The Mech Touch

Over the course of supervising the steady progress of the four minor mech design projects, Ves slowly became more familiar with the assistants he hired.

The brave mech designers who passed the stringent final selection process through grit and courage already began to distinguish themselves from the assistants left behind at Cinach.

Due to all of the recent drilling they endured and the fact that they were part of a combat fleet, the Braves as they began to call themselves already began to develop their own identity.

Through the instruction and direction provided by Ves whenever the teams reported on their progress, he gradually imparted some of his design preferences in their minds.

Overall, Ves wanted the Braves to prioritize simplicity, practicality, cost efficiency, ruggedness, and timeliness.

He wanted to mold them into mech designers who did not act like sensitive princesses who couldn't stand the sight of an ugly stain on the floor.

Though Ves cared a lot about quality and performance, he valued practicality a lot more. Some situations simply didn't allow for thoroughness. His many experiences during the Bright-Vesia War had forced him to resort to quick and dirty methods many times in order to survive.

Rather than letting the Braves learn this lesson when the situation grew perilous, Ves might as well push them in this direction beforehand so that they would become better prepared.

Normally, Ves did not wish to influence the development of other mech designers to such a degree.

If possible, he wanted to give mech designers the room to find their own design styles and develop their own approach towards mech design.

This was what he had patiently done with Ketis. Even though she still inherited many of his traits and outlooks, at the very least she had a choice in the matter.

"I can't adopt this approach again."

He possessed much less emotional investment in his regular assistant mech designers. No matter how much they botched their own development, Ves would hardly shed a tear for their misfortune.

Assistants such as Moltar Ringer, Rina Orion, Estelle Lynwood and Catherine Evenson exhibited a lot of promise.

However, he did not need all of them to stand out and advance into promising Journeymen. Only one would do. The rest just needed to do their jobs of assisting his work earnestly while molding their design approach closer to his own. Even if their future did not allow them to ascend to higher heights, as long as they remained useful cogs in the machine, everything was fine!

That said, Ves did not wish to become a ruthless taskmaster who only knew how to whip his slaves. As a mech designer, he possessed the responsibility of guiding and mentoring others in his profession.

Since he led the Braves, he became responsible for them as well. While Ves was unwilling to invest a vast amount of time, resources and attention on their development, he did not believe his assistants needed any coddling.

After establishing a working merit system, the assistants could choose to contribute to the LMC and the Larkinson Clan through several methods. By earning a lot of merits and exchanging them for some potent rewards, the ambitious among the group of assistants would be able to climb their way up through their own efforts!

The industriousness of the assistants had surprised Ves a lot. None of the assistants were average people. Whether they were Braves or Erudites, they both worked diligently and tried their best to stand out and receive the favor of their superiors.

It was unavoidable that Ves and Gloriana both picked their favorites after several weeks of progress.

In general, the Braves consisted of colorful characters who came from a wide variety of backgrounds.

For example, Moltar Ringer used to be a Reinaldan before he joined the Larkinson Clan. Due to the state's murky legal practices and the state's recent devastation during the Sand War, Moltar ended up deep in debt.

Everything changed once he joined the Larkinson Clan. As a member of a tight-knit organization that had become as wealthy as some of the Hexadric Hegemony's minor dynasties, the little debt that Moltar owed to Reinaldan money lenders no longer became a problem!

As a result, the Reinaldan began to view the Larkinson Clan and Ves in particular as his savior. The man's incredible passion and drive infused a lot of energy in the Fifth Design Team, which he led with enthusiasm.

Out of all of the Braves under his supervision, Ves identified himself most with Moltar.

Both of them came from modest, lowborn backgrounds. Both of them had to work hard to crawl their way upwards. Both of them were emotional. Both of them earned some lucky breaks that allowed them to shoot up and bloom in greater splendor.

Most of all, both Ves and Moltar possessed the same trait that allowed them to thrive under pressure.

Combined with the fact that Moltar possessed spiritual potential, Ves already developed high expectations towards the team leader.

It just so happened that the fellow spent one of his rare and precious merits for an individual tutoring session with Ves!

No one else had requested this service as of yet, so Ves wanted to make sure he provided plenty of value in the form of helpful guidance and useful advice.

When Moltar entered one of the offices next to the design lab, he sat down at the chair in front of the desk.

Ves already sat on the opposite side. In order to prepare for this session, he briefly studied Moltar's record. He not only became up to date with the Reinaldan's past, but also the work he performed on the Sanctuary Project.

"Welcome to your first tutoring session." He greeted the team leader. "First of all, let me say that I will endeavor to use my knowledge, experience and insights to provide guidance to you. This means that everything I say is colored by my own personal biases. Do you understand the implications of this warning?"

The assistant diligently nodded. "I do not mind. Any guidance is better than no guidance. I have long been on my own since I graduated. I had to fumble my way to Apprentice and I still struggled to keep my former mech company afloat."

"Very well. Since you consent to receiving my personal guidance, let us start this session. Let us start with your design philosophy. According to your record, you are aiming to specialize in signal disruption, correct?"

"Right." He nodded. "Back in the Reinald Republic, I tried to focus on designing and selling mechs that would allow me to gain a footing in the mech market. I noticed that there are a lot of.. irregular outfits who needed a cheap and potentially disposable means of interfering with enemy communication signals. While there are plenty of good mech models that can achieve this job, they are too fancy and expensive for the audience I'm talking about. As for the cheaper ones, they're products developed by beginner mech designers who just want to earn some quick Reinaldan marks."

"So you decided to take the bold step and specialize in signal disruption in order to occupy this niche?"

"Yes…" Moltar briefly looked away.

Signal disruption did not sound like a glamorous specialization. In his record, it was classified as a Class II offensive design philosophy, but strictly speaking it leaned more towards utility.

Mech designers were humans as well. If they possessed the right opportunities, they were much likelier to pursue flashier and more impressive design philosophies!

This was why the design philosophies of most third-class mech designers weren't as sophisticated as those developed by their second-class counterparts.

In this regard, Moltar was more unfortunate than most and had to specialize in something that allowed him to survive in the mech industry rather than match his actual inclinations.

However, for him to become good enough to join the Larkinson Clan, he made an earnest effort in progressing his design philosophy!

"Are you passionate about signal disruption?"

"Not at the start." Moltar admitted. "Over the years, I found it increasingly more interesting. There are many different communication methods in use by humanity. There are ways to weaken them, block them and even hijack them! Though I can't accomplish anything fancy, I am already happy if my mechs are used to stymie the plans of the opponents of my customers."

The assistant truly sounded sincere. When Ves observed Moltar through his spiritual senses, he could pick up the former Reinaldan's faint spiritual activity.

That was a good sign. If Moltar held no passion towards his chosen specialty, then he didn't have a future in it. Ves would have encouraged the man to adopt a different design philosophy in that case.

"Tell me about your ambition." Ves asked. "Every mech designer seeks to fulfill an impossible dream. What is the mech you are aiming to design if you are ever able to reach the rank of Master?"

Moltar hesitated for a moment, but since he was talking to a fellow mech designer, he quickly got over this hurdle.

"I.. I envision designing a mech that can impose total solitude across an entire star system. I want to design and build a mech that imposes its entire dominion across light-hours! From one end of a star system to the other end, I want every asteroid, every moon, every planet and all of the space in between to become cut off from each other! Not a single hostile will be able to transmit any signal to their comrades!"

What a great ambition! The power required to accomplish this must be insane, and so was the exact implementation. The difficulty increased tremendously when the opponents of Moltar's dream mech became more powerful.

Trying to disrupt every communication method, from conventional electromagnetic waves to quantum entanglement, was very difficult to accomplish, especially since the mech had to block every possible method at the same time.

At his current level, Moltar did not need to aim so high. It was sufficient if he could design mechs that could block every conventional means of communication between ordinary third-class mechs.

"Well, you certainly aren't short of ambition. I think this is a worthy goal to pursue." Ves commented. "Right now, where do you think you stand?"

"I have performed a lot of research in my chosen field. Since I joined the clan, I borrowed several interesting books from the Larkinson Library. Reading the textbooks from Clarion University has opened my eyes to many more communication methods. I still have a long way to go before I can develop means to interfere with all of them. In fact, it might take too long."

As Moltar explained his situation further, Ves gained a sense that the man was splintering too much.

Ves abruptly raised his palm. "Stop for a moment and think back on what you said."

"Do you think I'm spreading myself too thin?"

"If you are cognizant enough to become aware of this shortcoming, why do you persist?"

"That's because my specialization requires me to provide a means to disrupt every signal transmission method."

Ves chuckled. "Moltar, no offense, but the amount of communication methods that both humans and aliens have invented is far larger than you think. If you develop specific signal disruption methods for each and everyone of them, you will need several centuries to accomplish your goal!"

"I will learn faster once I earn enough merits and augment myself." Moltar confidently said.

"While it is true that a good cranial implant and an intelligence-focused gene mod template can boost your raw learning ability, you still won't be able to see the forest from the trees."

"What do you mean?" Moltar frowned.

"I'm telling you that if you are truly dedicated towards signal disruption, that you should focus on developing more global, inventive and unique methods to accomplish your goal. Rather than learn or develop one specific method for radio communications, tightbeam laser communications and etcetera, why not come up with a way to block all forms of electromagnetic signal transmission?"

Moltar frowned and reflexively shook his head. "While there are means to do so, the more you try to stretch a solution, the less effective it becomes."

"Says who?" Ves shot back. "Just because it hasn't been done effectively before does not mean you can upend this paradigm. If you just focus on a limited number of broader implementations and focus on combining them even further, you might not be able to spread as much as you planned, but at the very least you can go deeper than anyone else. This is not only a more practical development path, but it will push you into spending your time on research and development."

The profound insight in those words struck Moltar like lightning! His eyes widened in realization!

"This is how true mech designers progress." Ves stated. "If you keep studying other people's work, how can you ever accomplish anything meaningful? Every Journeyman has arrived at this rank by developing their own original research. If you ever want to amount to something, then stop following other people's footsteps and start blazing your own trail!"