The Mech Touch

Ves shook hands with the departing high priest.

The negotiations had dragged on quite a while despite the fact that it was just the two of them. Ves demanded a high price for his personal guidance, but the Vulcanites truly did not want to give up an entire first-class fleet carrier for this benefit.

Though foja Firebreath was not a professional negotiator, he was a first-rater who had managed to climb up to the upper echelon of the Eternal Vulcan Empire. His intelligence and skillset had to be impressive in order to compete against many other highly capable dwarves.

The bearded dwarf tried many ways to reduce Ves' asking price.

For example, he attempted to make Ves agree to provide his services in exchange for a first-class combat carrier or a capital ship that was not built for combat.

When that did not work, High Priest Firebreath attempted to persuade Ves to accept an older fleet carrier that could still keep up due to frequent upgrades.

Yet no matter how many times the dwarf tried to make Ves see reason, none of it worked.

"I have stated my price. It is up to your sovereign to decide whether he will accept it." Ves stated while he crossed his arms. "My time is valuable, so I would rather not waste my time on any distractions if there aren't enough incentives. Do you understand my point?"

The most powerful way to strengthen his bargaining position was by making it clear that he was quite willing to refuse this deal.

He knew quite well that it would be a considerable missed opportunity for him to miss out on an easy opportunity to obtain a valuable first-class starship. No one was willing to give away such an amazing strategic asset for free, especially in a time period where every starfaring vessel had skyrocketed in value!

Yet Ves believed he still had other ways of building up a small but formidable first-class fleet through other means.

All of the time and effort he spent on building up relationships with the mechers and the Terrans should have made it possible to conduct more serious transactions.

He could even reach out to other first-class states and organizations for cooperation if he wanted to. There were plenty of clever people who would be glad to cooperate with a rising tier 3 galactic citizen who clearly had a lot of potential.

The reality was that Ves did not need to cooperate with the Eternal Vulcan Empire.

Rather, it was the Vulcanites who yearned for his power!

As soon as Ves made it clear that he understood his real value, the dwarf no longer tried to obtain an outright discount, but instead tried to weasel in additional benefits.

If the Eternal Vulcan Empire had to give up a modern fleet carrier, then the dwarven state better obtained enough benefits to make this transaction worthwhile!

Ves was a bit more willing to give a bit of ground on these issues. So long as he obtained a powerful first-class fleet carrier, he did not mind working a bit more to secure this deal.

After all, the Iron Emperor had the ultimate say over whether his empire was willing to accept this trade. The dwarven leader was no fool. It made no sense for him to weaken his state just to obtain marginal benefits in return.

"We would like to place 50 of our Novice Mech Designers in your Design Department."

"Absolutely not! That is way too much! I do not have the time or mental capacity to guide so many dwarves at the same time! I will take 10 under my wing, but not a single dwarf more. Is that clear?"

"If we sign this contract, then we would like your promise that you will not accept similar proposals from other groups. Otherwise, our head-start in designing living mechs will lose its value. We wish to retain exclusivity for a span of 10 years."

"That is too excessive. Too much can happen in a decade. I will accept no less than 3 years, for the same reason that I have stated before. I can promise you that during the time your dwarven mech designers work in my mech company, I will not add any more guest designers to my design teams. This does not count for occasional collaborations with other high-ranking mech designers."

"We... can add these terms to the contract."

By the time they drafted a set of terms that both sides found acceptable, if only barely, the high priest needed to go back and wait for a response from his state.

Before the dwarf left, Ves asked one more question.

"Of all of the people that the Iron Emperor could have sent to negotiate this deal, why did he send you of all people?"

The Vulcanite priest turned around and adopted a pious expression.

"Your identity is too esteemed to be met by one of our more secular officials. Our government has deemed that only a devoted priest of Vulcan is permitted to approach a holy mech designer such as yourself. Many of my people do not dare to show any sign of disrespect towards our shared god."

That caused Ves to frown. As far as he knew, old Rion Aaden had turned into an incredibly ambitious and power-hungry leader.

There was no way that this once-miserable dwarf wanted to put Vulcan in charge of everything.

It was in the Iron Emperor's best interest to limit the influence of the Eternal Vulcan Church.

However, Ves could already tell from the many clues given by the high priest that Rion had obviously failed in this endeavor!

The dwarf heavily relied on the Imperial Crown forged by Ves to win over a huge amount of dwarves, including many first-raters who would not have otherwise surrendered their loyalty to a disgraced leader!

The Iron Emperor had managed to forge a powerful dwarven empire by exploiting Vulcan's glow, but the consequence of his amazing success was that their 'god' had become the sole binding factor that kept all of these disparate dwarves together!

This was the downside of using such a shortcut. The foundation of the powerful dwarven state was its church.

The Iron Emperor might enjoy a notable reputation in his own empire, but his power and influence paled in comparison to true tyrants such as the Star Emperor of the New Rubarth Empire.

It was due to this shortcoming that the Iron Emperor had no choice but to lean so much on Vulcan to stabilize his fragile state.

Should it be any surprise that the separation between church and state was nonexistent in the Eternal Dwarven Empire?

Ves couldn't help but smirk at this outcome.

It served that bastard right for forcing Ves to craft a masterwork crown to symbolize his rule.

Though the Iron Emperor still tried many ways to gradually steer the Eternal Vulcan Empire towards secularism, the fact that his dwarven state still carried the name of a god showed that he was not winning this battle!

"Don't wait too long to give a response." Ves told the high priest. "Once I am done in Bortele, I will return to New Constantinople. It will probably be much harder for you to reach me by that time. It is best if we can conclude this deal within a week."

"That does not leave us with enough time to finalize all of the terms."

"Tough luck, then. Tell your sovereign to hurry up and make up his mind. He's a decisive leader, so I am sure he can get it done in time."

As the dwarven envoy finally left the branch headquarters of the Larkinson Clan, Ves did not know whether the Vulcanites would agree to this trade.

"It doesn't really matter."

Ves was fine with either outcome. Without the need to watch over a bunch of dwarven mech designers, he would have less distractions in his life. He also did not need to withhold a lot of information whenever he was in their presence.

Time passed by as Ves continued to meet his various obligations. None of his meetings were all that important, and he was glad that he was done with this chore.

As evening rolled in, the preparations for the upcoming product reveal had all been finalized.

Though Ves could have spent more time on tinkering with the mechs that he was about to present to the public, he decided to go to bed and refresh himself for the important day ahead.

The next day, Ves woke up and went through an elaborate grooming process.

It was no longer enough to wear his usual patriarch uniform. He needed to wear a much more impressive ensemble that enhanced his stature and made him look larger than life!

Though Ves felt as if he was starting to look like a clown due to all of the excessive folds and layers of exquisite clothing, he had to admit that it would certainly make his appearance memorable.

"Have all of the mech pilots and mercenaries become proficient in piloting their respective mechs?" Ves asked with a touch of concern in his voice.

"The people in charge have not reported any issues. Everything is fine." Gavin Neumann reassured him. "Our mech pilots have taken well to the Fey Fiannas. With the help of the MSTS, they have performed well in many different training scenarios. While there is obviously room for growth and improvement, you can be assured that our mech pilots will not make any obvious blunders."

Ves nodded in satisfaction. "I hope that is the case, because each of them are expected to fight numerous exhibition matches against superior opponents. It is only when the odds are stacked against them that our Fey Fiannas can showcase their greater potential. Have you collected any indication that other rivals and competitors will seek to challenge our new mech line?"

"The local Black Cats have managed to collect a few potential clues, but they have not been able to find anything concrete. This indicates that there are definitely mech companies and mech designers that seek to use our Fey Fianna line as a springboard for their own products. The only issue is that it is far from certain whether they are willing to pull the trigger. If they think that they will only make a fool of themselves, they will never have the guts to present their works."

That was to be expected. Ves had full confidence in his ability to hype up the Fey Fianna.

"Has SKL Mech Industries made any notable moves?"

"No." Gavin firmly shook his head. "The company is too big and powerful. It rarely gets spooked by upstarts that are looking to dethrone its mainstream mech lines. According to our investigation, SKL mainly adopts a reactive approach towards emerging competitors. The large megacorporation will only start to take action if sales are dropping, and even then the company is unlikely to escalate too quickly. I think that other possible rivals will constitute a much greater threat in the short term. Anyone who dares to challenge your work openly will definitely have the capital to succeed. It is regrettable that our intelligence agents have yet to find any clues on the planet."

Ves did not have too many expectations in this regard. "Bortele is filled with many dangerous and powerful groups. None of them appreciate people poking around their properties. Anyone who is competent enough to present a mech model that can give the Fey Fianna a run for its money should not be weak."

Though he did not have any certainty that this was the case, Ves had a hunch that the product reveal would not go smoothly.

The Fey Fianna had the chance to disrupt the mech market on a wider scale. Many mech companies was under threat of losing their cash cows if too many mech pilots swapped out their existing machines in order to pilot the brand new drone mech sold by the LMC!