The Mech Touch

A new design round had started!

Though the Larkinson Clan started up a lot of new initiatives since it had entered the Red Ocean, the start of 14 fresh new mech design projects excited the clansmen!

Everyone knew that the mech models designed by Ves and his handpicked Journeymen were bound to be powerful, suitable and alive. Each of these qualifiers were already valuable in themselves, but combining them all in every mech design would definitely result in a comprehensive strengthening of the Larkinson Army!

Ves immediately became swamped with work. Though he tried to reserve enough personal time so that he could keep his wife and daughter company, he was definitely driven by a need to be as productive as possible!

There were so many projects going through his head that he initially had trouble keeping track of everything.

As a mech designer, he loved to work with mechs, but this was starting to get ridiculous!

"I need to control myself!"

After realizing that he would just go crazy if he continued to try and keep track of every project, he decisively distanced himself from numerous projects that did not require his input or oversight.

For example, Ves did not have to worry about Gloriana and Ketis going astray. They were competent and capable enough to take care of themselves for the most part.

Even other mech designers such as the four newcomers already possessed an existing track record of completed mech designs. This kind of work was nothing special to them. The only thing that was different was that Ves might need to come in at a certain point in order to make the mechs alive.

This was something that was non-negotiable in the Larkinson Clan. Though it was best if Ves became involved in these projects from the beginning, he recognized that he did not have the time to engage in unnecessary work.

This was why he decided to let the lead designers of this project manage everything while Ves would just work as a consultant on specific matters.

This was a win-win arrangement for both sides. The new approach not only granted the lead designers greater autonomy and freedom to implement their visions, but also minimized the amount of time that Ves had to spend on these other projects.

Once he shed a lot of obligations, he began to narrow his focus to a handful of mech designs. These would be his babies that he would carefully raise to maturity with his own hands.

The first mech design that he wanted to invest in was the Fearless Project. This was the codename that he bestowed on the ‘rational' rifleman mech that he intended to design for the Battle Criers.

The band that originally consisted of Kinners did not receive a lot of love from the Larkinson Clan in the last few years. Ves even considered disbanding the Battle Criers entirely before thinking that they still had a lot of uses in other areas.

For example, they could serve as excellent test subjects for some of his more unconventional ideas, of which the Fearless Project was one of them! If he was able to make this ambition mech design deliver upon its promises, then he would definitely gain a killer weapon against enemy expert mechs!

He grinned. "None of our enemy's precious expert mechs will feel safe when they face us on the battlefield!"

"Meow."

Lucky yawned as he chewed on a little snack that Ves had thrown at his cat.

Before the Larkinsons departed from Vulit, Ves made sure he ordered a large variety of exotics native to the Red Ocean.

He did not acquire them because he wanted to serve an exotic diet to Lucky. His real intention was to familiarize his gem cat with the taste and smell of every new precious material. Hopefully, his gem cat could become an effective exotic tracker that could lead his clansmen to rich material deposits!

The more ‘snacks' he threw at Lucky, the more the cat turned into a mobile mineral tracker in his eyes!

"Hehehehe…"

It was too bad that Ves couldn't get his hands on any phasewater during his stay in Vulit.

He vaguely heard of high-end auction houses and exchange meetings where the rich and powerful had a chance to bid on small batches of phasewater, but Ves lacked the identity to enter this circle.

His hopes of seeing how Lucky would react upon ingesting phasewater would have to wait for another day.

"Well, before I can get my hands on any phasewater, I need to make sure my clan is strong enough to harvest and keep the stuff!"

The Larkinson Clan urgently needed to upgrade its armed forces before the 2-year MTA protection period had passed. Ves wouldn't be able to reach this target if he kept going on different tangents all the time.

There were still many other priorities that demanded his attention. The formation of the Larkinson Navy, the introduction of a new bank and currency for the Larkinson Clan and the expanding biotech research activities started up by the Larkinson Biotech Institute were also high on his mind at the moment.

The latter was especially relevant now that Ves sought to expand his collection of design spirits to accommodate his new mech designs!

"The Fearless Project definitely needs a new design spirit."

He thought about using Lufa as the design spirit for this rationality-based project, but felt that wasn't good enough.

"Lufa is the Angel of Tranquility. I designed him to be an instrument of peace." He muttered.

That was his strength, but also his flaw.

One of the greatest shortcomings of Lufa was that he wasn't aggressive enough compared to the other design spirits. Lufa was more suited to be implemented in defensive or auxiliary mechs than anything else due to his non-aggressive character.

It would be better if his anti-expert mech solutions received the backing of a design spirit that was dedicated to felling demigods and more powerful entities. A more purpose-built spiritual product would also be able to specialize itself further in this aspect, thereby leading to more powerful expert mech killing solutions in the future.

Ves pulled out one of his P-stones. The rock currently stored a small spiritual fragment taken from one of the masterwork mechs on display in the Chance Bay Masterwork Gallery.

The masterwork copy of the BDX-35F-3 model impressed him in its ability to dampen the emotions and heighten the rationality and calculating power of its mech pilot.

"This is a good base for the Fearless Project."

Ves wanted to achieve a similar effect that the designer of the BDX-35F-3 had once accomplished, but through a different method.

"I can't mess with neural interfaces and I don't have a specialist on hand that is capable of altering them to my needs."

This was no issue as a suitable design spirit should be able to achieve this effect without relying on any technological support.

The only issue at the moment was that Ves did not feel he had enough spiritual ingredients to create the design spirit that he envisioned. He still needed to gather more compatible ingredients to create a spiritual product that could become the definite answer against expert mechs, ace mechs, dark gods, spiritual sorceresses, ancient alien warlords and other weird entities!

Ves chuckled underneath his breath. "I might not be able to become as powerful as you guys, but that's okay. I'll just make a friend that will become your nemesis!"

There was no way he would stop bumping into powerful entities that could not be solved by mechs and technology alone. He attached a great amount of importance to the Fearless Project and its associated design spirit for that reason. Once the Battle Criers gained their new signature mech, they would truly be worthy to call themselves his personal guard force!

"I should start with a draft design."

As Ves sat behind his terminal and brought up a design interface, he began to draft a basic outline of a second-class medium spaceborn rifleman mech.

Before he filled in a couple of details, he paused as he became unsure how to balance out its attack, defense and mobility parameters.

"First, I need to set a baseline by determining the design budget of my mech."

The Fearless Project shouldn't be too shabby, but it shouldn't be too precious either. The mech was foremost designed to fight against enemy expert mechs. This meant that it should be strong enough to withstand at least a casual blow from a powerful machine but also had to be economic enough for the Larkinson Clan to be able to afford substantial losses of this mech model.

Ves accessed the Spirit of Bentheim's database and studied the footage taken during the Battle of Fordilla Zentra.

He paid specific attention to the performance of each individual expert mech and how well they slaughtered the ordinary mechs that were in their way.

Although no standard mech could possibly last a long time against an expert mech, certain machines turned out to be a bit more troublesome to eliminate than others.

For example, the best way for a group of mechs to frustrate a melee expert mech was to spread apart as far as possible and force the powerful enemy to spend precious time chasing after its prey.

As for mechs fighting against a ranged expert mech, evasion was the least effective means to preserve their frames as expert pilots were simply too accurate with their shots.

Instead, they were better off relying on hard cover such as space knights and starship hulls in order to prevent themselves from getting shot to pieces.

This was how Venerable Stark managed to keep her powerful masterwork expert mech alive after getting hunted down by two dwarven expert mechs. The Graveyard may have suffered grievously to keep the Amaranto alive, but it was definitely worth it in the end!

When Ves finally studied the footage of the Battle Crier mechs confronting the Burza Fens of the Avido Berserker Mech Regiment, he winced at the performance of his own troops.

There was nothing wrong about the courage and valor displayed by the mech pilots. The Battle Criers managed to retain their courage and cohesion even as they confronted a deadly dwarven expert axeman mech by themselves!

"The problem doesn't lie with the mech pilots. The main issue is that they're hastily being thrown into this unfavorable confrontation without the right tools for the job."

If the Larkinson Clan had prepared itself better against this kind of opponent, then the Battle Criers may not have been needed to fight against an expert mech without further support.

If the Battle Criers piloted a stronger and more suitable mech than a Bright Warrior armed with new model luminar crystal rifles, then they may have been able to succeed in their nearly-impossible mission!

None of this applied during this battle, so the eventual outcome was a slaughter. It took the intervention of Venerable Joshua and Venerable Tusa to bail the Battle Criers out. In the end, all of those mech pilots only managed to stall the Burza Fens rather than defeat it entirely.

As the final footage reached its end, Ves felt angry and frustrated at himself.

"Not again. This won't happen again!"

He was unwilling to see a repeat of this awful incident. Perhaps he did not possess the means to effectively defeat expert mechs in the past, but this time was different!

"I have enough time, resources and design ability to turn the Fearless Project into a mech that should be able to shoot the Burza Fens to pieces if it was put in the same situation!"

This was his main aspiration for this project!

He did not dare to aim too high and claim that his Fearless Project would be able to slaughter high-tier expert mechs or ace mechs by itself, but it should at least be able to hold its own against the typical low-tier expert mechs that every formidable mech force brought into battle!

"The more low-tier expert mechs the Fearless Project can clean up, the more our own expert mechs can concentrate on fighting the real enemy powerhouses!"