The Mech Touch

After Ves concluded his insightful talk with Master Laila Devos, his teaching assistant bounced into the room and congratulated him on his success.

"You have managed to thoroughly convince the students over the course of a single lecture." Alexa Striker cheerfully spoke. "It is difficult for a second-class mech designer like yourself to attract sufficient interest from so many of my fellow Terrans. They are all accustomed to receiving their teachings from the accomplished Seniors and Masters of the Terran Confederation. You mainly managed to capture their attention by employing your novelty to good effect."

"Novelty wears out sooner or later. I will have to make sure I can actually teach stuff that my students are interested in. My subsequent lectures won't be nearly as bombastic."

"I have full confidence in your teaching ability, especially after I have witnessed you speak in front of nearly the entire Eden Institute. Please inform me if you experience any difficulties. It is my job to assist you in your teaching duties. If there are any difficulties that I cannot handle myself, I can contact the appropriate people to resolve your problems."

"I would be happy to receive your assistance on certain matters." The projection of Ves replied. "The battle at my end has just concluded. I expect I will be extremely busy in the next few days. Aside from that, I will probably be absent for the next week since I am obliged to attend the upcoming conference organized by the Survivalist Faction."

Miss Alexa and the school administration had already been informed about this well in advance. They had all adjusted the class schedule to take his temporary absence into account.

Incidents like this were not all that unusual in mech universities. Master Mech Designers wore many hats at the same time and assumed a lot of different responsibilities.

While these mech designers always placed a high degree of importance in spreading their teachings and philosophies, their core work mattered a lot more to them in the end.

This was why it was generally tolerated for professors to be absent at times. As long as they properly arranged their schedules in advance, the students would probably be grateful for gaining extra time to catch up on their other studies.

Of course, Ves did not intend for his students to forget about his courses entirely when he was away. He already intended to assign a lot of homework and reading material to make sure they accumulated the requisite understanding to take part in his future classes.

Ves and Alexa continued to chat about related matters. Now that the semester had begun, both of them had to allocate a certain amount of hours of their time on school-related duties.

"Master Laila Devos informed me that you have rejected the opportunity to expand your classes for this semester."

"That is correct. I'm glad that my first lecture proceeded so well, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. To be honest, I kind of like it when I can interact with my students in a smaller and more intimate classroom. It is quite nerve-wracking to speak in front of tens of thousands of students all of the time. I also don't want to disappoint too many Terrans if I stumble later on. Don't forget that all of my courses are completely new and untested. I prefer to fine-tune them over the course of a semester when the stakes aren't as high."

The teaching assistant understood his legitimate concerns. Ves could not afford to botch his first stint as a professor. If he botched this precious opportunity to pass on his wisdom in front of hundreds of smart and talented Terran students, it might take decades before he could stand in front of a class of first-class mech design students again!

"Personally speaking, I am looking even more forward for you to begin your first lecture on Introduction to Living Mechs." Alexa Striker commented. "It is remarkable that those expert mechs that have demonstrated so many different powerful capabilities in the previous engagement have all spawned from your mind. Even among first-raters such as myself, it is challenging to design a large quantity of highly diverse mechs that excel in vastly different areas. The 'Amaranto' and the 'Promethea' are both expert rifleman mechs, but their differences are too many to count. Is this truly a product of your design philosophy?"

Ves smiled and nodded. He always liked it when other mech designers appreciated his work and design philosophy.

"It takes a lot of creativity, knowledge and inspiration to design so many varied mechs. A broad and flexible design philosophy helps a lot, but it takes more than that to produce good works. I can tell you that if a mech designer yearns to work with as little restraint on the scope of his output as possible, specializing in living mechs is a good choice. Even the most modest and initially weak living mechs can grow into formidable powerhouses as long as they live long enough. This is especially the case now that we have entered the Age of Dawn."

Alexa vigorously nodded in agreement. "I believe you. Those expert mechs are only a few years old, correct? It is frankly a miracle for them to be able to cripple shielded alien warships by relying on their own power. I cannot even imagine how astoundingly powerful they can become once they have aged for an entire century!"

"Hehehe, all good things come in time. It's a pity that both of us will probably grow a lot older by the time we can see so many living mechs realize their greater potential. Right now, even my Amaranto is nothing more than a juvenile as far as living mechs are concerned. I'm not even sure whether red humanity and us will be able to survive the successive onslaughts from both the indigenous aliens of the Red Ocean as well as the more frightening natives from Messier 87."

Ves along with every other red human had largely become preoccupied with the counterattack from the original inhabitants of the dwarf galaxy.

The Red Cabal and its broad coalition of aliens was just starting to build up steam in their galaxy-wide offensive against the relatively small population of humans that occupied their stolen lands!

Under this deteriorating climate, few people were able to spare any attention towards the more distant and nebulous threat posed by the theoretically powerful alien civilizations of Messier 87.

Ves believed that this was a mistake. The phase whales, the puelmers, the nunsers, the orvens, the arche and so on were all formidable enemies in their own right, but none of them were powerful beyond the point where he gave up all hope of resistance!

Still, Ves did not have the luxury to worry about these distant threats either. He needed to make sure he addressed all of his short term needs before he could afford to look further into the future.

"I have developed a greater interest in learning your design philosophy than ever." The young woman frankly admitted, "lam impatient to learn more. I have already studied the textbooks that you have designated as the recommended reading material of your Introduction to Living Mech Design course. What else can I do to further my understanding of your specialization and increase my chances of designing an actual living mech?"

In the face of an enthusiastic mech designer who developed a genuine interest in his design philosophy, Ves did not wish to discourage his teaching assistant.

However, it was a bit exaggerated for her to invest so much time on a field that might not fit her inclinations. He did not wish to give her false hope.

"You need to be a little more patient, Miss Alexa. The textbooks that I have added to the reading list are merely background material as far as I'm concerned. As the foremost authority on living mechs, only my textbooks should be essential reading material."

"You have yet to write, edit or publish a single textbook on your field of specialization since you have become a mech designer." The woman pointed it out to her professor.

He smirked and tapped the side of his head. "Exactly. All of the essential learning material is contained within my head. The only way my students can truly learn how to design living mechs is to attend my lectures and receive my personal tutelage. I look forward to transferring my accumulated knowledge to the fourteen brats that have enrolled for this particular course. They shall be part of the first wave of Terran students to receive a formal introduction in the field that I have pioneered."

Ves used to hoard his living mechs like they were priceless treasures, but that was an outdated mindset as far as he was concerned.

Now that he had advanced to Senior and became more cognizant of the need to contribute back to the society that had enabled his rise, he couldn't wait to welcome more mech designers who were capable of designing their own living mechs!

He already had a taste of that in his own clan. His wife and Ketis were already capable of designing living mechs in a sense, though their interpretation of them was different from his own.

"By the way, professor, it is my understanding that your alliance has fought a greater battle several light-hours away in the Corellix System. If it is permissible, would it be possible for me to observe a part of the archival footage? I think I may be able to understand living mechs better if I can study more of your works in action. You may edit out any sensitive elements that you do not wish to spread."

This was a rather difficult request. When Ves decided to hold a lecture in the middle of an ongoing engagement, he deliberately limited the broadcast to the smaller scale entanglement between the Spirit of Bentheim and the pursuit fleet led by Stingray 2.

Ves made absolutely certain that no footage or information related to the much more expansive battle between the main expeditionary forces and the raiding fleet protecting Stingray 1 reached the Eden Institute.

There was no need to expose additional sensitive and strategically important information to a large number of strangers. Ves was already able to attain the effect he desired by engineering a smaller scale pursuit battle centered around the Spirit of Bentheim.

Sure, mechs such as the Amaranto, the Everchanger and the Promethea revealed a lot of powerful new capabilities, but Ves was happy to show them off. He had a lot more cards up his sleeve that the Terrans had yet to observe.

Ves briefly thought about whether it was okay to give his teaching assistant a private show. He eventually decided that there was no good reason to make an exception for a woman that he only met by remote.

"I'm sorry, Alexa, but I can't be sloppy when it comes to information control. One of the persistent reasons why our Golden Skull Alliance has managed to win so many battles is because we always took advantage of our enemy's lack of understanding of our full capabilities. This is a matter of life and death. Any transmission of sensitive information provides our current and future enemies a lot more chances to kill my troops."

Alexa adopted an apologetic expression. "You are right to reject my request. I do not wish for my selfishness to lead to a serious setback in the future. I believe I already have enough material to satisfy my curiosity for a time. I am especially charmed by your Everchanger. It possesses greater depth than all of the other expert mech in the previous engagement."

"It's okay, Miss Alexa. Perhaps you will get your chance in the future. In the meantime, if you really want to delve deeper into living mechs, then I suggest you spend more time with the copies that the Eden Institute has imported from the Krakatoa Middle Zone. Don't just stand around and feel their glows. Try to talk to them. Each of them are alive, remember? It is best that you assign mech pilots to pair up with them and exercise their mechanical systems. Their personalities and other remarkable qualities will become more pronounced once they are being used."

"That is an excellent suggestion, professor. I shall make the right arrangements right away."