The Mech Touch

For a moment, Ves felt awfully tempted.

Every entrepreneur dreamt of securing a monopoly on the market.

Becoming the sole provider of a good or service meant that Ves did not have to bow down to anyone!

He could dictate the price levels to earn the maximum possible revenue. There were no pesky competitors who threatened to undercut his prices.

Ves also did not have to invest as much time and effort into increasing the competitiveness and value proposition of his good or serve. He could choose to spend his time on much more important pursuits while continuing to rake in a lot of money.

More importantly than that, becoming the sole provider of an essential product granted him a lot of power.

His identity became a lot more important as people would not dare to affront the sole owner and developer of the most realistic simulation program that currently existed.

Losing access to the MSTS when there were no viable alternatives in place meant that thousands, millions or even billions of mech pilots would lose access to an essential training tool!

If this denial of access lasted long enough, then the overall skills and proficiencies of those deprived mech pilots would definitely fall behind compared to rivals who still retained access to the MSTS!

As such, whatever decisions that Ves made in relation to the MSTS could change the fate of entire states and large organizations!

Wielding so much direct power was both tempting and scary.

Ves was not sure whether it was a good idea for him to obtain so much strategic power over human society!

"Have none of the simulation program developers managed to create an improved physics model after all of this time?" He questioned.

His personal assistant shook his head. "If there is, then everyone is doing a good job at keeping their mouths shut. I think it is safe to assume that no one has cracked the code. In fact, if you are willing to believe in the rumors on the galactic net, then none of the companies have made much progress beyond the basics. The properties of E-technology are too deep, complex and more importantly mutable. How can you simulate a new energy type that can actually undergo perplexing changes based on what people think at the moment?"

Ves shrugged his shoulders. "lam sure that a lot of clever people are working on the problem at the moment. I think it will get solved in 4 or 5 years. It can even be solved sooner if a Star Designer takes action."

A prolific inventor like the Polymath would definitely be able to come up with her own new simulation program after spending a bit of effort!

She was much more suited to this sort of work as her domain was practically tailor-made for this purpose!

Figuring out new phenomena and deriving universal rules from them was a clear expression of discovering the truth of how reality worked.

The only reason why the Polymath had yet to turn her formidable intellect to this issue was because she needed to direct all of her effort into reverse engineering and converting the greater beyonder gate.

If no other Star Designer was willing to address this increasingly more pressing issue, then adopting the MSTS in the immediate future sounded like an increasingly more attractive prospect!

However... was the MSTS able to keep up with the massive expansion of usage?

Currently, Vulcan essentially acted the server of the MSTS. He was able to maintain the current level of use without much issue, but if he had to simulate a thousand times more training scenarios at a time, then even he would explode from overworking!

Ves would have to develop a more sophisticated solution in order to scale up the MSTS to a level where mech pilots across human-occupied space could make use of it, possibly with moderate restrictions in order to reduce the total load.

He may even have to create a new design spirit that was designed to act as a server from the very beginning!

Even though Vulcan was doing a decent job so far, his lack of specialization in this area resulted in a lot of inefficiencies.

"I will talk to Jovy Armalon about this next time we meet." Ves eventually decided. "If I decide to make the MSTS available to the wider public, I will likely have to do so through the channels of the Red Association."

This was not unusual. There were many different people and companies who wanted to sell their goods and services to a wider audience but lacked the scale or infrastructure to reach every market.

Many of the items listed on the Association's Merit Exchange consisted of highly prized specialty products that were difficult to obtain through other channels.

In any case, Ves did not have to worry too much about distribution, dirty tricks, unfair treatment and so on if he relied on the Red Association to manage the MSTS.

The downside was that he would have to give up a lot of control over it. Ves might not have much choice in the matter if other simulation program developers failed to make enough progress.

"The urgency shouldn't be too much for the time being." Ves surmised. "Many mechs only apply hyper technology to a shallow degree. It is easy enough to manually simulate the phenomena they can produce. Mech pilots can still gain a lot from training with regular virtual mechs."

This was not ideal, though. A solution had to be found to prevent mech pilots from backsliding in the new age.

Ves temporarily set this matter aside and focused on preparing for the next big event.

He went through another wardrobe change. He did not wear the same exaggerated getup as yesterday.

Instead, he wore a more martial ensemble that resembled a military uniform. This granted him a more combative vibe that fit the occasion a lot better.

Lucky dispensed with a cape as it wasn't necessary for the archemetal cat to dress up this time.

"Meow meow!" The cat perched on Ves' shoulder again.

Ves reached up with his arm and petted his cat.

"How are you feeling so far? Have you detected anything suspicious?"

"Meow."

"That is reassuring. The mechers are doing a good job at maintaining security."

His last talk with Jovy constantly lingered in the back of his mind. Ves had not forgotten about the fact that the Red Cabal had issued a huge bounty on his head.

The rewards sounded so tempting that Ves almost couldn't believe that no one had made any attempt on his life so far. No major irregularities had occurred. The mechers responsible for maintaining security had not increased their alert level either.

If anyone wanted to make an attempt, then they had to act today at the latest.

Ves did not intend to stick around in the Bortele System any longer than that. He would remain out of the public eye for the remainder of his stay before teleporting directly inside the hull of the Tarrasque.

Though Ves felt a little concerned at how his would-be assassins intended to bypass all of the heavy security, there was no use for him to worry so much about this issue.

He could only shove this issue to the back of his mind and focus on the stuff that he was able to affect through his own actions.

"Let's head out. Make sure to keep an eye on my back, Lucky."

"Meow."

As the time had come for Ves to make his reappearance, the mech arena had already become just as full as yesterday!

Though a portion of yesterday's ticket holders declined to enter Phoca Arena again, it was easy enough to sell their seats to other people who were interested in witnessing the show with their own eyes.

The hype surrounding the recently announced Fey Fianna was still strong enough to draw in a lot of people in the Bortele System who missed out on purchasing a ticket the first time!

As the spotlight shone on Ves once again, he briefly took in the excitement and anticipation in the air.

A lot of people expected the Fey Fianna to vanquish its challengers. Whether that would actually happen remained to be seen, but Ves had enough confidence in the combat capabilities of his latest commercial mechs.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another day where you can get to know our new Fey Fianna line better. As you are all aware of, we are about to host four action-packed challenge matches for today. We have cleared the entire arena grounds in preparation for the matches between the Fey Fianna and a variety of new or yet-to-be-released mechs designed by others. Let me briefly explain the rules and format of these challenge matches."

Ves spent the next five minutes explaining the rules that he agreed upon with his challengers.

Every challenge consisted of only a single match that would determine the success and failure of this venture.

The MTA along with possibly other institutions would referee the matches in order to maintain fairness.

The mechs used in the competition were all standard copies with no custom changes and additions that exceeded a low threshold.

The mech pilots working for the challengers were all carefully selected to match the strength of the Larkinson mech pilots.

The number of mechs assigned to each side had to be adjusted for the cost, counter factor and other variables in order to make the matches as fair as possible.

All of these rules imposed additional burdens and restrictions onto the participants, but they were very much necessary in order to ensure the challenge matches correctly showcased the strengths and weaknesses of every mech model.

"By the way, before we proceed with introducing my first challenger, let me briefly mention a contest that our company has decided to hold."

Ves proceeded to draw attention to the new fey design contest that had just launched this morning.

"The Fey Shaper Contest is open to all Journeyman Mech Designers and lower. With a generous prize pool, anyone who is willing to design a compelling new variant of one of our fey can win up to 10,000 MTA credits!"

Although 10,000 MTA credits could be used to buy a single luxury handbag, it still represented a fortune to many impoverished mech designers!

MTA credits was a standardized currency that was based on the spending levels of the mechers.

This was why a sum of 10,000 MTA credits was bound to make a lot of second-raters crazy!

Many second-class Apprentices and Journeymen could launch an entire medium-sized mech company with this much money at their disposal!

Whether they would actually be able to make their company profitable over the long run was another matter.

In any case, Ves could clearly sense a spike in excitement as many younger mech designers felt they had a chance of entering the top 10 or even the top 3!

"Before I let you go on and plan your designs, let me warn you that my fey all have the capacity to be alive or host a life." Ves carefully said. "You need to design them with a respectful mindset towards life. If you solely participate in this contest without caring for your work, then do not be surprised that your entry will earn a low score even if it contains superior tech and design implementations."

That sounded rather confusing to many people, so Ves shared a helpful tip.

"If you want to be sure that your new fey design is well-received, then I suggest you fabricate a few copies and assign them with different Fey Fiannas to see how well they cooperate with each other. If the living mech likes your new fey, then you have done a good job. If that is not the case, then you will have to go back to the drawing board. This contest can only be won by the designer who possesses the strongest heart towards their fey."