The Mech Touch

"Meow meow."

"Miaow~"

"Wooooo… mama…"

While the mech designers were making their preparations, Gloriana made sure to feed and pamper Aurelia.

The baby giggled as Gloriana kissed and tickled her little girl.

"Mama will be busy for the following week. I won't be able to spend as much time with you as I'd like. Your uncle will do his best to keep you company, okay?"

"..Mama..?"

One of the requests that Gloriana had made was to invite Venerable Brutus over to the Cyclical Engine! Pa nda

No vel The sole purpose for bringing him over was to turn him into a babysitter for Aurelia!

Right now, she hadn't hired any nannies that she was willing to trust with her precious daughter. While there were other workers who could babysit her daughter such as Melody Raft, her personal assistant, none of them excelled at this job.

With her standards, Gloriana could never accept the thought of handing over her precious daughter to someone who wasn't family or a professional caretaker!

Fortunately, Venerable Brutus was more than happy to pause his regular duties to watch over his niece.

He already responded to Aurelia as soon as he caught sight of her. His force of will swelled as it enveloped Aurelia with a thick protective bubble!

Though Venerable Brutus was hardly able to express his strength outside of his expert mech, Aurelia responded well to the goodwill he directed towards her. She immediately reached out to her uncle!

"I'm your uncle, Aurelia. Can you say that word?"

"Uuucuuu…"

"ᴾᵃⁿᵈᵃ ⁿᵒᵛᵉˡWell, you will get there eventually. With a smart mother like Gloriana, I am sure you will dazzle us all with your intelligence!"

"Hihihi!"

Brutus absolutely adored Aurelia and the baby immediately got along well with him. Gloriana was relieved at the sight. She also reminded herself that she should look into hiring a nanny to take care of Aurelia as well as her future children.

It was never easy to raise six offspring!

While Gloriana and Brutus discussed how Aurelia should be cared for in the following week, Ves and Professor Benedict Cortez gathered together in order to hold their own little talk.

"You've done it before, so you can do it again. How confident are you in fabricating a masterwork mech?" The Senior straightforwardly asked.

"You should know as well as I do that you can't make a masterwork mech by snapping your fingers." Ves replied. "It's difficult. Many different variables have to fall in line to make it possible. While I have done my best to manipulate the variables that I can control, there are many other factors that are out of our hands. We can only roll the dice and hope that we have started on a good day."

Not even a Senior Mech Designer was able to do much better in this regard. In fact, Professor Benedict was arguably worse at this than the Journeymen he was working with. He actually created less masterwork mechs over his career than Ves!

Part of the reason why that was the case was that Professor Benedict did not insist on fabricating any mech he designed. They usually took up a decent amount of time and he never found it important to put in so much effort for relatively unimportant mech designs.

The success of the Larkinson mech designers may have prompted him to develop a new appreciation for hands-on work, but he was primarily obsessed with research!

Professor Benedict was mature enough to accept this reality. "If we do not succeed this time, then so be it. There are more than enough opportunities in the future for us to achieve our goal."

"I know, but it still feels bad if we know that we can do better. I put in a lot of effort into designing the Minerva Project and my other design partners feel the same way. This is the only expert mech that we have worked on for this year and it is by far the most interesting one that I have worked on. I have a considerable emotional investment in this expert mech."

Despite designing so many masterwork mechs and despite being able to count on Vulcan for assistance, Ves still had no idea what might come out of this fabrication run.

The only regret he had was that the System was still on a holiday. Ves was already certain that its Superpublish function had become available again, but without the ability to access it, there was no way for him to take advantage of this function!

This was not a major setback, but one that made Ves feel as if he was missing an opportunity.

Not only would he be able to improve the Minerva Project further, but also gain another opportunity for everyone to learn how to refine their respective design solutions.

An even greater benefit was that he could reinforce Mr. S.'s existence and further prove that Ves was connected to this 'great figure'!

After all, there was no way a Journeyman like Ves could make so many wonderful improvements to a mech design. Ves didn't have many high-level contacts and it was easy to check whether the Superpublished design was actually made by a known high-profile mech designer.

Ves inwardly sighed. The System wasn't going to make an appearance anytime soon, so he should make do without this extra bit of help.

It was fortunate that Ves never developed a reliance on the Superpublish function. He had never been anxious about using it as soon as it became available.

To him, there may be times where he felt it was worth it to use on certain projects, but he would never obsess over it to the point of aligning the completion of his important mech designs to the availability of the Superpublish function.

It did not take much effort to correct his mentality. Anyway, he relied on himself to develop his own repertoire of solutions to increase his chances of fabricating a masterwork mech. His hand briefly brushed the handle of the Hammer of Brilliance that was hanging from his toolbelt.

Professor Benedict did not miss this little gesture. "I have heard about that hammer of yours. I have also heard much about your so-called Creation Association. My initial impression is that all of this is a scam, but I know that you are not without substance. Seeing this hammer in person confirms my guess. Can I hold that hammer of yours?"

Ves saw no reason to refuse. He detached the hammer from his toolbelt and handed it over to the Senior.

Professor Benedict may have anticipated the hefty weight of the object, but he was not as strong as Ves.

"It is heavy. Your hammer certainly possesses a distinct identity. I can feel the presence of a glow of sorts. Is this your Vulcan?"

Ves nodded. "Yes. Vulcan is one of the personalities I have made that is specifically designed to help me create higher-quality products. We don't have to rely on him to fabricate a masterwork mech, but he can help in the right circumstances."

"Interesting. I am skeptical about this hammer's utility towards me, but I can see how it can make a significant difference to Journeymen such as yourself."

Vulcan was a strong design spirit but he lacked a lot of knowledge accumulation. It would be great if Professor Benedict got hit in the head with the hammer during this fabrication session, but the results wouldn't be as drastic if that was the case.

Senior Mech Designers were considerably more powerful than many of the mech designers that Ves had met. Their mental resilience and other relevant properties might not be as potent as that of a Master Mech Designer, but many of them were already close to leaping to the next rank.

They just needed to obtain the right opportunity to trigger a breakthrough!

In any case, Ves doubted whether he should hit Professor Benedict's head with his hammer. The immediate benefits should not be drastic, but the brief period of contact should give Vulcan a lot of opportunities to peep into the Senior's mind!

Mech designers of this caliber usually possessed strong mental defenses. Professor Benedict would not give a lot away even if he formed a bond with Vulcan.

As the two went into further detail on how to approach their fabrication run, the final guest had finally arrived.

"Commander Casella! Are you excited?" Ves asked as she marched closer.

"I am." Casella plainly admitted. "I have waited a long time for this mech. I have heard so much about it. I am gratified to see that the final mech design incorporates many of the suggestions that I have made. The Minerva Project is exactly what I need to go any further."

Ves did not entirely agree. "This will be the first expert command mech that we have designed, so we do not understand the full implications of our own work. We cannot promise that it will meet your expectations. It can turn out better or much worse than we thought. Don't worry about all of that. Your role is to impart your knowledge, insights and experiences to your expert mech."

"I am aware. The other expert pilots of the clan have already filled me in. I will not hold you back." She promised.

They continued to talk about the impending realization of the Minerva Project. Ves found that the Sentinel Commander was not overly nervous or unstable despite the huge importance of this event.

The Minerva Project was her first expert mech!

Not only would her expert command mech define her first years as an expert pilot, it also determined how well she could help the Larkinson Clan.

A lot was riding on this mech. An expert command mech's individual ability to defeat powerful opponents might not be the best, but its ability to amplify the combat effectiveness of subordinate forces was top notch!

With so much responsibility resting on her shoulders, Commander Casella was able to retain her mental balance, which impressed Ves a lot. This was one of the essential traits of a steady and clever leader.

After making sure that Commander Casella was ready to do her part, Ves made one more check.

He took out a P-stone and reached out to one of his new design spirits.

The Titania existed in her current incarnation for a few months now. Though it had been hard for her to accept that her 6000-year old life as a massive apex astral beast had come to an end, she managed to transition to her new form of life easily enough.

It helped a lot that other friendly design spirits such as Goldie, Qilanxo and the Superior Mother accompanied the Titania.

Just like how a clueless kid could turn into a troublemaker if he befriended the wrong crowd, the Larkinson design spirits succeeded in converting the Titania to the Larkinson cause!

In any case, her old life was already over and it made little sense to take revenge against her killers.

Unlike the original Zeigra, the Titania was much older and much wiser. Despite her supreme arrogance as an astral beast that had overcome a huge amount of opponents in her former life, the bestial design spirit was still prudent enough to bow her head to more ferocious predators.

Otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to survive in a dwarf galaxy that was dominated by phase whales and other major races!

Ves wasn't naive enough to think that he had managed to subdue the Titania. A portion of her original memories and consciousness had survived. Having lived for so long, it was extremely difficult to indoctrinate such an old and experienced entity.

His only hope was that the other Larkinson design spirits continued to befriend her. As an entity that originated from a bestial creature, the Titania got along remarkably well with Qilanxo.

"Hopefully you are willing to cooperate with Commander Casella and the Minerva Project."

In order to maximize the power of his upcoming expert command mech, it was vitally important that every party involved got along with each other!