The Mech Touch

The Chance Bay Masterwork Gallery charged a lot of money to its visitors.

Ves hadn't been happy about paying 20 MTA credits just to obtain entry for him and his wife. Though the both of them genuinely appreciated the masterwork mechs on display, he would have preferred to not to pay the equivalent of more than seven Bright Warrior mechs just to get inside!

Sure, he became happy again when he explored all of the interesting masterwork mechs and the stories behind them, but he always felt that the company behind the gallery was ripping off its customers.

In his opinion, the gallery could have easily accommodated more visitors if it set more reasonable rates. The increase in volume would have more than made up for the drop in revenue per customer. There was so much free space in this enormous gallery that Ves could easily imagine it filled with lots paying guests!

"It's probably a prestige thing or something." He grumbled.

As a mech designer who mainly focused on the upper end of the mech market, he was no stranger to this marketing approach. Perhaps Masterwork Galleries might indeed be on to something here. It could be that selling tickets wasn't actually the point. Since these exclusive venues mainly attracted mech designers and to a lesser degree mech pilots, the true objective might be to form connections with its powerful clientele.

Whatever the case, of these considerations had anything to do with Ves. What mattered was that he was a victim of the gallery's marketing strategy. He had a feeling that he and his wife weren't supposed to be here at all, and that the ticket prices were set so high just to deter cheapskates from polluting the air of this floating masterwork palace structure.

The sporadic Masters and Seniors floating through the halls completely ignored the two young guests. While there was nothing about their behavior that looked egregious, they showed considerably more respect and acknowledgement towards each other.

This social pattern only increased Ves' notion that Journeymen like himself shouldn't have come to this place.

To be fair, this was not an unusual stance. Normal Journeymen ordinarily didn't come in touch with masterwork mechs during this phase of their career. Their lack of understanding and experience translated into a shallow feel for mechs. It was much more fruitful for them to build up their knowledge base and develop their toolbox of solutions to serve their immediate needs.

Chasing after masterworks at this early stage was a distraction at best and a detour that led to a dead end at worst.

If Journeymen managed to get involved in the creation of a masterwork mech anyway, then it was usually due to the heavy lifting of a Master Mech Designer.

In these kinds of situations, the contribution of a Master was so deep and profound that assistants simply didn't play a meaningful role in elevating the quality of the machine. The benefits they could gain from participating in such a project was therefore limited.

Perhaps the other pompous museum visitors put Ves or his wife in this category. None of them would know that the young couple did in fact make masterwork mechs by relying on their own efforts. Others could only know that by diving deep in their profiles, and people generally didn't bother with calling up details of random people.

Ves felt conflicted at the moment.

On one hand, he did not think the gallery and its elite visitors did anything wrong. The upscale venue mainly catered to a different audience and the people here had no reason to go out of their way to accommodate a pair of young Journeymen that looked out of place.

On the other hand, he felt slighted by the gallery. The expensive ticket prices, the incredibly clean and well-lit interior and the lack of respect from other museum visitors all grated on him, causing him to build up an irrational degree of resentment.

Ves was also annoyed by another matter. Ever since he began to view the first masterwork mech, he constantly felt that these masterwork mechs were all out of place.

Their designers and makers worked earnestly to create them and even went as far as to place a piece of themselves inside these machines for good reasons.

In every case, these fine mechs were built to be used on the battlefield. They were excellent war machines that were never meant to be treated as works of art.

Sure, mech designers such as Ves could draw a fair amount of inspiration from becoming exposed to these fine machines, but a part of him felt guilty for taking advantage of them in this manner.

When Ves glanced at the other mech designers studying the silent and dormant mechs with rapt attention, he had the feeling that this gallery was actually a zoo.

People who didn't know any better paid money in order to stare at the animals behind their cages.

Who asked the zoo animals whether they liked to sit in small, cramped enclosures just so they could bare their entire lives to strangers?

No one bothered to ask for their consent or their willingness to be treated in such a manner because they didn't have the same rights as humans.

The same went for these mechs. Each of them were alive in a sense, and even if their life orders were low, Ves still felt that they deserved more respect than what they received.

Sure, the normal trajectories of these masterwork mechs might not be so great if they were left in the wild.

Barring obvious illegal machines like the Husk Maker, many of the other machines such as the Otossun or the Yellow Harvest still had a lot of use on the battlefield.

Of course, all of their outdated systems needed to be updated to modern standards, but if he could do it, so could many other mech designers.

"These mechs are all alive, but they're being treated as if they had already turned into exobeast fossils."

Providing inspiration to other mech designers might be their most beneficial use to many people, but was this really what these mechs wanted to do? Ves seriously doubted it. These mechs looked pristine on the outside but were atrophying from the inside.

They yearned to be used. Ves could feel it. They didn't necessarily have to experience combat, but they at least wished to be paired with mech pilots who appreciated their capabilities. They were incomplete when left without the human element.

Though Ves badly wanted to take them all away so that they could be updated and put to their rightful use, he couldn't.

These masterwork mechs didn't belong to him and he had no right to claim them from their current owner.

That didn't mean he intended to finish his tour of this gallery and leave like a good boy.

He wanted to get his money's worth.

If the Chance Bay Masterwork Gallery had the temerity to take 20 MTA credits out of his pockets, then it had no right to complain if Ves returned the favor!

Of course, before he did anything, he needed to be certain that he could pull it off without getting caught.

It was extremely unwise to pull off any spiritual shenanigans when there were Masters and Seniors close at hand. Even if their spiritual perception wasn't as good, he already knew that they were quite sharp in their own way. He could not risk doing anything when they were in the same gallery hall at the very least.

He wasn't in a hurry, though. As his resentment continued to churn in his heart, he continued to adopt a curious facade as he and his wife continued to view the different display models.

"Hey look, this masterwork mech is made out of nanomachines." Gloriana gestured towards a nearby heavy knight mech.

"Meow."

"Don't mention that here, Lucky." Ves quickly told his cat.

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing, haha. I'm just curious how a mech can be turned into a masterwork when its physical construction is mainly determined by pre-programmed instructions. Isn't this similar to producing a mech through materialization?"

"Hmm, that's an interesting question. I have a couple of ideas on the topic."

Ves and Gloriana idly discussed the ways in which they could overcome numerous challenges in order to turn a nanomachine mech into a masterwork mech.

While Ves was drawing from his personal experiences in making the Devil Tiger to form his arguments, he was also trying to hatch a bold and risky plan.

He wanted to harvest a spiritual fragment from these masterwork mechs.

Initially, he wanted to obtain a harvest from every masterwork mech in sight, but that was way too ostentatious. Though Ves was pretty sure that of the security systems could detect anything weird if he tampered with the machines, the same could not be said for all of the impressive mech designers that entered the Masterwork Gallery.

If he wanted to harvest a spiritual fragment in broad daylight, then he needed to be more subtle. In the interest of self-preservation, he reluctantly pared back his ambitions and decided to grab a couple of spiritual fragments.

In addition, he figured he shouldn't hollow out the masterwork mechs in their entirety. Perhaps taking a little bit of their strength wouldn't attract any attention, but the regular visitors of this gallery would surely notice if a masterwork mech suddenly missed an element!

Ves soon finalized his plan. He figured that taking 3 different spiritual fragments from 3 different masterwork mechs was enough to pay the gallery back for charging 20 MTA credits for its tickets.

The fragments wouldn't even be that big! He just wanted to get enough materials to help fuel the creation of his next spiritual products.

He set a few criteria for himself.

First, he needed to do the deed while no other guests were in the vicinity. Fortunately, the Masterwork Gallery was so sparsely visited that there were plenty of times when he and his wife were alone in a single exhibition hall.

Second, he had to obtain the consent of the living mechs. Since many of these machines were first order living mechs, they possessed just enough of a consciousness to be able to make this decision.

Third, he must seek out spiritual fragments from masterwork mechs that were relevant to his objectives or his future work. It would do him no good to take something from a bestial mech or an aquatic mech.

He had nothing against those types of machines, but he wanted to make the most of this opportunity.

He didn't intend to visit the Masterwork Gallery anytime soon after today. Not only did he need to fork over 10 to 20 MTA credits again, he might also leave behind more clues that could lead to him getting caught.

He had one shot at this. Either he pulled off the heist and returned to his fleet with a fresh and useful batch of spiritual ingredients, or he got caught and received a punishment.

"No big deal."

After he made up his mind, his eyes grew sharper as he examined the masterwork mechs around him with greater interest.

Which ones should he pick?

So far, the Husk Maker made the strongest impression on him. It was different from the other machines because it was designed and made with destruction and retribution in mind. The illegal war machine obviously didn't feel at home in this place and would likely be happy if a part of it could be used for a more useful purpose again.

Ves and his wife had already left the hall where it was located, though. He needed to come up with an excuse to revisit it again, but that could wait until later.

For now, he should look to picking other useful masterwork mechs.

He thought about his plans for his upcoming mech designs… One of his highest priorities for the upcoming design round was to develop a new spaceborn rifleman mech.