The Mech Touch

Team Larkinson easily passed the first round of the fighting phase. Though Ves and Ketis were both pleased with this straightforward win, they did not become too overconfident.

Numerous other mechs in the tournament showed great strength as well. Ves couldn't say whether the Heart of Victor could defeat them 100 percent of the time.

"It's a pity that those two kids have to bow their heads in defeat so quickly." He muttered as he threw a gaze in the direction of the Journeymen he defeated.

The mech designers of Team Youngbuck probably deserved to advance from the first round. Mr. Dardan and Mr. Peese had managed to design a considerably more advanced mech than other Journeymen. The integration of the power systems and the complete design of a functional plasma sword out of limited materials and components was nothing less than genius!

If the criteria for winning Wild Brawl Bowl was solely based on the sophistication of a mech design, Team Youngbuck would have definitely taken first place!

The problem for the centrist mech designers was that their mech still needed to prove its chops by defeating opposing mechs. The fact that their Rayvin entered the arena with great fanfare only to suffer a humiliating defeat signaled that their approach was flawed!

Their defeat was especially egregious considering that the swordsman mech was piloted by Giles Harnacher, the best swordsman mech pilot available in the tournament!

As the shock of the abrupt defeat began to fade among the public, plenty of people began to discuss the odd progression of the final match in the first round.

[Team Youngbuck is made up of talented, young mech designers, but they have made the same mistake that everyone from the galactic center has made.]

[And what is that, sir?]

[Mr. Dardan and Mr. Peese have overengineered their mech design.] The old and wise voice stated. [Their augmented heads are filled with advanced theories and methodologies and they have always been trained to make the best use of them. That's fine in a normal work environment, but the Wild Brawl Bowl is different. As its name suggests, it is all about wild fighting. Somehow, the theme and conditions of this mech design tournament have eluded their clever heads. Instead of working to use the relatively low-tech materials and mech component designs as intended, Team Youngbuck stretched these resources in order to design a vast array of advanced parts and systems.]

[The efforts of Dardan and Peese paid off, though. Their Zemonon Gamma is truly powerful according to its spec sheets. Their upfront power ranked close to the top in the first few minutes. Their only fault is to get matched against the tournament favorites right away.]

[I don't rate the Rayvin as highly as you. There is a considerable chance it would have lost even if it fought against another mech. The reason for that is the same reason why the Heart of Victor managed to overcome this plasma swordsman mech with relative ease. Their fault tolerances are too far apart.]

[Fault tolerance?]

[There are in fact more reasons behind the Rayvin's loss, but this is the principal reason. Did you count how many plasma sword strikes the Heart of Victor withstood? Even with the clever maneuvering of Mr. Kepper, it is still difficult to keep a mech fully functional when hit with such a sustained barrage of attacks. Yet the mech pilot had absolute faith in his mech! This is not a coincidence, but the result of Team Larkinson's great attention towards the integrity and fault tolerance of their machine. The Heart of Victor isn't as high-tech as the Rayvin, but their structural integrity is so far apart that the latter is practically a house of cards! High-tech cards, but that made little difference!]

The explanation of the expert commentator finally illuminated one of the subtle brilliances of the Heart of Victor.

On the surface, it was just a fairly basic swordsman mech that was armed with a chainsword.

What few laymen understood was that there was a lot of strength beneath its exterior. The internal architecture was solid and robust. It could incur a lot of damage and still keep going. Both its redundancy and compartmentalization factors ranked among the top of all of the competition mechs!

The commentator let out an admiring sound. [This is a design approach that harkens back to third-class mech design. Many people here in Vulit probably looks down on lesser mechs, but they have their own advantages. Nothing can make mech designers more efficient than if they are forced to work with limited resources. It should be no surprise that the Heart of Victor embodies this design approach so well considering that Patriarch Ves Larkinson and Swordmaster Ketis Larkinson were originally third-class mech designers.]

[From a strategic perspective, Team Larkinson managed to make the most gains from this victory. Sure, the Heart of Victor does not look good at the moment, but all of this is surface damage that can easily be repaired before the next round commences. What is more important is that the Heart of Victor and Mr. Kepper has refrained from showing their true strength. This will leave the other fifteen competitors who have managed to advance to the second round in the dark. Whoever is unlucky enough to get matched against the Larkinsons will not be able to make a lot of preparations.]

Ves nodded when he heard the commentary. In competitions like these, it was important to take the bigger picture into account. Team Larkinson had a good shot at winning the championship, but that didn't mean that the other mech designer teams were pushovers.

He fought through enough battles to know that information was power. The more he understood an enemy, the more he could prepare counters for the next battle.

The same concept applied here. With four more rounds to go, the Heart of Victor should ideally save the best for last. Though Ves had instructed Lyain Kepper to go all-out if the opposition was strong enough, he hoped that moment wouldn't come too soon.

Now that the first round had fully concluded, a short break ensued before the Wild Brawl Bowl commenced its second round.

Only half of the sixteen competition mechs in contention would be able to proceed from that point.

Entering into the top 8 already guaranteed the survivors a worthwhile payoff. No one would be unhappy if they lost after that point, though everyone hoped to climb higher and attain more carrier vessels.

When Ves and Ketis headed to the backstage area, they quickly worked to supervise the rapid repair process of the Heart of Victor.

Since hardly any of the internals incurred damage in the previous match, Team Larkinson did not have to put much effort in bringing the mech back to peak condition. The automated repair processes could perform most of the monotonous work themselves.

What interested the Larkinson mech designers more was to discuss the previous fight and prepare for the next one with their mech pilot.

"Did I do well?" Lyain Kepper earnestly asked Ketis.

"You did well enough. You made the right choice to hide the full extent of your improved swordsmanship. It must have been hard to restrain yourself."

"Not really." Lyain grinned and shook his head. "I'm eager to show off my improvements, but it's much better to do that in the last round rather than the first round."

"That's a good mindset, but remember that winning is our ultimate goal." Ves cautioned. "Be careful not to get too clever for your own good. Listen to your mech and your instincts. Both will guide you in the right direction."

After a brief but fruitful discussion, the second round of the fighting phase quickly commenced. Every mech designer had to get back to the spectator platform where they were no longer able to instruct and advise their mech pilots.

Though only half of the design teams were still in contention, the Journeymen who had lost the first round were still around.

The two mech designers of Team Youngbuck took the initiative to approach the team that defeated them in the first round.

"Good fight." Gerxer Dardan said as he shook hands with Ves.

"Likewise." Ves replied in a friendly tone. "I would have preferred to fight against you in a later round."

"I know, but this is the way that single elimination brackets work. Luck is also a factor in determining how far you can go, although strength is the greatest guarantee for advancement."

While the two got to know each other better, Olivander Peese had already starting to exchange with Ketis. Both of them were avid about swordmaking and happily shared their own insights about the topic.

Nothing needed to be said about Ketis' qualifications. Her basics and depth of comprehension was extremely solid, but Olivander Peese surprisingly introduced her to a lot of new material.

Though Olivander's foundation was not as deep, he was a talented centrist mech designer who mastered a plentiful amount of high technology. Developing a plasma sword was actually one of his more basic applications!

As the matches of the second round took place, Team Larkinson and Team Youngbuck continued to grow closer to each other. They even exchanged comm contact information so that they could get in touch more often.

Of course, Dardan and Peese were not that interested in Ves. Their fields of expertise diverged too far from each other. Though they were able to teach a lot new insights to each other, their lack of shared understanding meant that most of what they said wasn't useful to the recipient.

It was like a physicist trying to teach quantum mechanics to a pianist. It was absurd to think that the latter would easily pick up the advanced knowledge without knowing any science!

Ketis was Team Youngbuck's true goal. Though her engineering foundation was not as good as that of Ves, her expertise in swordsmanship and swordsman mech turned her into an authority in these fields!

Since Team Youngbuck no longer took part in the Wild Brawl Bowl, the two centrist Journeymen were no longer competitors. Ketis did not feel the need to hold back as much as she began to point out the issues that Dardan and Peese needed to work on in order to design a more effective swordsman mech.

For their part, the two impressed Journeymen happily reciprocated the lessons they received by passing on a bit of the advanced knowledge they possessed.

Ves looked enviously at the trio of sword maniacs. They had already erected a jammer field around their little group in order to keep their discussion private. There was no reason to share their valuable insights to others without receiving anything relevant in return.

"I wish there were more mech designers like me around here." He quietly muttered.

It would have been nice if he was able to exchange or collaborate with other mech designers whose specialties resembled his own. He knew it was unlikely that those mech designers existed.

Even if there were a handful of mech designers out there who specialized in some aspect of life, the chance of bumping into them was miniscule! Human space was just too enormous and the Red Ocean Dwarf Galaxy was already filled with trillions of humans!

He knew that the only realistic way to surround himself with mech designers who shared the same interests as him was to raise them himself. He could steer students like Maikel Larkinson into a related specialty, but his best option was to raise the right mech designers from the people he could trust the most, his direct family!

"I need more kids." He quietly said.

As Ves wondered about how long he needed to wait until Gloriana was ready to have her second child, the matches of the second round slowly concluded.

It was finally time for Team Larkinson to show off their work once again!

[The final match of the second round will pit a humanoid mech against a bestial mech! Will Team Larkinson be able to fend off the tentacles of Team Caper? Let's find out!]