The Mech Touch

The chief ministers all came up with lots of ideas, some of which sounded great to Ves. He was quite happy that they already showed a lot of initiative in addressing the various issues that the clan hadn't been paying attention to. He would have never come up with these solutions himself because a lot of underlying problems failed to enter his sights.

The advantages of appointing three chief ministers instead of one became apparent as well. Though Novilon was not able to exercise as much discretion as his father had hoped, working alongside three very different Larkinsons who came from different wings of the clan soundly covered the areas where the former Purnesser was not inclined to pay attention either.

This would probably become the model of the institution of chief ministers going forward.

The only minor complaint he had was that the title of chief minister itself sounded unwieldy, but that was not a big deal.

Obviously, Ves couldn't completely divest himself from his responsibilities as patriarch. Some of the proposals were so impactful and wide-reaching that he had to make sure that they aligned with his own ideas.

"I'm glad that we could all come together so that I can get up to date with the initiatives you are working on." He said at the end of the meeting. "I'm quite satisfied with what I have heard. Each of you have unique visions of what needs to be done, and I wouldn't have agreed to appoint you if I doubted your judgement."

"We try our best to make the clan better every day." Novilon spoke like a true politician. "It is a challenge but also a pleasure to lead a young and growing organization. As a space-faring clan, the problems we face are different and many solutions cannot be employed due to the absence of territory or fixed locations. This circumstance will grow much worse once we enter the Red Ocean. The only way for us to keep up is to become more inventive."

The Larkinson Clan was unique. From being led by a mech designer to entrusting recently-recruited personnel to important positions, the clan could not be equated to other spaceborn clans.

Ves stood up from his seat. "I don't have any further comments on most of your plans, but I have my own ideas about the proposal to mint our own coin and the initiative to set up a military reserve. I'll speak to you later about them when I have the time."

He had a couple of special ideas in mind to increase the effectiveness of both. While he could have allowed Raymond and Magdalena to implement these respective plans like normal, Ves did not want to stick to the normal approach when he was capable of doing more.

Once the chief ministers left his office, Ves spent the rest of his day on various other matters. He still had to pretend to wait until Mr. S. got back with a revised design. Though the System had already supplied him with the revised work, he tried his best to suppress his impulses.

Someone as sensitive as Gloriana would probably be able to tell if he had already spent hours on studying the Superpublished design. She would probably crucify him if she realized that he already held the improved design for a time but kept it out of her hands!

A long day passed before Ves felt that enough time had passed to present the design that had ostensibly been improved by a mysterious patron.

Ves didn't bother with informing the assistants. Instead, he called Gloriana, Juliet and Ketis over to a secure room inside the design lab and waited until his honor guard had jammed the entire space.

Gloriana looked incredibly excited. Even Clixie got caught up in the excitement as the furry cat received a lot of hugs and pets recently.

"Miaow."

"What's this all about, Ves?" Ketis asked. "I haven't been working on the Sentry Project at all these days, so why am I here?"

"I know that ranged mechs aren't your thing, but what I am about to show you will likely be able to teach you a thing or two on how to push your design ability to the next level. You did contribute to some of the mech in the earlier stages, so the Sentry Project is not completely irrelevant to you." Ves turned to Juliet. "Your contribution is a lot greater since you have worked a lot on the expert rifleman mech's flight system. Even if it isn't as powerful as that of the Dark Zephyr, I believe you'll be pleasantly surprised to see how it has transformed."

The two women looked confused.

"What do you mean, sir?" Juliet modestly asked. "Have you managed to convince Master Willix to optimize our expert mech design further?"

Ves grinned. "You're on the right track. I did entrust our expert mech design to a powerful mech designer. He.. is my patron of sorts. While I can't tell you much about him, just know that this is a precious opportunity for you to look into a future mirror of yourself. Take advantage of what you will see and learn from this experience."

As he talked, Gloriana grew increasingly more impatient. Even though only a short amount of time had passed since they gathered together, she was already staring daggers in his direction!

He did not dare to delay any further and promptly activated a large projection that showed off the Superpublished Sentry Project in multiple different forms, from a realistic mockup to a detailed wireframe diagram that exposed all of its internal nuances.

Every mech designer including Ves fell completely silent as they studied the new mech design.

On the surface, not a lot had changed. The outwards appearance of the mech alone was more than 95 percent identical to the last iteration that the Design Department had developed. An average person on the street probably would probably think the two designs were identical!

Ves and the others weren't laymen, though. They were skilled and passionate mech designers who trained their vision for mechs to an exceptional degree.

An invisible ripple spread from this room. The subtle changes that were applied throughout the entire design were incredibly profound, so much so that all four Journeyman momentarily lost all of their situational awareness.

Their entire attention had been sucked into the beautiful and more refined mech design!

"This.. this is exactly what I need…" Gloriana muttered to herself as her eyes became so wide that she practically looked crazed! "So this is what I could have accomplished! I was blind before, but now I can see again!"

Juliet and Ketis hadn't said anything, but that was because they were too flummoxed to spare any energy on reacting to the astonishing display. They had become fully invested in studying each and every improvement to the design elements they spent a lot of precious hours developing.

Even Ves did not spare any time on observing how much he managed to surprise his colleagues and eagerly studied how the System refined his own applications.

First of all, the Superpublish function did not disappoint. It truly improved the mech design in a way that its overall performance had truly improved by a margin of 10 percent and no more.

Though it didn't sound like much, the improvements applied to a design that Ves and the rest had already done their best to optimize. Even if they spent more months on iterating their work, they probably wouldn't be able to improve the Sentry Project's parameters by more than 1 percent.

In comparison to such a lackluster result, a jump that was at least an order of magnitude better was practically a revolution!

Ves first studied the overall frame of the design. The external contours had become a bit more streamlined, which not only allowed it to resist incoming attacks a little better, but also shifted around the dimensions so that the internals could be arranged to a more efficient architecture.

When Ves moved from studying the simulated appearance of the mech and shifted his gaze over to the wireframe diagram, he studied the guts of the machine.

The Superpublish function introduced minute but quite impactful tweaks to the core components such as the power reactor, the mech engine, the flight system and so on. Even smaller and less critical systems such as temperature regulators received a bit of attention.

All of these high-grade mech parts were designed exclusively for Hexer expert mechs, so the Hegemony's mech industry invested heavily in their development. It was quite amazing how the System easily managed to spot ways to improve them further when numerous Hexer Master Mech Designers and other highly qualified component developers had already poured many years into refining these component designs!

However, the improvements to these components were not as relevant to the mech designers as how they were combined and arranged into a cohesive mech system. As mech designers, their primary role was to select existing component designs and puzzle them together into an efficient and ideally synergistic package where the whole was always greater than the sum of its parts.

This was where the real brilliance in mech design lied. With regards to the refinements in the internal architecture, Gloriana had become a lot more crazed about them than Ves. Yet even he appreciated the elegance of the sublime architecture that he was able to study at his leisure.

What the Journeymen but especially Gloriana found miraculous was that the amount and magnitude of the design tweaks weren't even all that great. For example, one component had shifted to the left by a millimeter and another component gained a bit more reinforcement so that it could bear a slightly greater load.

The Superpublish function's approach to improving a mech design essentially emphasized maximum efficiency. It aimed to achieve the greatest possible impact with the minimum amount of adjustments.

Ves appreciated this very much. He was certain that the System could have thrown out large portions of their old work and completely filled up the cavities with new and original design elements, but it didn't. The current approach almost completely preserved the original design philosophies that gave the Sentry Project its unique charm. Ves and the other three Journeymen still felt that the Sentry Project was their own work.

After studying the various improvements to the mech frame such as the cockpit, the sensors and the targeting system, he finally laid his eyes on the most crucial element of the Sentry Project.

When Ves originally designed the crystal luminar rifle, he already considered it a work of art in its own right.

The System added an extra touch to the weapon design that made it even more beautiful!

Sure, the rifle performed substantially better. Ves could quickly tell that the subtle tweaks to the layout made him feel incredibly stupid for missing these possibilities in the first place.

Yet his attention never lingered on the design of the rifle for long. This was an aspect that he could always improve as long as he designed more rifles and became more familiar with the feel and functioning of energy weapon systems.

What truly mattered to him was how the System treated the individual crystals that made up the weapon and bestowed it with powerful or unique capabilities.

The System did not disappoint his expectations. The alien crystals that Ves had only managed to cobble together through unorthodox methods had undergone small changes that nonetheless managed to set off bombs in his mind!

"So this is what I could have done to increase the effectiveness of my crystals!"

Though Ves did not understand all of the changes, he tentatively figured out the gist of the changes.

Just like with the other portions of the Sentry Project, the System sought to improve the rifle by following the path of least resistance.

In this case, the easiest and most efficient way to do so was to improve and optimize the material composition of the luminar crystals as well as cleaning up their intricate internal circuitry patterns.

However, since luminar crystals were inherently spiritually reactive, the improvements were undeniably related to the utilization of spiritual energy!

It was as if Ves received a brief crash course on how to leverage spiritual energy to create stronger and more exceptional luminar crystals!

As Ves and every Journeyman became more and more engrossed in the areas that sucked them in, the entire room buzzed with creative energy that gave birth to many new and profound insights…