The Mech Touch

Tension started to spread across the press hall. Everyone else fell completely silent as they observed the invisible confrontation between Professor Ves Larkinson and Master Aulaus Kreshnick.

This was not an ordinary challenge.

The journalists invited to this Q&A session may look as if they had become completely frozen, but they were frantically writing or dictating words through their cranial implants.

Each of them smelled drama from this exchange!

Hundreds of journalists began to conduct a lot of research. They dug every piece of information that looked relevant to them and began to weave the details into narrative that may or may not make sense.

It didn't matter so long as it was exciting enough!

Other individuals who intended to issue their own challenges became thoughtful as they observed the man who was lucky enough to issue his own one first.

Master Aulaus Kreshnik should not belong here. He was a dignified and powerful first-class mech designer who had realized his design philosophy a long time ago. He had lived through 5 times as many years as his target, and accrued a lot more knowledge and experience during his long career!

To be appointed as the leading mech designer at the Red Ocean branch of Pritchard & Terse was a testament to his ability and competence in the notoriously competitive Rubarthan mech market!

Why would such an esteemed mech designer travel to a middle zone and issue a challenger against a much younger professional who was not only just a Senior, but not even first-rater?!

This was an incredibly unfair matchup according to the standards of the mech industry!

It was almost as outrageous as Ves issuing a challenge to a lowly Novice Mech Designer!

Ves had every right to refuse such a ridiculous challenge. Let alone a Master Mech Designer, even a Senior Mech Designer of the same age as Aulaus Kreshnik would incur a lot of notoriety for the act of 'bullying' a member of the younger generation!

Yet strangely enough, none of the people in the crowd appeared to acknowledge the inherent unfairness of this possible matchup.

It was not because Master Kreshnik was a bad mech designer that diminished his work or anything.

It was because Ves was too strong of a Senior Mech Designer!

In fact, given all of the feats that made him so famous and notorious in and outside of the mech industry, an increasing number of people questioned whether the phrase 'mech designer' still held the same meaning when applied to Ves.

He was practically an alien freak compared to every other Senior Mech Designer!

The greatest reason why most people did not think that Master Kreshnik was bullying Ves was because of the disparity between their galactic citizenships!

The Red Association designated Ves as a tier 3 galactic citizen and did not receive any pushback for it. Many important power blocs such as the Red Fleet, the Terran Alliance and the Rubarthan Pact did not object to this highly unusual promotion, which effectively meant they approved of this measure.

All of this effectively meant that Ves possessed capabilities that exceeded the vast majority of high-ranking mech designers in the new frontier!

Master Aulaus Kreshnik also happened to be on this list!

Even though he was a 200-year old Master Mech Designer who designed first-class multipurpose mechs all of the time, none of his designs or research results actually contributed all that much to human society.

Whether he refused to share his best results to humanity at large, or simply wasn't competent enough to produce major breakthroughs and advancements in his respective fields, Master Kreshnik simply wasn't valuable enough as a mech designer and a human being.

The best way to understand the differences in status was to imagine how human society would change if any of these people suddenly disappeared one day.

If Ves ever got lost, the damage to red humanity was incalculable! Much of his work was either incomplete or had yet to reach their full potential. The disappearance of his design philosophy may or may not compromise his living mechs, but the loss of his inheritance was a tragedy!

His absence would also stall all of his ongoing developments and research projects. Red humanity would lose the inventor and the most useful guide to many different E-technology applications.

Much of the reasons why the mechers promoted him from a tier 6 galactic citizen to a tier 3 galactic citizen all at once was because he was responsible for amazing innovations such as the companion spirits, design spirits, the transcendence glow, kinship networks and battle networks!

Ves had managed to develop all of these radical advancements before he reached his fortieth birthday!

His future potential was even more monstrous. If people had any idea what sort of crazy ideas he was cooking up in his mind and how likely he was able to realize them in the future, then their evaluation of him might increase even further!

Unfortunately, galactic citizenship was mostly based on current value rather than nebulous contributions in the distant future.

Even so, Ves truly possessed the strength and capital to defend his elevation to a tier 3 galactic citizen. The presentation where Ves introduced the Fey Fianna reinforced this idea ever further.

Compared to a renowned prodigy who had received the personal recognition of numerous Star Designers as well as god pilots, Master Aulaus Kreshnik was practically a nobody.

He was a tier 7 galactic citizen according to his record.

That might sound fairly impressive as it was not easy for many people to become a galactic citizen, let alone rise above tier 9, but this was considered a mediocre result!

Pretty much every Master Mech Designer was able to become a tier 8 galactic citizen. Master Carmin Olson had become one as well, and so did Master Benedict Cortez.

The act of realizing their design philosophies and the inherent capabilities of Master Mech Designers in general already merited this status.

Master Kreshnik was not all that special among other first-class Master Mech Designers, so his galactic citizenship only rose by a single tier as he continued to design a lot of mechs and developed his specialization further.

If the Rubarthan Master ever went missing, then the negative impact of his loss was... negligible.

Sure, Pritchard & Terse might enter into a crisis that might cause the company to collapse, but there were so many other mech companies in the Rubarthan Pact that such an incident could never affect the state of the mech industry.

Not even a crisis as enormous as the Great Severing had caused the business community of the Red Ocean to collapse!

The most serious loss that red humanity would suffer was that the mech industry lost an authoritative expert on energy shield technology.

Perhaps energy shields might not improve as fast as before, but who could tell the difference?

All of these thought exercises clearly highlighted the enormous disparity between the two mech designers.

In fact, people might even be able to argue that it was unfair for Ves to confront Master Kreshnik.

How could a tier 3 galactic citizen possibly condescend to bullying a mere tier 7 galactic citizen?

Of course, the actual reality wasn't as straightforward.

The two did not compete against each other in terms of overall contributions, but their ability to design good mechs.

Ves was unable to translate many of his contributions into the narrow field of mech design.

Master Kreshnik's extensive years of experience and knowledge accumulation became a lot more relevant in this situation!

In the end, no one was able to come up with a definitive answer of who possessed the advantage in this matchup.

The only way to know for sure was to allow the challenge to play out! The process and the outcome would definitely show how far Ves had come in terms of mech design.

This was why everyone was still in favor of the challenge even if Ves was at a severe disadvantage.

In any case, they all maintained their silence as Ves did not show any intention of avoiding this challenge.

He calmly discussed terms with Master Kreshnik.

At this time, the much older mech designer did not accept the proposal to let the Red Association preside over the challenge match.

"It is not my intention to question the impartiality of the mighty Red Association, but as a high-ranking honorary member of this great organization, there is an inherent conflict of interest."

"The Red Association would never tarnish its reputation in professional matters." Ves retorted.

"It is not my intention to question that. I believe in their impartiality as well, but it is best to address this matter to prevent any future unpleasantries."

The two sides eventually agreed to allow the challenge to be supervised by the Red Association as well as the more local equivalent set up by the Rubarthans.

The first-rate colonial superstates did not like the Red Two.

If possible, the Terrans and the Rubarthans did everything possible to avoid interacting with the mechers and the fleeters, so they built up their own infrastructure that could partially fulfill the roles of the current hegemons of human civilization.

The two argued on a bunch of other terms.

Neither side was allowed to make use of mech models other than the Standard Fey Fianna and the Nelerat Mark I.

Ves was not allowed to equip his drone mechs with custom fey that were not on the official product catalog of the LMC.

Neither side was allowed to apply any upgrades or modifications to their machines.

The two spent 10 whole minutes on restricting the range of mech pilots that would pilot their machines in the challenge match.

The mech pilots should not be older than 40 years old.

The genetic aptitude of the mech pilots should be no higher than B-.

The mechs should only be piloted by genuine second-class mech pilots who never benefited from first-class education and augmentations.

Neither mech designers were allowed to interfere directly in the challenge match through the use of E energy manipulation or other forms of space wizardry.

The stakes were high. Both sides stood to lose a lot of reputation and market share if they lost. This was why Ves and Master Kreshnik did not dare to be sloppy!

"When?" Ves succinctly asked.

"Tomorrow."

"Acceptable. Anything else?"

Master Kreshnik loosened his posture and smiled. "No further. We have covered all of my points of concern. I find the terms to be acceptable."

"I have no objections either. Good luck, then. May the best mechs win."

That was it. The challenge had been made and accepted.

Tomorrow afternoon, the newly announced Fey Fianna would enter into a challenge match against the Nelerat Mark I, an unannounced second-class defensive rifleman mech that was sure to contain a lot of surprises!

Though Ves did not have a good understanding of Master Kreshnik's specialization, the image of the Nelerat Mark I contained a lot of useful clues.

If Ves did his homework on the Rubarthan Master Mech Designer, he would surely be able to decipher this interesting ranged mech design.

"Before I move on to answering other questions, let us get these challenges out of the way." He announced as he addressed the crowd again. "Anyone who intends to issue your challenge to me, raise your hand. I am willing to accept a handful more in order to prove that my work is robust enough to handle a diverse range of threats. Please do not issue any challenges if all you have is a ranged mech model."

After a brief delay, around 50 arms rose in the arm. That offered Ves plenty of challenges to prove from, though he was sure that not all of them were serious.

It would not surprise him if a mech designer simply wanted to take advantage of all of the publicity to spread his name, not caring that he would turn himself into a laughing stock for presenting a weak mech!

"Hm, let's see who can give me a worthwhile challenge..."