role even if his design spirits often stole the show.

"So what do I have to do?"

"If you want me to give full play to my design philosophy, then you should concentrate your mind on the vision we formed for this project. By direction the bulk of your mental attention to our vision and all of the thinking that is necessary to realize it, you will mentally be able to imprint it onto our mech design."

"What is the purpose of this? Does it have to be done during the design process?"

"It's very important, Gloriana. It's too late to shape the spiritual foundation of our mech design once it's complete. The reason why we want to do this is manifold. Even without adding a spiritual component, the foundation can still exert a modest influence on the mech pilot. Its most important function is to form a bridge between the mech and mech pilot."

"I see!" She happily clapped again. "So we are actually setting up the divine foundation of our mech design! In order to make them as compatible to the mech design and accompanying proto-gods, all of their domains need to align with each other!"

Ves wanted to palm his face. He knew he should be grateful that she got the gist of his explanation. If there was one benefit to her weird beliefs, it was that she never exhibited any skepticism as long as she found a way to fit his lessons in her religious framework.

He decided to move on.

"It's fine if you are thinking about me while you are working. I'm pretty much the same when it comes to you. It's just that we need to maintain the majority of our focus on our vision and on our work. Our mech design will absorb some of our focus in a coherent manner as long as our thoughts are pure enough."

"What about emotions?"

"As far as I know, passion and heated emotions can be a wonderful boon to our mech designs. The more we care about our work, the more pronounced the foundation we are building. As long as you take care not to impart too many irrelevant thoughts, it's fine if you are very happy for some reason."

"What happens if our thoughts aren't as pure as you'd like?"

"Then we end up with a foundation that resembles a mud pool. Since it lacks a strong and focused direction, it ends up achieving nothing. Do you understand the importance of holding on to a single vision now?"

She tentatively nodded. "I'm not used to concentrating my mind in this way."

"Just try it out. You don't have to maintain perfect concentration. I can use my own mental strength to smooth over any wrinkles in our mech design."

They got off on a bumpy start. Unlike Ves who could observe and get a feel for the spiritual foundation of their work, Gloriana had to act blindly in maintaining what she thought was a sufficient amount of concentration.

Gloriana only possessed average concentration, so her focus frequently slipped.

Nonetheless, this result was a lot better than before. Ves could easily clean up her messes this time, unlike before where her wandering mind produced too many distractions for him to keep up after some time!

As Gloriana continued to follow his instructions, she became a little more adept at maintaining her concentration in this fashion. She no longer let her whimsies and impulses disturb her work, though she frequently demanded breaks in order to cuddle up to him and enjoy his company.

"I love these moments when we are together." She smiled as she leaned on his chest.

Ves noticed that she worked better and put more feeling in her work whenever they shared these breaks together.

What was more, her happiness was infectious. Each time she became happy, Ves felt the same way!

Happiness not only fueled their passion, but also brought them together. When both of them felt the same way, much less friction occurred during their work.