The Mech Touch

Ves was not in a hurry to design his Polymetal mech.

He wanted to accrue more experience by designing other Carmine mechs first and learn how different people adapted to their own machines.

He was much more focused on designing a set of proper Carmine mechs that could service the needs of both part-time and full-time Carmine mech pilots.

He had two overall segments in mind for his next projects.

The first group was children around the age of 10. While they were limited to piloting just 'one' machine, Ves still felt it was worthwhile to educate them in the traditional way.

At least, the mech academies should test the talent and qualities of the Carmine mech cadets to filter out the incompetent and focus on raising elites that would otherwise disappear due to their inadequate genetic aptitudes.

The end goal was not to raise a large army of elite Carmine mech pilots that could only fight so long as their Biodomes remained intact.

The real purpose for investing in them and drawing out their potential was to produce as many breakthroughs as possible!

Unlike qi cultivation, willpower cultivation did not depend on an orderly process.

Only by making the Carmine mech pilots persist in their training and throwing them in all kinds of life-and-death would they be able to sublimate their willpower.

The reason why ace pilots and god pilots were so rare in the Age of Mechs was because the total population of mech pilots was limited from the beginning.

Only 3.5 percent of the population had the potential to pilot mechs, but the proportion of actual mech pilots was smaller than that due to many reasons.

Now that the existence of the Carmine System opened up mech piloting to the rest of the population, a huge amount of people gained the opportunity to step onto the path of godhood!

The next Carmine mech design project that Ves had in mind was precisely meant to facilitate this process!

Ves briefly paused when he realized that the goals of his Rule Breaker Project overlapped with his current idea.

He inwardly shook his head.

The two may possess a few similarities, but they were ultimately different in many ways.

Unlike the MW Carmine mechs that he intended to design in a hurry, the RO Carmine mechs that he was formulating with the help of his wife were supposed to be based on much more proper and safer design principles.

The Red Ocean was his primary mech market. He had no thoughts about defying the laws of the Red Association. The mechers over here were his allies, so it was incredibly stupid to test their bottom line.

Ves needed to make sure he kept his thoughts about his RO mech design projects separate from his MW mech design projects. It would be catastrophic if he mixed them up by accident!

After a bit of effort, Ves managed to set aside his momentary confusion and focus on what was important.

"It sounds like you are serious about wanting Carmine mech yourself." Ves spoke up. "I applaud your initiative. I am happy that you are learning how to defend yourself. There are lots of scary enemies in this dwarf galaxy alone, so it is always better if you have the ability to fight enemies comparable to mechs. I don't expect you to be able to do anything more than that. You are not a soldier, so there is a limit to how effective you can be on the battlefield. I would be much more reassured if you design a custom Carmine mech for yourself that is mainly focused on defense, escape and utility. You don't have to fire any weapons in order to make a contribution in battle."

Gloriana snarled and crossed her arms. "You are disrespecting me! I am not a fragile flower in a vase! You yourself are proof that mech designers can fight as well! You are correct that I will definitely design my own perfect Carmine mech for myself. I will need you to complete your Carmine rifleman mech design first so that I can develop a variant that matches my vision. You do not need to give me unsolicited advice. I am a woman!"

Ves rolled his eyes. He had no confidence that Gloriana could make herself more effective on the battlefield than a run-of-the-mill mech pilot.

She did not possess any form of killer instinct, fighting spirit, grit and so on. She was a complete civilian who had only incidentally witnessed violence from a short distance away. None of her experiences indicated that she could withstand the rigors of battle.

As much as she tried to claim otherwise, perhaps she secretly understood this truth as well, so she wanted to orient her own Carmine mech around a ranged combat platform.

"Since you insist on going your own way, then be my guest." Ves eventually said. "If your protection detail does its job, there should never be a chance for you to rely on your own Carmine mech to fight your way out of a crisis. Something has gone horribly wrong if that is necessary." Stay connected to the story on m-vl-em-py-r

The two turned back to the original topic.

Ves and Gloriana had decided that the best way forward was to design a Carmine ranged mech and a Carmine melee mech.

Gloriana's suggestion of letting Harry Kaikkonen, a second-class Journeyman Mech Designer who specialized in precision laser weapon systems, lead the former project was a bold proposal.

While Ves did not necessarily look down on Journeymen considering that he had designed amazing machines himself when he was at that rank, he still worried whether Harry was up to the task.

"A Carmine mech design as important as this should be designed by a team of Master Mech Designers." Gloriana told Ves. "Yet when have we ever abided by this common sense? We rarely involved Master Mech Designers when we designed our highly successful mechs. Masters are strong, but we are not weak either. We do possess a number of shortcomings compared to proper Masters, but your design philosophy has so much promise that you are able to keep up or surpass their usual efforts. With at least one Senior Mech Designer contributing to the Carmine mech design project, we shouldn't be afraid that the end product will look crude and unrefined."

She was right about that. A lead designer did not necessarily have to be the best or most competent mech designer in the team.

Ves had collaborated with the likes of Master Moira Willix and Master Benedict Cortez in the past.

Their fundamentals were much broader and stronger than his own, but they had been more than capable of withholding their full power and giving a junior like Ves enough room to utilize his design philosophy to the fullest.

Now, Ves had to take the role that used to be occupied by those Masters and make sure to give Harry Kaikkonen enough space to implement his own design philosophy.

"I haven't worked with Harry as of late, so I am not too sure if he is up to the task, Gloriana. I will listen to you and give him the benefit of the doubt. Who knows. Maybe he is just as brilliant as I am in my own field of specialization."

"You will not be disappointed by his performance." Gloriana boasted. "He has been working hard to keep up and surpass his peers. What I am impressed about the most is that he has studied your notes, textbooks and design files related to your luminar crystal weapons. He has even communed with the Illustrious One a number of times just to understand this alien tech better. At this moment, his mastery of luminary crystal technology cannot quite catch up to yours, but what makes him stand out is that he has already begun to forge his own path. He has attempted to apply his own design philosophy and design applications onto luminar crystal technology, allowing him to develop energy weapons with a significantly different style from yours."

Now that certainly sounded a remarkable accomplishment!

Ordinary mech designers should not be able to accomplish all of this in a short amount of time. Harry Kaikkonen must have faced an uphill battle when he tried to comprehend this field of alien technology.

The study material was filled with gaps. Luminar crystal technology also operated on a different form of logic that was not entirely compatible with human thinking.

Furthermore, the true potential of this tech was also intertwined with hyper technology and E technology.

If Harry Kaikkonen could overcome all of these difficulties and achieve his own breakthroughs in the field of luminar crystal technology, then Ves felt much more reassured about letting him take the lead on this important Carmine mech design project.

"I didn't know that he had made so much progress." Ves admitted.

"Serves you right for underestimating our Journeymen." Gloriana smugly grinned. "We are not the only mech designers of our generation to excel. You originally recruited all of those young and talented Journeymen from the Fey Shaper Contest and other places in order to turn my Design Department into a talent factory. Enough time has passed for the most notable and hard-working among them to produce certain results. While I am not confident that Mr. Kaikkonen will be able to advance to the rank of Senior Mech Designer within the next 5 years, he is already considerably more useful than an average Journeyman."

Ves felt amazed that Harry was able to make so much progress in so little time.

He felt he had grown too arrogant as of late. It was not a good development for him to feel that he had grown so quickly that he had left all of the Journeymen of the Design Department in the dust.

In truth, the gap between Ves and the Journeymen shouldn't be as vast as he thought.

The latter were constantly working hard to improve and close the gap. That was expressly why Ves and the Larkinson Clan recruited them. Those without talent and growth potential shouldn't have been able to get in the first place.

Perhaps Ves had been shouldering too many responsibilities by himself to remember that he had gathered a lot of capable subordinates by his side.

Ves mistakenly assumed that only he, Gloriana, Ketis, Alexa and most recently Romanda were the only mech designers in the Design Department that could lead serious design projects.

However, the over 25 or so other second-class Journeymen that he had recruited during his past business trips were no pushovers either.

Now that they all had access to systematic cultivation, it should be a lot easier than ever for them to break the shackles of their second-rater limitations and quickly master a lot of new knowledge!

"I will have a good talk with him tomorrow." Ves promised to his wife. "At least the decision on who to appoint as the lead designer for the swordsman mech version of a Carmine training and combat mech is clear from the beginning. No one else but Ketis is qualified to take charge on this project. I won't pick a Master who is specialized in designing swordsman mech over a genuine swordmaster."

Gloriana had no objections to this choice. "Ketis will be happy to hear your decision. She will want to do the best job possible in order to prepare the finest Carmine swordsman mech for Kirian. Her son is roughly as old as Andraste, so the two will most definitely benefit from her work."

Ketis was also a Journeyman Mech Designer, but neither Ves nor Ketis had reasons to belittle the Swordmaiden for that. Her dual professions made it so that no one dared to underestimate her swordsman mech designs.

The two continued their discussion about how they should tackle the two upcoming Carmine mech design projects. They ended up staying awake past midnight and only reluctantly surrendered themselves to sleep in order to recover their mental balance.