The Mech Touch

The process of activating the P.P. was fairly simple.

After Master Willix fiddled with the configuration, she commanded Ves to approach the device and put his arm through a slot that opened up at the base of the pylon.

An energy clamp suddenly held him in place while some sort of force tugged at his mind and spirit!

"AAHHH! WHAT THE HELL?!"

The P.P. generated some kind of energy field that was very disturbing to Ves! Not only that, but some of the neutral spiritual energy stored within the depths of the obelisk flowed out and enveloped his body.

Despite its neutral quality, the foreign spiritual energy was very high quality and therefore quite painful to come in direct contact with. Ves felt as if he was submerging his head in a pot filled with boiling water!

"Endure, Mr. Larkinson. This binding process will fail if you put up too much resistance."

This painful process lasted for up to half a minute. By that point, the neutral spiritual energy receded into the pylon, taking something extra in the process!

The process ended quickly after that. The binding that held his arm in place disappeared, allowing him to pull it out. He quickly took a few steps back as he looked fearfully at his P.P.

"What was that?!"

"That is the P.P. extracting some of your psionic power. It hurts because it is damaging to you. While you will recover in time, I advise you to avoid playing with other P.P.'s until you have recovered from this experience. This may take months or years."

As Ves recalled what took place at the end, he realized that the neutral spiritual energy somehow managed to siphon away some of his spiritual energy!

Ves lost enough to constitute a small spiritual fragment. If he knew this would happen, he would have carved it out on his own accord and just handed it over to his P.P. without any fuss!

He looked quite sour.

"Are P.P.'s dangerous?" He asked.

"They can be. If you bind just one of them, then there is no concern. It is when weaker mech designers become greedy and want more that will pose a problem. Mech designers who are in need of large amounts of funds think that using P.P.'s is a convenient means of expanding their market presence. Reaching more customers means higher sales, which in turn leads to higher revenue. However, binding too many P.P.'s consecutively will permanently damage their psionic power. For you and your partner, one should be enough. There is no need for your mech company to extend its effective market reach beyond the Yeina Star Cluster."

She was right. In the future, his design focus would be oriented around the Red Ocean's mech market. Ves only wanted to maintain a presence in the Komodo Star Sector and the surrounding region because the LMC was already rooted here. He also wanted to make sure that his father and the Larkinson Family would be able to make use of his products at their prime.

Ves cared little about selling his mechs to the rest of the galactic rim. While he was sure that his glows were desirable enough to be in high demand in many more star clusters, he doubted that the LMC would be able to control so many regionalized operations at once.

Perhaps he might have a chance if he continued to reside in the galactic rim, but since he and his entire clan would be leaving for the Red Ocean, the distance was too great to do anything more.

In a way, he agreed with Master Willix's underlying message. Journeymen such as him shouldn't be too eager to enter into markets he had no business touching in the first place.

Instead, he should develop himself honestly and advance his design philosophy. Once he advanced to Senior or Master, a lot more markets opened up to him without messing with any P.P.'s.

According to Master Willix, only Masters were truly qualified to compete against the entire mech industry!

While Ves already tasted the benefits of selling his mechs to a large number of states, he knew he couldn't be too unbridled in his expansion. Already, the competition in other star sectors was pushing back hard against the encroachment of LMC mechs. His mech company didn't have the energy to fight back against too much organized opposition.

He turned his attention back to his activated P.P. Now that it took some essence from him, Ves perceived some mysterious transformation taking place inside its depths. Soon, the pylon's technological components started to activate.

A powerful wave of spirituality spread from his newly-bound P.P.!

His P.P. spurted several times as it kicked into gear. Eventually, it achieved equilibrium, causing it to propagate weak but very familiar waves that extended across vast distances.

The pylon copied his design seed's ability to extend its influence across a huge distance!

Another way to look at it was that his P.P. turned into his surrogate. It turned into a serviceable substitute for his physical presence!

Master Willix called up a console and studied the data supplied by the pylon.

"The binding process has succeeded. From now on, you can depart to the Red Ocean without the concern that your business empire in your native star cluster will collapse."

Ves relaxed. He was glad it succeeded in one shot. He didn't want to repeat this experience!

"What happens to my P.P.? Will I need to take care of it myself?"

"That won't be necessary." She shook her head. "We will ship it to our cluster headquarters."

"Not Centerpoint?"

"No. Your P.P. is a cluster-wide model. It is not optimal to store your P.P. in this star sector due to its remote location. The Winged Serenade Star Sector sits in the center of the Yeina Star Cluster. Placing your P.P. here will ensure your design philosophy affects the most territory that matters. You don't need to be concerned. The Komodo Star Sector will still fall under its range."

Now that Ves completed the process, they withdrew from her mech workshop. They entered one of her offices in order to discuss other matters.

"Mr. Larkinson. I have extensively examined your lessons on your design philosophy. I have also analyzed the extensive footage, logs and other data of your latest battle. I've developed numerous questions."

"Ask away."

She proceeded to ask some tricky and insightful questions. Ves had to reach deep into his design philosophy in order to clarify her confusion.

Even though she was still incapable of designing living mechs, her theoretical understanding of his design philosophy had caught up very fast!

In some instances, her questions opened some angles to him that he hadn't even considered. This provided some useful avenues for future research!

Once they finished the question-and-answer session, Master Willix moved on to her remaining obligation.

"Now that you have concluded your wedding and surrendered your captured warships to us, my presence isn't needed anymore. I will be returning to Centerpoint soon."

That was both good and bad to Ves.

On one hand, Master Willix was one of the most effective protective talismans that he possessed. She was one of the scariest guard dogs in the galaxy. As long as she was nearby, not a single pirate or enemy dared to launch an attack on him, especially when she showered him with so much favor!

On the other hand, Ves continued to feel uncomfortable about doing anything when the MTA was close enough to look over his shoulders. No matter what deal they struck, their different identities ensured they would never be completely aligned! 

"Does that mean that you will contribute to our planned expert mech design projects by remote?"

She nodded curtly. "Your Darkbreak module is secure enough to allow us to collaborate without concerns. Let's move onto the projects themselves. Have you developed any ideas on the mechs you ideally wish to realize?"

"Well, I don't have any solid draft designs, but I have sounded out the expert pilots who will receive work and take stock of my available resources. Overall, I want to start with designing high-tier expert mechs right away."

He elaborated on his expectations while he transferred some of the files and documents he prepared to Master Willix. It soon became clear that he intended to incorporate a lot of first-class materials.

"These materials are very remarkable." She raised her eyebrow. "Do you know the value of what you hold?"

Ves smiled at her. "There is little sense in hoarding them. I can think of no better use for them than this. At this time, my partner and I have to go through a lot of effort to design an expert mech. Since we are able to collaborate with you for a time, I don't want to waste this opportunity to design some basic models that will only serve their purpose for a couple a years. I want to invest in the development of our high-ranking mech pilots as much as possible, and providing them with high-performing expert mechs is a necessity!"

She understood his rationale, though she didn't entirely agree with him. "High-performance expert mechs are very difficult to utilize effectively when their intended users are still just starting out as expert pilots. While you are correct if you only consider the long-term outcomes, in the short and medium term, your expert pilots must constantly struggle to channel the raw power of their extraordinary machines."

The problem appeared to be greater than he initially thought. It was like handing over an extremely expensive musical instrument to a beginner artist. The individual in question wasn't proficient enough to make full use of such an extravagant device!

Even so, Ves still believed his course was correct. He would rather deal with this problem than face the prospect of having to design a new set of expert mechs to replace the simpler machines down the line.

"It's not cost-effective to go for the traditional route. First, I am pretty sure that all of our expert pilots under our care will be able to progress faster and with fewer hindrances than others. Second, since we only employ Journeymen at best, we have to find an external Master to collaborate with, and that will cost me millions of MTA merits that I can't afford to spend."

That last reason was the most important one to Ves. He may be swimming in MTA merits right now, but he earned every single merit through blood, sweat and tears. He did not relish going on another dangerous campaign in order to harvest another batch of merits!

She seemed to realize this as well, so she no longer attempted to discourage him. She just wanted to ensure that Ves became aware of the consequences of his decision.

"Let's talk about the process of our collaboration." She moved on. "You told me that you wish to maintain as much creative control over your expert mech design as possible, is that correct?"

He nodded. "I want the expert mechs of our clan to reflect our unique strengths, not yours."

"The quality of your expert mechs will not be on par, then. You will be wasting a considerable amount of potential of the materials you put into your expert mechs."

"I am confident that Gloriana and I can continue to iterate on the designs over time."

"Very well, then. Personally, I approve. While you may have been tempted to rely on my formidable design abilities to maximize the performance of your expert mechs as much as possible, you will not be able to gain as much from their development. Your choice also minimizes my time commitment, which is also a boon."

Of course she would mention that.

Ves also hadn't forgotten about the original reason why she agreed to collaborate with him. She wanted to witness him apply his design philosophy and proprietary methods to his mech designs up close. He wouldn't have much room to do so if she was doing most of the work!