Chapter 2101 The Calling of Brutus
Close to the frontier, a ship cut through the higher dimensions like a hot knife through butter.
The Serendipity might not be the largest starship, but she was certainly fast for her size and class!
For several weeks, the light frigate traversed through the domain of the Sentinel Kingdom and many other states along the way.
It didn't take long for the Hexer vessel to cross over into the territories ravaged by the sandmen.
During the height of the Sand War, thousands of sandman fleets assaulted human-occupied star systems like an inexorable tide. Each day, numerous star systems succumbed.
Nothing survived the sand storms.
Everything that humans built in orbit and on the surface of a planet disappeared in a matter of hours as the relentless sandmen engulfed everything.
Centuries of heritage disappeared. Not a single single artificial structure escaped the fate of becoming consumed.
What was worse was the people living and working at the settlements. The sandmen wiped them all out as if they were nothing but vermin dirtying up their new real estate!
The Sand War already harvested trillions of lives spanning over thousands of star systems!
On a galactic scale, this loss of life was negligible. Not even the local branch of the MTA exhibited any alarm at such a calamity!
In any case, the frontier states and frontier star sectors existed to serve as a buffer zone for human space. What did it matter if a couple of trillion people died? Human civilization was so vast that those devastated regions would quickly grow back to normal after a century of reconstruction!
Yet while the leaders at the top looked on without compassion, the people at the bottom suffered immensely from all of the death and destruction.
Countless refugees poured into other states. Even if they had been lucky enough to survive the devastation, they had lost everything they worked and lived for. With their state and home planet dead, they no longer had anything to lean upon in these difficult times.
Along with the trauma of losing everything they were familiar with, the survivors also had to process the immense amount of deaths of their fellow people.
Too many of them had lost friends, family and other kin to the sandmen. The aliens didn't even commit mass murder because they liked it. The barely-emotional beings just wiped everyone out because they were in the way!
Against such a cruel, heartless enemy, the anger that people held towards this alien race was immense!
Right now, other than her anguish, anger was the only emotion that Davia Stark possessed.
As the Serendipity flitted into the territory of the former Vindmar Republic, the ship passed through numerous star systems that Davia had once visited over her long years as a soldier and a mercenary.
She remembered the bustling trade of the Miamar System, the beautiful space monuments of the Desklar Prime System and the astounding military fortifications of the Ratarin System.
Now, nothing was left but dust and sand. The sandmen didn't even spare the ruins. The aliens consumed almost every single piece of metal and valuable material and used it to create more of their kind.
Her fists clenched as she witnessed the sight of the latest devastated star system in the hexagon-shaped observation room. The dome-like space provided her with a fantastic augmented view of space. Brilliant colors lit up from every direction as the windows automatically magnified and prettied up the sight of the distant stars.
Various projections provided her with a magnified view of various planets and other special features.
Ordinarily, such a sight would have delighted her. Yet now that she was surrounded by one sand-scoured planet after another, the sight only fueled her growing fury.
A hatch suddenly slid open. The uniformed shape of a Hexer mech pilot stepped into the room.
Davia faintly felt as if a blanket of protection covered her form. She barely took notice of it, too caught up in her depression and rage to acknowledge any other emotion!
When Brutus reached the broken expert pilot, he looked at her carefully.
"Is it too much?"
She shook her head. "I.. I needed to see this. I needed to.. see the graves of my fellow Vindmarkers."
"You're in a talkative mood today. That's good."
The two looked out into the vast and mysterious expanse of space.
"When you became an expert pilot, you kept it hidden, correct?" Brutus asked, though he already knew the answer. "You were never recognized, so you never received the guidance that every expert pilot received from the state and from the MTA."
"What does it matter?" She murmured. "I lost my strength."
"According to the MTA, every expert pilot is exceptional. Each of us not only possessed the potential to break through mortal limits, but actually succeeded in doing so. The strength we have gained is the reward we received for exceeding our humanity."
She remained silent and continued to stare out into empty space.
"I don't believe you are not an expert pilot anymore." Brutus continued. He was already used to her silence. "Those who have reached our height but become unable to pilot an expert mech are usually those who suffered permanent brain damage. Even though much of their strength is lost or sealed, they are still exceptional. You are still exceptional."
He crossed his arms behind his back and stared at the projections of the devastated star systems. "Unlike these injured veterans, you are different. The damage you suffered is all in the mind. This is rather difficult to heal, as the mind still works in mysterious ways even after thousands of years of scientific research. However, unless there is proof that I am wrong, I think that you can still be healed!"
"Don't waste your time on me." She slowly grimaced. "I'm a failure. I failed my state. I failed my comrades."
Instead of answering her directly, Brutus recited one of the messages he received when he advanced to expert pilots.
"Expert pilots like us are capable of inflicting an enormous amount of destruction. The power we wield and the abilities we are able to perform puts us on a pedestal. In addition, as a Hexer, I have always abided by the principle that we must do our best to maintain order. Foreigners such as the Larkinsons don't understand me. They think that boys like me must be collared and constrained by the women of our state."
"Aren't they right?"
The male expert pilot smiled. "No. We don't need to be chains, because we already know what is best. I may possess more power than the typical female Hexer, but that does not grant me the right to abuse it. Far from it. Both my home state and the MTA agree that power conveys responsibility. The stronger we are, the more we must take on responsibility."
Though Davia looked like she was tuning out his words, Brutus knew that she was still paying attention.
"What many foreigners fail to distinguish is that Hexers don't believe that might makes right. This is not how humanity rose from its barbaric origins. If we keep adhering to such primitive notions, we will continue to wallow in misery and chaos. This is why women such as you should be the leaders of human society. Women are wise and far-sighted. Only when women rule the galaxy will we usher in true peace!"
Davia couldn't help but scoff a bit. What did this have to do with her condition?
"You are stronger than me." Brutus stated as he turned to her. "Your weakness is only temporary. It pains me to see you imprisoned by your own darkness. I know you are better than this. Don't run away from your power. Embrace it. Don't let this setback believe you are weak."
"It's too difficult.."
"I am here for you." He said and reached out to hold her hand. "You are a noble woman and expert pilot. The galaxy needs people like you. Tragedies like this happen more often than you think. The frontier is never peaceful and plenty of alien races still threaten our fellow humans. Each of us bears the responsibility of defending human space when the aliens mobilize for war yet again."
Brutus stretched his arm towards a projection and magnified it until it took up their entire view. "Look at this planet. Billions once lived on it. Now, those Vindmarkers are gone."
The mention of such an immense loss of life pushed her into a spiral. Brutus squeezed her hand in order to prevent her from getting engulfed entirely!
"I did not pick out this planet to rub in your failure. In fact, in your position, there was hardly anything you could do. You weren't piloting an expert pilot. You were just piloting a mech for a mercenary corps. What kind of difference could you have made under those circumstances?"
"I could have done more." Davia spoke with regret. "I could have told the military I was an expert pilot. I could have fought alongside other defenders."
"That may be true. However, the past is the past. Don't let it drag you down and forget who you truly are. The sandmen crushed your comrades and almost ended your life. Don't let them succeed. Humanity needs those who are able and willing to serve a common cause. Even a single expert pilot like you can make a difference! The sandmen may have come and gone, but there are many other alien races who need to be guarded against. If worse comes to worst, then having one more expert pilot can save an entire planet like this from annihilation!"
Davia remained silent as usual. It seemed her talkative mood had passed.
"Your wounds aren't permanent. What is broken can be remade. The hardest part is that you have to rely on yourself to climb back up. There is no reason to think that you can't overcome this hurdle. You have already achieved the incredibly difficult feat of surpassing your mortal limits when you were just an ordinary human being. As long as rekindle your reason to fight, I am certain that you will regain your former glory!"
It was easy for him to spread his optimism.
It was a lot harder for Davia to buy it all. Throughout his entire speech, she remained as impassive as ever.
Restoring an expert pilot could not be done in a single day.
"We are about to reach the Varantyr System very soon." He reminded her. "I'm not sure about its current state, but be prepared to face a lot of scavengers. Those vermin are already picking at the bones of every fallen state. Vindmar might be better off due to its remoteness, but the greedy vultures won't ignore the riches that the Varantyr System still contains!"
Even though the sandmen swept up a lot of precious material, they didn't consume everything. The aliens weren't always thorough and sometimes overlooked hidden bunkers, underground complexes and very remote locations.
The sandmen also left ignored a lot of random objects and materials they believed to be of little value. This could range from remarkable exoplants to priceless artwork. As long as scavengers managed to dig up these miscellaneous bits and pieces, they could probably earn a fortune from them by selling them to collectors!
The mere thought of those surviving relics falling in the hands of greedy collectors sparked some anger in Davia. None of those people involved respected Vindmar's heritage! They only saw them as rare collectibles that mainly derived their value due to the fact that there was no more supply!
A small ripple emanated from her mind. A few broken gears had moved. It was a pity the movement didn't last long enough. Her broken will quickly settled down as her permanent depression rose up again.
Brutus nonetheless perceived something. He smiled. Any change was good in his opinion. Whether he was able to help Davia regain her old strength or not, he believed that any woman deserved a chance.
Because that was who he was. Women may be superior, but they weren't invincible.
Sometimes, they needed protection.
To be their shield was the greatest calling of his life.
Chapter 2102 Bring Home The Glory
Joshua Larkinson felt as if he was living in a dream.
Not only did he pilot one of the most powerful mechs designed by Ves Larkinson, he also became a part of the clan!
As one of the few adopted members who didn't possess a compound name, he had become one of the famous individuals of his 'kind'. Many people, particularly the younger ones, looked up to him as if he was a hero.
While Joshua didn't feel comfortable with all of the respect he received, he reluctantly accepted it. Even though he was very young, he always made sure to retain his humility.
No matter how many compliments he received, that was no reason to sit back and relax.
He wasn't even the strongest mech pilot in the Larkinson Clan. That honor was reserved for Jannzi and Tusa.
He smiled at the woman he dated. Both of them sat in a lounge room for mech pilots on standby.
He still couldn't believe he managed to gain Jannzi's attention!
The only problem was that trying to form a relationship with an expert candidate was anything but simple.
"Would you like to go out on a date?" He asked.
Jannzi frowned. "We don't have time for such frivolities. According to what I have heard, the clan patriarch soon intends to head into the Nyxian Gap for some reason or another. We need to increase our strength as much as possible when we still can. While there is nothing wrong with our individual combat skills, our teamwork and coordination can still use a lot of work. My Shieldbearers still have a lot to go before they are ready to form a unified shield wall."
The Shieldbearer Unit was a new addition to the Avatars of Myth. Commander Melkor had transferred Jannzi and Tusa out of their old mech companies and put them in charge of their units centered around their strengths.
The goal was to form a cadre of elite Avatars that could not only support the efforts of the expert candidates, but also learn from them. Even if the cadre had no hope of advancing to expert pilot, at the very least they came closer than any other regular mech pilot!
Of course, it took a very long time to train these elites up to this point. Jannzi's burden increased considerably ever since she was put in charge of a squad of eager Shieldbearer mech pilots.
Joshua knew that. He wanted to take Jannzi out for a date for a very long time. So far, he didn't have much luck!
"You need to learn how to relax, Jannzi." He said. "Too much work and no play is no good. Even your fellow truebloods know that. I know you are.. frustrated.. by the fact that you haven't made any progress towards expert pilot. Isn't that proof that your current approach isn't working?"
"You.. have a point."
"Look. Our Larkinson Clan is anything but weak. We drill every day. What's the harm of taking the evening off? Our free time shouldn't always be spent on additional training."
His words caused Jannzi to contemplate them carefully. After a moment of consideration, she uttered her reply.
"No. Everything can wait. I have heard too many stories about the Nyxian Gap to neglect its danger."
Joshua wanted to palm his face!
Some days, he questioned why he decided to pursue a relationship with Jannzi. Though she was just an expert candidate, she already acquired some of the majesty and bearing of an expert pilot!
This had caused Joshua a lot of difficulties. Many times, he felt as if Jannzi was high above the clouds while he was still trudging through a pool of mud.
Rather than let Jannzi float beyond his grasp, Joshua wanted to match her height!
If she could become an expert candidate, so could he! As a much-lauded mech pilot in the Avatars of Myth, he refused to believe he didn't have what it took to become a demigod!
Once he advanced to expert candidate, Joshua would fully be able to treat Jannzi like an equal. When that happened, they wouldn't be so distant to each other anymore!
Ever since he joined the Avatars of Myth, Joshua had fulfilled all of the ambitions set by younger self.
He became a member of the Avatars.
He piloted nearly every LMC mech that had been released.
He received the privilege of piloting a masterwork mech.
He distinguished himself in battle.
Joshua found that it was hard for him to get fired up after he made all of those accomplishments. What was there to aim for? He was already a Larkinson. He already piloted a very great mech.
Yet once he recognized that he wouldn't be able to maintain Jannzi's interest if he remained a mortal, his drive to improve ignited once again!
He wanted to achieve a breakthrough! He wanted to advance to expert candidate!
"You're right." He spoke with a determined voice. "Training is important. We can't neglect its performance. I'll make sure to train as diligently as possible tonight!"
Elsewhere, another pair exhibited a lot more jubilance.
"Yes! We did it, Raella! We finally received our charter!"
Vincent Ricklin-Larkinson embraced his girlfriend in a hug and boldly kissed her. "It took some time, but those old fogeys finally did the right thing!"
"Hahaha!" The female Larkinson looked ecstatic! "Though I always wanted to become a mech athlete, it's not that bad to run our own competitive circuit!"
Fighting a war and becoming just another cog in the machine wasn't to her liking at all. She already had a taste of what that kind of life was like when the Bloodclaws were compelled to defend the Bentheim System against the sandmen.
The constant slog of battle and the depressing amount of casualties had left her with a life-long distaste for war. While she was still willing to participate in a battle when asked, she would never do so with a smile, unlike many other Larkinsons.
That said, anyone who called her a coward deserved to get punched in the face!
As the pair slowly wound down, they studied the documents they received that outlined what they were permitted to do and don't. They also skimmed through their budget and the support they were entitled to receive from the other divisions of the Larkinson Clan.
It wasn't much.
"Balls!" Vincent cursed. "Those old fogeys sure are stingy! What can we do with such a pathetic budget? I wanted to throw some Bright Warriors in the duelling arena!"
Raella angrily whacked him in the head. "I told you to stop dreaming! The LMC may be making a lot bank lately, but that doesn't give us the luxury to ruin Bright Warriors for fun! Besides, a duel between those mechs will be as boring as hell. Their defense is impenetrable but their offensive power is weak."
"It's just that it's going to be so disappointing to play around with cheap third-class mechs. There's hardly any way we can build any hype around a match between two different trash cans."
"We have to start somewhere, Vincent. I think this is a test from the Larkinson Assembly. As long as we can turn our dueling circuit into a success, the assemblymen will definitely see the value we provide! Only a formal competition involving real mechs can entertain the bored mech pilots and other personnel in our clan!"
As they studied the document even further, they quickly recognized another problem.
"They aren't providing us with a fighting venue." Raella frowned.
"Is that important, babe?"
"It is if we want to hold landbound duels! We can't assume that we will always have access to the dueling arenas of a planet like Cinach VI. Since our clan is nomadic, it's important that we have continuous access to the appropriate facilities!"
"How do we do that?"
Raella grinned. "Why, buy an arena ship of course! While they aren't very common, they exist. They look like regular transport or cargo ships from the outside, but their interior is pretty much hollowed out in order to provide as much space for an arena as possible!"
"That sounds… amazing! However, our budget…"
"I'll think of something." She said. "If nothing works, I'll barge into Ves' design lab and squeeze his neck until he coughs up enough money!"
"Um, he's well-guarded, you know."
"Ah. Yeah. I forgot about that." She grimaced. "He's not the old Ves anymore. Well, we're still friends. If her Hexer girlfriend can wrap him around her fingers, then so can I! Hehe. I may not have spent much time with Ves, but I know how to push his buttons.
"Blegh!" Vincent pretended to vomit!
Smack!
"I didn't mean it that way!" Raella insisted while placing her hands on her hips. "Let's leave the arena ship aside for the moment. If there's no progress on that front, we can still go through with holding duels in space."
There was no need to pay for real estate in space. There was too much emptiness to go around!
The only issue was that they still needed to anchor some fixtures in space. Otherwise, it would be too easy to inflict collateral damage on a nearby ship or mech!
After going over all of the boring documents, they finally got to the fun part.
"We get to name our own competition circuit!" Vincent happily noted before scratching his head. "Uhm, did we figure that out yet? What should we call it, babe?"
"Hmm.." Raella took this issue very seriously. "We need to set a name that will stick. Ten or twenty years from now, our Larkinson Clan will probably be a lot bigger. The name must still be worthy enough for our successful circuit!"
"How about the Fight Club?"
"Too generic! That's the stupidest name I've ever heard!" Raella crossed her arms and furrowed her brows. "Let me think. It has to sound classy. If you look at the names of the other mech games circuits, they always reference some sort of cup, award or region."
"How about.. The Larkinson Master Series!" Vincent suggested.
"Hmmm… it's not quite there yet. It's getting there, but I need a bit more grandeur."
"Oh, I got it!" Vincent exulted. "Let's call it the Larkinson Championship Series!"
Raella weighed the name. Though it didn't sound as exciting as she hoped, it exuded plenty of class. That was important if she wanted it to be taken seriously several decades from now.
She did not go through all of this trouble to quit after a few years. She was in it for the long run!
Since she wanted to build an entirely new institution based around mech competitions, she had to make sure it possessed a solid foundation. After the brief amount of time she spent with Ves, she knew the importance of coming up with a memorable name and a solid brand!
"Alright." She nodded. "The Larkinson Championship Series doesn't sound as bad as your other suggestions."
"Mark my words, Raella! The LCS will become the most prestigious and impressive circuit in the Larkinson Clan!"
That remained to be seen.
After they settled the name, they began to consider the hierarchy.
"It says here that there can only be a single director in charge." Vincent patted his chest. "I happen to know a thing or two about leading an organization!"
Raella ignored his boast and quickly filled in her own name as director! "Sorry, but this job is mine! The LCS is my brainchild!"
"I thought it was our brainchild!"
"You can be the vice-director."
"Second place is just the first loser!"
"Perhaps it's a better idea if you don't manage our circuit at all, Vincent."
"What?! You're kicking me out already? I haven't even showed off my awesome management skills!"
"It's either that or forfeit your chance of competing. We can't allow any LCS personnel to take part in the very competition we organize! That's just stupid!"
"Oh. You're right."
"So if you want to show off your manly charm on the arena, you better butt out of my business and do your own thing. If I were you, I would get in early and organize my own team."
"That's.. That's a brilliant idea, Raella!" He crowed, already becoming enthralled by his fantasies! "I can become the champion of the LCS! I will lift up trophy after trophy! Witness me, Raella. I'll bring home the glory as soon as I win the first finals!"
"Uh huh." Raella scoffed. "What will your team name be? Ricklin's Rollers?"
"Nah. That's already done and over with. Let me think…" Vincent tapped his finger against his chiseled chin. "Oh, I got it! TSV!"
"And that stands for…"
"Team Solo Vincent!"
"Are you sure about that? I don't see how the word 'team' fits in that combination."
"It's perfect, haha! It doesn't matter how many teammates I have. I'll be the one who will be carrying them all to victory! I can already imagine the chants from the crowd. TSV! TSV! TSV!"
Chapter 2103 Short-Term Benefits
"So you haven't found anything useful yet?" Ves skeptically asked as he scratched Lucky's head.
"I'm still in the process of grouping all of the individual substances inside the sample." Dr. Ranya told him as she peered at a microscopic view of the sample of life-prolonging treatment serum. "Besides, many of the organic substances I've catalogued are complete unknowns. I can't even begin to guess where they came from, let alone reproducing them. It doesn't help that you are only giving me a few hours a week of access."
"You still have other responsibilities, and it's not like you'll gain much more with additional time. I'm well aware that you spend a lot more time on hitting the books in order to gain the knowledge to decipher more about the serum."
Dr. Ranya sighed. While Ves wasn't an exobiologist, he was still a scientist of some sorts. He was well acquainted with her research cycle.
"The serum is one of the most wondrous products of high technology in human hands." She spoke. "My foundation is far too shallow to even scratch the surface of its profound nature. It will likely take centuries for me to decipher its basic working. Nonetheless, I will never let go of this opportunity! Access to such a high-grade serum is an extremely precious opportunity that many of my fellow colleagues would kill to spend a few hours with! I'm confident I can achieve something remarkable in three, no two decades!"
Ves glowered at that. WIth such a long time-span, he could have hired much more competent exobiologists!
Someone as smart as Ranya didn't miss his response.
"Before you try and find someone more senior to take over this research project, you should keep in mind that there is so much to learn that every biotech expert has to start from scratch. The theories that you need to learn to unlock the secrets of serum are very esoteric and obscure. Much of what is available is scattered and fragmented. I have to piece together a lot of rules by combining scattered theories with my experimental observations. This is a life-long labor. Sure, someone better than me might be able to decipher the serum faster, but how old will they be? 100 years? 200 years?"
The implication was obvious. Ranya might not possess the learning efficiency of those at the upper end of a field, but they were at least several decades old. By the time they mastered the serum to a thorough degree, they might have already reached the end of their lives!
However, her argument possessed some very glaring holes.
"There are two ways to mitigate this shortcoming." He said and raised a finger. "First, research on life-prolonging treatment serum will presumably yield research results that will aid people in prolonging their lives. Even if that isn't the case, the value of an expert who studied the serum extensively is worth it for me to pay for a life extension!"
He raised another finger. "Second, even if prolonging the life of an old geezer isn't viable, I can always tell him to teach some apprentices to take over his mantle! Human civilization has always revolved around the accumulation and inheritance of knowledge. We stand on the shoulders of giants."
What a lofty argument! Ves mentally patted himself on the back for making use of these lines.
"I won't say that you're wrong, but.. do you really want to expose the existence of your serum further? Even if you have managed to guarantee their silence, there is always a way to crack someone open. Do you truly want to take that risk?"
Ugh. Ranya succinctly appealed to one of his fears. She was right. Every single person who knew about the serum increased the chance that it might get exposed.
Even the Terrans and Rubarthans wouldn't hesitate to dispatch forces to rob the serum from his hands! Its value was simply too great for someone like him to retain possession of such a hot good!
Though Ves truly wanted to obtain benefits faster, he feared the risk of exposure even more. This was why he had been very careful about exposing its existence to as few individuals as possible!
So far, only he, Lucky, Nitaa and Ranya knew about it. No one else. With all of the security precautions he took, Calabast was probably in the dark as well.
Perhaps the only other person who might know a thing or two about it was James, but his methods were simply too confounding.
Though Ves was highly alarmed at how the Living Prophet peered through some of his secrets, he was relieved that the Ylvainan was apparently on his side.
Since James claimed to be able to see the future, the smug bastard should be very well aware of the consequences of betraying him! While Ves hadn't been able to exact vengeance on anyone who wronged him, he would definitely not spare any effort, starting with Ylvaine's spiritual fragment!
After all, if Ves was capable of breathing life into spiritual entities, he could take it back as well!
As long as he possessed this leverage, he was confident he could keep James in check.
"You have made your point." Ves eventually spoke. "That said, my patience isn't endless. Even if you can't figure out anything fancy, I want to see at least one practical gain within the next few years."
"That.. is a steep challenge. If I drop almost everything and focus completely on short-term gains, I might be able to derive a useful application of my research. It would be helpful to determine direction to work towards. What are you looking for, exactly?"
He thought about that. "Since the serum is mainly about extending one's life, then try and find a way to do that. Your result doesn't have to be as effective as a low-grade serum. Even I know that is out of reach. However, if you can develop some sort of elixir that can extend a baseline human's life by thirty years, that is already incredibly helpful. As long as it is economic enough, we can supply it to every clansman, thereby boosting the strength of our clan by a considerable margin!"
Making people live longer meant that Ves would also be able to squeeze more work out of them! It took a lot of effort to hire and train the next generation of replacements. If the old fogeys of his clan could live a few more decades, then that meant that Ves would get a lot more worth out of them! Of course, the premise for all of this was whether the elixir cost less than the value he gained from extending the life of a productive clansman.
As for trying to reverse-engineer serum in its entirety, Ves would be a fool to think it could be accomplished within a century. Even if he had become aware of its remarkable spiritual properties, the degree of spiritual engineering involved was way beyond his level of competence!
He was in the same boat as Ranya in that regard.
Unlike her, Ves couldn't afford to waste too much time on deciphering the workings of the serum.
However, he didn't need to understand how it worked in order to make use of it. After a long time of contemplation, he eventually made up his mind.
It was a waste to hoard such a potent good. Waiting until he became 300 years old in order to extend his life by another century was far too long.
He was only a tenth as old right now! It would take forever to get to the point where he would need to use it to extend his life, and by then he would definitely be able to earn it by himself!
It was this confidence in himself that allowed him to do something that was unthinkable any anyone else in his position.
He decided to use up the serum in other applications!
Though it was very easy to waste the potential of the serum, as long as Ves gained enough immediate benefits, then that was worth it! A smaller boost in the early days of his career was far more valuable than a larger boost in the later stages.
The sooner he advanced to Senior, the sooner he could enter the big leagues!
The faster his mech designs improved, the more money he would earn!
It was all about obtaining an early lead and snowballing it to a greater lead in the years to come. Ves was keenly aware that he was constantly racing against time. He didn't need to rely on his intuition to know that humanity's golden age would never last.
Even if a great threat didn't arrive within his lifetime, it was still very crucial to strengthen himself as much as possible in the early stages. If he was too weak by the time he arrived at the Red Ocean Dwarf Galaxy, then he would never be able to stick his head out in this wild and dangerous expanse!
As Ves finally took back the sample from Ranya, he left the Scarlet Rose's newly-built biolab and headed over to the vault. After going through a lot of security checks, he entered the secure compartment and inspected the new shipment of P-stones.
Unlike the ones he obtained before, the new ones didn't store any of his excess spiritual energy. They were empty batteries waiting to be filled up. With so many new P-stones, Ves could store years worth of his excess spiritual energy!
"I never did find the maximum capacity of a P-stone." He remarked.
He didn't know whether the P-stones all stored the same amount of spiritual energy. He had no clue if it depended on their individual material composition or their shapes.
In fact, up until now, he still hadn't created a measuring stick for spiritual energy!
All of these were basic scientific questions that Ves had neglected to address due to his lack of time. It was only now that he was waiting for the data of the prototype testing of his remaining project that he obtained some free time.
When it came to researching anything related to this field, Ves preferred to go his own way. Of course, the lack of access to his mother's heritage or any source of systematic knowledge also played into that. If his deadbeat mother actually bothered to pass on her teachings, he wouldn't be forced to fumble in the dark all the time!
"It's better that she didn't." He muttered under his breath. "I don't need her help! I can figure out my own path!"
Just like in the field of mech design, Ves was confident he could innovate his own solutions! Though his results wouldn't be very impressive at first, as long as he continued to blaze his own trail, he would eventually be able to create something that truly belonged to himself!
Ves wasn't looking to replicate the Grand Dynamo nestled in his mind. Instead, he wanted to create something just as powerful!
He looked at the P-stones before glancing at the vial in his hands. His intuition had been buzzing like crazy whenever he looked at the serum.
One of the many hunches he received was there might be some way to make them interact with each other. To what purpose, he didn't know.
"Is it possible to separate and isolate the spiritual properties of a sample?"
Ves was very reluctant to mess around with the highly complex and highly concentrated life-attributed spiritual energy locked inside the serum.
In some ways, the serum was alive. Ves couldn't treat it as a simple medicine.
However, Ves was not deterred.
"Life is one of my domains!"
Ves began to draw out a tiny droplet from the vial and began to store it into another prepared container.
Though the drop was incredibly miniscule, Ves still felt as if he was holding something a miniature sun! The spiritual energy contained in the drop was still very potent!
"Let's see whether I can pass it onto a P-stone!"
Chapter 2104 The Right Command
Ves spent almost half a day inside the vault. Though it didn't offer any proper lab facilities, he didn't require any. Not a single piece of lab equipment could do anything meaningful to spiritual energy.
As Nitaa stoically remained on guard and Lucky dozed on the deck, Ves continued to fumble with the tiny sample.
He tried various ways to extract its spiritual energy and transfer it to a P-stone.
Suffice to say, this was easier said than done.
Due to the living properties of the serum, its spiritual energy was essentially tied to its existence.
Ves couldn't just scoop it out and drop it into an empty P-stone. He first needed some way to separate the bonds that held these two elements together.
In essence, it was no different from harvesting a life.
Though it all sounded macabre, Ves didn't have any trouble with it. He would hesitate if he was about to perform this procedure on a living person or one of his mechs.
However, the serum wasn't really a sentient lifeform as far as Ves was aware of. Despite its abundance of spiritual energy and the sophistication of its operation, Ves did not recognize anything that suggested that it was actually a lifeform who he could talk to. He had already tried to communicate it with his Spirituality, but received absolutely no response.
Even if this assumption was wrong, then that wasn't his fault. The serum should have opened its mouth if it objected to being treated as his latest test subject!
"I don't even really know what I'm doing." He muttered.
Ves was basically trying out something on a whim at the moment. Without any mech designs to work on, he grew bored. He could have spent his time on managing the Larkinson Clan, but he had already set an overall direction. There was no need for him to swoop in and micromanage everything.
He supposed he could have taken a break. He could have taken Gloriana out. He could have spent his time on researching imaginary mechs.
Instead, he felt compelled to play around with a sample of the serum.
Since he owned something so extraordinary, why should he let it warm his pocket?
Over the past week, Ves had carried it around everywhere in a pouch made of Synthra Umbra. He frequently took the time to extend his spiritual senses towards it in order to view the profound interactions of the life-attributed spiritual energy.
Time and time again, Ves sighed in admiration at the grand feat of spiritual engineering he witnessed in the serum. In fact, he wasn't even sure whether the serum had been created artificially.
There was just something about the interactions that felt as if they were in tune with the laws of nature.
This made his current actions a bit difficult to stomach. Ves wanted to rip the spiritual energy out of the droplet he extracted from the vial and stuff it into a P-stone.
That was tantamount to ruining the sample!
Not only would the droplet lose the life energies that made it so remarkable, the life-attributed spiritual energy he extracted would also lose its organic support.
Deconstructing something of high value into two elements of much less value was not worthwhile in most cases.
However, Ves believed it would be worthwhile in this case.
First, the serum was far too complex and potent as a whole. By deconstructing it, Ves would obtain two much more manageable elements that could be studied to a much greater degree.
Second, Ves wanted to make use of the life-attributed energy. However, he had no use for the organic components. If Ves made use of the entire sample in its original form, then the chance of its existence leaking was substantial!
"Ranya can study the droplet that remains after I have extracted the life out of it." He determined.
As Ves tried out various methods to separate the life-attributed spiritual energy from the droplet, he achieved no result. Hours went by as Ves failed to make it budge!
"Damnit! Do I really have to make use of an F-stone?"
Ves had a faint hunch that it might be possible to cut the life out of the sample if he utilized the offensive charge of his F-stone.
However, it wasn't worth it to waste its charge on this procedure. He needed to preserve the strength of the F-stone as much as possible in order to guard against a rampaging Nyxie!
"How can I separate it then if I can't employ a sharp enough implement?" He frowned.
He had already tried to shrink the sample. While that reduced its spiritual strength, Ves soon found out that it also decreased the complexity of spiritual interactions.
The smaller the sample, the less sophisticated its spiritual nature became. Ves didn't want that. For his next experiment, he wanted to retain as much complexity as possible!
"The higher the quality, the better!"
He turned to his dozing cat. "Do you have any ideas?"
"Meow."
"I doubt that will work."
"Meow?"
"Don't speak nonsense. How can that possibly work? Although it's alive, it isn't sentient!"
"Meow meow!"
"Huh. I didn't think about that."
"Meow!"
Lucky's expression turned smug. Even a cat was able to outsmart Ves!
The serum was alive, but not sentient as far as he knew. However, there were many forms of life that didn't possess any conscious minds yet still reacted to external stimuli.
Plants, bacteria, viruses and so on did not exist in isolation. They interacted with their environment. No matter their complexity, they were all 'alive' in at least some sense of the word.
As Ves turned his attention back to the tiny container that contained the sample, he began to look at its spiritual qualities from a different perspective.
"It's not a sentient spiritual entity. It's not a collection of spiritual building blocks either. The energy and its attributes are all intricate tied together like the circuits of a processor or the programming code of a piece of software."
Following this train of thought, what kind of stimuli could he employ to get a reaction out of it? Ves immediately thought of his own spiritual domain.
He concentrated his mind. He deliberately depressed the mech aspect of his spiritual expression.
Then he began to form a spiritual projection and extended it towards the sample.
He didn't dare to make contact directly. The closer his spiritual expression got, the more he felt as if he was approaching a sun.
Making direct contact would definitely burn him! That was what he guessed!
"It should be enough to maintain close proximity."
Subsequently, Ves tried to communicate it. He spent a lot of time throwing random commands at it, thinking that he might be able to trigger some inbuilt command.
"Separate."
"Partition."
"Extract."
"Divide."
None of these commands worked. Even as Ves dredged up a dictionary and some programming textbooks from his implants, not a single word triggered a response.
"Is my approach wrong?" Ves frowned.
Did he have to employ a different language?
"No. The language shouldn't matter. My method of communication is universal."
This was his superpower, of sorts. He was able to communicate with all sorts of living beings no matter if they were cats or exobeasts through his Spirituality.
Perhaps he needed to employ more complex commands. He shrugged. It was worth a try.
"Separate your spiritual energy from your material form."
"Let me extract your energy."
"Grant me administrator access."
"Open sesame!"
Nothing worked, but Ves wasn't deterred. The brute force method he employed was not only stupid, but also time consuming. Failure was normal. To expect quick success was folly, especially when Ves wasn't even sure if this method was viable to begin with! He might as well have been talking to a wall all the time!
Even Ves didn't know why he chose to employ this method. All of it rested on shaky assumptions. The only reason why he persisted at all was because of his intuition.
Though it had been acting wonky all this time, Ves nonetheless perceived some positive signs. His intuition had rarely failed him and it was one of his most useful strengths. It had always played a key role in many of his successes and played a starring role in the creation of his masterworks!
Of course, his intuition only dealt with certain issues. Ves couldn't help but remember the time where his intuition allowed him to unlock a very difficult puzzle, only to unleash Sigrund upon the galaxy!
Ves did not think he faced such a situation this time. As potent as the sample appeared, Ves doubted that it contained some spiritual monster.
Still, as much as he believed in his current approach, several hours went by without result. Even he began to run out of patience!
"I'll beat you up if you don't give up your energy!"
"Let me harvest your life!"
"Offer me your tribute!"
The sample suddenly shone in his spiritual senses! Before Ves could react, the spiritual energy that had been attached to the droplet suddenly separated on its own accord!
It happened in less than a second. The transition was so abrupt that Ves almost couldn't believe what took place.
"..It worked?"
Ves quickly shook off his befuddlement. He quickly swiped a P-stone he kept on hand.
As soon as the rock came near, it automatically sucked in the life-attributed spiritual energy. This stopped the separated energy from decaying now that it had lost its original material shelter.
Ves still couldn't believe it actually worked, and with such a unique phrase. There was something imperious about telling a sample of the serum to offer him tribute. It was as if he was a god demanding a sacrifice from his subjects!
Had the creators of the life-prolonging treatment serum programmed this specific phrase in the serum? Or had he simply said something that vaguely resembled the actual command?
"No matter. The point is that I succeeded!"
He spent way too many hours on this procedure! It turned out that his hunch was right!
Ves keenly studied the separated elements.
He first took a close look at the sample. He could already tell it started glowing less. Without its spiritual energy, the sample seemed to have lost all life.
When Ves studied the P-stone that contained his prize, it seemed to have become warm in his spiritual vision.
Something remarkable entered the rock!
His grin widened as he carefully inspected the state of the separated spiritual energy. As expected, it had lost a considerable amount of life as well. Yet it hadn't died entirely!
The best way to describe its current state was that it had entered hibernation. Most of its interactions slowed down or froze entirely as it tried to conserve as much energy as possible.
"Good. Good." He muttered with a grin. "This is exactly what I need!"
The thought had been brewing in his mind for a while. What if he could extract a bit of life from the serum and transferred it to a P-stone? What if he subsequently made use of it in something else?
"This seed of life is key to my next creation!"
Ves caressed the rocky surface of the valuable P-stone, feeling the weakened but still lively spiritual energy locked within.
"Meow!"
Lucky immediately floated next to the stone and attempted to take a bite!
"Oh no you don't!"
Ves grabbed onto Lucky's neck with both his hand and a spiritual projection!
"Meow meow meow!"
"No! Absolutely not!"
"Meeeeeoooow!"
It took a long time to push away his cat! Even though he managed to stop Lucky from eating the seed of life, Ves did not feel reassured.
Even if Ves locked it in the vault, Lucky would just phase through every obstacle in order to take a bite out of the spiritually-empowered rock!
He glanced suspiciously at Lucky. His downcast pet continued to look longingly at the P-stone.
"This isn't for you!"
"Meow?"
"Then watch! I'll show you what I'm going to do right away!"
Chapter 2105 The Crazy Ceremony
To Ves, the P-stone in his hands truly deserved to be called the seed of life.
It contained a large amount of life-attributed spiritual energy. Even though it had been separated from its source, most of its sophisticated structure and interactions remained intact. More than a hundred different varieties of life melded together in a symphonic whole.
Even if that symphony had fallen silent, it hadn't been disbanded.
"That's good enough." Ves nodded in satisfaction. "A seed exists to be planted. Or eaten."
He carefully put the seed of life in a prepared container and kept it close. With Lucky constantly drooling at it, who knew whether the naughty cat would swoop in and take a bite!
Ves did not wish to lose any of its potency. Even now, the life-attributed spiritual energy continued to decay!
While he didn't have to worry about anything for a couple of days, from the rate of decay he estimated it would take just a week for it to degrade its quality!
"I'm on a time limit!"
Fortunately, the ceremony he planned would take place in a couple of days. This was plenty of time to process the seed of life.
"I can't wait!"
He inspected the vault one more time before exiting it. He moved straight to the mech workshop compartment and made sure that it was secure.
His comm suddenly rang. Ves accepted the call.
"Ves." A projection of his girlfriend popped up. "You're late. What are you doing on your ship? What have you been up to? We were supposed to eat dinner right now!"
"Don't wait on my accord. I won't be going back today. I'm occupied with a very important personal project right now."
She frowned. "Can I help?"
"Not at the moment. However, make sure to show up on time the day after tomorrow. I have something very big in store."
"Okay…"
After a bit more chit-chat, Ves eventually ended the call and turned his attention back to the container that held the seed of life.
"Well, let's see what I can make out of you. With so much life inside of you, I don't believe you can give birth to something weak!"
He inspected the materials he had already prepared beforehand. He not only brought in enough Breyer alloy to fabricate a light mech, he also ordered some additional exotics.
Not all of them were relevant to fabricating mechs. In truth, they mainly played a decorative role.
Ves made a thorough effort in his inspection. He threw out every piece of material that wasn't pure or contained other defects.
In the end, he was left with a smaller pile of high-quality materials.
"Let's begin!"
Ves began to activate some production machines and began to process the materials.
The question on how to utilize his seed of life hung over his head.
He had two choices. Either he could keep it as a whole, or he could break it up into dust and blend it into the materials.
"The latter sounds way too risky. What if the spiritual energy leaks out? I can't afford this outcome!"
He reluctantly decided to keep the seed of life intact. When he finished the material processing stage and moved on to the fabrication stage, he modified the design in order to accommodate the seed in the interior of his next creation.
"While I'm at it, I should also make some other modifications."
Ves turned his head and looked suspiciously at Lucky.
"Meow."
"No means no! You can forget about it. When I'm done with this fabrication run, let's see whether you still have the guts to covet my seed of life!"
He turned back to his work and tried his best to fabricate every part.
When it came time to assemble his work, he began to piece together the parts as if he was assembling a mech. While this was not a traditional way to create such a work of art, Ves was not a sculptor. He was a mech designer.
"It doesn't matter. As long as it looks good, that is all that matters!"
During this process, he carefully pulled out another object he brought out of the vault.
The remnant of the Idol of the Superior Mother. Ves had already cleaned it up so that its burn marks no longer blackened its original marble-like surface.
"This piece originally belongs to the chest. In fact, it's quite close to the area corresponding to the heart."
When he designed his current work, he left enough room to slot in this piece! He carefully shifted it in place before surrounding it with other parts.
Eventually, a statue came into being. It was a statue of a proud woman that bore a very strong resemblance to the original Idol of the Superior Mother!
In fact, Ves originally intended to recreate the destroyed statue to its exact dimensions!
It was just that Lucky's greed for the seed of life caused Ves to alter the design and put his own touch on it. Now that he did so, he had to admit that his hastily-revised design possessed a bit more charm than before.
Though its appearance deviated from the classic form of superiority of the original statue, it took a completely different meaning in his eyes!
Aside from slotting in the remnant of the original idol, Ves also added some other objects to his statue.
After a bit of thought, Ves decided to place the seed of life in the location of the womb.
He then retrieved the wooden statuette that his mother had carved and placed it in the middle of the statue's brain.
After he finished slotting these objects, he completed the assembly and took a step back.
The outer surface of the statue made it seem as if it had been carved out of a large piece of marble.
In truth, Ves merely covered it with a layer of modified Breyer alloy. He had altered its composition and added several other materials that weakened it but also made it more aesthetically pleasing.
To Ves, it was worth it. He had managed to reconstruct some of the charm of the Idol of the Superior Mother while employing the methods of a mech designer.
"Hahaha! It looks better than I thought! What do you think, Lucky?"
"Meow…"
Lucky looked at the statue with a reluctant expression. The cat no longer dared to swoop in and eat the delectable seed of life.
This was because Ves had shaped it in the form of his mother!
"Hahaha, even if you don't respect me, you still respect my mother!"
The shape of the Idol of the Superior Mother didn't differ drastically from the shape of his mother! After examining his memories and studying the old archival recordings of his mother when she lived on Cloudy Curtain, he managed to reconstruct her appearance to a very accurate degree!
Most of his alterations concentrated on the face of the statue. Aside from that, he didn't have to put much effort into altering the proportions of the other limbs. Perhaps the only challenge he encountered was to reduce the height of the statue.
His mother wasn't as tall as the original Idol!
As Ves finished evaluating his work of art with his eyes, he switched over to his spiritual vision.
The statue exuded a considerable amount of spiritual activity. However, it was all a bit disjointed and inconsistent.
The head exhibited no activity. The heart section barely registered in his senses. Only the womb exuded significant activity.
Even from a distance, Ves could easily sense the energy contained within the seed of life!
"It's enough!"
This was not the complete form of the statue as far as he was concerned! Ves still needed to perform another step.
Unfortunately, now was not the time!
"Let's go, Lucky. Don't think about doing anything to this statue."
"Meow.."
Two days later, Ves along with numerous transports, shuttles and other vehicles arrived at an empty plain on Cinach VI.
A large number of Avatar and Sentinel Mech had been called to guard the premises. No uninvited guests were allowed to get close!
The Avatars and Sentinels didn't just patrol the premises. They also installed some prefabricated structures and fixtures.
If people looked down from orbit, they would find out that the Larkinson Clan was constructing a giant hexagon!
Soon enough, anyone peering at the site would suddenly find out that their views turned fuzzy!
In order to block any snooping, the Black Cats erected numerous pillars around the Hexagon that formed a giant interference field in the air!
As the enormous hexagon took shape, some of the construction crew erected a tall pedestal in the center. Then, a couple of heavy-duty lifter bots brought forth the second edition of the Idol of the Superior Mother and carefully installed it in place.
While all of this construction work proceeded, a lot of people emerged from their vehicles.
"What's this all about, Ves?" Gloriana asked with concern. "Is this part of the ceremony you have been hinting about?"
He nodded. "Yup! Are you surprised?"
"I'm aghast! You don't know anything about hexism, Ves! I don't know what kind of ritual you plan to conduct, but this is completely crazy! If the Temple of Hexism knows about this..."
"I'm not conducting a religious ritual!" Ves shouted at her! "I'm merely channeling some symbolism! I'm doing all of this in order to create the best possible design spirit for our upcoming Hexer mech! You wanted me to create a design spirit that would impress your fellow Hexers, right? I'm doing exactly that!"
"You should have consulted me! Compared to a layman like you, I know tons more about hexism!"
"This is my ceremony, not yours. If I just follow your lead, I can't guarantee the best result."
While the two argued, a large amount of people started to enter the giant hexagon. Ves had issued a lot of orders, contacted a lot of local officials and made some many other arrangements in order to bring in so many people!
The interior of the hexagon had been split up into six different zones.
Each zone corresponded to a phase of existence.
66,666 men stepped into the zone representing the phase of life.
The men largely consisted of locals drawn from the population of Cinach VI. The curious commoners had no idea what they had signed up for. All they knew was that they stood to earn a lot of money if they cooperated.
The men took up a lot of space. In fact, it almost looked as if the zone was about to overflow!
6,666 coffins holding the bodies of the recent deceased were placed in the zone representing the phase of death.
It had taken a lot of effort to secure those coffins. Ves not only needed to convince the local authorities to play along, he also had to gain the cooperation of a lot of families of the deceased!
Fortunately, as long as Ves threw enough money at them, the families easily agreed to delay their planned funerals.
6 small containers were placed in the zone representing the phase of godhood.
Ves winced at the small number of containers. He didn't dare to bring in any more. Each of them contained P-stones containing various spiritual entities or spiritual fragments of some of his design spirits.
It had been a bit troublesome to obtain the fragments, but Ves didn't care about the damage.
666 glowering women stepped into the zone of damnation.
Each of them were Penitent Sisters. Commander Chancy, Head Designer Stameros and Commodore Evern all looked profoundly unhappy to take part in this blasphemous-looking ritual!
When Ves initially ordered the women to cooperate with this ceremony, it almost seemed as if the Penitent Sisters would rebel against him right on the spot!
However, in the end, they refrained from breaking their oaths. If they wanted to keep their chances of redemption alive, they needed to play along with any reasonable orders!
Even then, Ves had to offer the Penitent Sisters numerous concessions in order to provide enough Sisters to represent the most heinous phase of existence!
666,666 small, thumb-sized containers were moved in the zone representing the phase of dust.
All of them contained a single sandman corpse, each resembling a single grain of sand. Ever since the Sand War broke out, a lot of dead sandmen floated in space. Each of them used to be part of a sandman vessel but had lost whatever animated them when the human defenders blasted them to pieces.
Even though Ves brought in a lot of grains of sand, they didn't take up any space!
66 women were supposed to enter the zone of phase of women. After a lot of thought, Ves decided to reserve this honor to the Swordmaidens.
Commander Dise and 65 of her strongest Swordmaidens proudly strode forward and occupied the large zone.
With all of the pieces moving into place, the people or objects representing six phases of existence all surrounded the statue placed in the center of the hexagon from six different directions!
Chapter 2106 Six Zones
The giant hexagon spanned a large area. Small dividers split it up in six different zones akin to six pieces of a pie.
A tall but fairly narrow hexagon-shaped platform rested in the very center of the zones. Decorative iconography representing the six phases of existence faced every zone.
At the phase of life, a large number of men of varying ages stood at their assigned locations.
Though it was an immense challenge to stuff 66,666 men in a single zone, as long as they followed the instructions projected to them on an individual basis, no one experienced any problems.
Just to be sure there wouldn't be any interruptions, everyone had already been ushered into bathrooms a few hours before.
No one was allowed to interrupt the ritual because they urgently needed to do their business!
The majority of men consisted of locals. With all of the wealth and clout that Ves wielded these days, it was a simple matter of gaining House Evenson's permission to recruit a lot of random people.
It was even simpler to hire these men to stand around in the middle of nowhere. Each participant received 1,000 sentinel crowns for a single afternoon of their time!
That was easily twice or thrice the monthly wage of an average laborer!
A lot of men who encountered this offer instantly accepted it without a pause. This was easy money to them, especially when there weren't any skill, age or experience requirements!
Even though none of the men knew what Ves and the Larkinson Clan had in store, it shouldn't be too bad in their opinion.
Though a lot of them tried to guess why this powerful foreigner needed them all, they didn't linger on it for too long. After all, who could guess the mind of a famously eccentric mech designer?
With the local authorities cooperating fully with the Larkinson Clan, almost every man became reassured that this wasn't some sort of scheme to enslave them or anything.
It wasn't until they were actually brought to the giant hexagon that they understood what they signed up for! Some of the men even started to have second thoughts when they looked at the large, mech-sized statue of a woman.
Something about this statue made them shudder!
"I don't know about this, man. What's with all of this Hexer stuff?"
"Who cares. Just enjoy your 1000 sents!"
Though almost every man in the zone consisted of locals, there were a few exceptions.
For one reason or another, Ves had given a direct order to Vincent Ricklin to take part. In fact, Vincent had been assigned the front-most spot!
"Haha, whatever is going on, I'm already in first place!" He boasted while he looked up at the tall, lifelike statue. "Damn, what a babe. If I didn't already have Raella, I would put the moves on this chick."
While Vincent entertained himself with the nearby eye candy, at the zone representing the phase of death, a quiet solitude had spread.
The men standing at the edge of this zone weren't as boisterous as the others. Each of them couldn't help to recognize the iconic shape of a coffin.
Each of them were wooden and tightly sealed. Light decorative carvings added a bit of sophistication to their exterior while the banners draped on them each displayed a short record of the deceased.
Each of the dead had died within a span of a week. Ves opted to reserve the coffins of the recent dead because he didn't think it was worth the outrage if he dug up a lot of buried graves.
It was easy enough to bribe the families of the deceased to lend him the coffins. As far as they were concerned, Ves was paying for the funerals!
At the phase of godhood, only 6 mysterious containers rested on the ground.
Each of them contained a P-stone filled with the essence of a design spirit.
Ves chose the design spirits with care. He selected Bravo for his boyishness, Zeigra for his honorable death, the Golden Cat for her spiritual network, Nyxie for his damned existence, the Crystal Leader for his forgotten existence and finally Qilanxo for her motherly strength.
The selection itself vaguely corresponded to the six phases of existence, which Ves believed would be a nice touch.
Next to this almost empty zone was the zone that represented the most controversial phase of existence.
666 angry or sullen-faced Penitent Sisters stood at their assigned spots. None of them dared to disobey orders and take any further steps.
Just to be sure, a couple of mechs along with a lot of guards on foot kept an eye on this unstable element. As soon as the Hexers stirred any trouble, security wouldn't hesitate to pacify them! It wasn't difficult at all to keep 666 unarmed women in check.
"This is blasphemy of the highest order!" Commodore Abigail Evern hissed. "If the Evern Matriarchal Dynasty hears about this, Mr. Larkinson's life is forfeit! My former relatives will never let a boy desecrate our beliefs with this farcical display!"
Even though the Penitent Sisters used to be cultists, they still respected many parts of hexism orthodoxy. What they witnessed right now seemed like a parody! A heretical parody!
Juliet Stameros spat on the ground. "I warned you all that the boy was in trouble. He's the most dangerous mech designer I've ever met. He's unlike any of the other male mech designers from the Hegemony. I don't know what that Wodin leech is thinking for letting her boy go unleashed for so long."
"We should do something, Val. Why did you tell us to play nice?"
Commander Valerie Chancy sighed and shook her head. "While I understand your concerns, you are picking the wrong hill to die for. Even if this entire arrangement seems proper, what can he do? Mr. Larkinson is just an ignorant boy, and it's very clear he hasn't consulted his girlfriend or any other Hexer. With his superficial understanding of hexism, he dares to invoke the Superior Mother? Hah, he should keep dreaming!"
The other two Penitent Sister leaders subsided a little. Their commander had a point. The sheer ignorance on display meant that whatever Ves Larkinson was up to, there was no chance in hell he would be able to invoke anything meaningful!
"Don't forget that this is all part of a test for us." The Penitent Sister Commander reminded everyone. She pointed at her cheek, which had been tattooed with a prominent symbol. "The other Hexers wish to humiliate us and bring us down with these petty insults. Lashing out will accomplish nothing except for leading us to deaths, thereby cutting off our legacy! This is exactly what our enemies want. Don't let them win. Instead, treat our punishment as a gauntlet. If we wish to be reborn stronger than before, we must prove ourselves worthy and maintain our forbearance as best as possible!"
The Penitent Sisters weren't afraid of death. What they truly feared was to die a meaningless death! If they disappeared from existence, who would remember them? Who would inherit their legacy? Who would remind the Hexers of the true threat of boys?
In their eyes, it would only be a matter of time before the boys who ruled the galaxy to squash the upstart Hexadric Hegemony!
For now, the Hegemony was too small and remote to attract the attention of the cabal of boys who secretly plotted to keep women down, but that wouldn't last! With the inevitable victory the Hegemony would achieve over the Coalition, the Hexers would soon come to dominate the entire Komodo Star Sector.
At that time, many Penitent Sisters believed that the reckoning would come!
In order to save the Hexers from their own doom, the Penitent Sisters had to overcome this humiliating punishment duty, regain their honor and convince the Hegemony of the fatal threat of boys!
While the zone representing the phase of damnation calmed down, the zone next to it never fluctuated from the beginning.
Ves didn't really understand the phase of dust. Why was it different from the phase of death? Weren't they the same thing?
Even skimming through dense, illogical hexism scripture didn't tell him much. He only learned that the two phases differed on whether people remembered the dead or not. When no one remembered your existence, you were no different than dust!
At least that was what Ves assumed. It didn't matter if he misinterpreted it. He just decided to interpret this phase a bit more literally and procured a modest batch of dead sandman corpses.
They used to live before they were killed trying to invade human space. Practically no one was able to distinguish the identities of low-caste sandmen. This was pretty much analogous to what the phase of dust stood for in his opinion!
After the phase of dust came the ultimate phase of existence.
For the phase of woman, Ves truly struggled to choose who to represent this zone.
The ideal candidates would be Hexer women. The Glory Battalion boasted plenty of female mech pilots and support personnel. All of them would be a good fit for this phase of existence.
Ves didn't have the guts to invite them to take part in this ceremony.
Gloriana's reaction already proved how much backlash he would incur if he tried to gain the cooperation of Hexers!
None of them would be pleased to take part in a mockery of their culture or beliefs!
For this reason, Ves had to draw upon another group of strong and confident that weren't Hexers!
Ves considered bringing in his own clansmen, but none of them were suitable. The Brighters in the clan were all ardent secularists while the Ylvainans thought that hexism was misguided.
In the end, he made an offer to the Swordmaidens and they accepted.
While the former pirates probably didn't fit the mold of a classic superior Hexer, Ves didn't care about these details. He personally admired the Swordmaidens and if any group of women deserved the highest honor, it would be Commander Dise and her fearless sisterhood!
It also helped that the Swordmaidens were highly practical and not very fussy. They had gone through weirder ordeals and they weren't entirely unfamiliar with dealing with cults.
As all of the elements fell into place, nothing happened. According to the schedule, the ceremony should have started five minutes ago, but so far the Larkinsons on guard just told everyone that an unavoidable delay had occurred.
"Please be patient, everyone! The ceremony will start soon!"
The reason for this delay was because Ves was still stuck backstage.
He truly wanted to step forward and begin the ceremony he plotted for a long time. However, his girlfriend still had a problem with this entire arrangement!
"—aside from all of the travesties you mentioned before, the distribution isn't even right! How stupid are you to employ just 6 proto-gods for the phase of godhood and 66 Swordmaidens for the phase of woman? It should have been the other way around! Women are superior to gods unless those gods are female as well. If I was in your shoes, I would have utilized 66 male proto-gods to represent the phase of godhood and just 6 proper, upstanding Hexer women to represent the ultimate phase of existence! Even a six-year old Hexer would be able to come up with this! You're so ignorant that I can't believe you thought this was a good idea."
Ves palmed his face. "This isn't important, Gloriana. Who cares about these trivial details? It's the thought that counts! All of this is just for symbolism. Remember the time when I created the Golden Cat? Back then, I learned how beneficial it was to hold a grand occasion. With all of the people and props I put in place, I think I have a good chance of breathing life into my most powerful design spirit to date!"
"I don't disagree with that, Ves, but the problem is that you are committing outright blasphemy. That is something that I can't accept!"
Gloriana still refused to take part in this charade!
Chapter 2107 Nagging Woman
Ves knew he could have gained Gloriana's approval if he put her in charge.
However, he knew he would never be able to get his grand ritual off the ground if he did so. Gloriana was too damn perfectionist to settle for less!
For example, her suggestion to employ 66 proto-gods instead of 6 proto-gods to represent the phase of godhood was too impractical!
Ves had to scrape deep into his collection of design spirits to even come up with this much. There was no way he could muster enough spiritual energy and other essential ingredients to create at least fifty new design spirits in a short amount of time.
In fact, Ves didn't even possess enough P-stones to house all of their essence!
And this was just one of her absurd demands.
"In fact, if you truly want to represent the phase of women, you should have invited six female Hexer expert pilots!" Gloriana lectured to him. "While it is arguably better if they are ace pilots instead, I understand that can be a little difficult, so I can accept it if we settle for less."
A little difficult?
Ves would probably get slapped to death if he approached the Hegemony with such a ludicrous proposal! Ace pilots were the most supreme and honorable champions of a second-rate state. Such exalted existences already enjoyed a status comparable to Master Mech Designers!
"What possessed you to use the remains of dead sandmen to represent the phase of dust? They're not even human! If you truly wanted to make a sincere attempt at embodying the phase of dust, you should have harvested the soil from a cemetery on one of our settled planets! When we die, our mortal coils eventually break down. All are of the dust, and all turn to dust again."
Ves coughed. "I would rather keep my head intact, thank you very much."
All of these complaints and more continued to vindicate his choice of going his own way. Even if he made a million of perceived errors in her perspective, it didn't matter to him! All he wanted was the grandeur of a ritual.
After he empowered the Larkinson Mandate and created the Golden Cat, Ves had analyzed what had taken place.
Ves came up with two important conclusions why he was able to create a remarkable spiritual product on the day of the founding of the clan.
First, as the creator, his mood played a very great role in the creation of his works. Whether he intended to create mechs, design spirits or anything else, his mood was paramount when it came to establishing their spiritual properties.
The grander the occasion, the more Ves became focused. The more he tailored the environment around his act of creation, the more he was able to channel all of the right attributes into his design spirit!
It was similar to the difference between working at home and working at an office. Even though virtual technology allowed lots of people to work at home without lacking any of the facilities they depended upon, in most cases their productivity wasn't as good.
Eschewing a suit and tie for a t-shirt and boxers was not a good way to stay focused. Even if someone worked from home, it still made a huge difference to dress up as if you were about to head to the office.
Therefore, all of the pomp and circumstance today served a very important purpose. It didn't matter if Hexers like Gloriana thought that Ves was making tons of errors. As long as his choices steered his mood in the right direction, then everything was fine!
Ves never intended to hold a legitimate religious ritual. Every religion was superstition as far as he was concerned, so why should he adhere to orthodoxy? In hexism, boys like him probably weren't allowed to preside over rituals in the first place! The fact that he even thought about it was a big taboo!
All of that sounded silly in his opinion. Ves did not care about taboos, especially ones based around superstition.
The second reason why the creation of the Golden Cat was so successful was the involvement of other people.
Previously, Ves created his spiritual product on his own or with Gloriana. The involvement of so few people didn't impart the created spiritual entities with any external influences.
This was a missed opportunity.
The difference between the Golden Cat and his other design spirits were very clear. Ves theorized that holding a show and aligning the moods of the audience would channel the properties of new creation to an even greater degree!
This was very valuable. Whenever he performed his spiritual restoration technique, he exerted very little control over the final state of the end product.
Ves learned how to narrow down the variability by preparing specific ingredients. However, even then, there were countless ways to combine the ingredients. Whether the final product combined the ingredients in the manner he wanted was still a mystery!
This was why a crowd was important. As long as the thoughts of a collective became aligned, they could exert a notable amount of influence to the birth of a new spiritual product!
This was one of the reasons why the Golden Cat aligned so well with the Larkinsons. She had literally been birthed from their common desire to be a part of a strong clan that retained their original heritage!
In short, Ves pretty much treated this occasion similar to one of his product reveal events. The large crowd of men occupying the zone representing the phase of life was his true audience! As long as he manipulated their impressionable minds, he could do anything!
Unfortunately, Gloriana stood in his way. If possible, Ves just wanted to step around his girlfriend and proceed with the ritual, but unfortunately he needed her assistance. Her role was indispensable in the creation of his next design spirit!
"—and why did you pick up random locals from the street to make up the phase of life? If you wanted to create a Hexer proto-god, then you should have brought in actual Hexer citizens!
"ENOUGH!" Ves abruptly grabbed onto her shoulders and used his strength to shock her into silence! "I have listened to you long enough but I am not going to change a single detail! It's too late for that! I told you over and over again that the form of the ceremony doesn't matter! I'm not a priest and I am not conducting a divine ritual!"
"If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck…"
"This is different! Look, I know you have a million objections, but this is MY show, not yours. Just let me do what I want and you can complain afterwards AFTER you have seen my results, not before. Even if you think that my chances of success are miniscule, at least give me the benefit of the doubt!"
"There is no room for doubt here!" Gloriana hissed back. "In my eyes, you are walking straight into a bottomless pit. What I am trying to do is to pull you back before it's too late. I don't want to lose you, Ves!"
"None of your fears will come true! Look, if you think that I am doing everything wrong, then your Hexer gods or whatever won't do a thing to me. After all, I'm not a qualified priest and my knowledge of hexism is too shallow. There shouldn't be any danger!"
"It's still wrong, Ves."
"Just give me a chance. Burn me afterwards. Say 'I told you so' if it turns out that you are right. I will accept any admonishment you give me then, but please wait until you see my end product. Can you at least do that, Gloriana?"
He reached out and poured out his heart to her. "I love you, Gloriana. I know I have some rather odd ideas every now and then, but they are all fueled by my passion. You wouldn't want to block me from pursuing my dreams, right? As my girlfriend, you should support me instead of condemning me. Even if the entire Hegemony turns against us, our love will always matter more!"
Gloriana began to look uncertain. "I… I don't know..."
"Our remaining mech design project is just the first of what is to come. If everything goes well, we can continue to design the powerful mechs the Hex Army needs to vanquish the Friday Coalition. You already know how powerful my glows can be. Just think of what will happen if every Hexer mech pilot benefits from them! If we wish to fulfill this ambition, then we need to impress the snobby matriarchs who hold all of the power with a design spirit that uniquely appeals to their sensibilities!"
"I want that too, Ves, but I'm afraid that your new proto-god will turn into a travesty! Your ceremony is all wrong!"
"Let. Me. Do. What. I. Want." He gritted his teeth.
The argument stretched on for half an hour before she reluctantly acquitted.
It took this much time to convince her that it was best for Ves to make his attempt and fail. In her opinion, this ceremony was doomed from the start. Ves just had to go through with it in order to realize how wrong he was to mock hexism.
After a considerable delay, Ves could finally proceed with the ceremony!
The crowd of waiting people all fell silent after a loud tone interrupted their conversations.
The boys from the phase of life, the Penitent Sisters from the phase of damnation and the Swordmaidens from the phase of woman all turned to the pair of mech designers floating over their heads.
Ves and Gloriana no longer displayed any conflict towards each other. They both put on their game faces now that they showed up in public. Both of them held their cats as they flew towards the tall statue.
"This face… isn't that your mother?!" Gloriana gasped.
Ves coughed. "That isn't important."
"I can't believe you, Ves." She hissed. "Not only is it enough for you to trample on the beliefs of Hexers. You can't even hold yourself back from trampling over the grave of your own mother!"
He ignored her. It was showtime now.
"Ladies and gentlemen." He spoke as he floated at head-height of the statue. "Welcome to this solemn occasion. Today, I will be conducting a ritual. Each of you will feel strange, but you have nothing to fear. My girlfriend and I are just about to form a new glow for one of my famed mechs."
A silence fell over the entire hexagon. None of the men felt inclined to talk or cause a disturbance. They had already been warned that they could kiss their 1000 sents goodbye if they interrupted anything!
Ves smiled at the well-behaved crowd of boys. He was already confident that the 666 Penitent Sisters and the 66 Swordmaidens would remain in line. Not because they were women, but because they were disciplined warriors.
The same didn't apply to the 66,666 men he faced, but that was what he sought! The weaker their minds, the easier it was to get them in tune!
He slowly began to concentrate his mind. He put on a spiritual mask he specifically designed for this occasion!
A sense of fervor and fanaticism spread from his body. Gloriana instantly sensed the changes and looked surprised!
As he spread out his influence, the entire crowd slowly became affected by his air. Each of them experienced a growing sense of worship and majesty towards the giant statue.
Some began to feel as if the statue depicted a goddess.
Others started to develop the illusion that the statue stood for their mothers.
More people began to see the statue as the most supreme Hexer in existence!
A spotlight from the air suddenly landed on the statue. Due to its white, marble-like texture, it began to take on a mysterious quality in everyone's eyes.
Chapter 2108 Mother's Love
The centerpiece of this ceremony was the statue. Not Ves. Though his role was essential in shaping the opinions of his audience, he was not of the star of the show today.
In order to achieve his desired results, Ves needed to get everyone to worship the statue of the Superior Mother.
In order to do that, Ves took a page from the likes of Prophet Ylvaine and other successful charlatans. He had already constructed a spiritual image of himself as a fanatical proselytizer!
Once he donned this mask, he gained an intensity in his mind that suddenly made him very eager to spread the gospel of motherhood!
"Mothers." Ves began. "Are the most honored people in existence. They are the carriers of life. Each of us emerged from their wombs. Each of us owe our lives from the sacrifices they make."
The statue began to sparkle under the light. That was mostly due to the special formula that Ves applied to its surface layer.
It made it seem as if the statue was made up out of stars. The glinting lights made it harder for people to study its details, but that only added to its mystery!
"It is a shame that not everyone has the privilege to grow up under the care of a loving mother. Do you remember the times when your mother kissed your cheek? Do you recall the times when she hugged you and soothed you when you cried? Back when you were young, your mother seemed like the most important woman of your life. Do you still think that there can never be a better woman in your life than your mother?"
His words possessed an unnatural power. Everyone who listened to him, the guards included, couldn't help but think back on their own childhoods!
A lot of nostalgia started to appear on the faces of the men. Ves grinned at the sight. He had already succeeded in hypnotizing them with his Devil Tongue.
Unfortunately, not everyone was as easy to crack. He glimpsed down at Vincent Ricklin, who had grown up under difficult circumstances.
As Ves floated around the statue in circles, he peered at the faces of the Penitent Sisters and the Swordmaidens.
Both groups of strong-willed women held out for different reasons.
Just like Gloriana, the Penitent Sisters felt offended by this ritual.
As for the Swordmaidens, they all grew up under very tough circumstances in the frontier.
Ves knew he had to change tack.
"Mothers serve an indispensable role." He spoke. "They are the bearers of children. My children. Your children. Everyone's children. The continuation of life rests on their shoulders. It is in their belly that mech pilots and presidents are born! No matter how great or humble you currently are, everyone of us started from the same origin."
Technically, that wasn't entirely true. Some people were born from artificial wombs. This was usually the case when the woman who was supposed to carry a child suffered from severe health problems or couldn't afford to carry a child due to work reasons.
Though resorting to an artificial womb was a hassle-free way to bring a baby to term, most women didn't choose to do so unless it was absolutely necessary.
Therefore, Ves didn't have to worry about offending too many people who were born from technology rather than flesh.
He smiled and spread his arms. "The statue you see before you represents the woman known as the Superior Mother. When you think of this word, what do you imagine?"
What did the audience imagine? Many of them who looked at the ethereal-looking statue began to imagine their own mothers. Others began to conjure up other people's mothers. Some even thought about fictional mothers!
No matter what, no human was unfamiliar with mothers. They played such a ubiquitous role in society that humanity could not do without their existence!
"Each of you are probably thinking about different mothers." He said. "I am no different. When I think about the word mother, I think of my youth where I was just a little boy. I was an energetic child back then. I was happy and my mother always made sure to keep me that way. She fed me when I was hungry, clothed me when I was cold, tucked me in bed when I was afraid of the dark and kissed me when I wanted affection. All of my needs were met. Those were some of the happiest days of my life."
He truly spoke from his heart. His spiritual mask didn't distort his meaning all that much. It was just that his happy memories of Cynthia Larkinson were only confined to his early childhood!
As for the Cynthia that showed up when he was an adult, Ves conveniently pushed those memories to the back of his mind.
He began to look around again and saw that he managed to grip the hearts of the women.
Hexers placed supreme importance on motherhood. Even boy-haters like the Penitent Sisters revered mothers to an immense degree!
As for the Swordmaidens, while their childhoods weren't all that ideal, most of them still grew up with the support of a mother. No matter how awful the circumstances in the frontier degenerated, mothers were still the same, mostly.
Ves acknowledged this fact in his speech. "Every mother is different. Some mothers kiss their children more often than others. Some mothers prefer to spoil their children than to discipline them. Some are poor, some are rich, some are strong, some are frail. Yet no matter their differences, they all share something in common. Love."
A wave of warmth spread from his body as he shared his childhood affection. That innocent love and trust he held for his mother was something he cherished for his entire life. Now, he bared it to his audience, allowing every to experience the wondrous sensation of enjoying the unconditional love of a mother!
Some people began to tear up. Others began to look nostalgic as the sensation triggered their own memories of their mother's affection.
"The reason why this statue is called the Superior Mother is not because it stands for the ideal model. To me, the Superior Mother is an embodiment of every mother that attempts to do right by their children. No matter what difficulties and challenges they face, a good mother always strives to devote their whole lives to the betterment of their children!"
A lot of Hexers among the Penitent Sisters reacted with shock! This was not the correct interpretation of the Superior Mother! Yet.. why did it seem as if Ves Larkinson's definition sounded more compelling?
He smiled at the puzzlement of some of his audience. "The Superior Mother stands for mothers. She is not an unattainable ideal. All it takes to match her standard is for a mother to discharge their parental responsibilities and strive for their children. That is enough for them to earn a medal."
Gloriana, who floated alongside Ves, looked rather emotional at his words. Though she highly objected to this farcical ceremony at the start, she began to fall under his spell.
Now, it didn't seem so important anymore that Ves got all of the details wrong!
Ves turned his head to his girlfriend and looked in her eyes with a loving expression. He reached out and held her hand. "Every woman has the potential to become the Superior Mother. Men like me are lucky to be in the presence of such fantastic women. The Superior Mother is not an unattainable ideal. She is all around us! We are blessed to have such women in our lives!"
"Oh, Ves…" Gloriana lovingly said as she got caught up in his passionate eyes.
Ves impulsively leaned in and kissed her in the mouth.
"Love.. comes from the heart!" He stated. "And out of all of the humans in existence, it is mothers who possess the greatest hearts! The Superior Mother's love and affection for her children is boundless and limitless."
His words conjured up an extremely high opinion of mothers! Hardly anyone in the crowd, whether they were men or women, thought he was wrong!
Ves floated closer to the statue and patted its cheek. "Unfortunately, too many people in the galaxy have grown up without the affection of a mother. This is a sad state of affairs. My goal for bringing you all here today is to rectify this great wrong."
He puffed his chest and began to unleash his burning passion. "Today, I want to create a new glow! Please, lend me your strength! Help me bring the personification of the Superior Mother to life so that I can share her warmth to everyone who is deprived of a mother!"
None of his words seem to have anything to do with mechs, but that didn't matter. His appeal sounded so earnest and noble that every single member of the audience couldn't help but agree to his demand! Their hearts were practically bursting to help!
"If you share my aspiration, if you wish to help, simply kneel before the Superior Mother. Look at her. Admire her. Worship her. The more you think about the Superior Mother, the more she will become real to all of us! We are all her children, and we are all the reasons why she exists. Without children, the Superior Mother won't feel joy in her life! Therefore, please help her out and remind her why she bears her burden."
Everyone enthusiastically knelt on the ground and began to worship the statue in earnest. The words they heard all put them into a special mindset where they all began to imagine the statue of the Superior Mother coming to life!
Ves joyfully grinned at the sight. Yes! This was exactly what he set out to achieve! He could practically feel the energy from the crowd resonating with his mood. He possessed absolute confidence that he would succeed his strongest design spirit to date now that he got caught up in the energy of his own show!
"Let us begin." Ves privately communicated to Gloriana.
Both of them turned around to face the statue. As Ves began to concentrate his mind, he proceeded to go to work.
The first step was to bring out all of the ingredients and smash them apart.
Ves proceeded to do so in a brutal fashion. Empowered by the grandiose circumstances, he eagerly formed a spiritual projection before proceeding to use it as a hammer with gusto!
He first pulled out the spiritual fragment derived from the remnant of the original idol located in the heart of the statue. Though he hated to shatter it, it was a necessary process to create a new life.
Next, he mentally reached out towards the containers resting in the zone that represented the phase of godhood.
He pulled out the spiritual fragments of Qilanxo and Lucky and began to smash both of them apart.
Neither of them resisted. If they did, Ves would have a much harder time!
After that, he pulled out the spiritual fragment derived from the residue of the wooden statuette carved by his mother. Ves looked at the head of the statue with a brief look of uncertainty.
Fortunately, his hesitancy only lasted for a split second. Once he was ready to process this ingredient, he ruthlessly smashed it as if it was a scary monster!
He briefly turned towards the womb of the statue. He exhibited a bit of fear this time. Even though the seed of life didn't exhibit a lot of activity, it was still considerably strong!
The question he faced was whether it would resist his attempts to break it apart. For some reason, his intuition started to warn him that this might be a bad idea.
He still went through, though. The life-attributed spiritual energy derived from the sample of the serum was so potent that it would definitely be able to supercharge his new spiritual product!
As his concentration grew unprecedentedly sharp, his momentum started to grow. As soon as he accumulated enough energy in his spiritual projection, he hammered it towards the seed of life!
The life-attributed spiritual energy locked within the P-stone held on for a time, but it didn't possess the power to resist now that it had been torn from its root!
A brilliant explosion of life and energy emanated from the center of the statue. Suddenly, every prostrating member of the crowd felt as if the statue had truly come to life!
Ves frantically tried to sweep up every single shard of life-attributed spiritual energy as possible. Though he missed a couple, he at least managed to prevent the rest of it from drifting away.
As soon as he stuffed it in the loose amalgamation of shards, the new addition immediately started to react with the other shards.
Like a mother giving birth to their children, the product of the seed of life started to infuse life into spiritual shards.
This was completely unprecedented to Ves!
Chapter 2109 Universal Compatibility
Within the giant hexagon, thousands of people knelt down and worshipped the statue of the Superior Mother.
Its excellent construction and pleasing aesthetics evoked a lot of appreciation. The special effects that Ves had employed such as shining a spotlight onto it and releasing some mysterious mist added to the illusion that they had pulled into a magical moment.
After listening to Ves' speech, everyone aligned their thoughts towards mothers.
Mothers were the carrier of life.
Mothers were the greatest sources of love.
Every woman had the potential to become a Superior Mother.
No matter if it was the 66,666 men, the 666 Penitent Sisters, the 66 Swordmaidens or even the guards stationed just outside the hexagon, every single person was of one mind!
All of this unity produced an atmosphere that Ves found very conducive to his work. As his thoughts aligned with the masses, he felt as if he opened a mysterious part of mind that resonated the excitement in the air.
Yet even as he started to merge together the spiritual shards of his broken ingredients, the life-attributed spiritual energy acted on its accord!
Having lain dormant all this time, now that the scattered energy came into contact with the other shards, it began to do something that Ves did not anticipate.
The life-attributed energy began to nurture the broken shards!
Whether the shards originated from Cynthia Larkinson, Qilanxo, the Golden Cat, or the original Idol of the Superior Mother, they all fed on the sustenance freely given by the life-attributed energy!
Ves temporarily halted his work in order to observe this completely new interaction.
As someone who was very interested in life, he had never witnessed such a marvelous process! Even in a lesser form, the energy derived from the life-prolonging treatment serum possessed the remarkable ability to rejuvenate spiritual shards!
"Maybe this is not the limit!"
Ves suspected that this interaction also worked on spiritual fragments or even complete spiritual entities. There was no reason to suspect that it wouldn't. The gentle energy appeared to be exceptionally compatible with several different recipients!
Even his own spiritual energy had become livier. Ves felt as if it had grown several times stronger even though he had just made surface contact with the life-attributed energy!
This caused Ves to make a very profound conclusion.
The life-attributed spiritual energy derived from the serum was able to nurture anything spiritual!
While Ves still wasn't able to say for sure whether it was compatible with anything, so far he felt confident in making this assumption!
Not a single spiritual shard exhibited any sign of rejection. This was something unthinkable to Ves. In nearly every case, an encounter between different attributes and origins always led to incompatibility.
If one tried to force itself upon the other, it would always be regarded as a hostile invasion! No castle would open its gates to let in foreign invaders. That would only threaten its existence!
This was what made this interaction all the more exceptional. It didn't matter what kind of castle he focused upon. Each and every single one of them opened their gates wide to let in the life-attributed energy.
And each of those castles were rewarded for their hospitality. Once the life-attributed energy got inside, it began to sacrifice itself in order to upgrade and empower the friendly hosts!
"Is this one the essential secrets to life-prolonging treatments?"
Ves suspected that the spiritual energy component of the serum may have been added in order to revitalize an old person's spirituality.
However.. he wasn't confident about this guess. The quantity of energy he extracted from a sample of the serum was relatively modest. Though the quality and potency of the energy was still exceptional, it only originated from a tiny droplet!
The serum that he still carried in his hidden pocket began to take on an even greater weight. It already held a lot of value due to its known use. Now that Ves learned that it was actually a reservoir of nurturing energy, its value in his perspective had skyrocketed even further!
Unlike its conventional use of prolonging old people's lives, its new use of strengthening and revitalizing other spiritual entities was even more important!
In fact, to someone whose specialty revolved around life and the manipulation of spiritual energy, the serum had become something priceless!
Ves didn't have to wait until he became 300 years old to make full use of the serum. He could start incorporating in his works right away!
As Ves gradually started to merge the shards back together again, he noted that his efficiency had substantially improved. With the strengthening from the life-attributed energy, it became a lot easier to merge the shards.
It didn't take long before he thought that it was time to pull in his partner.
"Gloriana." He said as he briefly split up his concentration. "Help me perfect the newborn entity."
"Oh. Okay."
"Get ready. Open your mind. Don't resist."
"I know what to expect."
This wasn't their first rodeo. Gloriana relaxed and opened her mind as best as possible. Eventually, she opened herself just enough for Ves to reach into her mental space and steal a portion of her spiritual energy!
This caused her design seed to boil! Her mind automatically formed a spiritual projection on its own accord in an attempt to take back what it lost.
Ves merrily dragged the stolen spiritual energy into the pool of merging shards.
Just as in previous instances, once Gloriana's projection entered the pool, it no longer chased after the thief. With all of the glaring imperfections on display, it couldn't stand the sight!
The out-of-control projection approached the flawed mergers and began to smooth them out, causing the integration of different shards to become more seamless.
All of this proceeded according to expectation. The fact that every spiritual element received a substantial boost from the life-attributed spiritual energy did not alter this process. Even Gloriana's spiritual projection had become supercharged!
Ves wasn't sure what all of this empowerment led towards. Would the newborn spiritual product start off at a greater power level? Would it develop a more sophisticated personality? Perhaps it might even acquire a powerful ability!
Whatever the case, he looked forward to seeing how much this investment paid off. Had he used too much serum? What if he added even more life-attributed energy during a creation process?
However, just as Ves expected to complete the process without any issue, another unexpected complication arose.
Ves had already noticed that while every spiritual shards integrated the life-attributed energy, some of them absorbed it faster than others.
The differences weren't important. The weaker shards such as those that originated from the Golden Cat and the original Idol of the Superior Mother weren't as efficient as the stronger ones such as those originating from Qilanxo.
However, there was a very noticeable exception.
The small amount of spiritual shards that Ves had derived from his mother's statuette started off slowly. It absorbed the life-attributed energy at a very sedate pace, as if the weak and fragile shards couldn't go any faster without breaking.
Ves didn't concentrate too much on their behavior. This caused him to miss something very important.
As his mother's spiritual shards started to absorb more energy, they became more alive. They expanded in size and began to absorb the life-attributed energy even faster!
Once they had reached a certain size, the shards then began to move on their own accord!
Like gravity, the scattered shard spontaneously started to attract each other across small distances. Once a shard bumped into another one, they spontaneously merged, and in a perfect fashion as well!
The larger shards became even more powerful. They not only exerted a greater attraction on shards that came from the same source, but also became capable of absorbing life-attributed energy even faster.
It didn't take long before this process escalated to the point where Ves finally became aware of what was taking place.
By then, it was too late! Ves barely integrated some of his mother's shards into the growing amalgamation of spirituality before an entirely new spiritual fragment had formed!
"What the hell?"
The spiritual fragment was not only many times stronger than the original, but its growth proceeded without any signs of stopping!
It had quickly reached the point where the majority of remaining free-floating life-attributed spiritual energy got sucked up by his greedy mother!
"Goddammit! Even in the form of fragments, you just can't help yourself! Spit it out!" Ves mentally yelled at the fragment.
Just like his real mother, the fragment ignored his complaints and gleefully monopolized every remaining available energy!
The surprisingly rapid absorption almost caused Ves to break his concentration. He never expected that the addition of a tiny spiritual remnant from his mother would lead to such a drastic result.
At this moment, his mother's spiritual fragment absorbed so much life-attributed energy that it had grown as strong as the Golden Cat, if not more! As the fragment rapidly digested its gains, it began to reach a strength where Ves wasn't sure whether he could keep it in control!
"It's too strong!"
As his mother's lively spiritual fragment rejuvenated itself, it suddenly started to approach the spiritual amalgamation that was supposed to become his new spiritual product.
Ves had very high hopes for his latest creation. The Superior Mother was supposed to become the ultimate design spirit for his line of Hexer mech designs!
It was supposed to be the killer feature of his mechs that would enable the Hex Army to attain a decisive advantage on the battlefield!
Yet even as Ves and Gloriana was about to complete their latest act of creation, the self-revived spiritual fragment barged in and started to attack the incomplete design spirit!
Ves became shocked yet again! If he wasn't trying to maintain as much concentration as possible, he would have vomited at this sight.
"Mother! Go away! You're ruining everything!"
Like a voracious predator, his mother's spiritual fragment assaulted the unborn Superior Mother like a wolf jumping on a sheep.
While Ves believed the Superior Mother was strong enough to defend herself, at this time she was still 'under construction'!
Ves and Gloriana required at least several more minutes to complete the restoration process and allow the Superior Mother to come alive.
Until that happened, the Superior Mother was completely unable to defend itself!
As his mother's spiritual fragment cannibalized the spiritual body of the Superior Mother, its growth ballooned once again. Once the fragment grew stronger, it began to consume the Superior Mother at an even faster pace!
This was the most frightening sight that Ves had ever seen! Belatedly, Ves attempted to push his mother's spiritual fragment away, yet as soon as he did so, the voracious fragment ate his own spiritual energy!
"What the hell?! You're not even sparing your own son?!"
Ves had become so alarmed that he forcefully pulled back some of his concentration in order to physically push Gloriana away.
"Ah, what gives, Ves?!" She suddenly asked as she held her head in pain!
"A massive complication occurred. Stay away and close your mind as best as possible!"
As his girlfriend looked at Ves with confusion, he regained his concentration and tried to observe what was taking place.
His mother's spiritual fragment was making rapid progress, though Ves finally spotted some signs of indigestion.
It turned out that her fragment's absorption ability wasn't omnipotent after all. While his mother was able to absorb his own spiritual energy and life-attributed spiritual energy without any problem, it was a different matter when it came to other sources and attributes!
Ves clearly recognized that his mother's spiritual fragment was growing more polluted. It started to accommodate a large variety of spiritual attributes, many of which only partially aligned with his mother.
Nonetheless, the power the fragment exuded no longer limited it to just a fragment. It had become an entirely new spiritual energy that was growing more alive and more complex by the second.
A storm of energy started to crackle within the strange new entity. Ves began to feel a strong form of pressure that rapidly expanded to the environment!
The thousands of men and hundreds of women kneeling in the hexagon all began to experience a very powerful pressure that vaguely resembled a glow, but stronger!
The air grew heavy and some people started to show signs of short breath.
As Ves completely lost control over what was taking place, the skies itself began to roil! Storm clouds spontaneously formed over the giant hexagon. Soon enough, lightning and thunder started to form in the cloud.
Crack!
Suddenly, an immense lightning bolt struck the statue of the Superior Mother!
Owing to its high-quality materials, the statue incurred no damage at all. Nonetheless, Ves and Gloriana hovered so close to it that they yelled and rapidly distanced themselves!
While all of this took place, the entire crowd became awed at what was taking place. None of them questioned why lightning randomly formed and struck the statue. As far as the audience was concerned, this was all part of the show!
Chapter 2110 Split Perspective
The Nyxian Gap. Known as a tumor that intruded upon multiple star sectors, this anomalous region of space was the home to many pirates and malcontents.
The same properties that made it so difficult to navigate through it also provided every wanted criminal a safe haven from persecution!
Filled with asteroids in every direction, the space inside was both chaotic and perilous. Though the amount of asteroid impacts was surprisingly rare, there were plenty of other hazards that made it dangerous to traverse.
Aside from the space warping that spanned the entire Gap, there were many localized hazards that regularly swallowed up unknown passerbys.
Some originated from the combination of strange and powerful exotics interacting with each other.
Others came about due to calamities that happened in the past.
Regardless, the deeper someone traversed the Gap, the greater the risk of entering a localized hazard. These hazards also grew in strength and lethality, making it increasingly more perilous to travel to the core regions of the Gap.
Right now, not even the Oblivion Hand escaped this fate!
Its enormous fleet, which consisted of over forty carriers and other starships, had been traversing deeper into the Gap. Though it had appropriately scattered its elements, the fleet abruptly lost contact with a pair of light carriers along with a number of mechs on patrol!
The entire fleet halted. The remaining members of the dark mercenary corps took up battle stations and guarded against every possibility.
Perhaps the Oblivion Hand might have stumbled upon an ambush!
Yet as hostile attackers never showed up, the dark mercenaries started to dispatch some scouting parties.
When a number of short-ranged drones began to investigate the site where the two carriers disappeared, they suddenly vanished as well!
"It's a hazard zone!"
The entire Oblivion Hand, which had razed and plundered over a dozen well-fortified bases, suddenly became as timid as a mouse. The fleet quickly turned around and distanced itself from the presumed hazard zone.
There was a good reason to do so. When faced with the unknown, the denizens of the Gap had all learned the hard way that curiosity often killed the cat!
Pirates had little reason to investigate the localized hazard zones. None of the pirate leaders were scientists, and even if they employed a bunch of intellectuals, it was not for the purpose of scientific exploration.
Nonetheless, the Oblivion Hand didn't intend to give up on its missing assets and personnel. The Dark Cleaver may have acquired an aggressive reputation, but he was also loved by his men!
The care and attention he put towards the wellbeing of his followers was one of the many reasons why the new expert pilot attracted such a large following.
A strange mech emerged from the flagship of the Oblivion Hand. Every other member of the Oblivion Hand reacted with awe and worship at the machine that flew towards the site of disaster.
"The Devil Tiger!"
The landbound tiger had become the iconic mech of the Dark Cleaver. After every battle, it grew stronger and more magnificent. Many people guessed that the Dark Cleaver managed to enter into a partnership with a rogue Senior Mech Designer or something.
The mercenary commander never confirmed anything, but the fact that the Devil Tiger was slowly morphing into an expert mech lent a lot of credence to this rumor!
Right now, the bestial mech propelled itself effortlessly through space despite the fact that it was a landbound mech.
Those observing the machine would easily be able to spot the wings mounted on the back of the mech.
The wings were part of an improvised flight system that had been built to allow the Devil Tiger to maneuver in space. The best part of it was that it had been built like a backpack module and a harness, allowing the Devil Tiger to mount its wings only when needed.
Just like the mech itself, the detachable flight system had been upgraded continuously. After incorporating stronger, more resilient and more potent exotics, all of its attributes had slowly increased in order to catch up with the performance of the Devil Tiger.
In the past, it had been fairly easy for enemies to damage and cripple the large wings.
Now, it was as tough as the chest plating of a defensive mech! Anyone who thought that the wings of the expert mech could be plucked so easily would be making a crucial error!
Inside the cockpit of the mech, a dark helmeted figure sat confidently in the piloting seat. An aura of restrained aggression coiled around the mech pilot.
This was the Dark Cleaver distinctive force of will!
What was odd about his force of will was that it did not remain still. Instead, it began to spread to the Devil Tiger, integrating in its frame and empowering it through mysterious means.
The compatibility between the mech pilot and the expert mech was exceptionally high! Only capable expert mech development teams could achieve this degree of integration between expert mech and expert pilot!
It was incredibly odd to encounter such a high degree of compatibility in a poor and chaotic environment like the Nyxian Gap.
Only a couple of individuals knew there was a price for this high compatibility.
A small, hand-sized crystal figure of a woman floated alongside the helmet of the expert pilot.
"Does it hurt?" She asked, her voice ringing in the cockpit with an ethereal echo.
"That hasn't been a problem anymore for a long time, Cynthia." The helmeted man replied. "It's just.. I can't get rid of the restlessness and irritation inside of me. It's been weeks since we last raided someone. The hunger.. it's growing again."
The face of the miniature crystalline figure grew concerned. "You are capable of handling this. I know it. I'm very impressed with how you have overcome your hurdles and grew into an expert pilot so quickly."
"You never warned me of the side effects!" Ryncol Larkinson complained. "In fact, you didn't even bother asking for my permission before you stuffed something weird in my head! Now, half my dreams consist of living as a giant cat preying on mechs!"
Cynthia's crystal body gently patted the side of her husband's helmet. "It will fade over time. Your willpower still requires a lot of time to erase all of the remnants in your mind."
Her husband had already overcome the most lethal hurdles. Now that he successfully advanced to expert pilot, he was no longer at risk of losing his personality and identity. Whatever lingering effects that remained would slowly turn into a non-issue.
Just as the Devil Tiger was just about to reach the edge of the presumed hazard zone, the crystalline form of Cynthia suddenly jerked.
"Huh?"
Her small head turned into a direction that led directly away from the center of the Gap.
"What's going on, Cynthia."
"I don't know.." She narrowed her eyes. "I sense.. that something is brewing. It's unsettling me. Each time I feel this way, something drastic happens."
The Devil Tiger slowed down its forward traversal. Its flight system started to propel in the opposite direction, causing the mech to slowly come to a stop relative to the fleet.
"Is it the hazard zone?"
"No. The threat is not in front. It's in the rear."
"What?!" Ryncol stiffened his back. "Are there any enemies approaching from the rear?!"
"Nothing of the sort. Instead.. I feel that something is happening light-years away. Possibly outside of the Nyxian Gap."
"Is it our son?" Ryncol suddenly asked in concern.
"Maybe.. I can't judge.."
Several tense minutes passed by as the Devil Tiger froze in space. A few officers of the Oblivion Hand contacted the Dark Cleaver in concern, but Ryncol quickly ordered his subordinates to stay put and remain on guard.
Just as Cynthia was about to dismiss her ominous feeling, a sharp crack suddenly struck her mentality!
"AHHHH!"
Her intangible form suddenly separated from her avatar! The crystal body suddenly dropped onto the floor as a transparent form suddenly emerged and expanded to full size!
"What's going on?!"
"It hurts!"
No matter what Ryncol tried to do, he could do nothing to relieve his wife's pain!
His hands went straight through her body as if she consisted of air.
At this moment, Cynthia Larkinson suffered a sudden ache in her mentality! Strange visions assaulted her as she felt as if she was being invaded by something far away.
The most frustrating part of this ordeal was that she wasn't able to defend herself against this attack! Whatever external influence managed to reach her had slipped right past her formidable defenses and acted straight onto the core of her existence!
"How can this be?! This is impossible!"
As the pain began to reach an unbearable level, a loud explosion suddenly shattered her perspective in half!
On one side, her consciousness was still alive and present inside the cockpit of the Devil Tiger.
On another side, she suddenly began to gain a view of an entirely different location.
The pain that struck straight to the core of her being had subsided a bit, allowing her to observe this strange new location.
Her perspective wasn't limited to a narrow field of vision. Through some indescribable senses, she slowly gained a sense of the second environment.
"Land. Clouds. A.. hexagon? People. Lots of people. What is this..?!"
Had her enemies performed some sort of ritual to draw her out?!
"Wait! This isn't their style!"
As Cynthia bewilderingly looked around, he immediately spotted some familiar forms floating in the air. Her eyes grew red as she realized who was responsible for her odd state.
"VES!" She angrily boomed!
No one heard her spiritual voice. The thousands of people who knelt in front of the statue as it attracted lightning bolt after lightning bolt continued to look at the statue with awe even as their minds all experienced some form of pressure.
Surprisingly, Ves, who was floating in the air at a healthy distance from the lightning-struck statue, cringed as soon as she conveyed her displeasure!
"I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME, VES!"
"..Mother?" Ves communicated back with a reluctant spiritual response. "I thought you were in the Nyxian Gap!"
"OBVIOUSLY THAT IS NOT ENTIRELY TRUE ANYMORE, AND YOU ARE AT FAULT!"
"I-I-I didn't mean to! You aren't supposed to be here!"
"REALLY?"
"I was just performing an experiment, that's all!"
Cynthia cast her senses around her yet again. She contemptuously noted the giant ritualistic hexagon, the thousands of kneeling worshippers and the statue her second perspective inhabited!
Her fury built up even as her mental strain began to grow more unbearable.
"I THOUGHT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE A MECH DESIGNER, VES. I EXPECTED YOU TO GO ABOUT YOUR LIFE SURROUNDED BY MACHINES AND MECHS. HOW COME I FIND YOU IN THE MIDDLE OF A RITUAL CENTERED AROUND A STATUE BUILT IN MY LIKENESS?!"
Her son's jaw shook as he struggled to offer a reply! The little weasel was too afraid to explain himself!
A different voice suddenly butted into their private conversation.
"Who.. who are you?"
Both mother and son reacted with surprise!
Ves turned to the woman floating by his side. "Gloriana? You can hear all of that?"
"Yeah. Who is she, Ves?" Gloriana asked with wide eyes. "Is she.. truly your mother?"
"She is."
"I thought she was dead!"
"She is."
"What does that even mean!?"
"It's complicated, okay! How can you even talk to me this way?!"
Cynthia studied the woman carefully. She quickly understood the truth of the matter.
"You put a piece of yourself inside of her, Ves. Do you know how dangerous that is?! I'm surprised she is still fine!"
"Ah."
"I'm surprised her mind isn't fighting back. She must think very highly of you."
"She's my girlfriend." Ves lamely replied.
"I see."
Cynthia peered at the woman. Her anger subsided a bit. "You chose well. At least you did one thing right, Ves. I approve."
"You do?"
"The love you share for each other is very real!"
Gloriana smiled with pleasure at the compliment! Her boyfriend's dead mother approved of their relationship! This was the happiest day of her life!
As for Ves, he wanted to scratch his head. How come this weird turn of events turn into a meeting between his girlfriend and his mother?
Chapter 2111 The Superior Mother
Ves looked at the giant statue of his mother in shock!
Even as lightning continuously struck its surface, Ves was the only person present who could see what kind of fearsome existence resided inside.
The vessel that Ves planned to house his new design spirit if possible had instead drawn out his mother!
Ignoring every barrier, whether it was distance or the space warping that rendered communication and FTL travel in the Nyxian Gap impossible, his mother's consciousness suddenly showed up without warning!
The fact that his mother's spiritual fragment had rebirthed itself after being shattered was already shocking enough.
The fact that her mother's spiritual fragment was so aggressive as to cannibalize his unborn design spirit without mercy was also unexpected.
Yet the fact that this unplanned turn of events somehow resulted in pulling his mother from the beyond was completely insane!
Ves never wanted to call upon his mother! He just wanted to create a new design spirit! He had so many plans for the Superior Mother. What now? Should he ask his mother to spit out her partially-digested food?
His mother fell into silence. In his spiritual vision, he could see her sated spiritual fragment experiencing a lot of problems with trying to digest so many different attributes.
He even had the illusion that it was about to explode if it failed to solve this problem!
"Ves…" Her mother spiritually communicated. "Is this your handiwork? What kind of an abomination have you created? When I taught you how to draw upon fragments, I did not think you would do something as mad as mashing them all together! This is the most horrible expression of your power that I have ever seen!"
Ves cringed again. "I'm innovating! This is still a work in progress. It's not like you ever taught me or given me a manual. The point is that it works! I've been empowering all of my mechs this way. The Devil Tiger you stole from me is a good example of what I have been able to accomplish!"
"While I appreciate your mechs, your qi manifestations are abominable! I cannot even comprehend how they can even work! This is supposed to be impossible! You can't just create new manifestations out of the remnants of other manifestations!"
"Qi? Manifestations?" Ves questioned.
"It's not important." His mother brushed him off. "It's clear to me that you have been up to a lot of mischief lately. I won't ask why you are performing this insane ritual, but don't do it again! You're lucky enough that you have called upon me. You could have easily called upon a more dreadful existence if you were careless!"
"I won't do it again." Ves promised.
The pressure exerted by his mother's spiritual fragment exerted a considerable strain on his mind, making him feel as if he was completely powerless in her presence!
"Mrs. Larkinson, may I ask what kind of existence you have become?" Gloriana hesitantly asked.
"Some questions are best left unanswered." Cynthia quickly replied. "I don't have much time. Let me talk to my son. He has been very naughty today!"
"I told you, mom, I didn't mean it! And what do you mean you don't have enough time?"
"I'm sure you can see what is happening." She replied. "This.. manifestation of yours.. is unable to sustain its existence. I.. am not able to sustain its existence. It will reach its limit very soon. Once that happens, it will die, which means I will suffer a very harmful backlash!"
"Oh. Sorry."
"SORRY IS NOT ENOUGH! IF YOU CAN'T HOLD YOURSELF BACK, THEN AT LEAST LEAVE ME OUT OF IT! I'M ABOUT TO LOSE YEARS OF PROGRESS BECAUSE OF YOUR RECKLESS ACTIONS!"
Ves cringed again and again! His mother was truly angry!
"Is there anything you can do to prevent this outcome?"
"I'm thinking!"
"What if I can help? I was trying to make something else before you suddenly gobbled everything up. The way I see it, the best way to solve this problem is to separate what you have just absorbed."
His mother didn't reply for a moment. Ves could see that her spiritual fragment was growing more and more unstable. It probably took everything she had to prevent it from blowing into pieces!
"What.. was your original plan?" She finally asked. "Tell me exactly what you intended to do and what went wrong."
Ves did not waste any time. He rapidly and succinctly explained the steps to his plan to create the Superior Mother. He also explained how his procedure went out of control as soon as the life-attributed energy started to revive her spiritual remnant.
"I see… your theories are.. very crude. They shouldn't work, yet they do." Cynthia noted. "Perhaps it is something unique to mech designers like you. Whatever the case, I believe there is a way to resolve this crisis."
"Please explain, mother."
"From what I understand, you initially intended to create a manifestation called 'the Superior Mother' that harmoniously integrates this chaotic collection of source material, is that correct?"
Ves rapidly nodded. "All of my.. manifestations.. created through this method has never shown any incompatibility with its underlying makeup. No matter how much its individual sources conflict with each other, once I shatter them and fuse them all together, the result is a new form of life that has become its own existence!"
"If that is the case, then I will have to rely on you to steer this manifestation to a semblance of its original form."
"What do you plan to do, mother?"
"I can't divest myself entirely from this manifestation without incurring significant damage. Due to your reckless shenanigans, I am literally existing in two locations at once! This is not inherently bad, but the problem is that my existence here is highly unstable. As long as you can stabilize this manifestation, the threat towards me should be resolved."
"Will there be any lingering problems?" Ves asked.
"There will. I am not sure what, but let us get this ordeal over with first. As soon as you are ready, I will slowly reverse this transformation process. Instead of letting me consume the Superior Mother, I will instead induce the Superior Mother to consume myself!"
"Won't that harm you, mother?!"
"It's fine. My main essence resides in the Nyxian Gap. What is present here is an unexpected addition. As long as it remains alive, it doesn't matter how weak it becomes."
"How will letting the Superior Mother eat you resolve this crisis?"
"As long as the Superior Mother regains its primacy, the conflicting sources won't fight against each other anymore. This way, the Superior Mother will effectively become my incarnation."
"What is an incarnation?"
"Something that I do not want you to dabble with!" Cynthia snapped at Ves! "With your penchant for reckless experimentation, it's far too dangerous for you to become exposed to this knowledge! The less you know, the better!"
Ves looked upset. Did it hurt to tell him a thing or two?
He soon proceeded to help her 'reverse the transformation process', whatever that meant. It basically entailed trying to restore and breath life into the half-digested Superior Mother while the unborn design spirit resided in his mother's stomach.
The process was just as macabre as it sounded. Ves literally had to reach inside his mother's spiritual existence and try his best to employ his abilities.
The fact that the Superior Mother was still in an incomplete state happened to be advantageous this time.
While the Superior Mother wasn't able to defend herself, her state was highly malleable. This meant that Ves could effectively integrate portions of his mothers into the unfinished spiritual body of his design spirit!
Ordinarily, this wasn't possible, as his mother was too strong and too aggressive to allow something else to eat her essence!
However, his mother was currently doing her best to suppress all of those instincts. This allowed Ves to methodically cut pieces of her before merging it into the Superior Mother.
The process happened slowly. Even though lightning bolts continued to rain down on the statue at regular intervals, the audience kneeling in the giant hexagon still hadn't exited their strange fascination.
All of them had become enthralled by the pressure exuded by the statue!
Seeing how nobody showed any signs of acting up, Ves no longer worried about interruptions and patiently performed his task.
"This is very odd." Cynthia remarked as Ves continued to cut out more and more chunks of her spiritual body. "What you are doing appears to be exceptionally simple, but it shouldn't be possible. I can never do what you are doing."
Ves grew oddly confident after hearing that. "Creating life happens to be my specialty!"
"Idiot!" His mother admonished him yet again! "Forming manifestations like this is as absurd as chopping up random people's body parts before stitching them back together into meatballs. You should feel horrified for even thinking of doing this! Don't you realize that you have violated a very sacred taboo?"
"Oh. Anyway, it's working, right?"
"Astonishingly, it is. The crisis is slowly passing. I am very concerned you don't feel any remorse about what you are doing."
He shrugged. "I have been doing this for years, mom."
Ves broke so many rules and trampled over so many taboos that Ves didn't even bother to keep track of them. It didn't matter as long as he wasn't caught by the authorities.
Ves never even knew that his design philosophy was not permissible according to his mother. It made him feel strange. Who set this taboo? Who would Ves offend if they learned the truth about his specialty?
As the reversed transformation process proceeded smoothly, he finally felt confident enough to make a request.
"Mother? Can my girlfriend help? She was supposed to assist me in this process as well."
"Oh? Please show me, then."
"Gloriana, come here and open up your mind."
As Ves performed the same steps that allowed Gloriana's mind to draw out a spiritual projection, the Superior Mother soon integrated Cynthia's spiritual shards more effectively.
"What a stupid method!" Cynthia remarked. "I thought I had seen the depth of your lunacy, but it turns out that you are even more reckless than I imagined! Don't you realize that your girlfriend can incur some very serious injuries to her mind if you rummage through it without care?"
"Mom! This was the only way I could think of to draw upon Gloriana's assistance!"
"Ugh." His mother mentally sighed. "Let me help you just this once. I can't stand the thought of you performing this trick again."
Her diminishing spiritual fragment began to glow a bit before splitting off a mote. The tiny mote rapidly zipped towards Gloriana's mind and drilled into it before disappearing!
Though Gloriana briefly interrupted her work, she quickly resumed.
"What did you do?"
"I taught her a little trick."
The process continued to proceed until there was almost nothing left of his mother's spiritual fragment. According to his mother, Ves couldn't afford to kill it off entirely, lest his mother suffer some sort of backlash.
"Draw back." She commanded. "I can do the rest myself."
As Ves and Gloriana withdrew their spiritual projections and distanced themselves even further from the statue, the pressure in the air started to change.
A pure and motherly sensation engulfed everyone in the hexagon.
Lightning no longer struck the spotless statue as the inexplicable storm clouds slowly started to part.
A hole emerged from the cloud cover. A beam of sunlight shone onto the statue, making it even brighter and more holy in the eyes of the crowd!
Out of everyone present, only Ves could see a hint of the final spiritual transformation process.
Inside the statue, his mother seemed to integrate and latch onto the Superior Mother like a parasite latching onto an unwitting victim.
Though Ves tried his best to observe how his mother intended to turn the Superior Mother into her 'incarnation', she put up too much interference for him to get a detailed look!
A strong pulse suddenly emanated from the statue! A glow that belonged to the Superior Mother had suddenly taken on its final form!
After many unexpected twists and turns, his latest design spirit was finally born!
Even as the entire crowd rapturously basked in the motherly glow of his latest design spirit, Ves began to grow uncertain.
"Mother? Is that you?"
"I can't sustain my conscious presence here any longer." She spoke to him. "The Superior Mother is now a part of me, but she is also a separate being. Whenever I am not 'here', she exists on her own, so don't make any misunderstandings."
"You're leaving?" Ves asked, though he couldn't hide the hint of relief in his voice.
"I am, you brat. I need to get back and recover from this near-disaster!" His mother stated. "One more thing. Whatever you do, don't allow the Superior Mother to befall anything. One of the disadvantages of my current condition is that my life is effectively tied to hers!"
"Um, that's.. going to be a problem.."
"Why?"
Ves hesitated a bit. "Because… I designed her.. to be the ancestral spirit of the Hexadric Hegemony. According to my design, the Superior Mother's core existence is tied to the continued existence of a state!"
"You what?!"
Chapter 2112 Supreme
A different sort of silence ensued after the momentous ritual finally came to an end.
In the field where a giant hexagon had been built, thousands of people knelt on the ground with awe.
Each of the people invited to take part in the ceremony all gazed at the statue of the Superior Mother as if it had descended from the heavens!
Ves couldn't blame them. The theatrical show he conducted along with the unexpected complications like all of the lightning bolts raining down on the statue had caused everyone to lose their cool.
The strong, maternal glow emanating from the statue only reinforced the notion of a holy descent!
Thousands of local Sentinel men who filled up the zone corresponding to the phase of life were all in awe at the explosive series of events.
As a whole, the Sentinel Kingdom was a secularist state. Though it wasn't as ardently opposed to religion as the Bright Republic, there was a general sentiment that belief in something greater was not as important as respecting nobles!
However, right now, the huge crowd of men all turned into awestruck rabbits. The superiority imposed by the remarkable statue caused them all to develop a thought that not even the king of their state exuded as much majesty as this goddess!
Out of all of the men, one of them in particular was particularly awed by the whole event.
"Amazing!" Vincent Ricklin-Larkinson cried out as he gazed at the statue of the Superior Mother with an appreciative expression. "So this is the Superior Mother? What a MILF!"
The men weren't the only people in the hexagon who had become affected by the dramatic ritual.
The 666 'damned' Penitent Sisters all looked slack jawed as they stared at the statue. They couldn't believe that a reproduction of the statue of the Superior Mother had become the vessel of something unimaginable! Many of their beliefs had started cracking. How could a boy like Ves possibly summon a Hexer goddess?
Even though the skeptical Penitent Sisters tried their best to refute this rationale, at this moment they simply couldn't. With all of the exiled Hexers standing in such close proximity to the statue, they experienced the Superior Mother's glow at full strength.
The glow felt almost exactly they imagined the Superior Mother to be! Hardly anyone of them dared to suggest that she was fake. Their steel hearts and their sincere beliefs in hexism all rang in harmony with the glow exuded by the godly statue.
As for the 66 Swordmaidens, each of them felt both awe and disappointment. They were awed at the power exuded by the Superior Mother, but felt lacking when faced with her maternal vibe.
The Swordmaidens mostly consisted of single women. Marrying someone, settling down and raising children had never been a priority to them! Each of the Swordmaidens dedicated their entire lives to combat and swordsmanship that they never thought they could fit anything in their short and dangerous lives!
Back when they were still pirates, hardly any Swordmaiden believed they would live to old age. The frontier was a brutal place where the old and weak rarely survived for long. The Swordmaidens as a whole only existed for a few decades, so they never had any members who grew old enough to think about retirement.
Each of them used to believe that only strength mattered. Women started off at a disadvantage in the frontier compared to men, so the Swordmaidens always tried to overcompensate as much as possible in order to survive.
Yet now the Swordmaidens began to doubt whether they followed the right conviction!
Perhaps.. training their swordsmanship was not the only way to become strong.
Only Commander Dise managed to retain her composure. After becoming Qilanxo's chosen and advancing to expert candidate, her will and determination had already risen to an incredible height.
However, even she began to look thoughtful. After so many months of remaining stuck in her bottleneck, she felt as if she was taking a step forward again.
Floating in the air, Ves and Gloriana slowly recovered after the Superior Mother subsided.
Ves looked around suspiciously and tried to see whether there was any of his mother. The newborn design spirit no longer became as animated, which meant that Cynthia Larkinson's consciousness must have left.
After confirming that his mother had truly left, he relaxed his shoulders and sighed. "That did NOT go according to plan!"
Summoning his mother was the last thing he wanted to do! The less he saw her, the better! Getting scolded by her was one of the worst experiences in his life! It was bad enough that his mother admonished him. It was even worse when she did it with Gloriana hanging on to their every word!
Now that was another disaster. Ves hid many of the more sensitive portions of his life from his girlfriend for good reason. He did not wish to drag her into matters that were none of her business. The less she knew, the better!
Unfortunately, the pandora's box had been opened, and it was him who inadvertently opened the lid. He reluctantly turned his head to see how Gloriana took in all of the remarkable events.
Her eyes lit up like stars. Her smile grew as wide as the horizon. Her entire face exhibited pure pure worship and admiration towards the statue of the Superior Mother!
"Ves.. I.. I.. I'm so blessed to have witnessed this miracle! Why didn't you tell me your mother was a goddess?!"
"Uh, what?" Ves looked taken aback. "No! My mother is dead! She's just.. a bit special. Besides, she's not a goddess!"
His mother, a goddess? As if! She was nothing more than an undead ghost who only managed to retain her existence by sucking his energy on an intermittent basis!
Unfortunately, Gloriana didn't think so. She shook her head at him. "You don't have to hide it anymore. Now I know why you're so special and why your design philosophy is so remarkable. All along, you're the son of a goddess! It's no wonder you're able to create proto-gods! Divinity runs in the family!"
Ves began to feel sick. "You're misunderstanding again! My mom is not a goddess! Gods and goddesses don't exist! Besides, don't Hexers like you think that you are superior to gods?"
"That's usually in the case of male gods, silly, hihi!" Gloriana giggled. "Your mother is completely different! So far, it seems that your mother has not only cycled through the phases of existence multiple times, but she has also managed to transcend them! Don't you understand what that means? Your mother is a Supreme!"
"What the hell is a 'Supreme'?!"
"The most powerful and revered Hexers in existence! In fact, some already believe the Superior Mother is a Supreme. It turns out that they're right! Your mother is the Superior Mother!"
"The Superior Mother is just a spiritual product!" Ves protested. "I just created her just now."
She smiled at Ves. "I listened in on everything, remember? Your divine mother even blessed our relationship, hihi! Even if she wasn't the Superior Mother, she certainly is now! Don't you know what this means?"
"No?" He looked puzzled.
"The Superior Mother is a Hexer, hence your mother is also a Hexer!"
"Nonsense! She's a Brighter!"
"That isn't all. If your mother is a Hexer, then you're a Hexer as well!"
"I'm a Larkinson! Don't spout any nonsense!"
No matter how much Ves tried to persuade her otherwise, Gloriana insisted on clinging onto her warped logic and beliefs!
Ves eventually gave up. When Gloriana became caught up in superstition, she was extremely stubborn about clinging on to them. Nothing could make her change her mind!
In any case, her outrageous babbling wouldn't lead to anything. Regardless of anything, Ves officially maintained Brighter citizenship so far. Even if his home state absolutely hated his guts, that did not change the fact that his official record stated that he was a Brighter instead of a Hexer!
Since the MTA managed his most important records, there was no way his girlfriend could magically turn him into a Hexer!
"Let's wrap this all up." He coughed.
The show was over. No matter how much the people in the hexagon wanted to remain and bask in the glow of the Superior Mother further, Ves commanded the Avatars and Sentinels to lead them all away.
Soon enough, a bunch of workers and bots dismantled the giant hexagon and all of the props. A transport vessel arrived to load up the statue of the Superior Mother and send it back to the base.
As Ves and Gloriana boarded a shuttle along with their cats and enjoyed a quiet ride back.
While Ves pressed his fingers against his forehead, Gloriana continued to smile in a giddy manner as if she had truly witnessed the emergence of a Supreme!
"Our next mech.. is going to be fantastic!" She exulted. "With your mother blessing our mech, there is no way the Hex Army will reject our work!"
At least Ves was inclined to agree on that. Leaving out the shenanigans related to his mother, his latest spiritual product truly seemed impressive!
As long as he concentrated his mind and thought about the Superior Mother, he could sense the power of the dormant spiritual entity.
With the help of the life-attributed energy, she started a lot stronger than any newborn spiritual product. Not only that, but Ves suspected that he managed to hit all of his goals in her creation.
The Superior Mother was not just a design spirit. As his ambitions grew, Ves designed her to be more than an aid to mechs and mech pilots.
He did not lie to his mother when he told her that the Superior Mother was supposed to function as the ancestral spirit of the Hegemony.
He did not impart the Superior Mother with a spiritual network, even though he could have. The spiritual network was a powerful trump card that he exclusively reserved for himself and his clan.
However, in order to make the Superior Mother more appealing to the Hexers, he did impart the ancestral spirit with some of the properties of a spiritual network.
Just like the Larkinson Clan and the Golden Cat, the Superior Mother was designed to act as a guardian to every Hexer!
As long as there were Hexers who believed in the Superior Mother, the ancestral spirit grew stronger!
This also came with a downside. If the Hexers stopped respecting or believing in the Superior Mother, then she grew weaker.
The stronger the Superior Mother became, the more her glow increased in potency. The Superior Mother might also develop more abilities or empower her existing ones.
There was one other point where the Superior Mother differed from his first ancestral spirit.
When Ves designed and created the Golden Cat, he intended her to reflect the growth and evolution of the Larkinson Clan. Though he imposed some limits to this adaptation, Goldie would always change in accordance with the clan!
This was not the case with the Superior Mother.
Unlike the Golden Cat, the Superior Mother rigidly held onto its starting values and principles! It's glow was designed to be as solid and unchanging as possible!
No matter what kind of awful beliefs and biases the Hexer attempted to impose on the Superior Mother, the strict ancestral spirit would always continue to hold onto the properties bestowed by her creator!
This was a very significant detail. Secretly, Ves intended the Superior Mother to serve as a trojan horse that would enter Hexer society and slowly change it from within!
As long as the Superior Mother took the Hegemony by storm, the people who respected or worshipped the ancestral spirit would hopefully adopt some of her values.
Ves did not harbor any ambitions to spark a revolution that completely put an end to their biases against the male gender. That would only lead to a backlash.
What he actually wanted to accomplish was to subvert some of the beliefs held by the Hexers in order to improve the standing of men in their societies!
If Gloriana knew what he was really up to, she would probably look aghast at him. Ves wanted nothing less than to corrupt her people and lead them astray!
Even if some unexpected complications occurred, his plan was still intact!
Chapter 2113 Trojan Mare
His dastardly plan to subvert Hexer culture sounded incredibly ambitious. Yet it was also not. Ves could have gone overboard, but he decided to err on the side of caution when it came to setting up the Superior Mother.
Originally, the Hexers revered the semi-mythical Superior Mother as a role model of a strong and ideal parent.
Mothers needed to be strong. Mothers needed to be storm. Though the Hexers recognized that mothers also had to bear a lot of love, the way they expressed it was very different depending on the gender of their children!
In Hexer society, girls had to be raised with a combination of strictness and tenderness. Every girl was already 'strong', in a sense. Mothers were supposed to raise their expectations towards their daughters in order to produce strong women that could provide a lot of contributions to the Hegemony.
Boys experienced a different upbringing. Mothers showed a lot more tenderness and softness towards their sons. They didn't push them around too much and were inclined to treat them as if they were younger than their biological ages.
However, mothers always tried to make sure to rein in their rambunctious sons and did their best to suppress any aggression, ego and other 'undesirable' traits from them. With an entire society adopting this singular approach, a lot of Hexer boys grew up to become boys in adult form!
Even if the grown-up boys were considered to be mature enough to handle some simple jobs, the Hexers never allowed them to take on actual responsibility!
This poisonous but pervasive custom was responsible for strangling the potential of many boys in the Hegemony!
Those who possessed the aptitude to become commanders, directors, foremen, leaders and other impressive figures never had the chance to reach these positions.
Instead, male Hexers could only perform the lowest positions that required the least amount of intelligence and skills. No matter their talent or qualifications, they were destined to serve as the lackeys to female Hexers!
Of course, there were some opportunities for boys if they worked hard enough. Only the most exceptional of the bunch received some slightly better opportunities. Journeyman Mech Designers were actually allowed to contribute a bit more to collaborative mech designers, while expert pilots all earned sufficient trust to pilot a powerful expert mech.
Sadly, too few of them exist. Only the very best boys received greater opportunities. The rest were treated as immature, incompetent menials who could never be trusted with anything important!
This was one of the most pervasive biases of Hexer society and one that had always always earned his contempt the most.
As a man, Ves abhorred the way the Hexers made all of these untrue assumptions about his gender!
This was what the Superior Mother was designed to address. If Ves wanted to create a spiritual product that was supposed to appeal and empower Hexer in combat, he might as well go big and tack on some other 'features'!
When he conceived of this plan, he thought back to the time where he first entered the Ylvaine Protectorate and formed Ylvaine's spiritual fragment in order to empower his Transcendent Messengers.
Overall, he succeeded in turning his Transcendent Messengers into holy machines that strongly appealed to the faith of the Ylvainans.
It was just that Ves could have done more if he realized how much influence his Ylvainan mechs exerted over the Ylvainan people.
Though Ves wasn't sure whether the Hexers were as susceptible to this approach as the Ylvainans, in case his Hexer mechs rose to prominence, he wanted the Superior Mother to do more than look pretty.
The Superior Mother was not meant to alter her values and principles when exposed to more and more Hexers.
Instead, it was supposed to be the other way around! Ves wanted the Superior Mother to be a beacon of change. Her Hexer values differed from the most predominant beliefs in several important ways.
The speech he held before he created the ancestral spirit reflected the kind of model figure that Ves wanted to create for the Hexers.
Despite Gloriana's many complaints, Ves put a lot of thought in the ritual. He invited 66,666 local Sentinel men in order to channel a different image of mothers than the one that Hexers adhered to. The fact that they weren't Hexers citizens was intentional!
If Ves really wanted to, he could have paid a lot of money to invite a lot of male Hexers to partake in his ceremony.
He didn't. Other than costing him far too much of his hard-earned money, he did not want to be surrounded by so many Hexers who believed that they were worth almost nothing compared to women!
What Ves truly aimed to instill in the Superior Mother was the idea that there were multiple ways that mothers, and by extension women, could become strong!
It wasn't necessary for women to beat down boys.
What was the greatest purpose of mothers? Nurturing their children!
However, this did not mean that a good mother should raise their daughters into adults while keeping their sons as useless boys!
That defeated the purpose of nurturing children. What Ves instead tried to impart in the Superior Mother was the idea that it was better and more admirable to raise boys into more productive members of society!
"What is more difficult? Raising a son to become an incompetent manchild, or raising a son to become a competent engineer or bureacrat?"
This was the challenge that the Superior Mother posed to Hexers. A mother who failed to raise her children was the opposite of a good mother!
Only those who put earnest effort into raising both their daughters and sons into capable, responsible adults deserved to be called a 'superior mother'!
Ves believed that issuing this kind of challenge in the form of his reinterpreted ancestral spirit would definitely appeal to the competitive spirit of Hexers.
Hexers always held the assumption that it was easier to raise a daughter than a son. The latter was smarter, more talented, more capable and more obedient.
As for the latter, Hexer mothers automatically assumed that their sons were trouble in the making. That was also why those mothers did not dare to teach too much to their boys.
Ves aimed to subvert this assumption.
So what if boys were more dangerous? So what if boys held greater potential for death and destruction?
Wouldn't it be an accomplishment if Hexer mothers transformed them into productive, upstanding members of society?
It wouldn't be easy, but the Superior Mother was not called this way for nothing! If mothers aimed to earn the ancestral spirit's approval, then they better do a good job in raising both their male and female offspring!
Those who moved closer to the ideal of the Superior Mother would receive more validation from her glow. Those who still held hateful thoughts about boys would instead perceive a form of pressure that encouraged them to change their ways, lest they become damned!
This was why Ves insisted on putting 666 Penitent Sisters in the zone that represented the phase of damnation.
They were the worst kind of Hexers in the eyes of the Superior Mother.
A mother who withheld love and attention from her son was not a qualified mother at all! By extension, any female Hexer who treated boys as idiots weren't worthy either, because they too carried some responsibility.
Anyone whose thoughts on boys strayed in the direction of the beliefs of the Penitent Sisters were all damned! The Superior Mother's glow wouldn't be as beneficial to them. If they wanted to earn the ancestral spirit's good graces, then they had to alter their views!
Whether this worked or not depended on how popular the Superior Mother became. Ves did not dare to assume that it would become popular instantly.
No matter what, the Hexers were very strong and proud of themselves. A glow that originated from the hands of a boy, a foreigner no less, would definitely become a hurdle!
Nonetheless, the Superior Mother still adopted most of the facets of Hexer beliefs. She still maintained the assumption that women were superior and such. What Ves merely did was to raise the standing of boys.
Aside from that, the Superior Mother was still a Hexer, just one who carried a different interpretation than most. If Ves deviated further from Hexer orthodoxy in her design, he feared his ancestral spirit might not get accepted!
Ves never lost sight of the magnitude of this grand undertaking. In his opinion, what he attempted to do was no nothing less than to redesign existing Hexer culture!
It was impossible to force a group of people to change their mindsets, especially at once. Rather than spark a radical revolution with a high chance of failure, he instead wanted to encourage a gradual evolution that would turn the Hexadric Hegemony into a more boy-friendly state.
Taking half a step forward was better than tripping backwards.
Whether this ambitious plan actually worked or not, Ves had some hopes for his female Trojan Horse.
"Actually, I should call her a Trojan Mare." He muttered.
Originally, Ves figured that even if the Superior Mother failed to catch on, no harm was done. Ves didn't care too much about the Hexers anyway.
Now, reforming them or at least getting them to appreciate the Superior Mother had become a much higher priority!
Ves didn't know what his mother meant by turning the Superior Mother into her incarnation. What exactly was an incarnation anyway?
The only crucial fact his mother told him was that her life was tied to the life of the Superior Mother!
Though Ves wasn't sure whether he should take this statement seriously, he did not dare to assume otherwise.
His mother's life was at stake!
This was an incredibly bad outcome. Ves never thought that something like this would happen!
When Ves designed the Superior Mother in a way that tied her to Hexers, he figured that she was only useful as long as the Hegemony existed.
If the Hexers somehow lost the Komodo War, then much of their culture would probably be gone in time.
At that time, there was no point for the Superior Mother to remain in existence. In fact, Ves wanted her to be gone lest she convert other women into Hexers!
That made his mother's sudden bond with the Superior Mother so crucial. With their lives tied together, Ves had to make sure that the Superior Mother remained alive and well!
The only way to do that was to preserve the Hexers, which basically meant that he could not afford to let the Hexers lose their war against the Fridaymen!
"Goddammnit."
Ves could no longer remain disinterested in the outcome of the Komodo War! Previously, he only wanted the Fridaymen to lose or suffer serious setbacks due to provoking him. In truth, he didn't mind all that much if the Fridaymen somehow managed to gain the upper hand.
He was leaving the Komodo Star Sector anyway. Only Gloriana might shed some tears, but Ves really couldn't care less about her state and people.
It was different this time. Ves, for all his ambivalence towards his mother, still loved her and wanted her to live.
This meant that Ves had to make sure the Hexers survived the Komodo War! Even if they didn't win, they at least had to end the war at a stalemate!
The immensity of this challenge put a lot of pressure on his shoulders.
While Ves hoped the Hexers were strong enough to win the war on their own. If not, Ves had to do his best to prop them up in his own way!
"I already turned around the Sand War." He softly peppered himself up. "This is not much different!"
In truth, the Komodo War was entirely different. Its scale and magnitude was countless times greater. A lot more mechs entered battle, and all of them were vastly more powerful than the pitiful mechs and starfighters used to resist the sandmen.
Not only that, but the Hexers weren't fighting against mentally-challenged sandmen! The Fridaymen were just as smart, if not smarter, and did not expend their war assets on brainless, wasteful assaults.
"They're going to be a lot harder to crack."
Chapter 2114 Sacred and Inviolable
When Ves, Gloriana and the rest returned to the base, the news of the remarkable ceremony spread by word of mouth.
Soon, the regional section of the galactic net went ablaze at all of the wild claims associated with Ves Larkinson's latest stunt!
Fortunately, the news was rather contained and did not have any further effects other than reinforcing his eccentric image.
Due to all of the precautions that Ves and the clan had taken, no direct recordings of the event had proliferated. Every single participant had to relinquish their comms and any other electronic devices. Those with internal implants that could have recorded the ceremony had already been filtered out beforehand.
This wasn't all. Every single mech and machine present at the event had to have their logs and memory banks scrubbed. Ves ordered Crindon and his team of security experts to do more than wipe out the data.
He wanted all of the physical storage hardware to be ripped out of the mechs and machines and melted down into scrap as soon as possible.
Ves did not want a single bit of data about the ceremony to be leaked onto the galactic net, or worse, the MTA!
Hearsay and stories should be enough to increase his notoriety as a weirdo. Ves did not want any detailed recordings to land in the hands of those who could possibly glean some clues from all of the events that took place.
Perhaps the most perplexing phenomenon of all was the sudden storm clouds that formed over the giant hexagon.
No one expected this to happen. It wasn't in the plans. Cinach VI's weather forecast also didn't say anything about storms or clouds.
If Ves bothered to retain all of the data recorded by all of the machines at the event, then he might have been able to figure out why the storm had come.
Sadly, the only data he had left was the internal memory recording he stored in his implant. When he rewatched the footage of his own perspective, he wasn't able to derive an explanation behind the sudden formation of storm clouds.
"It doesn't make any sense!" Ves complained.
Like most major settled planets, Cinach VI did not feature uncontrolled weather.
Ves had already looked up the meteorological agency in charge of managing the planet's weather on behalf of House Evenson.
The control the agency exerted was fairly strict. Sunshine shone on areas when it was good to do so. Rain fell on areas where there was a need to water crops or maintain the water table.
Though the degree of control the meteorological agency exerted was not that precise, the point was to provide every piece of land with the sustenance they required on a steady and predictable schedule.
Chaotic weather was bad for business. How would tourism agencies be able to hold sunny tours if a rain cloud suddenly drenched their destination? How could farms keep their plants watered at a precisely-calculated level if there was no pattern to the rain?
Above all, meteorological disasters had to be avoided at all costs. There was hardly any benefit to letting hurricanes, typhoons, tornados and other weird weather phenomena run their course.
In short, there was no reason for storm clouds to emerge at the site during the event at that specific time.
It was impossible for them to form naturally, especially when the clouds literally emerged out of nowhere before starting to rain down thunder and lightning several minutes later!
It was even more impossible for those storms to have been induced artificially. At the very least, someone had to seed the skies with something that induced the storm clouds to form, but they were almost always a lot bigger and a lot more uncontrolled!
Even if a third-parties intended to spoil the ceremony in this fashion, the mech patrols should have hindered their approach!
The day after the eventful ceremony, Ves and Gloriana both visited a secure chamber where the Larkinson Clan placed the statue of the Superior Mother.
The mech-sized object still radiated a sense of sacred motherhood when the pair of mech designers arrived.
Gloriana instantly lit up and respectfully bowed. "Good morning, Cynthia Larkinson!"
"Cut it out!" Ves admonished his girlfriend. "The Superior Mother is not my mother! She's a spiritual product! My mother is just.. tied to it. That's all."
Gloriana looked oddly at him. "You should be more respectful towards your mother, Ves. She's a goddess and a Supreme."
Ves palmed his face.
She took no notice of his reaction and happily approached the statue. She then proceeded to kneel in front of it in order to pray!
The sight disturbed Ves beyond belief. Though he expected his own girlfriend to become enamored by his new spiritual product, the fact that it was a part of his mother made this situation very weird!
As a Brighter, Ves abhorred superstition. What Gloriana was doing was no less than treating his mother as a goddess that deserved to be revered!
He slowly stepped forward and began to scan the statue with the equipment he had already brought forward.
Ves wanted to inspect the physical condition of the statue and see if it had changed due to the formation of the Superior Mother or the random lightning that struck its surface.
Fortunately, it quickly became clear that the statue was still intact and whole. How could mere lightning damage something as strong as his work? The statue largely consisted of Breyer alloy, which was tough enough to resist a lot of second-class ordnance! The power of a lightning bolt paled in comparison to a positron beam!
Nonetheless, his intuition hinted that the lightning storm was not as simple as it appeared. Perhaps its power was more destructive than he thought.
However, it was still a stretch to think that the lightning could have been powerful enough to damage something made out of Breyer alloy.
The odd thing about the statue was when he began to inspect it through his spiritual senses rather than his scanners.
The entire statue glowed as if it was one of his gold label mechs. It had somehow acquired a spiritual foundation that seemed to compliment the dorman ancestral spirit that resided within.
It gave the statue a sacred and inviolable quality that Ves had not intended to add to the work.
As for the Superior Mother herself, the newborn ancestral spirit did not respond to his spiritual queries. Ves guessed that the process that his mother used to turn the spiritual product into her incarnation might have sapped a lot of energy or something.
Whatever the case, the Superior Mother did not look sick or anything.
Since the Superior Mother was dormant, Ves took a closer look with his spiritual senses and tried to see what was different now that a portion of his mother now resided in her spiritual being.
He found nothing. As far as he could tell on the surface, the Superior Mother largely matched the product he set out to create from the start.
"Where is my mother?"
Perhaps Ves had to break the Superior Mother apart in order to uncover a trace of his mother, but obviously he couldn't do that. He just had to take his mother's word that the spiritual product was tied to her life.
Ves scratched his head as he proceeded to look for any bond or connection that led back to his mother.
He spotted nothing.
"How are they tied, then?"
His mother's abilities worked on different principles than the ones he was familiar with. Their methods were so different that his plan to decipher and reverse-engineer his mother's incarnation technique had failed!
Even though his mother told him no, Ves wasn't resigned to that answer!
"A technique with such a massive disadvantage should at least have a corresponding advantage. What are the uses of incarnation?"
Ves suspected that this might be the way for him to be in two places at once.
Wouldn't that be great? He could retain his main consciousness in his body while ordering Ranya to make a clone and somehow turn it into his incarnation.
If this wild plan succeeded, he could practically live a second life through his second body! Ves could opt to foist an alternate identity on his incarnation and leave him behind in the Milky Way Galaxy while he merrily left for the Red Ocean.
Sadly, his stingy mother declined to teach him this trick. According to her, it was too dangerous to leave in his hands.
"Tch. Why are you hogging all of the good stuff to yourself?"
His fantasy of living two lives at once were dashed.
Perhaps it was for the better. He already had his hands full with his current life, after all!
When Gloriana finally finished praying to his mother, she walked to him with a radiant smile.
"This statue serves as a much better altar than my other ones! I love basking in your mother's divine domain. I feel so validated and encouraged under its influence that I can't imagine resorting to anything else."
Ves pressed his lips. "It's too big, though. I designed the statue to impress a crowd of 66,666 men."
"Can't you reproduce it on a smaller scale? Preferably with the same glow?"
"I.. could.. but.. let's talk about that later. We should focus on our work."
Ves did not wish for his girlfriend to carry around a miniature altar based around the Superior Mother everywhere!
"What do you want to discuss?" She asked when her religious fervor subsided.
"We should finalize our mech design as fast as possible. Have we received any data on the tests performed on the first iteration of Hexer mech design?"
"My mother's people have already sent the first batch of test data. It's already very detailed. I suppose we can use that to start on developing the second iteration of our mech design. It's just.."
She looked uncertain.
"What is it, Gloriana?"
His girlfriend pointed at the statue. "I'm not sure whether it's appropriate to attach a Supreme to a male mech design. It seems.. wrong."
Ves sighed. "I already told you. The Superior Mother is not exclusive to women. As a design spirit, she is quite versatile. I designed her that way. While she is just a single entity, she also encompasses the six phases of existence and many of the facets of Hexers. In the case of our landbound knight mech, she acts as a reassuring mother that watches over her son. I believe our finalized mech will produce some surprising results once the Superior Mother takes hold."
One spiritual product, countless applications.
This was one of his other goals with the creation of the Superior Mother. He did not want to create a specific Hexer mech design for every other Hexer mech he designed.
Instead, he tried to make sure he added enough versatility in the ancestral spirit to add something useful in every mech design. Landbound or spaceborn, male or female, offensive or defense, the Superior Mother was compatible with every possible variety!
"I think my mother will be very impressed with our debut Hexer mech design." She smiled impishly at him. "In fact, once she learns that your mother is a Supreme, she will—"
"—NO!" Ves immediately turned and held her shoulders. "Do not tell your mother or anyone else about my mother!"
"B-But why?" Gloriana sputtered with shock.
"It's a long story. Suffice to say, there's a very good reason why she is gone."
He briefly explained that his mother attracted some very powerful enemies and was being persecuted. Gloriana predictably reacted with outrage and alarm, but Ves did not reveal anything about the Five Scrolls Compact or anything else that would get her in trouble.
"I see." She spoke after she calmed down. "If that is true, then.. it's best to keep this news under wraps. Will there be any problem with spreading the Superior Mother?"
Ves shook his head. "There shouldn't be. The Superior Mother doesn't contain any trace of my mother. If the ancestral spirit posed any threat to her, then my mother would have warned me or chosen another solution."
In fact, he suspected that his mother may have chosen to turn the Superior Mother into an incarnation because it hid her presence so well!
If Ves with his powerful spiritual sensitivity wasn't able to detect a trace of her mother in the ancestral spirit, then the Five Scrolls Compact and any other enemies would probably have no clue either!
In this way, Ves did not have to worry about attracting any unwelcome attention if the Superior Mother proliferated.
A curious thought began to enter his mind.
Would the Superior Mother be able to strengthen his mother and feed her addiction to spiritual energy?
His eyes lit up. In theory, this should be the case!
If everything went well, Ves would finally be able to get rid of his status as her personal energy battery! His mother should no longer have any reason to suck him dry!
Chapter 2115 Watching Mother
With the creation of the Superior Mother, Ves and Gloriana spent all of their remaining time on bringing their Hexer mech design project to completion.
With the assistance provided by the Wodin Dynasty, the subsequent testing, debugging and optimization phases took place in rapid tempo.
Since the Hexers always expected their mechs to be sound and free of defects, the pair invested a lot more time and effort into this final sprint.
As a private commission, their mech design did not have to pass through the notoriously difficult approval process conducted by a board of matriarchs.
DIVA enjoyed the right to use any mech it saw fit. How else could their agents infiltrate other forces and misdirect their enemies if their mechs always looked the same. Even an idiot could tell that the Hexers were up to something if a bunch of superb female mechs appeared out of nowhere!
That said, both Ves and Gloriana tried their best to meet the exacting standards of the Hex Army.
It was a fantasy to believe that they were capable of matching the best efforts of Hexer Master Mech Designers. They didn't even come close. The test data and the commentary provided by the Hexer testing ground made it very clear that their mech fell short in many areas, from optimization to absolute performance criteria.
Neither Ves nor Gloriana let this discouraging feedback stop them from pouring their all into their mech.
To Ves, the mech was his first and most important opportunity to spread the Superior Mother in Hexer society! If his Hexer mech design fell flat, then the future of his new ancestral spirit was anything but certain.
Now that his own mother's life was at stake, Ves felt pressured to do his best to deliver a successful product!
As for Gloriana, she made a request right after Ves conducted the dramatic ceremony.
"Could you bring the statue of the Superior Mother to the design lab?" She asked.
"Huh? Why?"
She smiled shyly at Ves. "I want your mother to watch over me while I work on her first mech. It would feel so good to know that she is supporting me from behind."
"I already told you that the Superior Mother may not necessarily be my real mother!"
"Oh, the ways of a goddess and a Supreme is beyond our ken." She baselessly stated as if it was the absolute truth. "You shouldn't doubt your mother so much. She quite possibly ranks among the greatest Hexers alive and dead. In fact, in my opinion, she is already the best because she raised a good son like you, hihi!"
Ves did not look amused. Ever since she became aware of the continued existence of his mother, his girlfriend's superstitious delusions had grown worse!
No matter what he said, his words simply failed to register in her head. She didn't even try to refute his sober arguments. She just acted as if he didn't say anything!
He was already used to this behavioral quirk of hers. Fanatics always limited their attention to what they wanted to hear, and her sincere beliefs in hexism turned her mind into an impenetrable fortress against any form of doubt!
In the end, Gloriana wouldn't stop nagging him until he acquiesced. Some heavy-duty bots moved the statue to the design lab, which for many purposes had to be big enough to accommodate a mech.
Once there, the entire design lab basked in the pervasive motherly glow of the Superior Mother. Though the ancestral spirit was still dormant for some reason, both Ves and Gloriana were hit full-blast with the glow that would nurture many Hexer mech pilots in the future!
Ves figured that it was a good thing that his design teams weren't present. Everyone, including the older assistants, were currently participating in a month-long acclimatization tour.
The only people he had to worry about was Maikel and Zanthar, but Ves quickly handed the two boys, ahem, adolescent men a lot of homework assignments.
At their impressionable ages, Ves did not want his young students to endure long-term exposure to the Superior Mother. Perhaps they might inadvertently become indoctrinated by her matronly glow!
"I'm raising them to become brave and daring Larkinson lads, not Hexers who need to look up to women in order to do anything!"
Ves figured that this might become a recurring problem each time he designed another Hexer mech. He contemplated setting up multiple design labs, for example one on the Scarlet Rose and another lab on the Stellar Chaser. A single shipboard design lab could easily get crowded once over seventy mech designers gathered together.
As much as he was interested in designing more Hexer mechs, he needed to make sure that those who worked on the design were resilient enough to hold on to their own values and principles.
Fortunately, most of the new hires consisted of mech designers who all possessed at least some experience and personal development. Fresh, young-faced rookies such as Mayer Torto-Larkinson were fairly rare.
In any case, now that Ves and Gloriana worked on their project in the presence of Superior Mother, their results improved.
Ves was able to get much closer in tune with the future design spirit of his product. As a mech designer who was sensitive towards moods and emotions, this was a helpful development and allowed him to make small tweaks that harmonized his design a little more with his vision.
As for Gloriana, she truly believed that his mother was watching over her efforts! Like a little girl who wanted to show off her best in front of her parents, she began to get fired up and came up with several inspiring solutions!
With their increased productivity, they developed three more iterations in quick succession, each of them becoming more flawless and optimized in a matter of days!
Due to certain time constraints, the pair did not wait for the complete test results to come back but continued to iterate on the design even as the new prototypes were still being fabricated by the Wodin Dynasty.
Compressing their schedule like this allowed them to save precious time and squeeze a little bit more performance out of their mech design. While it was still better to optimize the design for a couple more months, Ves simply didn't think it was worth the time investment.
He had been staying in the Cinach System long enough. Ves should have begun to enter the Nyxian Gap by now, but he delayed his departure in order to make sure his first second-class mech design turned into a fine representation of his work.
As Ves and Gloriana completed the fourth and final iteration to their design, they both took a step back.
The projected design was beautiful in his eyes. Its large frame, its sturdy exterior, its robust energy siphoning appendages and its solid sword and shield all looked imposing.
Ves was largely responsible for shaping the overall look of the mech. His artistic sensibilities and his vision drove him to design an external appearance that conveyed rock-solid reliability.
Even though it was functionally a damage sponge and an energy dispenser, Ves wanted his Hexer knight mech to break with the conventional pattern of male Hexer mech design.
His girlfriend couldn't help but remark on this distinct difference. "Your mech looks very stocky and sturdy. It boasts a lot more sharp edges than what Hexers are used to. If you ask me, this mech is quite masculine. I'm not sure it will go over well with our target audience."
"If you study its appearance alone, then you're right. However, don't forget about the Superior Mother. With such a nurturing, feminine glow, Hexers will probably have a better impression of the mech."
"That is mainly the case when they are physically close to a copy. The mech won't be able to convince those who have never been close to one. That will likely lead to a lot of problems for us in the near future."
"We'll attract critics and pushback regardless of what we do." He shrugged. "After all, a 'boy' is one of its lead designers. I trust DIVA to recognize the value of our product. If Calabast is anything like the rest of its agents, then our mech will likely be put to good use. Once our mech shows off its value on the battlefield, interest in it will likely grow!"
As one of its creators, Ves held a lot of pride and confidence in his work! His previous original mech designs such as the Doom Guards, Deliverer and the Desolate Soldier all received critical acclaim from the mech community.
His constant successes and his faith in his own design philosophy made him very sure that his latest product would definitely be able to make an impact. Man-haters or not, Ves believed that hardly any Hexer could resist the appeal of a glow tailored to their kind!
"There is truly nothing like the glow of the Superior in the Hegemony." Gloriana sighed, thereby reinforcing his confidence!
After performing a final inspection of their design, the pair finally decided to finalize it. They wrote their final reports and wrapped up all of their documentation.
Gloriana soon noticed an important detail. "Officially, we should hand in all of our files to DIVA in order to complete the commission. I'm not sure whether we are even allowed to fabricate a copy of our mech design."
If DIVA wanted to keep the mech design in reserve in order to deliver a sudden surprise to the Fridaymen, then Ves and Gloriana were not allowed to expose their work ahead of time!
This was a difficult question. Ves frowned and began to think.
"I think we should ask Calabast."
"Do we have to?" Gloriana pouted.
"It's no big deal. Besides, she manages all of our communications with the agency. Our completed mech design has to pass through her anyway."
Ves activated his comm and began to call the spymaster of the Larkinson Clan.
As soon as her projection appeared, Ves asked a couple of questions.
Calabast briefly paused. "I'm not aware of DIVA's plans for your mech design. Regardless, this commission is still confidential and needs to be handled with care. It is vital that the Friday Coalition doesn't get wind of your mech design in order to leave as many strategic options alive as possible. It is not prudent to fabricate a copy of your new mech design at this time."
"I won't accept that!" Gloriana approached the projection and looked upset. "It's important for Ves and I to make at least one copy of the mech! This is our best chance to produce another masterwork! Can't we do it in a secure workshop? We'll accept every security precaution you might impose."
"This.." Calabast grimaced.
"It's better to let Gloriana have her wish." Ves pushed as much blame as possible towards his girlfriend. "She'll nag you to no end if you deny her this opportunity."
"I feel really good about this mech design! We might be able to produce our second collaborative masterwork mech tomorrow, especially if your mother is backing up our efforts!"
"You two…" Calabast sighed and stared at both Ves and Gloriana. "I'll allow it, but only under very strict circumstances. I will go ahead and prepare a secure space for you to put your tools and production machines. My Black Cats and I will thoroughly inspect them from top to bottom in order to make sure that they aren't compromised in any fashion. Only then will I give you two the green light to make your attempt."
Though his clan's security forces regularly checked the integrity of their tools, Ves didn't argue with her precautionary measures. It was best to be sure.
"How long will that take?"
"At least 36 hours if we pull an all-nighter."
"Okay. If nothing goes wrong, we'll begin our fabrication run in two days, is that okay?"
With that set, Ves finally felt a weight lift off his shoulders. He had spent more than enough time at Cinach. Though there was plenty for him to explore, he didn't feel like staying any longer than necessary.
He was more than ready to move on from this boring star system!
Chapter 2116 Mission Readiness
With the Larkinson Clan's time at Cinach coming to end, Ves began to notify everyone that they needed to prepare for departure in the near future.
After four months of rest, growth and preparation, the Larkinson Clan had become at least several times stronger and more vigorous than it had been at the beginning of its arrival at Cinach!
Ves was very proud of what he and his clan managed to accomplish over this period of time
Every starship had been serviced and readied for the challenges that lay ahead. While Ves was dissatisfied with the quality and capabilities of most of them, at this time it was still too unrealistic to procure anything better.
If Ves wanted to leave the Komodo Star Sector, he could only do so with his second-class ships such as the Barracuda and the Scarlet Rose. That entailed leaving the rest of his clan behind, which was unacceptable.
Upgrading the FTL drives of his existing vessels or procuring more second-class ships became more important than ever! With the huge amount of revenue the LMC earned from the Doom Guard, it actually became possible to pursue either option.
However, at the moment, mechs mattered more. With the influx of a lot of new mech pilots, the LMC had to produce or procure a lot of new mechs.
Every mech roster had been overhauled or upgraded to make sure that every mech pilot was paired with a good machine. While most Larkinson mech pilots had to make do with various types of third-class mech models, enough Breyer alloy became available to provide the Avatars of Myth with an additional mech company's worth of Bright Warriors.
In fact, the Avatars could have received more copies of the resilient modular mech platform, but Ves put a stop to its production. He no longer wanted to waste any Breyer alloy. He wanted to save it up and build a huge reserve for other purposes.
Over 10,000 new recruits had joined the clan, pushing up the total number of clansmen past 20,000 and counting. The numbers still grew every day, though the growth had obviously flattened off as the existing clan structure was already straining to integrate so many new members.
Despite the challenges, Ves could feel the energy in the clan. Morale was high and plenty of newly-adopted Larkinsons couldn't wait to prove their chops!
Those who applied to the Larkinson Clan and passed the rigorous selection process weren't average people. Though they predominantly consisted of Sentinel commoners, each of them possessed excellent resumes and possessed personalities that were already compatible with the Larkinson culture and mindset.
Therefore, Ves was not afraid that the new recruits were hesitant to enter the Nyxian Gap.
Of course, some were more eager than others. Civilians who joined the clan in order to work for the LMC did not possess as much stomach for danger as an elite Avatar pilot!
In order to get a good understanding of the current disposition of his combat forces, Ves scheduled a meeting to discuss their readiness.
Major Quinlist Verle-Larkinson entered the conference first together with Fleet Coordinator Ophelia Kronon-Larkinson.
"Good morning, sir."
"Have a seat."
Soon enough, Commander Melkor Larkinson arrived. He tipped his head at Ves and took a seat while fiddling with his visor.
Commander Magdalena Larkinson entered shortly afterwards. The older woman nodded at everyone with respect before sitting next to Melkor.
Commander Cinnabar-Larkinson and Commander Dise-Larkinson arrived in unison. They sat down while swapping some old stories.
Finally, Commander Rosa Orfan-Larkinson barged through the door five minutes late.
"Sorry about that. I lost track of time when I was chatting with one of my buddies!"
Ves coughed. "Please take your seat. We are all more than ready to begin this meeting."
He sent a measured look at Major Verle, who shrugged in helplessness.
When the Flagrant Vandals defected from the Bright Republic and decided to go their own way, they splintered. Several ships and many former servicemen refused to join the Larkinson Clan.
Among them were several capable officers who could have taken over command of the Flagrant Vandals after Major Verle received a more senior position.
The lack of senior command talent meant that Orfan was the only Vandal who possessed the 'experience', 'skills' and 'qualifications' to command the Vandals.
Putting an expert candidate or an expert pilot in charge was not an unusual phenomenon. However, there were certain people who were much more gifted in leadership than others.
Sadly, Major Verle already warned Ves that his former men wouldn't accept anyone else but Orfan. Despite her mixed results, she was a well-liked officer among the Vandals and earned their respect and trust. No one else aside from Major Verle himself could match her sway!
Therefore, Ves had no choice but to tolerate the new Vandal Commander.
If Major Verle hadn't supplied him with the incredibly valuable high-grade life-prolonging treatment serum, Ves would have put an external leader in charge!
"Alright, everyone is here. Let's start." He spoke. "Everyone knows what this meeting is all about. It is no secret that I intend to enter the Nyxian Gap and perform a possible mission for the MTA. Such missions are very dangerous, but also very lucrative."
"I have one question." The recently-promoted Commander Orfan asked. "Where are those sanctimonious Hexers? Have they pulled their sticks out of their butts yet, or do they need some help?"
"Please be more respectful towards our allies and friends." Ves warned her. "The Glory Battalion won't be accompanying us. Protecting Gloriana is a higher priority and I would feel much better if her bodyguards are all doing what they are supposed to be doing. As for the Penitent Sisters, I intend to address them separately. They have no say in our decisions."
That answered many of their doubts.
Ves clapped and turned to Melkor. "Let's begin with the Avatars of Myth. How many mech pilots and mechs can you field?"
"After extensive training and recruitment, we can field at least 600 mechs." Melkor replied. "All of them are paired with Avatar mech pilots that are largely up to our standards. In fact, we have more mechs and mech pilots than that. If necessary, we can bring 800 additional bodies, though the quality of our Avatar candidates are very inconsistent."
That was a lot! The Avatars had diminished to just a couple of hundred mech pilots after the Battle of Kesseling VIII, and that included both spaceborn and landbound specialists!
"Let's keep our expeditionary force into the frontier on the lean side, Melkor. Bring only the best and the ones who we can depend upon. There is little room for deadweight in a depraved environment like the Nyxian Gap. There won't be any safe harbor for us to shelter in and recruit new mech pilots or repair our damaged ships."
"Understood. I will stick to the original plan."
Ves turned to Commander Magdalena. "I won't bring too many Sentinels along. Most of your men need to guard the Larkinsons who remain in Cinach."
"That is prudent." Magdalena stoically answered. "Out of every division of the clan, ours has expanded the most. We are already capable of fielding 2000 mechs and mech pilots, of which 1500 are spaceborn and 500 are landbound or aerial."
The Sentinels skewed towards recruiting spaceborn pilots and procuring spaceborn mechs because there was a much greater need to protect the clan's growing fleet.
"How many do you intend to bring to the expedition?"
"Not every Sentinel has volunteered for this dangerous duty, sir. As of now, I believe it is acceptable to dispatch 500 mechs and mech pilots."
Ves looked disappointed at this anemic figure. "That is less than the Avatars. Doesn't that sound strange?"
Commander Magdalena kept her cool. The Avatars recruited the best out of the mech pilots that have joined our clan. To put it bluntly, my Sentinels have turned into a dumping ground for the rejects. While I take no offense at this circumstance, the reality is that hardly any of the recruits we've received are ready to participate in a high-intensity, high-risk mission in the Nyxian Gap. Even the Sentinel Peacekeepers only consist of seasoned war veterans and highly-experienced mercenaries!"
She made a very good point, though her words hardly lifted his mood.
"What is your opinion, then? Do you think it is a good idea to bring any Sentinels at all?" He asked.
"While we aren't the Avatars, we have our own pride, sir." She pushed back against the implicit doubt in his words. "There are Sentinels among us who have more ambition than others. Anyone who participates in this dangerous expedition stands to earn a lot of merits. With our reward structure, those who perform the toughest jobs are entitled to the best treatment."
The determination that Commander Magdalena conveyed convinced Ves of her sincerity.
"Very well. I'll be expecting 500 of your mechs to be a part of our upcoming mission." He then turned to Commander Cinnabar. "What about your Battle Criers?"
"Every single one of us are ready to follow you wherever you go. Unless you intend to dive straight into a black hole, we will fight with you to the end!"
Though the former mercenary commander sounded crazy, Ves was very confident that Cinnabar meant what he said.
This was the benefit of buying Kinners. Even though the emergence of the Golden Cat and the Larkinson Network massively decreased the chances of betrayal, Ves was still inclined to lean onto his Kinners for some of his more sensitive priorities. At this time, the crew of the Scarlet Rose largely consisted of Kinner bondsmen!
"How many mechs?"
"We aren't as large as the Avatars or Sentinels." The Battle Crier Commander answered. "That said, our reinforcements from the Kinner Tribe have already arrived and joined my command. We can field 240 mechs right away."
"That sounds good, though you are not necessarily required to bring everyone." Ves nodded in satisfaction. "The role your Battle Criers shall play in the Nyxian Gap may be different from everyone else. I don't need too much of your boys to come along."
He turned to the Commander Orfan, who already opened her mouth before Ves could make his query.
"Don't worry, Ves. My Vandals are in tip-top shape. Though we haven't turned into a 'raiding and reconnaissance' force as of yet, our mechs can take a lot of hits as long as we aren't fighting against Fridaymen or something."
"That's… good to hear. How many mechs and mech pilots can you bring?"
"Easily over three-hundred. We've been expanding our ranks a bit since we've arrived. We picked up a few Mech Corps deserters here and there after they heard what a sweet deal we got. We don't have the combat carriers to bring them all, though."
Ves rubbed his smooth-shaven cheek. "I need your combat carriers as well as your mechs. Just bring as many mechs you can stuff in the Princely Jackal, the Shield of Hispania and the Gorgon's Gaze."
"Got it, Ves."
He moved on to Commander Dise, who exuded a sharper vibe than Commander Orfan. "Your Swordmaidens have suffered heavily losses during the Battle of Kesseling VIII."
"That doesn't mean we have lost our edge. We've already recruited a lot of promising young women to turn them into the next generation of Swordmaidens." Dise replied defensively. "As for my veterans, we could use some exercise. The Nyxian Gap is just another frontier for us. While we can only bring a single mech company, our swords are more than sharp enough to chop some pirate scum!"
"I'll make sure to facilitate some of your needs in the coming weeks." Ves promised to Commander Dise.
He owed it to the Swordmaidens to take care of them. While he couldn't provide them with better mechs as of yet, perhaps he could do something about their swords.
From spending a lot of time with Ketis, he knew that the Swordmaidens revered their blades above everything else!
Chapter 2117 Bargain Hunting
The discussion between the commanders of the Larkinson Clan dove into more complicated matters.
After every mech commander revealed how many mechs they were able to commit to an expedition, Major Verle took over and presented his thoughts on the overall force makeup.
"Spaceborn mechs are king in the Nyxian Gap." He began. "That does not mean that landbound mechs are redundant. Depending on our priorities, we might need to land on a dangerous moon or planet. While the Nyxian Gap is famous for its ubiquitous quantity of asteroids, some of them are so big that they are no different from actual planets. In addition, the Gap frequently absorbs rogue planets and other satellites. Most of these planets are barren, but some contain extremely valuable resources."
"I understand." Ves replied. "Do you think we are prepared to fight on land if necessary?"
"Our landbound combat prowess has lagged behind our spaceborn combat capabilities, sir. While it is possible for us to deploy a strong mid-sized landbound force, we must make sure to pick our targets."
"I'll take that into account, major."
"In contrast, I'm very confident we can smash any opponent in space. In the last couple of weeks, I have worked hard to facilitate greater coordination between your different mech forces. Everyone is aware of their roles and how they should act in basic scenarios. I'm still aiming to establish closer cooperation and coordination, but for now it is enough to prevent mechs from bumping into each other during battle."
The major proceeded to elaborate on the overall mech composition of the proposed expeditionary force.
With 600 Avatars, 500 Sentinels, 160 Battle Criers, 140 Vandals and 40 Swordmaidens, Ves felt confident his forces could smash any Nyxian pirate organization even without the help of the Penitent Sisters!
Still, that didn't mean that he should grow complacent.
The major laid out another concern. "Of the mechs we can bring into battle, most of them consist of medium mechs. This should give us a good array of options, but if you look closer, you'll see that we aren't as flexible as you think. Most of our mechs consists of beefy mechs with lackluster mobility. Models such as the Doom Guard and the Aurora Titan are not exactly known for charging at the enemy."
"I'm aware of the shortcomings of my mech models." Ves dryly replied. "What you're really saying is that we don't have enough mobility, is that right?"
Verle nodded. "I've studied the battles that typically take place in the Nyxian Gap. In many cases, light mechs can add a lot to the table and they are typically more effective in this region. All of the asteroids floating in every direction provide a lot of cover to any approaching mechs. Light mechs may be quick, but they are easily taken down if they are met with a storm of fire. If the machines instead hop from asteroid to asteroid, it becomes a lot harder to intercept them before they get into range."
That was a very frightening scenario. Ves only had to think back on the time the light mechs of the CRC made mince meat out of his powerful second-class battle bots when they finally closed the distance!
"We don't have enough time to field more light mechs." Ves declared. "We can address this shortcoming afterwards. For now, we will have to make the best out of the assets and resources we have on hand."
"I understand, sir."
They soon moved on to discussing more finer points. Issues such as the availability of spare parts and support services came up as well as the lack of veterancy in the Avatars and Sentinels.
"The Avatars and Sentinels are the mainstays of our expeditionary fleet." Verle noted and gestured to Commander Melkor and Commander Magdalena. "However, both troops have mainly opened their doors to younger recruits. While I understand the desire to hire talent with high potential and plenty of growth opportunities, that comes at the expensive of shutting our doors to capable veterans."
Ves turned to Melkor and Magdalena. "What do you have to say about Major Verle's warning?"
Melkor maintained his confidence. "Our Avatars are young and eager. None of them will falter. With the recent release of the Doom Guard, I have put a high priority on toughening them up in preparation for all of the setbacks that we might face in the Nyxian Gap."
"Young does not necessarily equate to being green, sir." Magdalena added. "My Sentinels have made use of the Doom Guards as well. While their performance isn't as exemplary as the Avatars, none of our Sentinels will crack so easily under pressure."
"That's enough. So long as they don't give up in battle, I can work with that." Ves declared.
After they worked out everything related to their mechs and mech pilots, Ves soon turned to the fleet component of his expeditionary force.
Fleet Commander Kronon succinctly elaborated on the readiness of the ships of every mech force. Ves listened closely as the quality and resilience of his carriers had always been of great concern.
"Our starship crews are in high spirits. My Ylvainan compatriots are especially eager to fight on your behalf."
Ves grimaced a bit at that. "I see. Our starships are in good hands, then. However, as much as I applaud the quality of our crews, what about the quality of our ships?"
"Our ships are less than stellar." Ophelia admitted without any shame. "Most of our expeditionary fleet will consist of affordable but thinly-armored light carriers. That is not very encouraging. Due to the complex environment of the Nyxian Gap, there is a significantly greater chance of encountering sudden ambushes and catastrophic traps. While the size and strength of our forces will likely deter most pirates from attacking us, you can't rule the possibility. If they do want to harm us, then I can think of many ways they can harm us without sacrificing a lot of assets. Crippling our vulnerable starships is the best way to stymie our progress."
"Our ships can take a beating." Commander Orfan proudly noted. "Just put us in front!"
"That won't guard us against ambushes from the flanks or rear." Major Verle snapped.
"Oh. Yeah, you're right."
Three combat carriers wouldn't do much to cover their entire formation. Ves just had to accept the fact that his other vessels were vulnerable targets.
"How many support ships do we plan to bring?" He asked.
"That depends on the mission parameters." Ophelia stated. "The deeper we go and the longer the expedition lasts, the more support ships we require. There are no resupply and repair points in the Gap unless you take the pirate strongholds into account. We will have to take care of all of our material and servicing needs on our own. At a minimum, I would say we should bring a dozen logistics vessels, but we may easily require more."
That meant that the expeditionary fleet would consist of even more fragile, high-value ships!
Having participated in the Aeon Corona Mission, Ves knew how vital it was to keep those ships alive. While every carrier possessed a mech workshop and some repair capabilities, their capacity was very meager.
"I'll defer to your judgement and the judgment of the commanders." Ves told Ophelia. "This isn't an option for the future, though. Our Larkinson Clan isn't short on money these days. Have you found a channel to procure better ships?"
"I have talked with Miss Gloriana who referred me to her personal assistant. Miss Melody Raft has been very helpful in sounding out ship providers from the Hegemony."
Ves raised his eyebrow. "I thought they weren't selling any second-class ships to outsiders."
"That's not exactly the case." Ophelia shook her head. "Certainly, it is very difficult to procure brand-new ships, but the Hexers have accumulated plenty of mothballed and decommissioned ships. If you don't mind relying on aged hardware, it is possible to acquire decent, armored vessels at a sharp price. Ordinarily, the Hexers who own or manage these vessels won't sell them to us, but if we use the Wodin Dynasty as an intermediary, I'm sure we can arrange something."
The Hexers disdained passing off their old but valuable starships to their lessers, but they had no problem trading them to other Hexers.
As long as those ship sellers didn't know that Gloriana's relatives intended to pass on the ships to the Larkinson Clan, then this might actually work!
Ves smiled. "Investigate this option further, please. I don't mind getting our hands on old hardware. They don't need to last decades when they fall into our hands. I will notify some people in the clan to reserve a fund for this purpose. How much money do you think you need?"
The fleet coordinator paused and performed some mental calculations. "I'm not sure the LMC can cover the cost at this time. An 'affordable' second-hand combat carrier built to Hexer specifications typically ranges from 3 to 5 billion hex credits, though don't take my word for it. With the turbulence caused by the Komodo War, the prices fluctuate every day."
That.. did not sound as bad as Ves expected. Certainly, in the past he couldn't dream of spending so much money to procure a single ship. While the cost was still rather hefty, it was well within the tolerance of the Larkinson Clan!
The only issue was the quantity of ships the Larkinson Clan needed to accommodate all of its mechs! With thousands of mechs at their disposal, each of them needed to have a berth on a ship!
How many second-class carriers did the Larkinson Clan need to fit so many mechs?
Maybe a hundred. Even if Ves spent as little as possible, he would still have to fork over 300 billion hex credits, and that didn't take into account all of the other associated costs!
The worst part of it all was that Ves did not intend to retain so many ships for his grand expedition. A fleet beyonder ticket only allowed a galactic pioneer to bring 20 ships at most. This meant that the Larkinson Clan had to get rid of more than a hundred ships by the time Ves was ready to travel to the Red Ocean Dwarf Galaxy.
Of course, as long as the Larkinson Clan took good care of the vessels, it was still possible to sell them for a good price. That took some of the sting of the high price tag of such a massive expenditure.
"It's unrealistic to expect that we can cover the cost of all of those ships with the LMC's current earnings." Ves concluded. "Even if our successful Doom Guard has sparked more interest in our older products, we need to come up with a few more super sellers in order to rake in enough cash to upgrade our entire fleet."
It would be worth it, though. Once the Larkinson got rid of all of its weak third-class ships, they could travel anywhere they wished! Ves would no longer have to deal with the crap the Komodo Star Sector flung into his face every so often!
Ves expected to see some changes once he returned from his jaunt through the Nyxian Gap.
"If you are open to it, we don't have to pay for all of the ships up front." Ophelia added, which immediately caught his attention. "The Wodin Dynasty is willing to accept a modest deposit from us in order to extend sufficient credit to procure all of those ships at once. Don't forget that the longer the Komodo War rages on, the more ships get destroyed. The Hexers will eventually have to draw upon their reserve of older vessels. Picking them up before that happens will save us a lot of money."
"The Wodins aren't extending a favor to us for nothing." Ves crossed his arms. "It's an attractive solution, but not one I'm willing to accept. I don't want to increase our entanglement with the Hexers any further. We pay for the ships with our money, understood?"
Though Ophelia obviously disagreed, she had no choice but to abide by his demand. "I understand."
Chapter 2118 Loyalty Medallions
In general, any upgrades to the Larkinson Fleet had to wait until after Ves concluded his excursion into the Nyxian Gap.
The release of the Doom Guard had already proved that Ves possessed amazing earning potential. While there were better-performing mech designs on the market, none of them could replicable the sheer utility provided by his glows!
As long as he did a good job at realizing amazing design concepts, Ves believed he could sustain his success. Even if his subsequent mech designs only achieved a quarter of the sales of the Doom Guard, that still constituted a success!
The Larkinson Clan had become stronger than it had ever been. With thousands of mechs at its disposal, the clan had reached a strength comparable to a military mech regiment.
This was quite remarkable! Not every mech designer was able to fund the establishment of such a formidable combat group. Ves was quite blessed in that regard. Other mech designers, from tiny Novices to notable Seniors, had to compete against other rivals and price their products accordingly.
Ves was spared from doing so, to a large extent. While he still had to take the competition into account, the fact that his products were so unique that they could form their own market category was an enduring advantage. The margins for all of his recent mechs likely made every other Journeyman and even Senior jealous!
The high margins also allowed the LMC to pursue a strategy of outsourcing production to third-party manufacturers and entering as many foreign markets as possible.
It was very onerous and costly to conduct business in so many foreign states with nothing but some branch offices to manage them all. Screw ups happened every day and the further from the headquarters, the more tenuous it became to maintain control.
Fortunately, the LMC's headquarters had developed quite well. Hiring notable managers and talents from the Bright Republic, Ylvaine Protectorate and Sentinel Kingdom had continuously increased HQ's capability to meet these growing challenges.
These days, Ves didn't even bother to review any reports about mundane issues such as inconsistent quality output or breach of contract. He had better things to do with his time than to take note of problems that his managers and executives could take care of by themselves.
With the rapid expansion of the LMC and the increasing level of competence of its upper management, the roles of some people started to change.
Some of the figures that Ves was familiar with slowly made way for other people.
Calsie Doornbos-Larkinson Was one of them. As one of his earliest employees, Ves had entrusted her with a lot of responsibility, far more than a woman of her age and experience should hold.
However, with the establishment of the Larkinson Clan, Ves was able to extend a lot more trust to every member of his circle. This diminished her role until she felt she wasn't of much use anymore in the LMC.
Through Gavin, she was able to meet with Ves in order to explain her predicament.
"I see." Ves folded his hands while Lucky playfully gnawed at a chunk of mineral on his desk. "I truly value your loyalty. Being able to trust someone and be rewarded by it has been very helpful to me. You're better than your fellow Cloudy Curtainer in that regard."
He was obviously referring to Gavin, who shifted uncomfortably as his boss brought up his original sin yet again.
"My role these days isn't as good as Gavin's." She calmly spoke. "He serves as your link to your company, while I am basically reduced to watching more qualified executives do their work."
"You want to do something useful then, correct?"
"I want to earn my keep!" She placed her hand on her chest. "I put my heart in the LMC as well as everyone else who stuck with you from the beginning. I have kept up with my studies and continuously invested in myself in order to keep up with what is going on as best as possible. It is my hope that I can do something meaningful."
"Hmmm.." Though Ves empathized with her desire, to be honest he didn't even know how his company was run these days. Raymond Billingsley-Larkinson was in charge, and so far Ves heard nothing but good things about the old man. "Benny, perhaps you could suggest something. What position can Calsie fulfill that is within her range of competence?"
Gavin blinked, not expecting that Ves would freely solicit his input. "Uhm, while it's true that the LMC is being very well run these days, that only applies to the headquarters. The management of the branch offices can be.. less than stellar most of the times. It's mostly due to distance. Our headquarters can't exert strong control over the branches, and it will only grow worse in the event we eventually depart from this star sector."
This was a looming problem for the LMC.
"What do you suggest?" Ves asked, already suspecting that his assistant had something to say about this conundrum.
"Several proposals have emerged. Personally, I think one of them in particular is quite good as long as you are willing to invest a bit." Gavin carefully spoke. "The main issue is the lack of loyalty from the directors of the branch offices. They're mostly hired remotely. Though we make sure to vet them through a talent management company or the like, people tend to change, especially if they are suddenly in charge of cash flows that can reach hundreds of millions of hex credits."
Ves immediately frowned. "Are people skimming off the top of those cash flows?!"
"It has happened."
"That's my money! Without my mechs, those greedy traitors would never even come close to so much money!"
"That's why we should develop an effective solution to this problem as quickly as possible."
"What is your suggestion, then?"
"A Bright Warrior."
Ves blinked. "Explain."
"We should ship a Bright Warrior to every branch office, or barring that, rotate it around." Gavin spoke. "We can use it to induct the directors and any other employee worth retaining into the clan! Once they're a part of the Larkinson Clan, they will be much less likely to abuse their power!"
That.. was a good idea. It was also a very troublesome one. Lending the Bright Warrior for this venture was a very risky prospect. It was a design exclusive to the Larkinson Clan and Ves did NOT wish for it to fall into anyone else's hands!
Ves shook his head. "I can't risk any of my Bright Warriors falling into the hands of my enemies. I won't send any of them to my branch offices. While I understand the purpose of your suggestion, I can't provide the same level of care and attention to Larkinsons who will eventually be left behind once we embark on our grand expedition."
"If a Bright Warrior doesn't work, then perhaps something smaller!" Calsie suddenly suggested. "You attached a glow to other objects such as one of your outfits and that new statue you made, right? Why not add the same glow of the Bright Warrior to a small and convenient medallion and hand that out to the branch offices instead? Even if it's stolen, there's no harm. Smaller objects are very easy to secure and you can even integrate a self-destruct mechanism if you are really afraid they'll end up in the wrong hands."
Her suggestion excited Gavin. "That's a great idea, Calsie! Aside from this, we don't have to promise the same treatment to the people manning our branch offices. We can treat them as half-members and categorize them as lesser Larkinsons."
That did not sit well with Ves. He frowned deeply. "One of the core tenets of the Larkinson Clan is that every clansman is family."
"Look, I get it. You don't want to turn any inconsequential people into clansmen. You don't have to, boss. We can just promise to pay them well and give them some more benefits in exchange for pledging their loyalty to us. The directors and core personnel we choose to run the branches mostly aren't interested in abandoning their cozy lives in their home states. The pay and benefits we promise already puts them ahead of nearly anyone else at their location. They'll be grateful to receive this opportunity. It's similar to hiring retainers in that regard."
The comparison to retainers made the suggestion more reasonable. Ves began to look thoughtful.
"I can see how that might work. I can make these medallions and allow them to be dispatched to the different branches." He said after a pause. "Calsie, do you want to manage this operation?"
She smiled and nodded. "I'd be glad to, sir."
"Then you have my blessing."
They soon began to discuss some details. Ves left it to others to determine the exact benefits and obligations that came with becoming a retainer to the Larkinson Clan. He already decided to treat them as disposable but trustworthy external employees. Even if Ves added them to the Larkinson Network, he needed to make sure they didn't get the full treatment.
Only genuine Larkinson clansmen were entitled to this treatment.
It didn't take very long to set matters up. Ves dismissed Gavin and Calsie and spent some time to design the so-called Loyalty Medallions. He basically recycled the medallion that depicted the head of the Golden Cat on the Larkinson Mandate but added some extras.
He incorporated a tracker, a comm and more importantly a self-destruct mechanism in the design of the medallion. He made sure to impart it with a spiritual foundation that was conducive to the Golden Cat in order to contain her glow.
Since he was doing a rush job, its glow would never be able to match the presence of the Bright Warrior.
"It doesn't have to." Ves muttered. "If a medallion is radiating a glow at full strength, then it'll affect an entire office building!"
It was enough to make people in the same room or office feel the distinct aura associated with the Larkinsons.
Compared to designing the medallion, it was a lot harder for him to set up the spiritual functionality of its use. Ves had to convey his intentions to the Golden Cat in order to set up a separate tier of access for retainers in the Larkinson Network.
Just explaining the concept of retainers and separate tiers and justifying their existence took a lot of effort!
Fortunately, the Golden Cat was very obedient, and quickly went to work once she understood and agreed with his suggestions.
After a quick session at his lab, Ves expended a very modest amount of Breyer alloy and some miscellaneous materials to produce a batch of loyalty medallions.
Due to the relative simplicity of their design and their very manageable sizes, Ves had been able to produce hundreds of them at a time!
There was no way he would bother with making them by hand. They weren't worth the effort. The glows of the mass-produced medallions were already sufficient enough to perform their intended purpose, and that was all that mattered.
Once he packaged them all up in a floating crate and delivered it to Calsie, she reacted with awe as she inspected the goods.
She picked up one of the thick, hand-sized medallions and felt its heft and weight. "These will do very nicely as long as they work, sir! Even if our fleet departs this star sector, we can still rely on the retainers we have left behind to do their job properly!"
"Mind you, only a Larkinson clansman or a retainer can make use of this medallion." He warned. "If there aren't any retainers in a state, you'll have to dispatch a retainer stationed elsewhere to make use of it. Have you come up with a plan?"
Calsie grinned as she carefully put back the medallion in the crate. "Yes. Aside from entrusting the medallions to the branch directors, I am already working on a proposal to set up a sector headquarters that can manage all of the branches and address the situation that you have described."
"Good idea. Tell Raymond to work with you on that. Make sure to set everything up correctly the first time around. Hopefully, we can use these measures to ensure the LMC's continued market presence in the star sectors we are leaving behind."
The use of loyalty medallions wasn't a guarantee that nothing would go wrong. Ves merely hoped it would reduce the problems related to the disconnect between the branch offices and the roving headquarters of the LMC.
The Komodo Star Sector was his home and the first market that embraced his distinctive products. He owed it to his local customers to continue to meet their needs as best as possible even if Ves departed for greener pastures.
However, there was one glaring problem that might hinder this commitment. The range problem. Every mech designer below Journeyman could only exert their specialty onto their products within a limited range.
Though that still encompassed a lot of light-years, on a galactic scale that was not a lot!
Chapter 2119 Blessed by the Surpreme
The big day had come. Ves and Gloriana were about to fabricate the first production model of their very first collaborative Hexer mech design.
This mech was very significant for multiple reasons.
It was the first mech that was aimed towards Hexers.
It was Ves' first true second-class product.
It was his first mech whose complexity and difficulty significantly exceeded that of his prior products!
All of these factors and more meant that Ves was under a lot of pressure to perform. When he woke up in the morning, his mood was good but not fantastic.
That was not a good sign. A normal demeanor was not conducive to entering an inspired mood!
Would serendipity be deprived from him once again?
Perhaps the only consolidation was the enthusiasm shown by Gloriana. She practically bounced on her feet as they traveled to the newly-constructed underground workshop.
In order to meet Calabast's demands for absolute security, the Black Cats dug and built the underground structure from scratch. Each and every single tool and production equipment that the pair intended to use in the fabrication attempt had already been vetted at least three times over.
When the pair of mech designers entered the restricted workshop with their cats, no one else was present aside from Calabast and some bodyguards of the Glory Battalion.
"For security purposes, it's best that I remain present for the entire duration of this run." She explained.
Ves frowned. "It will take at least three to four days to make our mech."
"I'm aware, kid. I have already taken the proper medication. Staying awake for entire weeks isn't unusual in my line of business. Besides, my optimized genes already make sure I can make do with much less sleep."
During the Aeon Corona Mission, Calabast outranked Ves. She managed to receive one more round of gene optimization treatment than himself!
Ves still felt glum about this difference. CFgrade gene optimization treatments were unobtainable to him in ordinary circumstances. This was bad because the treatments were designed to be applied in succession.
Even if he advanced to Master one day, it was impossible for him to knock on the CFA doors and request another round of treatment!
Well, that was a problem for later.
"Do what you want, but don't get in the way."
"Very polite, kid."
"You can stop calling me kid, you know."
"Grow up first."
Ves proceeded to ignore Calabast and moved on to the statue of the Superior Mother.
Lucky and Clixie had arrived at the feet of the giant statue.
"Meow."
"Miaow?"
"Meow meow."
"Miaow!"
It seemed that Lucky was already introducing his mother to Gloriana's cat.
As for Gloriana, she prostrated to the statue just a short distance away! Ves immediately grimaced at the sight.
Ves never worshipped spiritual entities, let alone the ones he brought to life! As their creator, it was silly for him to look up to them. He was basically the equivalent of a parent who changed their diapers!
Most of the time, Gloriana adopted the same mindset. In Hexer culture, gods were not necessarily respected if they were male.
However, the Superior Mother was different. Not only was she female, she also embodied some of the ideal traits that Hexers valued.
The fact that Gloriana half-mistook the Superior Mother as Cynthia Larkinson was an even greater reason for her to bend her knees to the statue!
The sight frankly disgusted Ves. If she wasn't his lover, he would have stormed over and kicked her in the butt until she stood upright again!
As it was, he allowed her to indulge in her fancy, not just to get it out of her system, but to make sure that she was at her best.
"Alright." She spoke after she finally finished her prayer session. "I'm ready! Before we start, have you already decided on the name for our mech."
"I did." Ves nodded. "Our knight mech is designed to accompany a squad of offensive female Hexer mechs and support them as best as possible. The combination of defense and resupply capabilities make it very useful for high-intensity battles and sustained assaults. It's not a mech that does well on its own. Considering its pronounced support role, I've decided upon naming our design the Blessed Squire."
The Blessed Squire!
Gloriana widened her eyes as soon as she heard the name that Ves had decided upon! There was something compelling about the label.
"Why call it a squire, and why is it blessed?"
"It's very simple. A squire used to be someone who attends to the duties of a knight. Think of cleaning the gear, helping the knight dress in his armor, caring for the horses and so on. They're not just servants, but instead noble born teenagers who are expected to become knights themselves."
"So they're knights, but not really." She said. "I think that somewhat aptly fits with our mech design. Compared to well-rounded knight mechs, our design is lacking in several aspects, most notably offense."
Ves nodded. "Therefore, calling it a squire fits."
"I suspect that you also chose this word because it is a disarming way to describe a knight mech, isn't that right?"
He smiled. "You know me too well. It's as deadly as a proper knight."
Hexers were very insistent that mechs piloted by boys should never be good enough to threaten mechs piloted by women!
Though Ves wasn't worried that his Blessed Squire posed an actual threat to a high-quality Hexer mech, truth and perception was not the same.
If the Hexers felt threatened by the design because he was one of its lead designers, then it would be very hard to overcome their prejudices!
As for calling it Blessed, Gloriana did not have to ask.
The mech design was literally blessed by the Superior Mother! This was a great honor and privilege that fully justified the use of this term! No other Hexer mech design could make the same boast!
Ves did not worry about adding a religious overtone to his mech design. He refrained from doing so to his other mech designs in order to exclude as little markets as possible.
The Hexadric Hegemony was not completely religious but neither fully secularist either. It was a mix of both. According to Gloriana, most Hexers leaned in one or the other direction.
What truly mattered was the level of tolerance shown to Hexers with different outlooks. Religious Hexers such as Gloriana did not arouse disgust from secularist Hexers like Calabast and vice versa. Secularist Hexers were all somewhat familiar with the principles of hexism.
This meant that adding a religious label to his mech design was not a difficult choice. The name as well as the glow would definitely appeal to the religious-minded Hexers, while the secularists would merely shrug their shoulders.
Naming their mech design was a very significant event. To Ves and Gloriana, the name of the mech design they worked so hard to realize provided them with a direction on how to fabricate its first production model.
The mech was a squire, so it had to be made with an auxiliary role in mind.
The mech was blessed, so it had to be exemplary in order to reflect the Superior Mother's majesty!
Ves gazed up at the head of the marble-like statue. His mother's imperious visage looked straight ahead. The strong glow and holiness exuded by the statue had a very profound effect on his mind!
Previously, Ves never designed a mech while experiencing its full glow at the beginning. Though he was able to channel his design spirits by concentrating on the designs in question, it put a lot of strain on his mind.
Now that he was about to work next to a spiritual totem that already exuded the exact same glow he intended to impart onto his mech, he no longer had to strain his mind as much.
Instead, it was the opposite! With an external source of the Superior Mother's acting on his mind, he could get in tune with the design spirit much easier now. This allowed Ves to direct more of his attention on his work.
Even better, Gloriana received similar benefits! Though her approach differed that from his own, experiencing the Superior Mother's glow instead of trying to imagine it was much better!
Both of them noticed the difference as soon as they initiated the fabrication run. Gloriana's passion and drive immediately skyrocketed, causing her to become hyperactive and hyperattentive towards her work!
"Don't worry, Mrs. Larkinson, I will make sure to produce a mech worthy of your stature!"
Though Ves felt like vomiting when he heard that, he recognized that it was best if Gloriana maintained her current delusion.
This was because the output she generated when she was in her current mood was astounding! She quickly overtook Ves in terms of speed, fluency, consistency and quality when fabricating parts.
As soon as Ves realized his girlfriend was overshadowing him, he automatically pulled back and allowed her to take the lead.
In previous fabrication runs, they mostly divided their work equally. Ves boasted a pretty high affinity for mechs and his Assembly Skills and Sub-Skills were very good for a Journeyman. He had always been confident that he could match his girlfriend as long as he had mastered all of the tools and equipment at hand.
However, it was different today. Ves realized that this fabrication run might produce an exceptional result, but not because of him. With the statue of the Superior Mother looming over the entire secure workshop, Gloriana worked as if she had become a vessel of the will of a Supreme!
Ves continuously diminished his own role until he was relegated to acting as her squire.
He managed the supply of materials and inspected the finished parts. He controlled the bots so that they would always be available whenever Gloriana had need of them. He warmed up all of the specialized production machines that she needed to operate next in order to produce the many specialized parts of the Blessed Squire.
At some moments, Ves felt the urge to scratch his head and question what he was doing. How come their first attempt at fabricating a Hexer mech caused him to adopt the role of a meek male Hexer?
He felt as if his pride as man was being impugned upon! He had contributed just as much to the Blessed Squire as Gloriana, if not more!
Yet.. compared to pride, what was the worth of potentially producing another masterwork?
Though Ves still figured that it was unrealistic to expect this session to succeed, the hope was there, unlike the time where he fabricated the Doom Guard.
Back then, neither Ves nor Gloriana received any inspiration.
From a logical standpoint, the benefit of potentially producing another masterwork mech or at least coming close to it outweighed the benefit of preserving his pride.
An increased mech affinity.
A radiant lottery ticket.
Increasing his stature among the Hexers.
Boosting the prominence of his Blessed Squire design.
Solidifying his reputation as a legitimate masterwork mech designer.
Compared to all of these gains, he could regain his pride later if need be! Compared to the many rewards he stood to gain from producing a masterwork, he would readily serve as Gloriana's squire for a couple of days!
With the Superior Mother extending her glow towards Gloriana, she worked like an angel who channeled the touch of a goddess. As the hours went by, she showed no signs of stopping. Instead, the quality of her parts continued to improve!
She even performed some difficult techniques that caused Ves to sigh in admiration. It took a lot of guts to take so many risks in order to elevate the quality of a part, yet she did so with remarkable ease!
Several days passed by. Due to the measures that both of them had already took, they only needed to take some brief breaks in order to visit the bathroom and fill up their stomachs. Gloriana raced through these chores as fast as possible in order to retain her momentum.
She was on a roll, and she knew it! There was no way she could stop at this point!
Chapter 2120 Wordless
As soon as Ves noticed that Gloriana worked like a woman possessed, he wanted to make absolutely sure that nothing interrupted her exceptional state of mind.
As someone who experienced these magical moments himself, he knew how precious they were and how hard it was to regain them once he let them go. It would definitely break his girlfriend's heart if someone ruined her special moment!
During one of their brief, five-minute breaks, Gloriana approached a dining table where some food had already been laid out. She picked up a tray and literally gobbled down the contents of a nutrient pack within a matter of seconds!
Normally, she abhorred eating something as low-class as this. This was not the time for her to be picky about her food, though. As soon as she filled up her stomach with nutrient paste, she quickly grabbed a glass of water and emptied it just as fast.
After that, she immediately returned to work!
Ves could only shrug when he saw his driven girlfriend finish her lunch within a minute. He approached Calabast, who had been observing the entire fabrication session since yesterday!
"How long until the mech is complete?"
"Three days, maybe less." Ves quickly estimated. "I'm sure you've noticed that Gloriana's productivity has skyrocketed. Even though I'm relegated to serving as her gopher, she is outputting as much work as both of us on a normal day."
Calabast instantly noticed his emphasis. "I take it this is not a normal day."
He nodded. "I think.. the best-case scenario is within our reach."
"I see."
He did not need to explain what that meant. Calabast was well aware of how significant it was to make a masterwork mech.
"What do I need to do?"
"Pass on some of my instructions to the Avatars and the Battle Criers." He told her. He transferred some messages from his comm to hers. "Tell them to mobilize as much mechs as possible and guard the site around this workshop as extensively as possible. For a possible masterwork, it is worth rousing them all! I don't want to take ANY risks."
"Understood." Calabast nodded seriously. "I'll make sure my Black Cats and the Swordmaidens are on full alert as well. What are the odds of success?"
"I truly can't say. There are so many variables at play that you can't perform a simple prediction. Even if Gloriana pours her entire heart and soul in our first production model, it is still up to us whether she'll be rewarded for her extraordinary effort. All I can say is that there is a non-zero chance that we'll deliver a masterwork mech at the end of the session."
"Can you give me a range at least?"
"No more than twenty percent."
She looked impressed. "That's already pretty decent considering how rare it is to encounter a masterwork."
"That's why I'm quite hopeful for this mech. I have to return now."
"Good luck, Ves!"
The work resumed. As Gloriana began to fabricate the larger parts such as the thick armor plating of the Blessed Squire, she focused so much on minimizing as many irregularities as possible that some of the plating rolled off the production line as works of art!
While Ves continued to perform his role as her dutiful squire, he constantly sighed in admiration at the excellence she displayed.
Thinking that the Superior Mother herself was watching her every move, Gloriana pushed herself again and again.
Normally, a highly-controlled mech designer like her would never take so many risks.
In order to build up and sustain her momentum, she needed to work quickly.
In order to produce the highest quality components that she could make, she needed to meticulously.
Oftentimes, she preferred to lean towards the latter rather than the former.
However, masterwork mechs were products of energy, luck and passion. They could never be made by mech designers who plodded in their work and constantly calculated every single move.
Drawing from his personal experience, a mech designer would only be able to produce a masterwork mech if they surrendered to their passion and worked with their hearts rather than their minds!
As long as he was skilled and confident enough, Ves could rely on his instincts and intuition to perform a difficult task.
However, that was easier said than done. In most cases, Ves slipped up. Only during exceptional times would his instincts and intuition be raised to a level where he could rely on them to carry him through an entire fabrication session!
During this session, Ves did not even come close to reaching this level.
He didn't have to. Gloriana exhibited so much spirit and motivation that he felt that she might actually have a decent shot at producing a masterwork on her own merits!
This was one of the hidden advantages of collaborative mech design.
The chance of producing a masterwork did not solely rest on the shoulders of a single mech designer. Every lead or contributing designer involved in the design process had a chance to get inspired.
Of course, in practice, such situations were so rare that ordinary mech designers had a better chance at winning the lottery.
This was different. Ves already had two masterwork mechs under his belt while Gloriana crucially claimed credit for one as well.
That last detail was extremely important! Though she gained only a modest boost in her affinity for mechs for participating in the creation of the Quint, this was still a crucial development to her as a mech designer!
Mentally, a crack had opened in her mind. She became aware that producing another masterwork after the Quint had already become possible! Even if the chance was small, it was a lot better than other Journeyman at her age!
Spiritually, the formation of a masterwork had imprinted onto her spirituality. Her design seed remembered what the experience was like, therefore making it easier for Gloriana to seek it out again!
Mech affinity was something precious and something that every mech designer chased after. Though the MTA claimed that possessing a high affinity for mechs wasn't essential to becoming a good mech designer, it made many actions related to mechs a lot easier!
At the very least, the mech industry had come to a general consensus that only those with a high mech affinity were capable of creating masterwork mechs!
Right now, Gloriana exhibited the tell-tale signs of leaning onto her mech affinity. She worked both fast and with care. That could only be sustained by much higher-ranked mech designers or those who were able to express the utmost of their affinity!
As the assembly stage finally wrapped up, they moved on to the crucial assembly stage.
Ves worried for a moment whether his girlfriend would be able to sustain her momentum. The Blessed Squire was a true second-class mech design that not only featured bloated internals, but also a lot of sophisticated parts developed and built to military standards. Fitting them all together in a harmonious fashion was quite challenging!
However, it turned out that he worried in vain. Unlike him who would definitely show some struggle at first, assembling a second-class mech was already familiar territory to Gloriana.
She studied and graduated from Kelma University, one of the most prestigious mech design institutions in the entire Hegemony!
From the very start, she learned the ins and out of advanced second-class mech design until she practically breathed it in her sleep!
When she graduated, she started a small but successful mech boutique and designed high-performing custom mechs for many upper-class clients. Perhaps she had already designed and fabricated mechs that were several times more powerful and complicated than the Blessed Squire!
As Gloriana fluently slotted the parts in place, Ves had the illusion that she was composing a grand symphony.
No matter how many instruments were in play, she maintained control over the performance of every single instrument! With her exquisite ability, she managed to make sure to maintain as much harmony as possible.
If the old and new assistant mech designers could see Gloriana at work right now, their jaws would drop to the floor. There was no way they could conceive that a mech designer could make and fit together the parts of a mech with such an inhuman level of skill and judgement!
The steps performed by Gloriana had already surpassed the level of mortals. She had reached a realm beyond where her extraordinary judgement found solutions to problems that weren't even noticeable in her original design!
Ves had gradually realized that the direction of her design philosophy empowered her momentum in a very useful way!
The more she got caught up in her work, the more she was able to draw upon the strength of her specialty.
In this case, that just so happened to minimize flaws and correcting errors! Perfection was closely associated with masterwork, and her choice of design philosophy finally paid off at this moment!
When Gloriana finally slotted in the final parts and put the finishing touches on the Blessed Squire, Ves had basically been reduced to a total bystander.
Forget acting as here squire, the knight he served had become so competent that Ves had been fired!
He didn't mind, though. He had already contributed to the fabrication run in his own way. Aside from facilitating Gloriana, he also made sure to shape and correct the spiritual component of the mech.
This was one aspect that Gloriana could never achieve on her own. If not for his crucial combination, her chances of fabricating a masterwork would probably be a tenth as much!
As Gloriana mounted the last parts onto the mech, the results became clear.
The strong glow exuded by the finished Blessed Squire was practically a mirror of the glow propagated by the statue of the Superior Mother!
Both the statue and the mech had already begun to mingle and overlap their identical glows. This caused the air in the secure workshop to bear the oppressive presence of the Superior Mother!
As Gloriana slowly descended from the air until she landed next to Ves, she slowly turned around and stared at him in the eyes.
Her orbs burned with the intensity of stars. She had stayed awake for four days straight, working non-stop to complete the first Blessed Squire as quickly and as perfectly as possible.
She stretched out her hand.
Ves looked at her smooth and delicate palm and reached out into his uniform pocket. He drew out a Synthra Umbra pouch and rummaged through it. He eventually pulled out a gem he did not expect to employ so soon.
[Mother's Love]
The love of a mother towards her offspring resides within this royal gem. Increases the allure of a mech by 100 percent to females.
There was no other choice, really. The description of the gem matched perfectly with the Blessed Squire design!
It was not a waste to affix it to their current mech. After putting so much effort into her work, the quality of the end product had come within reach of masterwork!
Gloriana just fell short to an extent. Though she worked like the Superior Mother blessed her every move, she was just a Journeyman, after all. Even if she had reached her absolute best state, she was still too weak to produce a masterwork by relying solely on her efforts.
Fortunately, Ves possessed a means to cheat the process, and Gloriana knew it. This time, he felt no pain at giving up a gem.
Once he handed over the gem to Gloriana, she slowly turned around and took one step at a time. It seemed that with each passing step she took, she came one step to fulfilling one her cherished ambitions!
When she ascended into the air and entered the cockpit of the mech, she steadily socketed the Mother's Love
The Blessed Squire pulsed! Ves, who had been preparing himself for this moment, finally witnessed the effect of installing one of Lucky's gems once again. The quality of the Blessed Squire abruptly surpassed the threshold of masterwork, transforming its whole frame into something exceptional and sublime!
"Masterwork!"
Though he always hoped to repeat this feat, he never thought this day would come so soon. If the creation of the Quint had sent the entire star cluster talking, then the creation of another masterwork mech less than a year later would definitely ripple further!
Chapter 2121 Charming Mech
The creation of a masterwork mech had always been a dream for mech designers.
Countless mech designers chased after the honor of fashioning one. Not only did it prove that the mech designer had an excellent touch for mechs, the experience of making the masterwork always resulted in many new insights.
As soon as Gloriana installed the Mother's Love, she quickly left the cockpit and floated above the mech, taking in every transformation with her eyes and implants.
Though the mech hardly changed in the eyes of laymen, to mech designers the first copy of the Blessed Squire model couldn't be more different!
There was a huge difference between a regular mech and a masterwork mech. The latter was something mundane and ordinary while the latter was exceptional and perfect in a way that normal means could never achieve!
Gloriana harvested a huge amount of insights, both from witnessing the transformation taking place before their eyes and the spontaneous innovations she developed during her days-long inspiring mood.
This was a sublimely fantastic moment for her, and Ves was genuinely happy that she managed to fulfill one her ambitions.
Since her design philosophy revolved around perfection, making a masterwork mech was one of the best ways to achieve his dream! Each masterwork mech she brought into existence put her one step closer towards attaining the ideal she dedicated her entire life to pursue.
The happiness that radiated from her was indescribable. Not even in their admittedly infrequently nightly sessions did she look as happy as she was at this very moment!
In addition, her design seed became active like crazy, so much so that the spiritual fragment that Ves deposited in her mind became affected as well!
Both the masterwork mech and Gloriana seemed to resonate with each other. The bond between creator and creation was sacred and holy, and the pervasive glow of the Superior Mother only reinforced this impression!
Ves was lucky to get some scraps at all. His involvement was not that much, but he did contribute sufficiently to the formation of the masterwork mech to absorb some benefits at well. He wasn't feeling that much worse than Gloriana!
As the transformation finished and the euphoria of the moment finally subsided, Gloriana slowly came off her transcendent high.
A brilliant smile plastered on her face as she floated next to the Blessed Squire mech she created with her own effort and placed her hand on its exterior.
"My precious baby.. you're so lovely.. I love you so much.."
Perhaps drunk on her amazing achievement, Gloriana kept cooing at her masterwork mech as she stroked its chest plating. She soon proceeded to rub her cheek against the Breyer alloy plate.
"Hihihi! You're so perfect. You're so lovely. You're all mine, my precious baby. Mommy brought you into this reality, and mommy will take care of you forever and ever…"
Ves froze and watched with astonishment as Gloriana's behavior became more and more unhinged.
She floated up to the head of the Blessed Squire and began to kiss and lick its surface!
Even though the mech was brand new and squeaky clean, that was not hygienic!
Ves wavered a bit. A part of him wanted to fly up and pull her out of her drunk mood. Another part of him wanted her to relish her achievement.
Though her perverted conduct towards her masterwork mech looked disturbing, she wasn't doing anything harmful, so Ves was inclined to let her have her moment. She would probably scream his head off if he interrupted her happy moment with her new 'baby'.
As he tried his best to ignore his girlfriend's senseless cooing and licking, Ves took a step back and began to take in his third masterwork mech.
Its thick shield and serviceable sword looked as if they were part of the same whole as the mech. The frame of the machine looked both masculine and innocent, which was a very strange contradiction.
Somehow though, the machine made it work. The Blessed Squire already revolved around these concepts, but the masterwork mech seemed to embody this duality a lot better than the original design!
Despite its heavy loadout and sturdy armor plating, the mech wasn't all that heavy compared to other knight mechs. Its strong legs and its balanced structure allowed it to move steadily on the battlefield.
Overall, the mech's appearance brought him a lot of confidence that it would serve its role as a defensive asset that could provide valuable protection to any squad it was attached to. Other friendlies would always be able to depend on it to provide cover!
However, that wasn't all. Two tentacle-like appendages snaked out of the sides of the torso. These flexible limbs were usually coiled against the frame. Yet these deceptively strong limbs played a key role in facilitating the secondary role of the mech.
Ves already knew that these tentacles could transfer a huge amount of energy in both directions.
The tentacles were able to channel the modest but decent amount of energy reserves stored in the frame of the mech to any friendly mech within reach.
However, their tips could also transform into razor-sharp spikes that could stab straight through the weak points of a hostile or fallen mech in order to harvest a lot of energy at a surprising pace!
The addition of these tentacles should have given the Blessed Squire a more menacing look, but they seemed as harmless as wet noodles on the masterwork mech.
All in all, Ves was very happy with how the entire machine turned out. As the first mech that bore the glow of the Superior Mother, he believed it would definitely make an impact on the Hexers!
Yet.. the only problem was that Gloriana had been drooling over her masterwork mech for over fifteen minutes without stopping.
"My beautiful baby boy.. would you like a name? Hmmm.. how about Little Angel. Oh, you like it? Hihihi! Little Angel it is, then! Mommy loves your new name so much!
While Gloriana persisted in her mad behavior, the sound of heels approached from behind.
"So I take it your attempt was a success." Calabast noted as she stared appreciatively at the Blessed Squire. "I don't look at mechs the way you mech designers do, but even I can tell there is something special about it. This mech.. even I feel tempted to keep it for myself. There is just something about it that makes it look so precious! I've seen the Quint up close multiple times, but this one is leagues better!"
Though Ves didn't know much about Calabast, he knew that she was not as taken in by mechs as other people. It was quite uncharacteristic of her to convey such appreciation.
He frowned and began to gaze back and forth between Gloriana and Calabast. While the creation of a masterwork mech was truly a special moment, the behavior exhibited by both triggered an alarm in his head!
This was not normal!
He suddenly thought back on the gem he decided to insert in the Blessed Squire mech.
[Mother's Love]
The love of a mother towards her offspring resides within this royal gem. Increases the allure of a mech by 100 percent to females.
When Lucky initially handed over this gem, Ves reacted very disdainfully towards its effect. A 100 percent boost sounded great at first, but not every attribute was valuable!
For example, if Ves received a boost promoting 100 percent faster beard growth, would he jump in joy? No! This was a completely irrelevant benefit and he was probably better off without this distraction.
Therefore, Ves always looked down on the gems with seemingly-useless enhancements. The Mother's Love, the Bastet's Whisper and the Whipping Boy all caused him to feel a lot of shame for owning them. Being able to get rid of one of them at this time lifted a considerable weight off his shoulders.
He overlooked one factor, though.
His opinion differed from other people's opinion!
It was only now that he realized the power of the Mother's Love gem.
Increasing the allure of a mech by a whopping 100 percent may not seem relevant in battle, but outside of it the effect was huge!
Someone like Gloriana who was the main person responsible for crafting the 'Little Angel' already possessed a lot of affection for the mech. This was the first time she entered into an inspired state of mind, and that would always leave an unforgettable place in her heart!
Suddenly doubling her already strong emotions practically turned her adoration into an outright obsession! Ves genuinely feared whether she would even leave the Little Angel's side!
Fortunately, there was at least one sane woman in this secure workshop. Calabast still looked composed despite the vastly increased appeal of the mech in her eyes.
"So. I think neither of us expected this day to end in this fashion." She said as her eyes kept roaming over the Little Angel as if it was a sweet boy. "Gloriana and you have outdone yourselves."
Ves ruefully smiled. "It's mostly Gloriana. She crafted the Little Angel as if the Superior Mother was literally supporting her from above."
He glanced back at the statue of the Superior Mother. Its presence had been decisive in pushing Gloriana to go beyond her limits!
Of course, Ves didn't actually believe the Superior Mother had blessed his girlfriend. She simply immersed herself in her superstitions and exceeded her capabilities through her own power.
In his honest opinion, the presence of the statue merely tricked Gloriana's state of mind. It was as if she had swallowed a medicine that actually didn't do anything to her body!
This was called the placebo effect.
Before, Ves always found Gloriana's insistence on sticking to her beliefs annoying. Ves had no respect for hexism and thought that all of it was nonsense that some delusional women had invented in order to justify putting women ahead of men.
Yet now, that same instance was one of the primary enablers of Gloriana's success. It didn't matter if her beliefs were built upon lies. As long as his girlfriend truly believed from the bottom of her heart that she was blessed by the Superior Mother, she was capable of outputting 120% or even more of her potential!
This caused Ves to feel very mixed about this situation. He was glad that the two of them created another masterwork mech, and so soon after their last one. They probably broke another record for Journeymen at their ages!
Once was a fluke, but twice was a pattern!
The odds of creating a third collaborative masterwork mech had increased as well, though the difference was probably small.
However, at the very least, he found a way to stimulate Gloriana. Instead of fighting her faith, Ves could obtain much better results by feeding into it! Though he was very reluctant to do so, the benefits were too attractive for him to ignore!
So what if Gloriana believed in nonsense? Increasing the odds of making another masterwork mech was very crucial in their early development! Ves would gladly tolerate a little more crazy from his girlfriend as long as both of them progressed faster!
Ves looked back at the giant statue once again. His mother's imperious gaze passed straight over his head, as befitting of a Supreme.
He did not regret creating the statue. Despite the accidents he encountered along the way, its existence played a pivotal role in the mech workshop!
Perhaps he should make it a habit. Ves already planned to repeat this act again. Even though Ves had not played a major role in this fabrication run, even he experienced the benefits of crafting a mech while under the influence of its design spirit!
Unfortunately, the successful creation of the Little Angel generated some very tough questions.
Calabast did not hold back in voicing one of them. "Let's discuss the ownership of this masterwork mech. This is a very valuable artifact, one that will definitely attract a lot of interest once it becomes known."
His face fell. She was right.
Chapter 2122 Relinquish
It took quite some time for Gloriana to regain a semblance of her composure. While she still exhibited a desire to pamper her 'Little Angel', Ves managed to drag her away from their new masterwork mech and push her into an office.
Ves, Gloriana and Calabast all sat down.
Gloriana still looked a bit vacant. She constantly turned her head in the direction of the Little Angel while she idly stroked Clixie's fur. Normally, she treated her pet more affectionately, but right now her furry companion hardly registered in her mind!
"Miaow? Miaow miaow!"
"Oh, I almost forgot about you, Clixie. Sorry!"
Lucky, who was perched on Ves' shoulder, looked sympathetic at his organic counterpart.
"Meow."
Ves reached up and stroked Lucky's back. "Gloriana will snap out of it.. eventually. This is your fault, you know."
His cat angrily raised his metal tail!
"Meow!"
If Lucky wanted to avoid blame, then he shouldn't be producing more pointless Hexer-inspired gems!
"Alright." Calabast spoke up. "Let us get this discussion out of the way. First, congratulations to the two of you for creating another masterwork mech. While I do not recognize much what makes your latest success so compelling, I am quite aware of the repercussions of this result. Let's discuss the good ones first."
"The.. 'Little Angel'.. is much more significant than the Quint." Ves began. "The latter is a bridge mech, and we can't take full credit of its creation due to the involvement of outside help. The former is a legitimate second-class mech designed by two of us. Hardly anyone else contributed to its design."
Ves and Gloriana deserved full credit for designing the Blessed Squire!
Both of them were already responsible for making the Little Angel!
Even if they didn't say anything, any mech designer familiar with their work could tell that the pair had truly relied on themselves!
This made this achievement much more amazing. Though the novelty factor had subsided a bit, the significance of this success was much greater.
How many collaborations between Journeymen took place in the mech industry? Ves did not even dare to utter a number.
Out of all of those partnerships, which one resulted in not one, but two masterwork mechs? Very little!
With a second collaborative masterwork mech under their belt, a third one was not out of the question. Even if it took a few years or decades to produce another one, their titles as masterwork mech designers no longer came attached with an asterisk. Both of them proved they had become fully capable of reaching the masterwork threshold at their early ages!
Calabast concurred with his assessment. "According to my understanding of the mech industry, your fame will no longer be contained to this star sector. While there are many prominent Journeymen in the Yeina Star Cluster, the two of you will likely rank close to the top after your achievement is publicized."
The way she emphasized that last word triggered something in Ves. He looked at her carefully.
"You're implying that won't happen."
"At least not immediately." She spoke. "As happy as I am for your accomplishment, don't forget about your original purpose. DIVA commissioned you to design a male Hexer mech that carries one of your characteristic glows. You fulfilled this demand with the help of Hexer technology, Hexer components, Hexer design standard and Hexer criteria. According to the terms of this commission, the design and every mech derived from it is legally theirs."
Though Ves hated it, she was right. He was not so stupid to think the Larkinson Clan could continue to own a piece of Hexer military hardware.
That did not sit well with his girlfriend, though. While she had been distracted throughout this meeting, it turned out that she still paid at least some attention!
"Unacceptable! The Little Angel is mine! He's my baby! I created him! DIVA has nothing to do with that!"
Both Ves and Calabast shared an exasperated glance.
"Gloriana, you know what DIVA will demand. In fact, if the Hex Army is involved, you will have even less rights to the Little Angel! I hate to pop your bubble, but when you work on behalf of the state, your product also belongs to the state."
This was a generally-accepted concept in the mech industry, and Gloriana should know better. It was just that her irrational affection towards the first masterwork mech she truly brought into existence was scrambling her common sense.
Though Calabast stated the truth, masterwork mechs were not treated in the same way as regular mechs!
"If I recall, DIVA's commission came with a fairly standard-looking contract, right?" Ves noted.
Calabast noted. "Model contracts exist for every type of client-mech designer relationship. DIVA has opted to make use of one of them, only modifying the terms that make it possible for a boy like you to be recognized as a lead designer."
Ves activated his comm and projected the confidential contract into view. "When I signed all of the paperwork, I specifically inspected the terms related to the production of any possible masterwork mechs."
He had already created two masterwork mechs. In the event of a third, he wanted to be ready to defend his rights.
Every commission that made use of a standard contract always incorporated clauses for nearly every possible outcome. Not even masterwork mechs were left of them! Though it was an ultrrare occurrence for a masterwork mech to appear, it was better to set the terms beforehand rather than argue about them afterwards. A lot of ugly disputes between clients and mech designers had emerged when the latter fortuitously created a masterwork mech!
In most cases, a masterwork mech fell beyond the scope of any commission. The mech did not automatically become the client's possession, and the mech designer deserved to be rewarded for his extraordinary effort.
Sometimes, the agreements were worded in a way that allowed the mech designer to retain possession of the masterwork. The client may have ordered a specific mech, and the mech designer could easily whip up another copy and deliver that machine in the place of a masterwork.
As long as the mech designer fulfilled original commission, the masterwork mech didn't have to go!
Unfortunately, this was not the case. Calabast was right that the mech was stuffed with Hexer technology and other goodies. There was too little justification for Ves and Gloriana to maintain possession of the Little Angel unless they gained the right to retain possession of exclusive Hexer hardware.
However, that didn't mean they gained nothing.
"If we have to give up our mech, we're entitled to a lot of conversation." Ves stated.
Calabast nodded. "You can choose from various rewards, though I will have to confer with DIVA to present you with detailed options. I'll make sure you won't get short-changed. It is no exaggeration to say that the Little Angel has the potential to change everything."
"How about we keep my baby boy?!" Gloriana interrupted. "Is that a possible reward?"
"No." Calabast shook her head.
"Gloriana.." Ves turned towards his girlfriend and placed his hand over her own. He looked at her in the eyes. "I know what you are feeling right now. I felt this way as well with my Devil Tiger. I also became tempted by the urge to hoard my masterwork and keep it on display. However, is that truly the best for your Little Angel?"
She frowned. "What do you mean, Ves? He's my masterwork! What if he gets ruined?"
"The Blessed Squire isn't designed to be put on display. It's designed to fight." He stated. "As its creator, the Little Angel deserves to fulfill its intended purpose. We lucked out with the Quint because it's based on the Bright Warrior, which we designed for our own use. This isn't the case. We always intended the Blessed Squire to be used by others, and the Little Angel is no different."
Tears started to fall from Gloriana's cheeks. She actually started to cry, alarming Clixie and everyone else!
"Miaow miaow!"
"My baby.. I can't stand the thought of relinquishing my Little Angel…"
He leaned in to hug her shaking body. "It's okay, Gloriana. Everything will be alright. Don't forget about what the Superior Mother stands for. Raising a boy is all about making them grow up and be able to act responsibly. Only bad mothers want to keep their boys by their side forever. The act of nurturing has to reach an end. The Superior Mother, my mother, does not want you to waste the potential of the Little Angel!"
His garbled, improvised argument hit home. Though Gloriana's tears continued to leak from her eyes, the explicit mention of the Superior Mother caused her to rethink her views.
Only bad mothers kept their sons incapable and locked up in their protective cages.
If Gloriana wanted to show respect to the Superior Mother, she should adhere to the ideals that Ves had mentioned!
This was a bitter pill to stomach, not just for Gloriana, but many other mothers!
"I.. you're right.. I suppose.." She sniffed.
"Your Little Angel won't be thrown into the meat grinder, Gloriana." Calabast reassured. "While Ves is correct, your masterwork mech is much more useful outside of the battlefield. It's a game changer."
"What do you mean?"
"Consider your political problem. All of us here know your glows can benefit the side that uses them. There are two reasons why the Hegemony hasn't used any of your mechs. First, their designs are too weak. Second, you're a boy. Well, as soon as you finished the Blessed Squire design, the first problem doesn't apply anymore. Only the second problem remains. Originally, DIVA likely intends to introduce the Blessed Squire onto the battlefield sporadically. Before the mech is ready for widespread adoption, its value and utility has to be demonstrated in real battles."
"Otherwise, those biased Hexers will instantly dismiss our work because of the involvement of a male." Ves added.
"Yes. We're very fortunate that DIVA is more open-minded than the rest of Hexer society, but the agency alone can't field your mechs. I believe that my former superiors have already concluded that fielding your mechs en masse can break the current stalemate in the Komodo War. The longer it goes on, the greater the chance the Fridaymen will launch their own surprise."
Mentioning the political dimension caused Ves to make a very stark realization. "You can use the Little Angel to build up political support for our mech model!"
"Exactly!" Calabast grinned. "Due to its glow and its exceptional identity as a masterwork mech, it will likely attract a lot of attention as long as we exhibit it to prominent Hexers. As long as the mech can sway enough stubborn matriarchs to change their stance on letting mech designed by a boy to take part in the war, your Blessed Squires may truly become a staple on the battlefield! Of course, that is also contingent on the performance of the initial batches."
If the Blessed Squire performed worse than expected, then all of this was moot, but neither Ves nor Gloriana believed that would happen.
The scenario envisioned by Calabast took much of the sting away from the prospect of losing her baby. Gloriana no longer shed any tears, though she still appeared glum.
"I suppose I can accept that. Ves and I will be credited for its design, right?"
"Once DIVA is ready to roll out the Blessed Squires onto the battlefield, there is no more need for secrecy." Calabast confirmed. "In fact, it is to the Hegemony's advantage that your names are mentioned. The two of you have quite clearly become some of the top Journeymen of our star sector. Borrowing your fame will not only add a halo to the Blessed Squire, but also embolden the Hegemony."
"Even for a 'boy'?" Ves pointed at himself.
Calabast grinned. "You're not just an ordinary boy anymore to the Hegemony. As long as Hexers recognize the immense value of your glow, they will definitely embrace it! By then, they will employ any measure possible to circumvent established law and dogma. Nothing can stand in the way of their determination to win the Komodo War!"
Chapter 2123 An Interesting Offer
Ves and Gloriana emerged from the secret workshop with much less joy than they should. After all, the two of them succeeded in creating their second collaborative masterwork mech!
Yet the thought of giving it up was still painful, regardless of any high-sounding arguments that Ves put forth.
At least the Quint completely belonged to the Larkinson Clan. If he ever felt the desire to check up on it in order to make sure it was being treated right, he could always stop by the Avatars of Myth and inspect Joshua's assigned machine.
This wasn't possible for the masterwork mech that Gloriana impulsively named the Little Angel. Every Blessed Squire mech belonged to the Hexadric Hegemony. At most, Ves and Gloriana deserved remuneration proportionate to the worth of the exceptional mech.
Ves had already adjusted his mentality towards giving up his masterwork mechs. His Devil Tiger was still wandering in the depths of the Nyxian Gap. At least he could reassure himself that his father was piloting one of his best works.
However, Gloriana still required a lot of time to accept this inevitability. Though she wanted to spend every single moment with the Little Angel, Ves forced her to leave.
"You have stayed awake for four days straight." He told her while he grabbed her arm. "Your body will fail if you push yourself further. Go to bed. You can return to the Little Angel tomorrow. It isn't going anywhere for awhile."
"Miaow."
Clixie pawed at Gloriana's foot in concern.
"See? Even your pet is concerned about you! I know the Little Angel is very fascinating, but there is a time and place for everything."
"Okay, fine… I'll go."
When the pair of mech designers finally returned to their accommodations, the clansmen they passed all noticed their downcast emotions.
Ves looked stoic as if he was holding something in. Meanwhile, Gloriana's tear streaks were still visible.
This caused a lot of Larkinsons to conclude that they had failed to produce another masterwork!
It was no secret that the two always worked hard to replicate their previous success. The Quint not only raised their stature, but also brought a lot of pride to the Larkinson Clan!
Many other family organizations boasted mech designers, but few of them had reached as far as Journeyman.
Of this group, only Ves and Gloriana could boast of producing a masterwork mech! The Quint was living proof that they had the potential of producing greater mechs in the future.
Of course, the odds of making another one was very small. Every Larkinson knew that. So they did not think too much about the disappointment shown by the two. It was a given to feel crushed when met by another failure.
Though the conclusions made by the clansmen initially took Ves aback, he quickly decided to roll with the situation.
The Blessed Squire design and the Little Angel both had to remain hidden! Calabast already told him that DIVA could achieve the strongest effect if it revealed the design and the masterwork mech at a time and place of its choosing.
While Ves agreed with this statement, he had one more reason to mislead the public that their attempt had failed.
He wanted to avoid Master Willix!
Ves had become aware that the MTA would dispatch very capable experts whenever someone created a masterwork mech. It was the only way for the people responsible to receive their coveted masterwork certificates.
Though he admittedly desired to receive another masterwork certificate to his collection, he did not relish the thought of entertaining Master Willix in person! He liked it even less when she dissected his mech and design from inside out. There was just something about this rational mech designer that made him feel afraid that she would be able to crack his secrets any day.
If Ves was able to keep the surprise under wraps for a decent period of time, he could leave for the Nyxian Gap and let DIVA inform the MTA afterwards!
By then, even if the MTA wanted to interview the mech designers responsible for creating the masterwork, Moira Willix would only be able to reach Gloriana!
As for Ves, he would be long gone in the Nyxian Gap, which was an anomalous region of space that even the Big Two couldn't tame!
Ves wanted to break out a laugh. This plan sounded brilliant! All he had to do was to make sure that everyone in the know sold the illusion that the attempt had failed.
Not a lot of people were actually aware of the truth. Aside from Ves, Gloriana and Calabast, he only had to worry about the lips of their bodyguards.
Nitaa was loyal to him to a fault while the guards dispatched by the Glory Battalion were loyal Hexers who would never harm the interests of their state.
Though the MTA possessed very powerful spying capabilities, Calabast had already made sure that the workshop they had just used was as secure as possible. The odds that the MTA had been pointing some powerful scanner that was both capable enough to penetrate a lot of shielding but also stealthy enough to avoid tripping any sensors was very unlikely!
Ves did not believe the local branch on Cinach VI possessed such advanced capabilities. Their local mech evaluators couldn't even make heads or tails of the Doom Guard!
As they returned to their bedroom, Gloriana instantly went out like a light. The exhaustion of the last couple of days had finally caught up to her. Ves was feeling a bit tired as well.
The next day, Gloriana woke up and dressed herself as quickly as possible. She wanted to return to the Little Angel straight away in order to study its exquisite structure.
Though Ves felt tempted to join her, he had to take care of other matters.
Gloriana leaned in and happily kissed Ves on the lips. "Thank you for lending me that gem. I couldn't have made my Little Angel so perfect if not for your help. I was a bit too tired yesterday, but I'll be sure to reward you tonight!"
She winked at him before she hopped away, leaving Ves with a goofy grin!
"Ahem." He coughed. "I should meet with Calabast."
Some time later, he entered her office. While Ves sat on a chair and started to pet Lucky's head, Calabast switched off her terminal.
"Ves. It's to see you here early. I conferred with DIVA yesterday on a secure channel and managed to convey the good news to them. The reaction I've received is very positive."
"Are you sure?"
The spymaster smiled. "DIVA fits in a different mold than you think. Unlike many other Hexers, the agency is fully capable of appreciating the competence of boys. My former superiors agree with my suggestion to make use of the Little Angel to introduce the utility of your work to the decision-makers of the Hegemony. DIVA has already notified me that a secure transport convoy is on the way to pick up the Little Angel."
"That's rather slow."
She shrugged. "While DIVA has stationed assets closer to the Sentinel Kingdom, they're not strong enough to defend something as valuable as the Little Angel. Don't underestimate the significance of its existence. In my opinion, the addition of your glows to the Hex Army is enough to tilt the balance of the Komodo War in the Hegemony's favor! The biggest hindrance we face is the rejection from our own side. Parading your masterwork mech is a powerful way to neutralize their core justification for rejecting mechs designed by boys."
"The stuffy matriarchs who decide which mechs to approve always believe that male mech designers like me are incompetent." Ves ruefully smiled. "I can see how the existence of a masterwork version of a Hexer mech design, a male one no less, can collapse their entire logic!"
The logic of those biased matriarchs and Hexers were flawed to begin with. Let alone Ves, many other male mech designers produce just as much masterworks as their female counterparts.
It was just that the Hexers always discounted the works of male mech designers for lame reasons. The fact that not a single male Hexer mech designer had been able to make a masterwork mech, as far as the public was aware of, had always supported the existing policies.
Though DIVA was not an organization that specifically advocated for increasing the rights of boys, right now it was to their benefit if they carved out a place for someone like Ves. There was no female alternative to a mech designer with his specialty!
Calabast noticed his look. "Don't read too much in this development. Female Hexers aren't about to improve their treatment of boys due to this change. Even with the help of the Little Angel, it will take a lot of lobbying and political maneuvering to carve out an exception for you. You're an outlier as far the Hexers are concerned, so it is not impossible to give you a pass on account of the substantial difference you can make to the war effort. The same does not necessarily apply to their domestic male mech designers. Even if they are given more liberties, they will hardly nudge the direction of the war."
"Mhmm."
He wasn't a part of the Hegemony. Even if he plotted to change the mindset of Hexers by exposing them to the Superior Mother, this was a long-term plan that took years to come into fruition. There was simply too much institutional opposition towards giving the males of their society more space and opportunities.
"In any case, I do have some good news for you." The Black Cat Commander continued. "DIVA has put a very generous valuation on your masterwork mech. "In general, the perceived value of a mech is multiplied by as little as 10 to as much as 100 or more. Some even go as high as 1000 times more. Since the Little Angels is based off a premium military second-class mech design, multiplying the value by 100 sounds fair."
"What is the estimated market price of the Blessed Squire?"
"200 million hex credits. This is what the analysts at DIVA have concluded after studying its design for several days. Do you have any objections?"
"No." Ves shook his head. "Considering the performance, proprietary tech, materials along with the added value of the Superior Mother's glow, that is a reasonable sum to pay for a single copy of the Blessed Squire."
This meant that the Little Angel, which was hardly distinguishable from a regular Blessed Squire at first glance, was worth 20 billion hex credits according to DIVA!
If it was before he released the Doom Guard, this sum would have been enough to make him wild. Nowadays, this windfall sounded extremely paltry!
His disappointment was apparent on his face.
"You think the multiplier is too low?"
"It's hard not to think so. If I submit the mech to the MTA, I could get a lot of merits in return."
He was already starting to contemplate whether he should leak the existence of the Little Angel to the MTA.
Someone as astute as Calabast immediately guessed what he was thinking. "I advise you not to spoil your relationship with DIVA. My former agency is one of your few supporters along with the Wodin Dynasty. I have already managed to negotiate a better deal with DIVA on your behalf. Its director is not going to demand the Little Angel from you without a hefty reward. What do yo think about receiving a state-of-the-art second-class factory ship built according to your specifications?"
Ves immediately straightened his back. "Those ships cost way more than 20 billion hex credits! In fact, not even 200 billion is enough in some cases!"
Factory ships, especially the higher-classed ones, were enormous investments. They were not only capable of pumping out as many mechs as a manufacturing complex, but were also tough enough to withstand at least some attacks without falling apart.
That latter was very crucial and one of the main reasons that proper factory ships were so expensive!
In truth, Ves highly doubted that the Little Angel was enough to pay for a modern factory ship!
"It's not as straightforward as you think, Ves." Calabast stretched her arm. "As long as the Blessed Squire takes off in the Hegemony, DIVA wants to extend and renew its cooperation with you. As long as you fulfill additional commissions, the agency will pledge to deliver a brand-new factory ship to you within a year."
Ah. So the factory ship was part of a package deal. This was a lot more complicated than he thought. As excited as he was to obtain the most important ship of his grand expedition, this was not the time to make an impulsive decision!
Chapter 2124 Difficult Deal
A factory ship!
Obtaining a factory ship had long haunted his dreams.
He still recalled the times he spent on the Wolf Mother. Though the Flagrant Vandal version of a factory ship had been built step-by-step by grafting on additional compartments and ship parts, at her most recent incarnation she had become quite a formidable vessel!
Though unarmed and not that well-armored, the Wolf Mother had made a powerful impression in his mind due to her robust material processing and industrial capacity.
At their best, factory ships functioned as mobile manufacturing complexes! Paired with mining ships or mining mechs, it was very much possible for factory ships to pump out mechs and other heavy duty equipment at a respectable pace.
This was because factory ships spanned for at least several kilometers, classifying them decisively as capital ships!
Once a vessel reached the size of a capital ship, her internal volume and her tonnage reached a point where she could essentially be regarded as a miniature city!
Of course, the cost rapidly ballooned as a response. One of the biggest reasons that humans preferred to fly with several smaller vessels as opposed to a single big one was because the cost of procuring and operating the other shot up very rapidly.
A ship that was twice as large as a normal one could easily cost ten times more.
However, the adage that you got what you paid for also applied. As long as a huge ship was put to good use, she could provide incredible value in return.
This was why Ves always aimed to obtain a proper factory ship, especially one built towards his own specifications. He had no stomach for buying a second-hand vessel.
There was no place in the competitive Red Ocean Dwarf Galaxy for weak, outdated ships!
As a mech designer, designing and producing mechs was his core activity. In a different region of space where there wasn't a lot of industrial capacity, being able to rely on himself to produce his mechs was an essential priority.
Relying completely on third-party manufacturers was not a wise decision. He needed to obtain the ability to produce mechs, and not just any mech. Higher quality designs required a lot more heavy duty production machines to produce on a cost and time-efficient basis. Smaller logistics ships or simple workshops would never allow him to produce advanced mechs at a profit.
Though he wanted to obtain a factory ship badly, it wasn't easy at all to obtain these vessels.
Most capital ships fell into the hands of states and state-owned entities. It was very rare for companies or smaller players to own them because capital ship production was quite constrained.
Only a small number of large, specialized shipyards produced these massive vessels. These large shipyards also happened to be owned by states or companies that fell under the sway of the government. Most of their output ended up in the military.
Therefore, ordering a capital ship as a private entity was anything but simple. Ves had to obtain the cooperation of the government of a second-class state, and that had always stopped him from exploring this option!
This was why he reacted with so much astonishment to Calabast's words. If DIVA valued his mechs so much that it was willing to trade a factory ship for it, then this was a very attractive offer!
The most important part about the offer was that DIVA truly tailored its offer to his needs. The agency did not attempt to pass off one of the Hegemony old cast-offs that had been built a century ago or so. Such vessels were not only more fragile, but also came in a fixed configuration.
For the most important vessel of his grand expedition, Ves did not wish to obtain any factory ship. He wanted one that was configured to his needs as much as possible! He had some very important demands for his dream factory ship and he did not wish to settle for less!
Fortunately, Calabast was aware of that, so she managed to negotiate a decent deal on his behalf. Even if she was a former DIVA agent, Ves could at least trust that she was on side.
"You should think carefully on what you want and how much you are willing to pay for it." Calabast cautioned him. "I can already tell you that DIVA has already fabricated a number of copies of the Blessed Squire in the method you recommended. The internal evaluation of the new mechs are still on-going, but I'm already hearing a lot of appreciation."
Ves smirked. It was hard not to get charmed by his mechs. Their glows were simply irresistible to those who came across them for the first time! The fact that the Superior Mother was highly compatible with the Hexers only made the Blessed Squire even more compelling.
"I would be glad to design more Hexer mechs." He spoke. "However, I don't like to design a mech according to the boundaries set by the Hexers. No offense, but I don't want to stick with designing male support mechs forever."
"You will have your chance to design female mechs, Ves. If you decide to accept DIVA's offer, then the Hegemony expects you to go all the way. Even if you're a male mech designer, any problem can be overcome as long as you can contribute materially to the Komodo War."
Both of them looked at each other and chuckled a bit. Dogma was important, but winning the war mattered more! The Hexers could always go back to their hardline ways after they beat the Friday Coalition.
"My time and energy is very limited, though. I know the value of my mechs."
"Even for you, an opportunity to obtain your own factory ship is hard to come by." Calabast retorted. "That said, the budget and the amount of advanced features you can obtain is dependent on your commitment. DIVA doesn't ask for any masterwork mechs. It just wants designs with glows, as many of them as possible. The more designs you promise, the better the factory ship that they will prepare for you. Each of the designs has to be able to go toe-to-toe with the mechs of the Friday Coalition."
"That's difficult to accomplish." Ves frowned. "Most mechs fielded by the militaries of both states are designed by Masters or teams of Masters. In terms of performance and sophistication, my mechs won't always be able to match the best. It would be best if I can enlist some help, but…"
Calabast immediately confirmed his guess. "No Hexer Master will ever want to collaborate with you. Even if it helps the Hex Army win more battles, their reputation will be ruined. These old and powerful women will never taint themselves by working alongside a boy!"
He didn't want to cooperate with other mech designers anyway. Ves liked to exert as much creative control over his mech designs as possible. Collaborating with Gloriana was fine because their focus lay in different areas.
However, as soon as a Senior or Master entered the picture, it was very hard for Ves to justify taking the lead! He did not wish to play second fiddle to a better and more qualified mech designer!
"So what are my options?" Ves asked.
"The minimum designs that DIVA demands from you are six Hexer mech designs. The terms are similar to the ones that applied before. The designs will belong to the Hegemony and you can expect to earn no licensing fees or royalties."
"That's a pretty severe demand! I'm potentially missing out on a lot of profit!"
Calabast grinned. "That's how DIVA intends to earn back the money it spent on commissioning your ship. Don't forget that factory ships are so big that their armor plating alone costs hundreds of billions of credits. After all, you don't want your expensive capital ship to get blasted apart by getting fired upon by a single band of pirates at long range, do you?"
The bigger the ship, the bigger the target. Such vessels were not only bigger targets, but also less agile ones at well, making them extremely susceptible to long-range bombardment!
Therefore, cladding them with thick hull plating was essential, but that was where the size of a capital ship became so troublesome. A huge internal volume required a lot more structural support, and an enormous exterior surface area demanded a lot more armor plating than a ship that was just slightly smaller.
The increase in material requirement was not a linear relationship. Instead, if expressed on a graph, the line would continue to angle higher and higher until it almost became vertical!
This was why the CFA's battleships only reached a length of 12 to 15 kilometers at best.
It was not as if one of the most powerful organizations in the galaxy could build larger vessels. The cost simply became too prohibitive!
Therefore, depending on the dimensions of the factory ship and the quality of materials used to toughen the vessel up, the cost of a premium factory could easily exceed 1 trillion of hex credits!
Even for a powerful intelligence agency such as DIVA, such a sum of money could not be pulled out on a whim!
Ves understood the economics behind this deal. "Ostensibly, this deal is about securing my commitment to design more Hexer mechs. However, there are more layers behind it. By obtaining all of the rights to my design, they can produce and sell it to the Hex Army at a profit, thereby earning all of the revenue from my work. Over time, they can recoup all of the cost of the factory ship and earn a profit."
In short, DIVA wanted to exploit his profit-making potential!
"You and I both know it's not that straightforward." Calabast leaned back and crossed her arms. "First, as I've already mentioned, access is very restricted. For you to be able to order a factory ship through government channels at this early stage in your career is very valuable. I'm sure you can solicit more opportunities in the future, but how much time has passed by then. Five years? Ten years? That's too long considering your rate of progress. Getting your hands on a factory ship five years early is very helpful for your current plans."
This time premium was indeed of great value to Ves. Being able to travel through multiple star clusters while owning his own factory ship was a completely different concept than doing so without one! Being able to take along so much industrial capacity would relieve him from a lot of troublesome problems, especially if his fleet entered unwelcome space.
"Secondly, DIVA will almost solely supply your mechs to the Hex Army." She continued. "Do you know how difficult it is to be able to offer mechs to one of the Hegemony's most powerful and most demanding services? Not just any mech designer or company can meet all of the requirements to sell mechs to this picky client. DIVA will have to do a lot of lobbying and influence a lot of powerful Hexers in order to get your mechs through the door. All of this will cost political capital that DIVA could have spent on other priorities."
With all of these concerns, it became clear to Ves that DIVA didn't demand the right to profit from his mech designs because of greed. It had to invest deep in order to fulfill its commitment and make full use of his mech designs.
"I understand." Ves reluctantly sighed. "If I can't obtain a share of the profits, then I at least want my ship to be as good as possible."
He understood that this was the only way. His bargaining position was decent but not exceptional. DIVA held the upper hand due to the sole reason that Ves couldn't approach any other party in the Hegemony to sell his mechs to the Hex Army.
Therefore, it was undeniable that DIVA held the upper hand. At the very least, on an economic level, DIVA would likely earn back more hex credits it made in selling his mechs than it spent on the factory ship.
The only consolation was that it would probably take a few years to recoup its monetary costs. That was too much time as far as Ves was concerned. He didn't mind passing over those profits as long as he obtained a factory ship much earlier than he expected.
Calabast understood his position well. She tried to console him. "This is a win-win arrangement. DIVA won't skimp on the factory ship at all. If you commit to design six Hexer mechs, then the budget for the factory ship will be 800 billion hex credits. If you commit to designing 8 mechs, then the budget will be 1.2 trillion hex credits! The more, the better."
That was a lot of money! With such a budget, obtaining a moderately valuable second-class factory ship was well within reach!
She added another sweetener. "The factory ship will be built according to the standard of the Hex Army. This meant that it will incorporate state-of-the-art military components that made use of exclusive Hexer-developed technology. Such a ship is completely different from a capital ship built to civilian standards! You can't buy this access with money!"
That made this deal even more attractive to Ves! At a certain point, the private sector was no longer able to meet his demands. Only by gaining the cooperation of government entities would he be able to obtain a high-spec ship!
"I need to discuss this with Gloriana. This decision is way too big for me to decide alone."
Chapter 2125 Fair Deal
Ves left Calabast's office with a pensive expression. He clutched Lucky to his chest as he slowly stepped out and smelled the oil and metal from all of the mechs on the move.
A squad of mech pilots jogged right past him as a number of heavy-duty lifter bots transported some depleted energy cells to the nearest power generator. A lone silver-coated Desolate Soldier marched around a corner while a number of teenage Larkinsons sat next to a dormant Aurora Titan in order to enjoy its soothing, protective area.
"Meow."
"Yeah. I don't relish getting scammed, but Calabast is right. This deal can't be weighed on its financial merits alone."
When Ves marched across the base, greeting a lot of friendly clansmen along the way, he finally reached the secure workshop, where the Little Angel still resided.
Security had loosened up after fabricating the masterwork mech. However, a squad of mechs from the Glory Battalion as well as several other mech companies still loomed close.
As soon as he entered, he immediately experienced the overlapping glows emanating from both the statue and the Little Angel.
The effect was so strong and cloying that Ves felt a bit uncomfortable. Where there was nothing fundamentally annoying about his supportive glows, he did not wish to spend his time under the influence of this particular design spirit.
Ves may have imparted a more boy-friendly ideology to the Superior Mother, but she was still very much a Hexer! True equality and respect towards boys and men was still in short supply!
"Ugh." He grunted.
When he approached the Little Angel, he already saw Gloriana buzzing around its frame like a busy bee. She no longer scanned or did anything special with the mech. She simply rubbed her hand on the smooth metal texture of the masterwork mech's armor plating.
"What a beautiful mech you are.. you are so perfect.. mommy doesn't want to let you go, but you deserve to go out into the galaxy and fulfill your purpose. No matter what, mommy will never forget about you.."
For a moment, Ves felt the urge to turn around and leave, but he really needed to talk.
"Gloriana! Could you come with me for a moment?"
"Mhh?"
"It's important! Just get down here!"
It took a bit of cajoling before she finally agreed to leave the Little Angel's side. In order to hold a private discussion, Ves led her to a familiar office before closing and locking the door.
He then proceeded to explain DIVA's offer.
This finally caused Gloriana to turn her thoughts away from the Little Angel.
"I don't see why you would refuse." She spoke. "Lending our strength to the Hexadric Hegemony is a noble endeavor. If the Filthy Fridaymen win the Komodo War, our people will lose everything! Our culture and our way of life will disappear!"
Ordinarily, that should have been a cause for celebration to Ves. Unfortunately, not only was he on the Hegemony's side, his mother's life and wellbeing also depended on its success!
"We can't ignore the profits we forgo if we sign on to this deal." Ves emphasized.
"You obsess too much about money! Even if DIVA stands to make a hefty profit, the deal still sounds fairs. Don't forget that DIVA not only has to open up its own sales channels, but also do its best to build up a market for your mechs. There is no stomach for mechs designed by boys at the start, and persuading all of those conservative, rigid-minded matriarchs to allow your mechs to be fielded by the Hex Army is not a given."
"Yes but…" Ves hesitated. "If we designed a second-class mech for another superior state, then as long as its successful, we could earn enough money to build up a factory ship by ourselves!"
"You're still in the Komodo Star Sector, Ves. Entering the market of another second-rate state in another star sector is easier said than done. The competition of the more open mech markets is extremely competitive, and there are often a lot of other complications as well."
To Gloriana, designing mechs for the Hegemony was partially a patriotic calling. She was much less inclined to quibble over the potential profits they signed away.
Though Ves understood her perspective and had his own reasons to help out the Hegemony, he still couldn't get over the fact that he would be getting the worse end of the deal. His bargaining power shouldn't be this weak, especially if DIVA thought highly of his mech designs!
Then again, Calabast already mentioned that DIVA was willing to provide a lot of benefits. Not only would he be able to obtain the factory ship fairly quickly, she would also come packed with advanced Hexer technology normally reserved for the Hex Army!
The material cost of all of those exclusive Hexer components and ship parts may not be ludicrously high, but their performance was always better! The difference between a military-grade factory ship and a civilian-grade factory ship was considerable!
Gloriana made an argument. "Besides, what DIVA is doing is treating us like a design studio. We are merely responsible for providing our client with the promised design. Our involvement ends there. The client will take the designs and do all of the heavy lifting with regards to producing, marketing and selling the mechs. It is not unusual for design studios to accept a fixed, upfront fee for their designs."
She was right. The business model of a design studio started and ended with he mech design. All of the other cumbersome issues with regards to utilizing the mech design became someone else's responsibility.
In this way, a design studio and all of the mech designers working for it only had to focus on their core profession, which was developing a lot of mech designs!
Everything else was irrelevant to their job. It took hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of workers to perform the other activities. Expensive office buildings and manufacturing complexes had to be built. An extensive supply chain needed to be formed in order to make sure the production facilities ran smoothly and the mechs ended up in the hands of the end users as smoothly as possible.
Ves initially didn't think about design studios because the Living Mech Company pursued a different business model. Much like many ambitious mech designers, Ves wanted to exert at least some control over the marketing and production of his mechs.
In theory, less middlemen resulted in more profit to the LMC! His company's earnings would have been even better if it didn't rely on so many third-party manufacturers to make its products.
This was one of the many reasons why Ves would benefit from owning his own factory ship.
"You have a point." He told her. "Design studios earn less profit from their own designs, but in exchange they assume much less risk and responsibility. Passing over the latter to DIVA means that it is fair to forgo other profits."
It was difficult to put a solid hex credit figure on all of the other compensation that DIVA promised in return.
However, one look at Gloriana already made it clear that she didn't want to take no for answer!
Designing mechs for the Hex Army was one of her cherished dreams when she was younger. She wanted to accept any offer that allowed her to design mechs for the Hexers fighting on the frontlines, even if she had to work for free!
Ves did not wish to deprive her of this rare and valuable opportunity.
Since their departure from the Komodo Star Sector loomed closer, it would be best if Gloriana gained some closure before she bid farewell to her former home. Contributing to the success of the Hexadric Hegemony was a great way for her to pay off her emotional debt to the state she pledged allegiance to. Otherwise, this debt would haunt her all the way to the Red Ocean!
As for him, the deal also aligned with his own intentions of making life difficult for the Fridaymen, which was considerably more important in his eyes.
He rarely had the opportunity to take revenge on those who attacked him or screwed him over, which made this window of opportunity all the more important!
He needed to teach the Friday Coalition a very nasty lesson in order to deter anyone else who plotted something similar in the future.
If a state thought they could nab him and force him to work on its behalf, he could threaten them back by designing mechs that were literally designed to tear it down!
Both of them soon agreed to take DIVA's offer.
"How many mechs are you willing to design?" He asked. "Personally, as much as I want to help the Hexers out, I don't think I can stomach designing too many Hexer mechs. Six sounds fine, but I don't want our factory ship to be too weak. According to Calabast, DIVA will add 400 billion hex credits to our budget if we design two additional Hexer mechs."
"Eight sounds fine." Gloriana smiled. "It's not close enough to cover every single mech type used by the Hex Army, but it offers us enough room to spread the Superior Mother in every battlefield situation."
He nodded.
For this series of commissions, he only intended to make use of the Superior Mother. She was already versatile enough to adapt to many different mech types and Ves wanted to spread her influence as much as possible.
As long as a unit of Hexers contained a single mech with a glow, that was already sufficient to boost the entire unit's comprehensive combat effectiveness.
His glows worked as a force multiplier and rarely as a source of direct strength. Instances where Ves had been able to add predictive power to the Deliverer was rare. It was enough to make the Superior Mother lift the spirits of every Hexer while depressing the morale of enemy Fridaymen within the range of her glow!
After an extensive discussion with Gloriana, Ves returned to Calabast but did not immediately give his assent.
She approved of his decision. "We both know that you've already made your choice, but that doesn't mean we have to make it easy for DIVA. The agency works on behalf of the entire Hegemony, so its means are anything but modest. Since DIVA's willingness to use mechs will only improve once the utility of the Blessed Squire becomes clear, your leverage will improve. Take some time to extract more concessions."
With that, they decided to stall for time and quibble over the terms.
In the next few days, with Calabast's advice, Ves demanded several concessions. Even though he suspected that DIVA probably guessed what he was up to, they still needed to go through the motions.
Though DIVA refused to increase the budget for the factory ship, the negotiators did relent on some smaller issues.
First, Ves had gotten a promise that he would be able to maintain possession on any future masterwork mechs that he and Gloriana produced.
He was not about to forgo the opportunity to earn a lot of MTA merits again!
Second, DIVA would make sure the large shipyard responsible for building the factory ship would complete her within 8 standard months.
This was very fast. The ship-building company would definitely have to exert all of its capacity to finish a capital ship within such a short amount of time.
Normally, it took years to construct a 2-kilometer capital ship!
Third, if the Hexer government ever interrupted the deal, Ves would still get his factory ship even if he was no longer allowed to design any additional Hexer mechs!
This concession was a bit more difficult to secure, but DIVA eventually relented. Ves did not want to get screwed a third of the way in if the Hexers ever decided that his mechs posed too much of a threat to their man-hating sensibilities!
It was up to DIVA and other friendly stakeholders to do their utmost to make his mechs acceptable for use. Ves did not want to pay the price if the spies failed to accomplish this basic necessity!
Fourth, the Hexers should lend sufficient trainers in order to teach the Larkinsons how to cooperate in every aspect of the vessel.
This was a detail that Ves did not miss out on. He could already tell that the factory ship would be so advanced and contain so many high-tech systems that third-raters would never be able to get a handle on her at the start!
Therefore, Ves wanted DIVA to send over knowledgeable and experienced spacers in order to teach the Larkinson crewmen how to man the factory ship.
The trainers, which could potentially amount to a hundred, only needed to stay with the Larkinson Clan for a couple of years at most. During this time, they could also operate the essential systems of the factory ship themselves, thereby preventing many possible disasters!
"It's very clever of you to think of that." Calabast complimented. "The free specialists will be invaluable at the start."
Chapter 2126 Made to Order
Once they came to an accord, Ves and DIVA did not waste much time. It didn't take much time to sign the contracts.
Ves felt ambivalent as he returned to Gloriana, who was still spending all of her time with the Little Angel. Soon, DIVA would be taking the masterwork mech away, and it was very unlikely that she would meet her finest work to date ever again!
Therefore, even if her current behavior seemed unhealthy, Ves allowed her to indulge in her current fancy.
"Gloriana! The deal is set. Eight designs for a factory ship. Hopefully, as long as everything goes well, we'll be able to receive our new ship within a year."
"That sounds great!" Gloriana cheerfully responded. "I always wanted a factory ship, and I always wanted to design mechs for the Hex Army. Now I get to do both!"
It was hard not to get caught up in her jubilance. Ves cared less about the potential profits he signed away. Making her happy was a joy in itself.
"Well, in order for the shipyard that DIVA has approached to build our ship, it needs a ship design."
"Oh? Ah, you're right! Not any factory ship will do. We need to pick the right class and select the best configuration for our needs. This is going to be fun!"
"Hahaha, I thought so. If you don't mind, I've invited some other clansmen in order to take part in the initial session. We don't specialize in designing ships, so it is wise to borrow the wisdom of those who command them for a living."
It took some time for the meeting to start.
In a secure conference, Ves, Gloriana, Calabast, Fleet Commander Ophelia Kronon, Major Verle and most notably Commodore Abigail Evern all sat down at a round table.
A projector already started to display various factory ship classes in the center. The imposing mass and size of these vessels instantly dwarved anything the Larkinson Fleet owned up to this moment!
Before the session commenced, everyone turned to Commodore Evern.
The prominent symbol tattoos on her face instantly marked her as a Penitent Sister! Even Gloriana looked askance at the presence of the exiled Hexer!
"Ves.. why did you invite Commodore Evern?"
"She's our highest-ranking naval officer." He shrugged. "Look, I have my doubts as well, but when I approached her, she promised to remain cordial."
He only approached the commodore on a whim. The Larkinson Clan may have Ophelia Kronon-Larkinson, but she mainly dealt with second-class ships. She did not possess enough depth in second-class ships!
"I know what you think of me." Abigail defensively huffed. "I only agreed to offer my expertise in exchange for favor. It's in my best interest to play along."
Both Gloriana and Calabast turned to Ves. "What did you promise?"
Ves shrugged. "When I approached the Penitent Sisters, I found out that the ones who participated in the ceremony want to return the statue. Those who don't fall under the 666 Sisters have heard a lot and want to try and worship the statue as well."
"Oh. That.. sounds okay, I think."
He was pleasantly surprised when the Penitent Sisters made this request. If even these extremists became swayed by the Superior Mother, then that meant there was a lot of hope that the rest of the Hegemony might embrace the ancestral spirit!
Of course, the reason why the Penitent Sisters clamored so much to see the statue was because of the show he performed. If he didn't impress them so much, they would have been much more reluctant to approach him with this request!
Even so, he didn't make it easy. Now that he possessed leverage over the recalcitrant Hexers, he wanted to make sure he could use it to keep them under control! He heavily restricted access to the Penitent Sisters and only opened up a small window to access and worship the statue of the Superior Mother.
Ves promised to widen this window as long as the Penitent Sisters behaved well!
With this carrot, he hoped to tame the Sisters and make them less of a problem. Though he did not have much hope of converting them to his side, at the very least he wanted them to be an asset rather than a liability.
Once everyone accepted Abigail's participation, the session finally began when Ves took control of the projector.
"Every factory ship is unique. They're large, stupendously so, and can fit a lot of different stuff. Because they're so big and expensive compared to mechs, the client has a lot of choice on what can go in. It's similar to ordering a custom mech, though our choices are limited by the restrictions of the ship class."
Ship classes were like mech models in that they already provided a fairly complete framework.
Different from mech models, ship classes offered a lot of room for customization. They initially started off in a barebones form, which also happened to be the cheapest option.
It was easy to upgrade or modify the layout of the ship at the initial phase. As long as his demands didn't break the framework and as long as his budget was sufficient enough, he could add all kinds of items on his wish list!
Everyone else knew this as well, so they quickly began to look over the available ship classes.
They could choose from over a hundred different factory ship classes. Some of them looked similar, but others looked radically different!
Most of them were long and narrow and shaped like a cigar or fish. They rarely came in other forms, though Ves did encounter some very vertical ships.
It was a bit difficult to make a choice right away, and it took too much time to go over every single ship class.
This was why Calabast proposed a selection method. "Perhaps it is best to set our criteria first and see which ship class fits our needs the best."
Everyone agreed. The first choice was to consider the overall shape of the factory ship.
Ophelia immediately offered her judgement. "Most human vessels are long and narrow for a reason, sir. In combat situations, strategic ships like these are either flying towards or away from the enemy. You don't want to give the enemy a larger target to hit. Keeping the front and rear silhouettes as small as possible will make it harder for enemies to take down the ship. That said, a ship that is too long and narrow is an easy target when attacked from the flanks. There are other tradeoffs as well, such as the increased stress and demand from the FTL drive."
Everyone concurred with her assessment. None of them had any intentions to buck the trend, especially Ves! He could already predict that his factory ship would definitely experience these situations several times in the future!
"The next choice is to determine a ranking order of strengths, sir." Ophelia continued. "Every ship class scores differently in every area. Some are amazingly resilient against damage. Some are very low-maintenance and cheaper to operate. Some are structurally solid and built to last for centuries. You can't have everything without breaking our budget, so we need to set our priorities."
As mech designers, Ves and Gloriana already knew that there was only so much they could demand from their factory ship.
Ves already had some very strong thoughts about the criteria he valued the most.
"This factory ship will serve as the core and quite possibly the flagship of our grand expedition. Since I intend to take us to the Red Ocean, the ship has to be able to endure the rigors and challenges of operating in underdeveloped, unstable and potentially hostile space."
This put everyone else in a serious mood.
"So you want a heavily-armored factory ship?" Gloriana asked.
"Not necessarily." He shook his head. "In my time travelling through the frontier, I learned that it is more important to retain mobility than to pile up as much armor as possible. I don't want our factory ship to turn into a barely mobile bathtub. It's a lot easier to upgrade the armor plating and structural supports of our ship than to improve her mobility, at least by ourselves."
This caught the Penitent Sister officer's attention. "You intend to upgrade the factory ship frequently?"
Ves nodded. "The Larkinson Clan will only grow wealthier from now. Ten years or twenty years from now, we might be able to get our hands on exotics and materials that are considerably superior to the ones used in the construction of our ship. We will also be able to obtain or produce much better ship parts that can enhance the performance of our ship. I want to be able to upgrade our ship on the fly so that she can best serve our needs in the Red Ocean."
"Hmmm…" Abigail paused for a moment. "Some ship classes are designed with upgradeability in mind, while others are more fixed. The former is that it is easier to keep them up to date, but don't discount the latter. They are not only more affordable, but also more solid and integrated."
Essentially, Ves could obtain a considerably higher-performing ship if he selected a class that was all fixed from inside out. While it was still possible to tear out old or damaged parts and fit them with replacements, it was very troublesome and costly to do so! Many jobs even required the services of a dedicated shipyard!
This choice was best if Ves only intended to make use of the factory ship for a couple of decades before getting rid of her. He could either sell her or scrap her and use the recycled materials to build a better ship.
Ves preferred the other approach. As long as it was viable to keep using the same ship, then why shouldn't he?
This option also fit better with his design philosophy. He treated mechs with respect, so he should at least extend at least some of that courtesy towards ships.
As a mech designer, Ves also felt eager to tinker with his ship. He wanted to make it his by customizing and altering anything he didn't like. He already did so several times with the Scarlet Rose and he expected no different with his new factory ship!
"Let's prioritize modularity and upgradeability." He spoke to everyone. "Don't forget that large swathes of the Red Ocean are either underdeveloped or not developed at all. It will be much more difficult to procure quality ships there. Demand will definitely exceed supply."
Modular ship classes were more expensive and less efficient, but Ves believed that this was a worthy price to pay.
No one offered any strong objections, so the selection process quickly moved on. Everyone pitched in on what the factory ship should excel at, though not everyone agreed with each other.
Ves knew what he wanted. If he had to describe as simple as possible, then he sought to obtain a factory ship that was good at survival.
She had to be tough enough to endure moderate attacks. She had to be mobile enough to flee from powerful enough. She had to offer enough room for mechs to defend her from attackers. Above all else, she had to offer plenty of room for customization.
Once Abigail knew what he wanted, she scrolled through the list and settled on a suggestion.
"The Estrella Klavier-class of factory ships is fairly new and fits your preference the best." She explained. "If you compare her to other factory ships, then you can see that she is fairly lean but still defensible. She isn't built like a tank, but her sub-light propulsion is decent and she can accommodate two capital-grade FTL drives, and offers room for a third."
Some capital ships came with additional FTL drives. They weren't meant to be activated at the same time. Instead, the spares offered the ship an additional escape option if one of them malfunctioned or got knocked out.
The FTL drives could also be activated in succession!
This allowed a ship to enter a star system with the help of one FTL drive, then leave shortly afterwards by engaging the other FTL drive!
Ships with multiple FTL drives did not need to wait for them to finish cycling. They could be operated one at a time, allowing the inactive drive to cycle while the ship was already on her way to her next destination!
Theoretically, ships could continue to chain their FTL drive activations along this pattern and only spend a couple of minutes in the material dimensions at most!
Of course, the stress on the ship and the drives made it very unwise to keep it up. The operation also required very skilled engineers who knew exactly how to push the FTL drives.
Regardless if Ves prioritized redundancy or speed, having multiple FTL drives was essential in his opinion!
"Two FTL drives sound good." He smiled. "We can obtain a third one later."
As everyone studied the Estrella Klavier-class further, it became clear why it might be a good choice.
Compared to many of the other ship classes offered by the Hexers, the Estrella Klavier-class contained a lot of holes!
The schematics only contained the parts and structure that was necessary to operate a basic factory ship.
The client could then fill up the holes in the schematics with their own optional modules?
For example, if he wanted to fill up a compartment with a third FTL drive, Ves could choose to do so. If he would rather augment the power supply of the factory ship, then he could instead fill the same compart with a power reactor!
The Estrella Klavier-class offered a lot of other choices like this. This appealed strongly to his inclinations as a mech designer!
"This is a great choice!" Gloriana declared. "We can fit everything we want inside this ship!"
Their choice was made. Even if there were tougher, faster and higher capacity alternatives available, the Estrella Klavier-class promised unmatched versatility!
Ves looked intrigued as he began to imagine how he could fill these spaces up. While it wasn't possible for him to design a factory ship and instill her with a glow, what if he could impart at least some spirituality through a different method?
Chapter 2127 Ostentatious Addition
With the sheer amount of choices available, Ves and the rest had to think very carefully on how to configure their personal Estrella Klavier-class vessel.
Capital ships generally weren't built to land on planets. It took too much effort to prevent the starship from crashing and it took even more effort to lift the vessel into orbit.
While it wasn't impossible by any stretch of the imagination, it was mostly a waste of space to add such a capability to such a heavy ship.
If Ves wanted to bring something down, it was much more efficient to rely on smaller ships.
For this reason, the Estrella Klavier-class factory ship did not feature any wings or other extraneous elements. Perhaps the only annoying part about the shape of her hull was that she was shaped like a somewhat stubby hexagonal-sided rod.
If viewed from the front or back, the factory ship was shaped exactly like a hexagon!
To be fair, the Estrella Klavier-class was hardly the only one who incorporated this arbitrary design choice. Many other long and narrow Hexer ships adopted the same shape.
Changing the shape was out of the question. Almost everything about the interior had been built around her specific dimensions. Ves would have to redesign the entire ship class from scratch if he wanted to adopt a more rounded shape!
"From a defensive angle, a Estrella Klavier-class starship is excellent when enemies approach from the front or rear. However, as soon as she shows her entire broadside to an enemy formation, she'll take an awful pounding due to all of the hull plating that is facing them at a perpendicular angle." Ophelia Kronon noted with a frown.
"The same principle applies to mechs." Gloriana nodded in understanding. "Though it's not always possible, its best to always incorporate oblique angles in a design."
A projectile hitting a 1 meter plate of armor at a straight angle only had to pierce through 1 meter of solid alloy.
A projectile hitting the same plate at a 60 degree angle effectively has to chew through 2 meters of solid alloy!
Of course, this was a gross simplification of what actually occurred in battle. Different weapon types interacted with armor in different ways. It was also extremely rare that a defender was able to present the best possible sloping armor towards an enemy, especially the attacks came from multiple angles!
While the downside of having six flat sides was big, featuring a more rounded cigar-like hull shape also had its downsides.
Commodore Abigail Evern shrugged. "The hexagon is a sacred geometric shape. It is superior to the circle. It represents order and the six phases of existence at its best!"
Ves directed an exasperated glance towards Gloriana and Calabast. Both of them looked apologetic.
"That is a legitimate argument in the Hegemony." Calabast carefully confirmed his suspicions.
They had no choice but to live with this shape. While the Hexers offered factory ship classes in other shapes and sizes, none of them suited his needs!
What he wanted was freedom of choice. If he was going to entrust his life, career, future and clan on this decision, then he wanted a ship that reflected his approach and his strengths!
He wanted a factory ship that could survive danger because he often liked to take risks.
He wanted a factory ship that could run away quickly because he sometimes attracted formidable enemies.
He wanted a factory ship that offered a lot of upgradeability because he was confident he could obtain better technology and materials in the future.
He wanted a factory ship that offered a lot of modular choices and unreserved space so he could stuff them with everything he needed to facilitate his goals.
Above all, he wanted a factory ship that gave him enough room to express his greatest strength, his design philosophy!
With that last desire in mind, Ves immediately began to add his touch to the ship design. He took control of the projection and called up a design interface. He began to modify the bow of the vessel and almost completely changed its V-shaped face into a much more complex cosmetic appearance.
It soon became clear what Ves wanted to add to the bow of the factory.
"Is that.. the Golden Cat's head?!"
Ves finished his sketch in rapid time. Though the shape still needed a lot more refinement, it was enough to give everyone in the conference room an idea on the distinctive shape of the bow!
The addition of the Golden Cat's head completely changed the impression of the factory ship! Whereas before she looked like the quintessential Hexer starship, now she acquired a very strong association to the Larkinson Clan!
"While this ostentatious addition looks impressive, I'm not sure the shipyard will agree to incorporate this addition." Calabast warned.
"It adds a lot of extra material to the bow. It will eat into our budget!"
"Every Larkinson Clan vessel must have style!" Ves declared. "Cost is no concern!"
"I like it!" Gloriana chirped as she ruffled Clixie's fur. "This will turn our factory ship into an iconic symbol of the Larkinson Clan. As soon as our name spreads, the distinct appearance of the Golden Cat will definitely make an impression wherever we go! Is this how you're going to add your glow to the factory ship?"
Ves grinned. "Correct! As I've stated earlier, I can't imbue a glow onto a ship that I did not design myself. However, as objects such as the new loyalty medallions and the statue of the Superior Mother have already showed, I can still add my glow to any other material object! Who says I can't instill my glow into the component of a machine rather than the entire whole!"
For a moment, Gloriana and the rest looked stunned!
This was a very simple but very profound statement!
Before, his glows had always been associated with entire mechs.
The only way to gain the Desolate Soldier's duty-inspiring glow was to obtain an intact, working copy of the mech.
The only way to benefit from the Doom Guard's fear-inducing glow was to purchase an expensive copy of the spaceborn striker mech.
There was no instance where only a portion of the mech could induce the glow!
Many customers who thought they were clever attempted to disassemble a Desolate Soldier and tried to install some of the parts onto another mech.
Obviously, that didn't work. The less something resembled the design of an LMC mech, the weaker its glow. At some point, the differences grew so great that the spiritual connection broke entirely!
Therefore, no one ever thought about the possibility that Ves could add his glows to other mechs or vehicles by instilling it in just a smaller component!
"If you wanted to.." Gloriana speculated. "Couldn't you design some sort of.. I don't know.. a piloting chair.. that contains one of your proto-gods?"
The implication of this possibility was massive. Any mech technician could just remove the piloting chair from a random mech and install the one designed by Ves in order to bestow the mech with a glow!
The size of the object was irrelevant, mostly! As long as the creation was complex and sophisticated enough for Ves to instill at least some spiritual foundation, then it became a viable container of one of his glows!
"I can make it even smaller." Ves innocently shrugged. "The loyalty medallions are perhaps the smallest objects I've made that contain my glows."
"Their range is rather short and their effect is weak." Gloriana stated.
"That's correct. My specialty works best on mechs. If not, then at least something that resembles mechs. That's one of the reasons why I made sure the statue of the Superior Mother is as large as a mech."
He had added his glows to objects smaller than a mech. However, he hadn't done so on objects that were significantly larger.
Right now, the prow or forecastle of the Estrella Klavier-class ship had turned into a large cat head, one which Ves intended to design and build by himself!
Would its glow become more intense? Would the range of its glow reach the entire length of the factory ship? Ves didn't know the answers to these questions, and that excited him! He couldn't wait to test it out in a massive experiment!
However, not everyone was confident it was a good idea.
"A lot of materials are needed to construct this prow." Commodore Abigail Evern warned. "Factory ships like these are incredibly expensive because their exterior has to withstand a lot of attacks from second-class mechs. "You can probably build half a mech regiment with all of the alloys spent on this addition!"
Ves waved away her concern. "The cost is not a problem, and I already have a source of materials in mind."
Since recently, he decided to stockpile the Breyer alloy he steadily obtained from Cassandra Breyer. His main motivation for doing so was to strengthen the armor and structure of his future factory ship!
Because starships and especially capital ships were so big, the alloys used to prop them up and clad them with armor were actually inferior to the alloys utilized in mechs.
This was because the cost was way too prohibitive if ship armor used so many high-quality materials and exotics!
Instead of relying on quality, ship builders instead resort to quantity to strengthen the hull of a ship!
Even if the grade and quality of alloys was inferior, as long as the plate of armor was several meters thick, it offered far more effective protection without breaking the bank!
This vastly reduced the production cost of the ship. It also made it far easier and more affordable to repair or replace the armor plating once it sustained damage.
Therefore, using something as sturdy as Breyer alloy which was ordinarily fashioned in much thinner armor plating would make the bow of his future factory ship exceptionally resilient!
If Ves instilled the thick, decorative prow component with Goldie's glow, then his factory ship would truly become unique! Ves couldn't think of a better way to enhance the stature of the Larkinson Clan while at the same time demonstrating the formidable nature of his specialty!
However, empowering the prow with spirituality was different from designing a ship with spirituality.
"Don't expect too much from the glow of this giant cat head." Ves cautioned everyone. "One of the reasons why my mechs are so effective is because the glow not only influences the moods of people in the vicinity, but also makes the mech alive. The mech pilot is able to bond and operate the mech on a deeper level, and that is another source of strength that is often overlooked in recent times."
This was the original X-Factor that Ves pursued. Nowadays, he focused a lot more on expressing the power of his design spirits, but that didn't mean he lost sight of trying to align the mindsets of the mech, mech pilot and mech designer as much as possible!
What his remark actually conveyed was that the glow of the prow would only act on the ship like a source of emotional warmth. It would not be able to integrate with the entire ship and add mysterious effects to the vessel.
However, since that wasn't possible anyway, no one minded this deficiency. It was already good enough to add the glow that was strongly associated to the Larkinson Clan throughout several sections of the ship.
"So that is why you want so much unreserved space in the ship class!" Gloriana gasped in realization. "The prow isn't enough! You want to add more… more…"
"Totem." Ves generously supplied.
"You want to add more totems to our ship! Are you trying to transform it into a vessel of the Golden Cat by spreading her domain along the entire length of our factory ship?"
Ves chuckled. "I don't think it works that way. Even so, it will still be very useful to make sure to add enough totems to cover the ship. Even if the glow makes outsiders uncomfortable, I don't care. As long as it instills more kinship and loyalty in the crew of the factory ship, then that is worth the cost!"
The Golden Cat was his most important weapon and tool in shaping the Larkinson Clan! With her powerful, Larkinson-themed glow, Ves believed his most important ship of his fleet would be much better protected against malcontents and traitors!
In addition, Goldie's glow was also very useful in furthering the indoctrination of both outsiders and Larkinson clansmen.
If Ves could add totems to every ship of his expeditionary fleet, then how would others react when the entire Larkinson Clan arrived all at once?
2128 Scrappy Ship
Once Ves adjusted his mindset, he became a lot more engaged in the configuration of the Estrella Klavier-class.
Though he was tempted to treat it as something analogous to mech design, in truth he was more like a client who made a list of demands and expected them to be implemented.
The only difference was that he was something of an engineer himself, so he was able to sketch and design detailed features onto the ship diagram.
However, just because he made his choice didn't mean it would go through. Just like mechs, ships consisted of many interconnected parts and systems. A single, careless addition could easily mess with other systems, causing them to become skewed, which in turn cascaded into other disturbances!
Something as massive as adding a large Breyer alloy forecastle shaped in the form of a golden cat head significantly altered the flight characteristics of the factory ship.
Ves didn't worry too much, though. The rest of the factory ship was already pretty massive, so it wasn't as if a bigger prow sent the ship completely off-balance. He figured the ship designers would just perform a lot of simulations and tweak a lot of systems in order to account for the altered mass distribution.
After finishing with the prow, he turned his attention to the other sections of his upcoming factory ship. As the most important ship of the fleet, she played a pivotal role in allowing him to conduct business and work with mechs regardless of where he traveled and what kind of circumstances he faced.
The factory ship would also very likely serve as his main base of operations in the Larkinson Fleet!
As a mech designer, there was no place that was more appropriate for him to station himself than the ship that featured the best mech production capacity. Any other choice such as a fleet carrier, ark ship or any other kind of vessel simply didn't sound compelling enough.
As for the Barracuda and the Scarlet Rose, neither vessel matched his stature as the patriarch of an up-and-coming clan and a Journeyman with a bright future.
He had already outgrown the corvette and the mobile supply frigate. In terms of space alone, neither of them came close to fitting all of the features he demanded.
Therefore, he saw the wide, unreserved spaces of the Estrella Klavier-class as a blessing. Just as he did in the past when he designed his variants, he wanted to take this generic Hexer factory ship and transform her into a flagship that reflected his philosophy!
"Let's make this ship alive!"
Even if Ves was not a ship designer, even if it wasn't possible to fully exert his specialty on a massive starship, he still wanted to give it a try!
"Let's turn her into our perfect factory ship!" Gloriana concurred as she began to add her own additions to the ship diagram!
She didn't want to be left out. The factory ship would likely serve as her own base of operations as well, so the ship had to offer enough accommodations to make her comfortable for decades!
Compared to the hands-on approach adopted by Ves and Gloriana, the other advisers merely voiced their suggestions. Neither Calabast, Ophelia or Abigail possessed a technical background, but they were still competent professionals in their own right.
"You need to beef up the communications center of the ship." Calabast suggested. "It would be best to add some more redundancies as well. You should also move the quantum communication nodes to a separate compartment in order to isolate them better. I always disagreed with the decision to place them next to other communications systems in order to save space."
Abigail made a useful suggestion as well. "If defense is a priority but don't want to reduce the mobility of the factory ship any further, then you might consider adding large-area shield generators. They're very power hungry and very expensive and aren't as tough as actual armor, but they take up much less mass and volume than adding an extra layer of armor."
When Ves looked up the shield generators, he immediately shook his head. "They're too expensive! I'll have to chew through a considerable portion of my budget in order to slot them into the factory ship!"
The cost of an individual directional shield generator was still within an acceptable range. The problem was that Ves had to purchase them into a batch in order to cover the huge surface area of the exterior of the ship!
Even Gloriana agreed. "There is too much for us to spend on first. Let's add the shields to our list of future upgrades. Since they're fairly compact and relatively standalone, we can easily install them in place once we acquire them. We should instead focus on establishing the right foundation."
Certain modules and systems required the factory ship to undergo an extensive overhaul that could only take place at a shipyard. This was not one of them. Shield generators were just big blocks of metal and machinery that could be disassembled and assembled by a team of trained engineers and technicians.
Considering the LMC's earning potential, Ves could afford to wait and accumulate enough cash to purchase considerably more powerful shield generators than he could afford at this time.
He nodded. "You're right, Gloriana. We shouldn't consider the factory ship to be a finished product once she falls into our hands. She's an ongoing project that will potentially stay this way for centuries. What we should prioritize during this design session is to choose between all of the essential modules and systems that are very hard to add to the factory ship after she is built."
The Estrella Klavier-class might be a bit more generous in terms of upgradeability, but not everything about her design was modular. There were plenty of interlocking, interconnecting systems that had to be built right from the very start.
The same applied to mechs to a lesser degree. Surface battle damage was easy to repair, but once something deep inside broke, the mech technicians had to perform a lot of steps to disassemble the damaged machine.
As Ves and Gloriana each began to fill up the empty spaces of the factory, they focused on strengthening her survival ability.
To Ves, the basic configuration of the factory ship already provided him with plenty of performance. She offered sufficient production capacity and cargo capacity to fulfill her main role.
Though Ves could opt to make more room for production lines or turn more empty compartments into cargo bays, he declined to do so. Such a choice would doubtlessly make the factory ship more productive and more cost-efficient, but that would also come at the expense of other parameters!
What Ves instead wanted to build was a moving fortress. Of course, it was unrealistic to turn the factory ship into a frontline combat vessel. He just wanted the ship to be able to defend herself regardless whether she was stationed in the middle of a fleet or caught by herself!
Therefore, Ves reserved enough compartments along the length of the hull to make room for future shield generators. He made sure to place the shield generators in a compartment with access to dense power connections.
Though these shield generators were surprisingly compact, they guzzled enough energy to power a sub-capital ship! It would be very strenuous for the factory ship to power every shield generator at the same time, that was for sure!
"This ship is very demanding on energy even without the shield generators." Ves remarked. With his new Senior-level Electrical Engineering Skill, he clearly foresaw a lot of problems in the future. "We should make sure to beef up the power supply and enhance the energy distribution systems."
The material processing machines and the industrial production lines all demanded a lot of energy to run. The power reactors of the factory ship were only powerful enough to feed these production facilities and sustain the normal operations of the ship. They were not enough if the Larkinson Clan planned to add shield generators in the future!
The cost of the power reactors alone consumed a substantial portion of the budget, but Ves figured it was worth it. If he only promised to deliver six Hexer mech designs to DIVA, then he wouldn't have chosen to add these extra power generators.
The increased power generation was not all good. Aside from producing a lot more heat, which required him to bolster the heat management system of the ship, it also cost a lot to keep them running.
Overall, the factory ship that took shape would not be cheap to run! The maintenance costs continued to rise with each module and system he added to the vessel. Perhaps other clients might start to feel hesitant at this point, but Ves had no concerns.
As a mech designer, making money was as easy as pumping out another commercial mech design! He had absolutely no concern that the Larkinson Clan of today would be able to cover the costs of running the huge factory ship.
"You wanted to upgrade the mobility of the factory ship as well, right?" Gloriana confirmed. "We should replace the standard sublight propulsion system with a more powerful one then. This is hardly the best we Hexers have to offer."
The sublight propulsion system consisted of the main thrusters, auxiliary thrusters, engines and every other part responsible for moving the ship forward.
The current iteration of the factory ship was quite sluggish and hardly fast in any sense of the word. More expensive propulsion systems offered more power but less efficiency.
If the factory ship was supposed to be used for peaceful purposes only, then this was a good choice.
However, Ves intended to take this ship straight into frontier space, where his Larkinson Fleet could encounter insurmountable danger at any time!
In these kinds of crisis situations, saving money by running an efficient propulsion system was the last thing on his mind!
Therefore, Ves quickly ripped out the original propulsion system and added a beefier one. According to the estimates given by the ship design program, the acceleration of the factory ship had received a modest bump.
The upgrade turned a sluggish tub in space into a slightly faster sluggish tub in space.
There was no way to gain any further mobility without switching to another class of factory ships! Capital ships were so massive that it was a pipedream to think they could ever match the acceleration of a swift corvette!
He was already happy with what he managed to gain. Increasing the acceleration of the factory ship by just a third or something meant that the huge vessel would waste less time in realspace.
From a money saving standpoint, upgrading the propulsion system was a horrendously wasteful decision.
From a time saving standpoint, beefing up the engines was very much worth the investment!
Of course, the more powerful engines not only consumed substantially more fuel, but also used up a higher grade, making it a bit more troublesome to refuel in space.
Fortunately, the higher grade of ship fuel was also substantially more energy dense, which meant that Ves did not have to expand the sizable fuel tanks of the factory ship any further.
Ves hummed as he thought of the additional logistical burden. "Perhaps we should add a specialized refinery ship to our fleet that can refine these high-grade fuels."
This was something to consider for later. For now, the fuel tanks should already be able to keep the factory ship moving for years. In addition, the supply of high-grade fuels was relatively ubiquitous and abundant in civilized space.
Empty space continued to dwindle as the overall performance profile of the factory ship became more defined.
With almost every choice dedicated to enhancing the factory ship's defense and mobility, she had become quite a scrappy factory ship!
"We can't forget about offense either!" Ves recalled.
There wasn't much room left in the outer compartments after Ves and Gloriana added a lot of modules and systems to the factory ship. Fortunately, the Estrella Klavier-class already came with a bunch of exterior bunkers!
2129 A Shot At Redemption
Inspired by the bunkers he had seen in use by the forces of the House Kaine and the Flagrant Vandals, Ves wanted his factory ship to possess sufficient teeth to repel a pirate assault on her own if necessary!
He turned to Abigail Evern. "What is the Hexer doctrine concerning the use of bunkers on starships?"
The Penitent Sister gestured at a grouping of bunkers on the hull of the Estrella Klavier-class.
"Hexer ships usually concentrate six bunkers in a hexagon pattern on their broadsides. The bunkers are designed to accommodate specialized heavy mechs armed with powerful artillery cannons. The heavy mechs themselves are grouped into teams and are usually linked in some way. Their mech pilots constantly train together and practice together in order to be able to saturate a zone of space with partially-overlapping fields of fire."
The hexagon-shaped bunkers were grouped into a hexagon-shaped pattern, thereby making the association to the Hexadric Hegemony very clear.
Obviously, Ves was not a fan of this bunker placement.
He began to alter the arrangement of one of the bunker clusters. He completely broke up the hexagon pattern and trashed the hexagon-shaped designs of every bunker. Instead, he sketched in a different cluster of bunkers. He added some extra mass on top of them in order to tie them together.
The result was a cluster of five bunkers arranged in the form of cat claws!
Abigail Evern looked upset at this change. Removing the hexagon-shaped bunker cluster was still a very odd sight to her sensibilities! This was how Hexers protected their large ships for centuries. To see them replaced with a different arrangement almost caused her to speak against the change.
Unfortunately, she held no power here. If not for expertise on advanced, second-class ships, Ves wouldn't have invited her to this session!
As for Gloriana, despite being a Hexer herself, she was used to Ves rejecting her people's ways. Even though the factory ship would become her home as well, she was already happy enough with the other accommodations towards Hexers. Letting Ves personalize a few aspects of the factory ship to make it less Hexer did not affect her fundamental DNA!
Still, to Ves, the exterior of the capital ship reminded him a lot less of Hexers, and that was what mattered the most. As long as he paired the exterior changes with some interior changes, the factory ship would come much closer to representing the Larkinson Clan!
He couldn't go too far in transforming mechs into gun turrets. The MTA and CFA imposed a lot of rules and the design program literally blocked him from adding conveniences such as directly linking the heavy mech's heat management system to the heat management system of the factory and such.
"The Big Two really doesn't want starships to be heavily armed." Ves scowled.
He understood the rationale. From an outside perspective, it was a good way to limit the damage that humans inflicted on each other.
However, now that he was about to acquire a large and vulnerable ship on his own, the various rules that restricted him from allowing the factory ship to defend herself against attackers really began to annoy him! The Big Two even imposed limits on the maximum size and caliber of the cannons wielded by the heavy mechs!
There was nothing from stopping him from adding more bunkers to the ship per se. The rules only limited him from scaling up the mechs and weapons past a certain point. It didn't matter if he built a hundred bunkers along the length of the hull.
The only reason why he refrained from doing so was the fact that the factory ship couldn't accommodate too much mechs.
By default, she came with enough space to accommodate two mech companies of heavy mechs. This was already a considerable amount of mechs for a starship to carry, but compared to other capital ships, the figure was rather anemic.
It couldn't be helped. The production facilities and the cargo bays for the materials and end products took up a lot of space as well.
If Ves really wanted to, he could sacrifice some other functionary in order to add room for up to two additional mech companies.
However, he didn't think it was worth it. He would rather dedicate this role to another vessel, preferably a large fleet carrier, and focus purely on strengthening the self-defense aspects of his factory ship.
Therefore, Ves ended up with eighty bunkers clustered in groupings of five.
From a visual angle, the broadsides of the factory ship now featured sixteen giant golden cat paws!
Each of their claws were capable of scratching approaching any approaching enemy formation!
As Gloriana busied herself with rearranging the living space for the crew and occupants of the factory ship, she briefly glanced at his handiwork.
"That's a very pretty-looking change. We don't have the heavy mechs to fit in the bunkers, though."
Ves did not look concerned. "We'll just design our own, then. This grouping of five claws is already giving me some ideas. Perhaps I can combine five different glows that activate at specific times depending on the battle situation!"
Several ideas already tempted him to design the mechs in question!
If some enemy mechs were taking potshots at the factory ship from extreme range, he could employ Ylvaine's glow in order to increase the accuracy of his heavy artillery mechs.
If a large formation of light mechs were about to reach the hull, he could employ the same kind of spiritual counterbalancing he used in the Doom Guard design to prevent them from landing onto the hull!
Just two of these suggestions already sounded viable to him. Ves quickly archived these ideas in his implant and promised to revisit them later.
Eventually, the initial configuration session had come to an end. All of the free and unreserved space had been allocated.
While Ves had been preoccupied with transforming the arrangements of bunkers on the hull of the factory ship, Gloriana focused instead on the living conditions.
She upgraded and expanding the living quarters of the crew but especially for herself and Ves!
She filled up some of the empty compartments into schools, entertainment centers, gardens, swimming pools and other recreational areas.
Though it sounded a lot, the internal volume of the factory ship was already huge to begin with. Gloriana made sure to make efficient use of space so the various facilities didn't take up too much space.
Aside from that, she also made sure to add spaces for various chapels and areas of worship! At the very least, she insisted on retaining the fairly large hall of worship devoted to hexism!
Perhaps the only major alteration she made was to replace the large altar that represented the six phases of existence with the statue of the Superior Mother.
"You can do what you want to the rest of the ship, Ves, but this space is mine!" She insisted!
Ves let her have her way.
With that, the basic configuration of the Larkinson Clan's upcoming factory ship had been set. This was not the end, but just the start. Ves already knew he would have to submit the proposed ship design to the Hexer shipyard and let them refine it while crunching the numbers before sending back an altered proposal for him to review.
The factory ship was a huge, 1.2 trillion hex credit endeavor. Everyone involved had to make absolutely sure that the final design reflected the client's desires before they started to build her within a year!
When the meeting ended, Ves picked up Lucky and was just about to go elsewhere. However, Calabast and Abigail Evern both called him to stay.
"What's this all about?" Ves asked in suspicion. He turned to Abigail. "Is it about the Penitent Sisters?"
The former DIVA agent nodded. "I've been talking to Abigail before this meeting commenced. She and some of her fellow Penitent Sisters aren't satisfied with the limited access to the statue of the Superior Mother. Now that you have revealed that you can make smaller 'totems' and attach glows to them, perhaps it would be a good idea to make smaller replicas of the statue and spread them to the Penitent Sisters."
Ves frowned. This was not part of his plan. "The Superior Mother is my creation. Experiencing her glow is a privilege, not a right."
"As a commanding officer, I'm not unaware of what you have in mind when you set the quota." Commodore Abigail Evern spoke. "Considering our conduct and our history, it is not a surprise for you to adopt such a measure in order to steer our behavior."
He frowned even further. Even though religious Hexers were insanely stupid about their beliefs, they weren't incompetent!
A Penitent Sister like Abigail may be a fanatic, but she was also a highly-competent naval officer! Otherwise, she wouldn't have been promoted to her rank in the first place.
Since the commodore saw through his scheme, Ves did not deny it any further.
"If you understand my perspective, you shouldn't object to it." He told her. "So far, the only reason why you Penitent Sisters abide by your oaths is because of your self-imposed rules. The fact of the matter is that the power of your fleet is still capable of wiping out my own fleet. That much combat power in the hands of exiled Hexers looking for redemption is making me very uncomfortable. Since the Superior Mother appeals so much to you, then why shouldn't I use it as a carrot for your good behavior?"
The commodore squirmed on her feet. Much of her usual self-righteousness and arrogance had disappeared. What was left was a middle-aged Hexer who looked conflicted.
"Mr. Larkinson.." She began. "666 Penitent Sisters were part of the ritual where.. where you summoned the Superior Mother. Though none of us are sure what took place that day, the effect it had on us is.. indescribable. Our faith and our convocation have all been shaken by the descent of the Superior Mother. Afterwards, we have started to question and rethink many of our old beliefs. This process is still ongoing, and it would help if we have more access to the Superior Mother. Juliet Stameros already attempted to fabricate a copy of the statue, but hers simply doesn't convey the majesty of your lightning-struck creation."
Ves couldn't help but smirk when he heard that. "Of course not. Only I can channel the Superior Mother!"
It amused him quite a bit that he supposedly enjoyed the blessing of a Hexer goddess while the ultrreligious Penitent Sisters were damned!
Calabast noticed his change and coughed. "Ves, be serious. This isn't the time for you to gloat. As much as the Penitent Sisters deserve to be punished, they also deserve a shot at redemption. True redemption. If we can deradicalize these Hexers, we can nip one of your fears in the bud and transform the Penitent Sisters into a dependable ally."
She had a good point. Another factor was that he designed the Superior Mother to convert conservative, man-hating Hexers in the first place. Letting his mother work her wiles on these former cultists was a good way to test whether she had what it took to transform the entire Hegemony!
"I'm open to the suggestion." He eventually said. "It won't take much effort for me to fabricate some human-sized totems, but they won't be able to channel the Superior Mother as well as my full-sized statue."
He didn't want to make the totems too big because he deliberately wanted to weaken their glows. Spreading out too many strong totems would only devalue his main relic!
Calabast looked thoughtful. "I'm sure we can come to an arrangement to ensure the good behavior of the Penitent Sisters. If you put me in charge of the totems, I'll link them to a new reward and punishment that will encourage the Sisters to remain on their best behavior."
"That sounds fine."
Hopefully, the Penitent Sisters would mellow out as a result of these measures. Perhaps he should also remind them that the likeness of the Superior Mother happened to resemble his mother!
2130 Jovy Armalon
After submitting the initial proposal for the new Estrella Klavier-class factory ship, the shipyard sent back their revision for Ves to review.
The Hexers initially misunderstood the addition of the large and prominent cat-shaped prow. Ves had to clarify that he intended to build it himself.
A lot of other issues had emerged, forcing Ves and Gloriana to either accept the suggestions from the ship designers or come up with their own solutions.
This back-and-forth took place over several days. With no mech design project on the horizon, Ves and Gloriana directly conferred with the ship designers in order to refine the final factory ship design.
Even though their professions were different, they still shared much in common. This allowed them to exchange ideas very quickly as they already established a mutual understanding.
When they finalized the configuration of the Estrella Klavier-class, the choices had been locked in. At this point, the shipyard immediately began constructing the ship, and any changes to the design would disrupt all of the ongoing planning and activity.
"Well, that's it, I guess." He told Gloriana as he sat alongside her on their bed.
A flowery scent emanated from her body. Ves closed his eyes and enjoyed her lovely smell.
She smiled and giggled at him. "Oh, Ves. Isn't yesterday enough?"
"You know me. I'm always filled with energy."
"I suppose I can indulge you once again."
Ves reached towards his girlfriend and bent her body over the bed.
Ever since they created the Little Angel, Gloriana had entered a fantastic mood. Ves discovered to his joy that she was very open to allowing him to 'discharge his energy' at night!
There was no telling when she would close her port to him again. Ves made sure to take advantage of her receptive state while he still could!
Fortunately, Gloriana had already dismissed the guards from their bedroom that night.
The only ones who were left inside were their cats. Lucky and Clixie huddled together on a desk as they watched their human owners become more intimate with each other.
"Miaow?"
"Meow."
"Miaow miaow."
"Meow!"
The next morning, they woke up content and prepared to go to work. Gloriana wanted to study the Little Angel as much as possible before DIVA finally took it away. Their transportation convoy was already only several days away from arriving at Cinach.
Meanwhile, Ves wanted to ready a portion of the Larkinson Fleet to depart. Though he hadn't selected a mission as of yet, he already had his eye on a couple of them in the Rim Exchange during his earlier visits.
The only troublesome aspect about their current plan was that both Ves and Gloriana wouldn't be seeing each other for a couple of months.
This meant that they wouldn't be able to make a lot of progress on designing the eight mechs they promised to DIVA in exchange for their factory ship!
"It's fine." He told her. "This excursion will only take a few months to half a year. I need this, not just for the merits, but also forge my combat personnel into a cohesive, battle-tested group."
"I know, Ves. It's just that we only have three years to fulfill our promise. I'm thinking of accompanying you. Forget about starting any solo projects. The Komodo War is too important! It's better to hand in our mech designs early rather than later!"
He reacted with alarm! "Gloriana! Entering the Nyxian Gap is not a picnic! We will definitely encounter a lot of threats. Your Glory Battalion will go crazy if you intend to go through this reckless plan!"
"Then how will we be able make any progress?" She questioned.
"I'll remain in contact for at least a couple of months. The outer regions of the Nyxian Gaps aren't as warped as the core regions. It will still be possible to maintain contact with each other through the galactic net. It's only when my ship goes deeper or enters a special zone where the connection becomes garbled."
In the end, they had to make do with this outcome. Gloriana did not have many reasons to expose herself to so many risks, unlike Ves.
If he didn't satisfy his exploration cravings, he would always feel restless. He was simply wired differently from Gloriana.
To him, the Nyxian Gap wasn't an endless abyss that hid unimaginable terrors.
To him, the Nyxian Gap was a region filled with secrets and sources of inspiration!
As a creative-minded mech designer, Ves fed off his novel experiences and encounters. The more exciting his adventure, the greater his gains!
Almost all of his mech designs to date reflected his actual experiences. He designed mechs like the Doom Guard to address shortcomings that he personally suffered from. If he never encountered so many pirate attacks, he would have never come up with the idea of designing a striker mech that was expressly designed to deter massed attackers!
As his girlfriend, Gloriana already knew about this part of him. Though she feared for his life, she was also confident he would prevail.
Her unreserved support for him had always been one of her better parts. Trust in each other was the foundation of their relationship, and both of them felt they could let down their guard in each other's presence.
"Are you also trying to find.. your parents?" She carefully asked.
He shook his head. "They're in hiding for a reason. If I can track them down, then something has gone very wrong. I'm pretty certain that they are residing a lot deeper in the Nyxian Gap than I plan to travel."
"Oh. Well, at least your mother is with us in the form of the Superior Mother, hihi!"
His smile was distinctly less enthusiastic than hers. "Yes.. you're right."
Just as they were about to set off, his comm released a distinct tone.
His eyes widened. He had programmed various alarms in his comm. He had tied them to various triggers that watched out for various events.
Right now, he immediately recognized the specific tone. It was one of the ones he wanted to hear the least!
"What's wrong, Ves?" His girlfriend asked with concern.
"My greatest fear. Master Willix."
Her mood immediately lifted. "Are you sure?!"
"The Ubiquitous Force has just portal-jumped into this star system! The news is already spreading in the local news!"
"That's great!" She celebrated. "I would love to show off our Little Angel to her! I've made so many improvements. Hopefully, she'll be impressed!"
He was anything but happy. Even as Gavin reached his side and delivered an official notification from the MTA, his face had already turned glum.
A part of him hoped that a different MTA Master visited this time. Surely Master Willix had to attend to her own projects, right? There was no way she could take so unanticipated breaks from her duty!
Sadly, the notification he received had been signed personally by Master Willix. His heart dropped like a rock when he read it. It specified Ves and Gloriana by name, so they were both required to attend to her once she arrived!
His hand suddenly reached for his suit pocket. His Synthra Umbra pouches containing his gems and, more crucially, the high-grade life-prolonging treatment serum might get sniffed out if he came too close to a Master Mech Designer!
"I need to make some preparations!" Ves flung the data pad back at Gavin, who didn't possess the reflexes to catch the projectile. "Benny, make sure to call up the Avatars and form a greeting party."
In the next hour, he began to move various items to the Scarlet Rose's vault. Though Ves was reasonably sure that the Ubiquitous Force wouldn't bother to scan his base and everything he possessed, it was better to be safe than sorry.
Lucky's gems, the serum, the Ancient Sarcophagus and so on had all been transferred to the ship before Ves ordered her to scram!
"Take a vacation and don't come back until the Ubiquitous Force has left!"
With the mobile supply frigate departing from the surface of Cinach VI with remarkable haste, Ves wrung his hands as Lucky floated alongside his head.
"Meow."
"There shouldn't have been any leaks on my side! My virtual security experts along with Calabast should have constantly upgraded our security suites and other measures! With Goldie, none of our Larkinsons should have spilled the beans either!"
"Meow meow."
"Yeah, I suppose that someone could have acted carelessly. I don't believe that has happened, though! The much more likely outcome is that the leak originated from DIVA!"
If he was in the MTA's shoes, he would definitely keep tabs on the Hegemony's spy agencies! Everything that the spooks found out, the MTA would know as well. This was a good way to ensure that a state wouldn't be breaking any taboos. If there was any government institution that had the highest chance of breaking the Big Two's most important laws, it was always the spies!
Even as he grumbled at DIVA, he made sure to freshen himself up and prepare for his umpteenth meeting with an eminent Master from the MTA. He told Lucky to take Clixie on a vacation and entrusted the Larkinson Mandate to Raymond Billingsley-Larkinson.
Only then did he stride towards the landing zone where the Ubiquitous Force was about to descend.
A company of Avatar mechs stood straight in two columns on two sides. The gleaming gold-coated Bright Warriors loomed tall over everyone. Their third eyes glowed bright white, signifying that every Larkinson mech pilot inside had established a firm bond with their own mechs!
The sight along with the soothing warmth of the Golden Cat's glow lifted his spirits and firmed up his confidence.
No matter what, Master Willix hadn't done anything detrimental to him in her previous visits. As long as he remained on guard and kept his lies straight, the MTA shouldn't have any reason to nab him and drag him back to Centerpoint!
The Ubiquitous Force cut through the atmosphere as if gravity and aerodynamics were merely toys to be ignored on a whim. The armed frigate practically dropped down to ground level as if she was about to crash against the ground, yet the moment she was about to make impact, she abruptly stalled her descent and landed on the surface as light as a feather!
Both Ves and Gloriana knew how impressive it was for a starship, even a modestly-sized frigate, to accomplish such a feat! To be able to negate so much momentum in such a short time was something only high technology was capable of! This single warship was probably powerful enough to wipe out every single mech in the Cinach System!
When the frigate's side hatch slid open, a number of figures floated through. Master Willix and a couple of dozen mechers wearing similar uniforms lowered themselves until they hovered right above the ground.
"Mr. Larkinson. Miss Wodin. We meet again." The great Master greeted the pair with a polite smile.
"It is an honor to receive you again, Master Willix!" Gloriana enthusiastically stated and bowed.
Ves couldn't remain silent. "We are very grateful for our work to be recognized again."
There was something different about Master Willix this time, or to be more exact, with one of the people accompanying her. A younger figure floating behind the Master's shoulder stared at Ves and Gloriana with an intense expression.
Willix noticed the stares. She gestured at the young man. "Ah, let me introduce you to one of our young talents. Jovy Armalon is one of our most notable Journeymen at Halcyon Citadel. Though you are likely not familiar with his work, he has long been clamoring to meet you two in person."
A competitive glint sparkled in his eyes as Jovy floated forward and offered his hand. "Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Larkinson."
Though Ves felt pressured by this unfamiliar Journeyman, he had faced more formidable opponents. He easily kept his cool and simply shook the other Journeyman's hand as if he was a normal person.
"Welcome to the Larkinson Clan." He spoke.
Jovy then proceeded to turn to Gloriana and shook her hand as well. "You are very fortunate to have found a partner like Mr. Larkinson."
"I know." She smiled in restrained fashion. Obviously, she was a lot more happy about it than she showed right now! "Our synergy has constantly produced marvelous results. The mech that I'm about to show you is just one of the many fantastic products borne out of our collaboration!"
"I have nothing but respect for your work." The mecher Journeyman replied in a cordial fashion. "Even at Halcyon Citadel, many of my colleagues have expressed envy at your accomplishments!"
2131 Touring the Star Cluster
Once Master Willix and Jovy Armalon greeted their hosts, the procession began to move towards the secure workshop where the purpose of their visit rested.
Neither Master Willix reacted to the greeting party of Bright Warriors standing stoically on both sides.
Despite the huge and menacing weapons held by the mechs, none of the mechers showed any concern.
The Larkinson Clan would be crazy to lay a hand on the envoys of the MTA. Even if the Bright Warriors went out of control and attacked them out of the blue, their myriad of defenses could easily handle such attacks!
Rather, the various mech designers, engineers and other technical experts all reacted with varying degrees of shock, fascination or interest at the glows impacting their minds.
Despite walking in the middle of an entire company of Bright Warriors, none of the elite internal personnel of the MTA exhibited too many changes in their demeanor.
All of them were quite mentally resilient! Master Willix certainly hadn't brought anyone weak!
Most notably, Jovy Armalon observed the resplendent Bright Warrior with great interest! His glowing yellow eyes raked over the entire lengths of the four different configurations of the modular mech platforms as if he encountered a fascinating new toy!
"How intriguing." The young man with his neat, silver hair didn't even sway in the wind. "It is impressive how much you have accomplished with so little. I can hardly notice any flaws."
Gloriana beamed at that. "Though we had some help, it was quite a challenge to design this mech in the span of a couple months. The Bright Warrior design is just the precursor to our latest design."
"Mhmm." Jovy momentarily closed his glowing eyes. "So this is Mr. Larkinson's renowned 'glow'. Interesting. There are no components in the Bright Warrior design that can induce this effect. How can the Bright Warrior accomplish this feat?"
"What you're feeling comes from our proto-god, silly!" Gloriana replied as if it was no big deal. "Our Larkinson Clan is watched over by the Golden Cat. As long as you bear no ill will towards us and the clan, the Golden Cat will always welcome your presence!"
The mecher raised his eyebrow and turned to Ves, who nodded as naturally as possible.
By now, he had already worn his crazy hat!
"My girlfriend is correct. The Bright Warrior design is blessed by a proto-god that we have created for the purpose of protecting the Larkinson Clan. In a short moment, we will introduce you to another proto-god that we have summoned from the beyond. She is quite formidable, so be prepared."
"I cannot wait." Jovy smiled, though his expression turned a little strained.
Ves figured that Jovy had likely studied his record and had already heard from Master Willix about what the MTA knew about his design philosophy.
However, receiving second-hand knowledge about Ves' whacky design philosophy was different from hearing it direct from the source!
Jovy peered at Ves intensely as if trying to figure out whether he actually believed in the nonsense he just spouted!
Heh. Ves did not take any offense at Jovy's rude stare. With his current spiritual mask, he could match Gloriana in terms of craziness right now. There was no chink in his armor for Jovy and Master Willx to exploit!
Even so, Ves did not appreciate being scanned by Jovy's ocular implants. Their tell-tale glows made it very clear that the mecher sported an upgraded pair of eyes.
On account of Jovy's affiliation, Ves could only bear with the indignity without any word of complaint. He mentally patted himself on his back for smuggling all of his 'contraband' on the Scarlet Rose before sending the ship off. Who knew what Jovy would pick up if he still carried his gems and serum.
In fact, Ves wasn't even sure his pair of Synthra Umbra underwear was strong enough to block Jovy's powerful scanning methods!
Eventually, the staring had gotten so bad that Master Willix couldn't help but make a remark.
"Mr. Armalon, what did we tell you about your conduct?"
"The indigenous—"
"—are humans as well." Willix cut him off. "You have spent too much time in the confines of the MTA. If you have traveled farther and wider, you would have comported yourself in a different manner."
"My apologies, Master." Jovy sincerely bent. "I will endeavor to abide by your lesson."
As the group continued to walk, the mood between them remained cordial. Jovy stopped staring at Ves and instead began to look around the base. He stared curiously at the LMC mechs piloted by the Avatars, Sentinels and other forces and began to ask small questions about their designs.
Ves did not mind answering them. When he heard those questions, he quickly learned that Jovy was frighteningly intelligent. There was no doubt that he possessed a formidable implant! The amount of knowledge he carried rivaled that Ves. In fact, in many areas, the young MTA talent brought up knowledge that sounded completely unfamiliar!
Even so, both of them discovered that in terms of knowledge base, they both had their own strengths.
Jovy possessed a lot of knowledge about high technology and incredibly advanced applications, but he spread his attention too wide. His grasp on all of those fields weren't entirely solid, though he still mastered the basics to an excellent degree.
In contrast, Ves may not know or possess a deep understanding of exotic and powerful fields, but his Senior-level Skills imparted him with a rock-solid foundation!
This gave the both of them a good measure of respect towards each other. Ves had been afraid that the Journeyman that Master Willix brought along would be some snobbish elitist who wanted to rub his superiority in the faces of the so-called 'indigious people'.
While Gloriana continued to regale Master Willix with her exploits, the two male mech designers continued to probe each other.
In truth, Jovy was not that bad. He came across as a sheltered mech designer who spent most of his time in the familiar confines of his lab or the resplendent halls of the MTA.
At the very least, once Ves displayed his competence, Jovy no longer looked down on him as much!
"So where do you come from?" Ves casually asked.
"I'm a native of the Winged Serenade Star Sector. I was born at the sector headquarters and grew up there. After I have advanced to Journeyman, my parents encouraged me to go on a journey and experience the design and use of mechs in different star sectors."
That was hardly odd, especially for highly-promising mech designers like Jovie. He was just as old as Ves and Gloriana and had already proven that he was a solid Journeyman. This man's mech designs must certainly be formidable!
Usually, Journeymen traveled at least some point in their lives. It was just that few of them had the luxury to cross through multiple star sectors like Jovy. Either they were bound by existing commitments, or their company needed their presence too much for them to tour the galaxy without worry.
That was not a problem for the mech designers in the employ of the MTA. The powerful organization cultivated its own mech designers, and as the most formidable authority of the mech industry, the Association was well aware what Journeymen had to go through in order to unlock their full potential!
Up until now, Jovy had only visited a few star sectors, each time staying for a couple of months before moving on. Right now, he had just arrived at the Komodo Star Sector and coincidentally caught Master Willix' attention as she assembled a team to visit the Cinach System once again.
"What star sector interests you the most so far?" Ves curiously asked.
"Hmmm.." Jovy paused. "I would say the Vicious Mountain Star Sector has made the strongest impression on me. The way the Garlen Empire and the surrounding states have descended to.. barbarism.. is intriguing from a sociological standpoint. In practically every other part of human space, good leadership is often equated to intelligence and wisdom. Not so in Vicious Mountain. There, only a strong leader is qualified to lead the people, and I'm not talking about political strength."
"Yeah, Vicious Mountain is weird like that. We have heard plenty of stories here. It is rather to think that expert pilots and ace pilots of all people are put into a position of real power and leadership over a state!"
Jovy truly disliked what he had seen in that star sector! "It's a step backwards in our perspective. The progression of human civilization can be characterized as a gradual upwards progression from barbarism to civilization. Brute force can only strengthen you so much. It is not the caveman who wields the club, but the caveman who develops the bow and arrow that will reign supreme! In this advanced stage of the human race's history, I thought it was already very clear that the best thinkers of the people should be in charge. Putting the strongest brutes on the throne is a grossly-outdated tradition that should have never been brought back from the dead!"
The mecher couldn't contain himself and continued to express his contempt of Vicious Mountain. Though Ves did not necessarily disagree with the elite Journeyman's opinion, he wouldn't have put it in such an undiplomatic fashion.
If Jovy spoke like that in Vicious Mountain, then some local wouldn't hesitate to punch him in the face!
Ves coughed. "Vicious Mountain Star Sector indeed follows a different tradition. I think you MTA love seeing that, right?"
"At the very least, Vicious Mountain serves as a direct example where their path leads. The endless wars and competition for glory has left the star sector in a perpetually-unstable state."
As they talked, they soon reached the secure workshop. Once they passed through the entrance, the glow of the Superior Mother began to impact the MTA delegation.
The statue of the Superior Mother entered their sight first. The tall, marble-like statue possessed an indescribable allure to the other-wise stoic MTA specialists.
For some reason, ever since it had been struck by lightning, the statue acquired a mysterious charm. Though Ves didn't think much of it, the fact that the elite MTA envoys all halted in their tracks was rather alarming!
"So this is the statue that has made such a stir in the local news." Master Willix commented with interest. "It bears your glow, yet it is not a mech."
Ves smiled. He was already prepared for this question.
"How do you think our proto-gods are born? They are fueled by worship! The Superior Mother is my greatest divinity to date! With the confluence of 6 proto-gods, 66 formidable Swordmaidens, 666 Penitent Sisters, 6,666 coffins, 66,666 local men and 666,666 remains of sandmen, I have managed to bring the ultimate Hexer deity to life!"
Jovy directed an incredibly odd look at Ves. Before, they talked normally, not revealing much that was out of the ordinary.
For Ves to suddenly turn into a raving fanatic was too much of a shock to the inexperienced Journeyman!
Master Willix looked unfazed but put a hand on Jovy's shoulder. The younger mech designer's expression quickly schooled back to normal.
Obviously, the two had silently communicated with each other through their implants. Whatever the Master said, Jovy no longer looked like he wanted to open his mouth and challenge the absurdities he heard.
Soon enough, the delegation moved on and finally reached the mech that they had been waiting for. The Little Angel finally graced their sight.
A number of envoys including Jovy sighed and gazed upon the masterwork mech with admiration.
"We can already draft the masterwork certificates." Jovy said as he meticulously studied the superb craftsmanship of the Blessed Squire copy. "There is no doubt that it's a masterwork!"
If Jovy was already this bad, then Master Willix and the women in her entourage were worse!
"This mech… this mech is extraordinary!"
It didn't take long for Master Willix to leave the group and ascend into the air in order to study the mech up close!
Even her formidable self-control had lost against her urge to study the Little Angel!
2132 Quick Deal
Moira Willix was a rational mech designer.
Moira Willix was a Master Mech Designer.
Moira Willix was a senior figure in the MTA.
Yet amidst all of these extraordinary identities, she was also a woman!
Right now, Master Willix hardly exhibited the reserve and majesty of an individual of her high stature. Instead, as soon as she caught a good glimpse of the Little Angel, she seemingly devolved into a drooling fangirl who just came face to face with her idol!
The other women of the delegation weren't much better off! Since their superior already raced towards the compelling masterwork mech, they also decided to zip forward!
While the men such as Jovy and the rest weren't as affected, a masterwork mech was still a masterwork mech.
Even the mechers rarely encountered them on a frequent basis!
Jovy shook as if he tried to maintain at least some grasp of his decorum. "I thought that the stories regarding your masterwork mechs were overblown, Mr. Larkinson. It seems those stories are mistaken. This mech's astonishing glow is the least remarkable about this mech. What exquisite craftsmanship!"
He finally couldn't take it any longer. He shrugged off Ves and joined his compatriots in studying the mech from all sides.
It was as if a swarm of flies had suddenly appeared around the Little Angel. The sight was absurd to Ves because all of those 'flies' actually represented the current and future elite of the MTA!
None of their identities were average. As part of the core personnel of the MTA, Master Willix, Jovy and the rest were exposed to incredibly potent first-class multipurpose mechs on a daily basis.
Yet right now, a copy of a rather unexceptional second-class mech had attracted their complete attention!
"Hihi, do you see, Ves? Even the MTA adores my baby!"
Though Gloriana was just as obsessed about her masterwork mech as Master Willix if not more, she already had her fill. After a week of studying her best creation from top to bottom, she no longer felt the urge to stay with her mech every second of the day.
The same did not apply to those who encountered the Little Angel for the first time. Mech designers and technical specialists all possessed at least some cognition on the extraordinary nature of masterworks, and no one knew more about them than the MTA!
As Ves observed Master Willix and the others going crazy, he understood that the Little Angel was considerably more impressive to them than the Quint!
He suspected that it wasn't just the fact that the Little Angel was a more powerful mech that intrigued these great figures.
Instead, from a craftsmanship viewpoint, the Little Angel was considerably more refined. Even though it needed a gem to push it over the masterwork threshold, much of its quality had already been elevated by Gloriana when she entered into her inspired state.
This was still the main source of the Little Angel's strength! Even without the Mother's Love gem, the mech would have still been able to impress the likes of Seniors and Masters for their excellent construction and near-perfect implementation.
All of them were essentially attracted by Gloriana's excellent results, and the woman responsible was eating it all up. The grin on her face only exposed a hint of her pride and satisfaction!
"Even the MTA knows how to appreciate my blessed work!" She boasted.
"That they do."
For some time, the MTA dropped every other matter in order to indulge in their need to study every single exceptional quality about the Little Angel.
Though the mech's maternal glow attracted a lot of fascination from those who never came in touch with glows before, Master Willix did not express that much interest in it this time. She hardly ever called up Ves to ask any questions about his specialty.
It would have been pointless anyway. The few times she asked about the Superior Mother, Ves easily spun some nonsense about proto-gods and divinities.
Fortunately, these questions came few and far in between, and the Master Mech Designer eventually waved Ves away entirely.
This time, the Master was much more interested about the many spontaneous solutions that Gloriana came up with when she fabricated the mech.
For her part, Gloriana ecstatically explained her thoughts and described her methods as best as possible. She truly felt honored that a Master was interested in her process. The attention of such a great authority figure validated her self esteem!
Ves restrained his urge to palm his face. She was revealing too much knowledge! Much of the insights she spouted directly related to her trade secrets.
Even though it was difficult for someone with a different mindset to replicate her design philosophy, Master Willix had already shown off the capability to simulate Gloriana's specialty to a frightening degree. There was no reason to make it worse!
However, Ves knew that he had no way of convincing Gloriana to shut up. She chased after excellence, and wanted to be acknowledged for her efforts.
Before, when she lived in the Hegemony, she could show off all of her efforts to her fellow classmates, friends and colleagues. She could invite dozens, if not hundreds of mech designers at her level to exhibit her work.
That wasn't possible anymore!
Ever since she hooked up with Ves, she no longer interacted with any peer in person except for Ves. Sure, she still maintained contact with her old friends on Commbook, but she spent increasingly less time there. The years without personal contact had cooled her relations with her friends and former classmates.
Therefore, she keenly pounced on the opportunity to interact with other equal or superior mech designers. Not everyone enjoyed the privilege to showcase their work to one of the best Masters around!
For her part, Master Willix reciprocated Gloriana's openness by giving out insights in return. At her level, Willix easily pointed out shortcomings and other issues of concern. She even illuminated a path to solving them, thereby saving the younger mech designer considerable effort!
Ves wondered if Master Willix would be able to guide his progression as well if he spilled some of his beans.
He immediately crossed this possibility off his mind. His design philosophy belonged to him and him alone! There was no way he was going to let the MTA get its grubby hands on his core secrets just because he wanted some tutoring from a Master!
His specialization was different from that of Gloriana. Hers was in a much more familiar territory to the MTA. No matter what, the Association accumulated an immense understanding of all of the technical aspects of mechs.
As for their research on spirituality, Ves did not know how much the MTA actually understood about it. Whatever the case, spirituality or 'psionic power' was not common knowledge.
At the very least, Ves had not encountered a mecher who displayed any exceptional prowess in terms of spirituality!
Therefore, he was pretty certain that he held the upper hand in this regard. He would be much less reluctant to hang on to his secrets if the MTA essentially already made a lot of strides in this field.
Several hours passed by. As the Little Angel still worked its magic on Master Willix, Ves eventually left the workshop.
His presence wasn't needed anymore. This suited him fine, as Ves did not wish to interact with the MTA delegation at all to begin with. As far as he was concerned, Gloriana could keep them company for as long as she wanted!
He met up with his assistant Gavin at his office. He sat down behind his desk and pressed his head against his hand.
"The Ubiquitous Force and Master Willix arrived at Cinach once again." He noted. "I'm sure that the entire mech industry is abuzz again. How much do the public know?"
"Remarkably little, boss. The Blessed Squire design is still under wraps and whatever you cooked up in that isolated workshop is still a mystery. It's just…"
"The fact that Master Willix visited me for the third time in just a year is indicative that we have accomplished something remarkable again." Ves ruefully smiled.
The movements of the MTA acted like a giant signal flare over Ves and Gloriana. There was no way to pretend that nothing had happened in the Larkinson Clan!
Gavin attempted to placate him. "It's not that bad, boss. The public is only aware that something is up. The previous two visits related to the emergence of a masterwork and a mech with a very menacing glow. No one knows which of the two has taken place again. Perhaps something else has led to this response."
The worst-case scenario hadn't taken place. The Blessed Squire design still remained confidential, and the MTA at least respected that. This was hardly unusual. I was well-known that even if the MTA wanted to take a peek at classific design projects, none of their personnel leaked out the juicy details.
How could states, companies and mech designers still trust the MTA when it carelessly exposed strategic information that was critical to their power plays?
Several days went by. Though Ves still acted as if he was walking on coals, his worries eventually subsided a bit. Even with the Ubiquitous Force and the MTA delegation in his base, the preparations to depart still proceeded on schedule.
Ves stopped visiting the secure workshop, and Master Willix didn't demand his presence. He thought that the MTA delegation would spend the rest of the week drooling over the Little Angel before departing.
However, two developments took place that forced him to meet with the MTA envoys again.
First was the matter of ownership. It turned out that the MTA, or more precisely, wanted the Little Angel.
When Ves entered the secure workshop, he surprisingly noticed that Calabast had come as well.
"I'm negotiating on behalf of DIVA." His strategic partner explained to him. "Technically, the Little Angel belongs to the agency. However, any deal will still involve you and Gloriana. As the principal creators of the masterwork mech, the MTA still intends to reward the two of you even if you have already passed over the mech."
Ves expected the negotiations to proceed in a contentious fashion. After all, the Little Angel was not only a masterwork mech, but also possessed a powerful glow that had a very strong on Hexers. It was an incredibly powerful influencing tool! DIVA could sway all manner of powerful Hexers by taking advantage of the Little Angel's exceptional properties.
However, the talks weren't as tense as he predicted.
"The MTA wants this mech, and we do not take no for an answer." Master Willix plainly insisted.
Though she didn't raise her voice or revealed any fangs, her words already conveyed the dominance of the MTA.
There was no way that DIVA or the Hexadric Hegemony could refuse her offer!
Yet Calabast maintained her composure in front of the Master. "You desire the Little Angel. DIVA is not unwilling to transfer it to the MTA, but it still has a use for the mech. You do not need the Little Angel urgently, do you? How about you allow the Hegemony to possess the masterwork mech for a year before handing it over to your Association?"
That was a very clever suggestion. Master Willix did not delay in her response. "Acceptable. In one standard year, DIVA or anyone who possesses the Little Angel must surrender the masterwork mech to us or face the consequences."
Both of them shook their hands. Ves widened his eyes throughout the brief exchange. That was fast!
Obviously, Calabast recognized that while Master Willix or the MTA badly wanted the Little Angel for some reason, it didn't matter if they had to wait a bit. As long as DIVA was able to utilize the Little Angel's exceptional allure towards women and Hexers for a year, that was already enough!
Perhaps the most pleasant surprise was that the MTA promised to award Ves and Gloriana with 500,000 MTA merits each!
Since the MTA received the masterwork in the end, Master Willix was not shy about apportioning the original reward for such a submission to the mech designers responsible for creating the Little Angel.
Ves already earned over 1 million MTA merits over the span of a single year! The same applied to Gloriana. Both of them had surpassed countless Journeymen in that regard.
Just as Ves thought that he could go on his way, Jovy Armalon suddenly appeared in front of his face!
"Mr. Larkinson." Jovy smiled as his glowing yellow eyes peered into his own. "I've missed your company for a few days. After studying your handiwork in extensive detail, I have become more and more fascinated by your results."
"Thank you." Ves said.
"I want to compare my design ability against yours. Would you be interested in competing against me in a design duel?"
What? A design duel? Ves looked at Jovy with an odd expression.
Chapter 2133: Darkbreak Module
Jovy Armalon challenged Ves to a design duel out of the blue.
The silver-haired Journeyman hadn't made any noise since he arrived with Master Willix. Yet all of a sudden, he wanted to compare against Ves in design ability!
The request came so sudden that Ves momentarily paused.
"Why?" He asked in confusion.
"Because I'm impressed with your work!" He shouted with energy! "Among second-class mechs, I have never witnessed a mech like the Little Angel! Certainly, I would never be able to design a mech that comes close to what it offers, and that is not something I see every day."
"That's not a reason to challenge me. You're an MTA mech designer. I'm just a local mech designer. Our titles may be the same, but our realms are worlds apart."
This wasn't the first time Jovy challenged an indigenous mech designer. Many of them quaked with fear at the thought of challenging someone who had been nurtured by the MTA. Even Seniors with decades of seniority doubted whether they could measure up against a mech designer who had been nurtured by the holy land of mechs!
Jovy smiled and tried to adopt a friendlier posture. "Our specialties and our mechs are vastly different. While it is true that you won't be able to match me when it comes to designing first-class mechs, the same does not necessarily apply when we fight on your terms. I have toured several star sectors already and met with all manner of mech designers, from eager Apprentices to stately Masters. When it comes to lesser mechs, I believe there is a lot of credence in the rumor that you are one of the best Journeymen in the star cluster. You are worthy to battle me in the design arena."
He made it sound as if Ves should feel privileged to lock horns with someone as his august self!
Though Ves was very confident in his design ability, to say that he was truly one of the best Journeymen was a stretch. In terms of foundational Skills, he knew he already exceeded the ordinary levels of his peers.
However, when it came to his specialization, he hadn't actually made that much progress. As powerful as it was, Ves had mostly been taking advantage of external design spirits.
When it came to empowering his mechs by relying on his own, he still had much to go! Until he made some breakthroughs in this area, he did not dare to claim that he ranked among the top of Journeymen.
Perhaps he truly had the capital to make such a statement if he limited his comparison to his generation, but Ves knew that there were lots of old dogs who had developed all kinds of confounding abilities!
Ves crossed his arms. "Mr. Armalon, your flattery is just talk. How can those rumors be true? The galaxy is vast and holds all manner of absurd mech designers. Even in this small star sector, I still do not dare to claim to be the best when there are hundreds, if not thousands of mech designers who have been personally nurtured by the esteemed Masters of the Friday Coalition and the Hexadric Hegemony. If you seek an actual challenge, you should go to them instead!"
"Oh, I plan to do so, but right now I'm at your doorstep. I have heard that you take a lot of pride in your work. I also heard you like to challenge yourself. You're not the first mech designer who thinks someone from the MTA like myself can't be overcome, but don't sell yourself short. I have dueled many local mech designers and they have bested me numerous times when I play their own game. I'm more than willing for you to choose the terms of the duel as long as they are fair. What do you say? Are you willing to defend your pride?"
Though Ves admittedly felt riled up as soon as his pride was on the line, he quickly reminded himself of his many responsibilities.
He was no longer a young and eager Apprentice eager to make himself stand out from the mech industry. He had already achieved this objective.
"I have already proven myself as a mech designer. My mech company sells more than 50,000 Doom Guards per month, and I have already sold over 2 million Desolate Soldiers. I am already past the stage where I need to make a name for myself by winning duels. Instead of wasting time, I can spend my time on preparing for my upcoming expedition to the Nyxian Gap. Now that is a real challenge. Do you dare to come with me to the Nyxian Gap and fight all manner of pirates while evading hazardous zones?"
Jovy blinked at that. Even he heard about the Nyxian Gap and how it swallowed many of his colleagues. Even if they traveled on the best ships they could access and fielded a large number of formidable first-class multipurpose mechs, as long as they traveled deep enough, they never appeared again!
This fact frightened the Big Two to no end! If not for the remoteness of the Nyxian Gap, the MTA and the CFA would have invested serious resources to decipher and dismantle the hazards of this warped region of space!
"If pride is not enough, what about money?" Jovy offered. "Let's make a bet. If you win, I'll transfer 1,000 MTA credits!"
"And what if I lose?"
"You don't have to pay me anything! It won't cost you anything if you lose, but if you happen to win, you can obtain a considerable amount of money for someone of your stature."
Ves rapidly performed some mental calculations. A single MTA credit was almost equivalent to the value of a Blessed Squire. A thousand MTA credits used to be an unimaginably huge amount of money to him, but he was not the little Novice and Apprentice of before.
With his LMC spreading its reach over half the star sector, earning a thousand MTA credits was simply a matter of selling enough profitable mechs!
That said, 1,000 MTA merits roughly amounted to 191 billion hex credits, which was around a sixth of the cost of his factory ship!
Whether he intended to spend the money on acquiring new combat carriers or ordering additional upgrades for his factory ship, Ves would not say no to earning this hefty sum!
However… Jovy was an internal mech designer of the MTA. This duel reeked of a trap. While it was true that Ves did not shy away from a challenge, the rewards had to be proportionate to the risks!
It didn't matter if Jovy dangled 1,000 MTA credits or 1 million MTA credits in front of his face. There was no way that this elite mech designer was that easy to beat!
Ves shook his head and turned around. "I'm a very busy mech designer. Credits don't interest me. If you offered me merits, then I might change my mind. If not, then I bid you a good day."
"Hey, wait a minute Larkinson! If 1,000 MTA credits is not enough, what about 2,000? No? 3,000! 4,000! 5,000!"
No matter how much Jovy raised the stakes, Ves remained unmoved.
"I'll give you half even if you lose! That way, you won't come away empty-handed regardless of the outcome!"
Though Ves slowed his steps, he continued to walk away, causing Jovy to become increasingly more distraught.
Hardly any mech designer refused when he issued his challenge. Even if the odds of winning were slim, the other mech designers were too awed by his identity to reject his request.
Even though everyone that Jovy dueled knew that he was using them as a whetstone to polish his design skills, they were eager to maintain good relations with the MTA. As long as they earned his respect, they always had the opportunity to become acquaintances and remain in contact!
Making such a connection was extremely valuable to these local mech designers!
The elite talent never met someone like Ves who apparently couldn't care less about his potential friendship.
Of course, much of that had to do with his determination to minimize his entanglement with the MTA. Why should he possibly pursue a friendship with someone who might as well be more discerning and obnoxious than Master Willix in the future?
Seeing that Ves remained unmoved even after Jovy offered a sum of money that would make any indigenous mech designer wild, he began to draw out something else from his formidable arsenal!
"What about a piece of tech? I can offer you an upgraded shield generator that is better than the ones you have! If you want knowledge, I can offer you a copy of my personal textbooks!"
Though an additional shield generator or an MTissued textbook wasn't as attractive to Ves as Jovy thought, the offers nonetheless headed in the right direction.
Ves halted his departure and turned around. "Do you have any tech that can allow me to maintain a stable connection to the galactic net while I'm inside the Nyxian Gap?"
"Uhm… I don't think so." Jovy suddenly halted. "I'm not authorized to put forth such a device. Master Willix, do we have this tech?"
The Master nodded. "The local branches of the MTA have developed a specialized quantum entanglement node that is able to resist the interference produced by the space warping of the Nyxian Gap. However, it is not omnipotent. It only ensures that you can maintain a stabler connection while you are in the periphery of the Gap. As for venturing deeper, the strengthened connection will rapidly diminish. It is better than a standard quantum entanglement node, but not by much."
Ves still looked very interested at this piece of tech! "If you put this specialized node up as a reward for my participation, I will accept your duel!"
"I cannot. It's not within my rights to release restricted tech to a local such as you." Jovy turned to Master Willix. "Unless…"
The Master furrowed her brow. This was a problematic demand. However, she possessed a considerable amount of authority and leeway within the local branch.
"I can lend out the Darkbreak module, which is what the specialized quantum entanglement node is called." She eventually decided. "Once Mr. Larkinson is done, he must return the Darkbreak module to our hands. This is the extent of what I can offer."
That was enough for Jovy! "There! Will you accept my duel now? If you win, you will get 5,000 MTA credits and the opportunity to borrow our Darkbreak module! If you lose, I'll give you half the credits no matter your performance."
Even Gloriana couldn't contain herself any longer. "You should accept, Ves!"
"I don't know…" Ves looked warily at Jovy. "It's all well and good to dangle the Darkbreak module in front of my face, but I want to borrow it regardless of the outcome of the duel. I'm not confident I can win against you! Those credits you offer as a consolation prize is not relevant to my upcoming expedition."
Jovy frowned again. "I want to fight you at your best. If you already stand to gain the most valuable reward when you lose, how can this duel be meaningful?"
They were stuck in a dilemma. It dawned on everyone that Ves was driving a hard bargain. He wanted to borrow the Darkbreak module regardless whether he won or lost. Jovy was reluctant to agree with this demand because he suspected that his dueling opponent would lack the motivation to muster up his full strength.
To be fair, Jovy was right to be concerned. Already, Ves was thinking of scamming this fellow by pretending to do his best. After all, there was hardly any reason for him to go all out when he already secured what he truly wanted!
The situation grew increasingly awkward. Even Master Willix began to display some irritation.
Ves was too obstinate! Hardly anyone dared to stymie someone from the MTA to the extent of extorting an exclusive piece of tech! Was he asking for more?
2134 Setting Terms
There were multiple reasons why Ves brazenly put up so much resistance to participating in a design duel.
First, he genuinely lacked the confidence to win against an MTA elite like Jovy.
Aside from the MTA mech designer's excellent upbringing and access to some of the best resources in human hands, Ves simply knew too little about his opponent!
The same did not apply to Jovy. The man not only accessed Ves' record, but also spent days on the Little Angel!
Though the fabrication of the masterwork mech was mostly Gloriana's work, Ves had been a lot more involved in its design. A mech designer as competent as Jovy should have been able to figure out most of Ves' strengths and weaknesses with that much examination!
Second, he genuinely thought it was a waste of time. Winning the Komodo War, designing more best-selling mechs and earning millions of MTA merits mattered more to him than defending his pride or comparing himself against a true peer in mech design.
The only reason he halted his steps in the first place was because Jovy and Master Willix finally added something attractive in the pot. Obtaining the so-called Darkbreak module, even temporarily, would definitely help him out in his upcoming mission!
However, this piece of tech came directly from the MTA, and Ves did not trust that any data sent through this module would remain secret.
Third, he respected the MTA's power, but not its friendship.
Almost every other mech designer in the galaxy viewed the MTA with rose-tinted glasses. It was hard not to. Not only did it single-handedly prop up the mech industry to the point that it had become the most flourishing sector in the galaxy, the MTA also offered many opportunities that weren't ordinarily available.
Without the MTA, the Age of Mechs would have never succeeded the Age of Conquest!
Without the MTA, trillions of mech designers would have never been able to compete in a much less regulated mech market!
Without the MTA, their profession would have never been as honored and lucrative as today!
While Ves acknowledged all of the good that the MTA had done, it still had a lot of skeletons in the closet. Ves feared that his own skeleton would be added to the Association's closet if he came too close!
All of these reasons meant that Ves didn't feel very enthused about accepting this challenge.
However, that did not mean he was opposed to it entirely. Now that the pot had been sweetened a bit, Ves wanted to test how hard he could drive this bargain.
He continued to stand still as he waited for Jovy and Master Willix to adjust the stakes again.
As soon as Master Willix intervened in Jovy's private challenge, Ves began to suspect that she may have a hand in it as well. Was she trying to induce him to design and build a mech in front of her eyes?
This caused him to grow a bit more vigilant. Ves was deeply afraid that Master Willix might glean some more clues if she observed him putting his full effort into making a competition mech!
On the other hand, if Master Willix encouraged Jovy to issue his challenge, then that meant that Ves could milk them even further. Even though he didn't want to show off his design methods to the MTA, he was still fairly confident that he would successfully be able to confound Master Willix!
As long as this premise held, he was not as opposed to accepting the duel. He just wanted to make the most out of his bargaining power and see if he could extract more concessions. If they wanted him to duel Jovy so badly, then they better bring out more from MTA's immense wealth!
Just as Jovy was about to open his mouth, Master Willix raised her hand and stepped forward. Her irritation had grown deeper.
"This is quite enough, Mr. Larkinson. If you win, you will keep the Darkbreak module. If you lose, you can only borrow it. This is the extent of what the stakes will be. Before you think that is not enough, let me inform you that the Darkbreak module can maintain a secure connection in other anomalous regions, not just the Nyxian Gap. While it is relatively rare to encounter this situation in the Komodo Star Sector, there are several ways to hinder the operation of quantum entanglement nodes. States and powerful organizations in the more prosperous parts of human space regularly make use of them to hinder their foes. The Darkbreak module can defeat these measures to an extent."
It sounded as if Master Willix knew exactly what Ves intended and plainly wanted to forestall his attempt! Ves tried his best not to show his displeasure.
"I will still get the credits as well, right?"
Master Willix didn't even deign to answer that question. 5,000 MTA credits was peanuts to her, but that did not mean that she was willing to throw more money at Ves in order to reward his scoundrel-like behavior!
A very powerful aura began to emanate from the Master. Ves, Jovy, Gloriana and the other MTA personnel abruptly felt a formidable pressure on their minds.
Ves looked incredibly serious as his exceptional spiritual perception saw more! The limped and hidden spirituality in the Master's mind had roused itself. Though she ordinarily suppressed it, now she was actively stimulating some of her formidable strength as a mech designer who realized her design philosophy!
Her strength dwarfed almost anything he had seen before! Perhaps not even Qilanxo could hold a candle against the might that this powerful Master ordinarily locked within her mind!
Then, the pressure disappeared. People sighed in relief as Master Willix returned to her normal demeanor as an approachable mech designer.
"Please set the terms of the design duel, Mr. Larkinson. Choose any time limit, mech class and mech type. No handicaps and no ridiculous demands. Let us keep the design duel fair but challenging for you both. This is not only a contest of skills, but also an opportunity to learn from each other."
"Uhm, okay. Let me think."
This time, Ves didn't dare to act insolent. Perhaps he misjudged how many antics Master Willix was willing to tolerate. He had been lulled by her friendly overtures and generous actions. This caused her to remind him of her immense power and authority!
The way she phrased her words made it seem that it was already a given that Ves accepted the duel. He could not afford to say anything that contradicted her command, which meant he could not extricate himself from this challenge any longer!
When Ves gazed at Jovy, he only saw eagerness and lust for victory.
The MTA mech designer was very confident in himself, and for good reason!
This caused Ves to feel more troubled. Though he already stood to gain a decent reward in the event of a loss, he wanted to keep the Darkbreak module!
In the future, his enemies would only grow more formidable. Once he encountered a difficult situation where his connection to the galactic net became frayed, having a more robust means of communication might be a lifesaver!
Naturally, any signal passed through the Darkbreak module would also fall into the hands of the MTA, but that was already the case with regular quantum entanglement nodes. Almost everyone sensible in the galaxy already knew that the Comm Consortium was a puppet of the Big Two!
Therefore, Ves had plenty of motivation now to do his best to win this duel.
Since Jovy and Master Willix generously allowed him to set the terms, he might as well see if he could push his luck in this area as well!
"Let's design a third-class mech." He stated.
Predictably, Jovy did not look pleased with this suggestion. "Third-class mechs are.. too basic to express our strengths. You are already a second-class mech designer, are you not? The Little Angel there has shown me that you have already reached a satisfactory standard."
"Most of that is Gloriana's handiwork." Ves partially lied. "She not only started off as a second-class mech designer, but was also responsible for solving many difficult problems! Even if I'm qualified to design second-class mechs, I have just surpassed the threshold. I'm still a third-class mech designer at heart. I've designed more than a dozen third-class mechs but only a single Blessed Squire design. Why should I cede my personal high ground just because you think that cheap mechs are worthless?"
"That's not what I meant, Mr. Larkinson! I am just.. not.. used.. to.. designing.. lower-specced.. mechs…"
Ves turned to Master Willix, who in turn looked displeased at Jovy.
"Mechs are mechs regardless of their quality or power. Third-class mechs are the most ubiquitous machines in the galaxy. They play an indispensable role to many states and people. Mr. Armalon, if you wish to master mechs to a higher degree, then you need to set aside some of your preconceived notions and step out of your comfort zone. Do not forget the purpose of your tour."
With the admonishment from the Master, it was Jovy's turn to acquiesce.
"Very well." He reluctantly responded. "I accept this term."
Throughout this brief exchange, Ves recognized that his guess was right. This wealthy, privileged mech designer was so used to designing powerful mechs that his experience in designing lesser mechs was limited!
Since that was the case, Ves should continue to pounce
"Even third-class mechs can be expensive to many many others. In the mech markets that I am still engaged in, pricing and cost efficiency are some of the most important criteria to many customers. It has always been a challenge to design a mech that is expected to do much while still remaining affordable. For this reason, let us set the budget at 600,000 hex credits."
"What?! That is an unbearably low sum! You can hardly design anything with such a miniscule budget!"
Ves remained stubborn, however. "My Desolate Soldier is the most successful product of my mech company to date, and its price is not that far off from this amount. Are you saying you can't design a mech that can sell just as well with the same budget?"
"No!"
As an MTA mech designer, Jovy did not allow himself to admit his inferiority in this area! At the very least, he should put up a fight! He briefly glanced at Master Willix in order to gauge her stance.
Her expression remained impassive, which meant that there was not big issue with this term!
"Very well." Jovy sighed. "I will agree to your budget."
"That's great. As for the mech type, let's go for a landbound striker mech. It's a simple design and one that we can finish in a very short amount of time."
"A striker mech?! That's too simple!"
"It's because they are so simple that they make for a good choice in a pure design duel." Ves retorted with confidence. "Both of us are going to put our competition mechs to the test by allowing our own mech pilots to compete, right? Any MTA mech pilot can easily overpower my own mech pilots in skill, training and reflexes."
"Letting actual people pilot our mechs is not the only option. The MTA has developed many AI mech pilots that can be used for these occasions. Both of our mechs will be piloted by the exact same AI mech pilot to ensure total fairness."
Ves shook his head. "No can do. My design philosophy is metaphysical man-machine symbiosis. That means my strengths are centered around influencing and empowering mech pilots when they pilot my mechs. What can I do with a lifeless, unfeeling bot? A duel involving AI mech pilots will essentially negate my greatest selling point, which means you won't be facing me at my full strength!"
"Mr. Larkinson is correct." Master Willix interjected again. "His demand to test your competition mechs with human mech pilots is reasonable, and so is his assumption that our mech pilots are superior in every way. Choosing a mech type with relatively little skill expression such as striker mechs is a good way to lessen this unavoidable disparity."
Of course, they could have assigned mech pilots from the same group to pilot both mechs. However, it was very hard to ensure whether an MTA mech pilot would do his best in a mech designed by Ves. Since he already suggested this term, he had made his own stance clear.
"Very well, but that is it." Jovy stated with a firm voice. "In order to keep this duel equitable, this is the extent you can set the rules. For the subsequent terms, we must both agree to them. Is that acceptable?"
"That's fine!"
Ves grinned. He already secured enough advantages!
2135 Mind Crash
Ves did not object to the fact that Jovy stood a better chance of winning because he would be able to field his competition mech with a superior MTA mech pilot.
He had already made Jovy uncomfortable enough with the shamelessness of his previous terms.
Perhaps not even Master Willix imagined that Ves would take so much advantage of his opportunity to set the terms!
If he went any further, he might push Jovy's forbearance to the point of snapping!
Fortunately, Ves did not make Jovy's life more difficult from this point. Both of them quickly agreed on the remaining terms.
First, the tech they were allowed to implement in their mechs would be limited to publicly-available third-class components. Anything was allowed as long as they stayed within their budgets.
One caveat was that the materials used in the mech design had to be sourced from Cinach VI. This meant that Jovy wasn't allowed to incorporate some obscure, unknown exotic that was only known to the MTA and a select few people!
Second, they had 3 days to design their respective mechs. Both of them had to design their mechs from standard components, which meant that they were not allowed to save time by making use of prefab parts that were commonly used in other design duels.
Both of them weren't Apprentices anymore, which meant that neither Ves nor Jovy needed any training wheels to whip up a functional mech design in 72 hours!
Previously, Ves designed competition mechs where he had access to a catalog of complete legs, arms and other large systems. This saved a lot of time, but gave the mech designer much less room to showcase his comprehensive design ability.
Third, when it came to fabricating their competition mechs, Jovy opted to materialize his mech with the help of the Ubiquitous Force in a matter of minutes. He was used to relying on materialization technology to make his mechs and disliked resorting to cruder production methods.
This was something that Ves vehemently disagreed upon. "My design philosophy is based around life! How can there be any life in a mech that is assembled like a clone?"
In the end, Jovy agreed to give Ves two days to fabricate his mech in the workshop they were in right now. While two days was cutting it a bit short, with his formidable Assembly Skills, he was sure he could get it done in time, especially when it came to a low-budget mech!
Amusingly enough, Master Willix admonished Jovy yet again.
"I will allow you to stick to your chosen method this time, as Mr. Larkinson is evidently the first mech designer you have met who has refused to make use of materialization technology. He has a good reason to do so. It is no surprise that he has become a masterwork mech designer at such a young age. For your own good, I hope there won't be a next time."
"I understand." Jovy bowed. "I will endeavor to practice the traditional methods of producing mechs after this duel. I will make a masterwork mech too one day!"
Materialization technology was very convenient. As long as a mech designer had access to a materializer with a sufficient supply of materials, they could simply upload their design and press a button. A brand-new mech that conformed exactly to the design schematics would soon appear without any further need to intervene!
It seemed that Jovy was too spoiled and had become so dependent on materialization technology that he wasn't confident that he could beat Ves in traditional fabrication.
He was right to think so. Publicly, Ves had created two masterwork mechs. Secretly, he actually created three!
Regardless of the exact number, his affinity for mechs had definitely risen! It already took a formidable mastery in fabricating mechs in order to make masterwork mechs possible. As Ves actually succeeded multiple times, his fluency, intuition and judgement in this area had grown so formidable that even an elite MTA Journeyman like Jovy lost his confidence!
Arguably, materialization was still the superior option in most cases. Yet there were certain mech designers like Ves or Gloriana who lost far more than they could gain by taking the human element out of the equation!
Aside from these terms, they also chose their mech pilots who would act as their champions beforehand.
The selection was only limited to regular mech pilots, so Ves chose Joshua Larkinson without any hesitation.
As for Jovy, he picked a random MTA mech pilot assigned to the Ubiquitous Force. To make it as fair as possible, the pilot he chose was just as young as Joshua.
A final term that Ves had specifically requested was to deactivate the use of implants. While Ves was very pleased with his implant, it was still an outdated storage model from the CFA.
There was no way that Jovy possessed an inferior implant! Even a modest MTA implant provided an immense boost to his design abilities!
Ves might as well roll over and give up straight away if both of them were allowed to make use of their implants.
Although the request sounded extreme considering that both of them relied a lot on their implants, this was not actually a strange request.
If mech designers were allowed to make full use of their cranial implants in mech duels, then most competitions would essentially be determined by who possessed the better one! The greater the difference, the more the results would be skewed in this fashion!
Jovy assumed that Ves possessed a bog-standard second-class cranial implant. If that was the case, then the disparity was simply too big!
"Okay." Jovy nodded in agreement. "The Ubiquitous Force already has implant limiters on hand."
These were all the terms for their design duel. Only at this point were both of them prepared to compete against each other!
They shook hands.
"Good luck, Mr. Larkinson. Even if you fight me at a terrain of your choosing, you have already lost. My skills aren't limited to high-class mechs."
Ves did not think that Jovy was overestimating his chances. Regardless how uncomfortable he felt, a good mech designer was still a good mech designer no matter the circumstances!
"Be prepared for a good fight."
That was all he said. At this point, Ves still did not have enough confidence to win. However, as long as there was a chance, he might as well do his best!
The competition started in a couple of minutes.
In order to level the playing field, any interfering factors had to be moved away. A group of bots dispatched from the Ubiquitous Force lifted the Statue of the Superior Mother and moved it away. Another group of bots covered the Blessed Squire in an opaque field and moved it away as well.
The subordinates under Master Willix would continue to inspect the masterwork mech inside the MTA frigate and complete the certification process by the end of the duel.
The bots also delivered the so-called implant limiters.
Gloriana approached Ves as he sat on a chair held the thumb-sized gadget and placed it on his head.
"Ack!"
Soon enough, Ves immediately let out a gasp and felt as if he lost half his mind!
The partial digitization that he had grown familiar with abruptly disappeared. The transition was so sudden that Ves momentarily felt his normal thought operations crashing into dead ends.
Familiar routines and commands that relied on the functionality of his Archimedes Rubal no longer worked!
"So this is why they gave me an hour of preparation time." He muttered as he rubbed the side of his head.
Gloriana sat next to him and pressed up to the side of his body. Her airy scent immediately filled his nose, which distracted him from his disordered mind.
"This is your first time wearing an implant limiter, so you must be feeling awful right now."
"I feel as if someone literally scooped half of my brain!"
"It's okay. Just don't think too much and calm yourself. Let me guide you. It's easy to return to normal once you develop a specific mental routine."
She expertly guided him to rebuild his own thought patterns that he used to depend on before he received his implant.
It only took half an hour for Ves to gain a measure of confidence in his cognitive functions.
"This is.. a lot more severe than I thought." He commented.
"In upper society, we humans have become so dependent on letting our implants do the heavy lifting that it has become dangerous. Implant limiters were initially developed to combat this dangerous state and to prepare against occasions where the enemy has hijacked the implants in some way."
"I can see how that is prudent. If my implant suddenly shut down in the middle of a crisis, I would be flailing around while nursing the biggest headache of my life!"
Ves spent over a year with the Archimedes Rubal and immediately fell in love with all of its formidable functions. The partial digitization of his mind had increased his productivity so much that he couldn't imagine living without it anymore!
He automatically assumed that his new, improved state of mind was a permanent upgrade.
However, this incident reminded him that nothing was foolproof! Even though he voluntarily placed the implant limiter on his head this time, that might not be the case in the future!
If someone hostile intended to cripple him by latching such a device on his head, then he would definitely be incapacitated for a long time!
"I have to get some implant limiters on my own and get used to living without my cranial implant."
"You don't have to obtain a limiter for that. Your implant already comes with an off switch."
"Oh. I never realized that. Thanks, Gloriana."
Though Ves lost his biggest tool in mech design, he was still confident he could design a workable third-class striker mech in 3 days!
He had taken part in competitions before, and back then he could only dream of cranial implants!
This design duel should have been familiar territory to him. Though he hadn't dueled anyone for a while, Ves still believed he was capable of designing a mech in haste!
"Have you figured out your strategy yet, Ves?"
"Hmmm. Not really."
"Uhm, the design phase starts in less than twenty minutes. Your opponent must have already formed a detail
2136 Growing Your Own Crops
As a mech designer who grew up within the confines of the MTA, Jovy Armalon enjoyed a very privileged background.
He was not some talent that the MTA recruited later in life. Instead, he was born into the Association, and that pretty much set him up for life.
As long as he didn't slack off in his studies and earnestly pursued the path laid out by his parents, there was no way he would fail as a mech designer!
Of course, the biggest hurdle stopping many ambitious MTA mech designers from gaining real prominence was the jump from Apprentice to Journeyman.
Even the MTA couldn't ensure guaranteed promotion. No matter how many tricks the Association pulled off in order to skew the odds in its favor, the next generation of mech designers ultimately had to rely on themselves to advance!
Quite a lot of promising mech designers failed. No matter how many mechs they designed or books they studied, those with worse talent and discipline nonetheless managed to exceed them due to pure chance!
To many privileged young mech designers, this was unfair!
Even space peasants who could only design mechs that were just a fraction as strong were able to advance to Journeymen, yet some of the best young talents of the MTA simply couldn't!
No matter if someone was a lowly space peasant or a veritable galactic prince, becoming a high-ranking mech designer remained an elusive dream to many of them! Stopping at Apprentice for the rest of their lives was an indignity that many of them couldn't stomach.
Only a few of their friends and former classmates managed to overcome this hurdle. Once they became Journeymen, the MTA invested heavily in their subsequent advancement, because each of them had the potential to advance to Master.
The same could not be said for the masses that had been left behind!
While the MTA still treated these stalled Apprentices well, their role in the Association would never amount to anything unless they switched career tracks.
Those who gave up early often succeeded in transitioning to a management or other professional career track.
Those who persisted in their efforts continued to languish at the local branches and other bottom positions.
Fortunately, Jovy Armalon escaped this fate. In comparison to his peers, he advanced to Journeyman when he was 27 years old, which was quite average within the Association.
On the surface, Ves, Gloriana and Jovy all stood at the same height. All three of them carried the title of Journeyman Mech Designer.
In practice, they were vastly different.
For a long time, Ves sat at the bottom of the totem pole. He was a third-class mech designer, which meant that his skills and design experience only allowed him to design the lowest class of mechs.
No matter how talented he was, no matter how promising his design philosophy could be, it did not change the fundamental fact that he would amount to nothing if he was dumped in a first or second-class state!
Gloriana started off at a higher height. Though she had not reached the top, any casual mech she designed could squash anything developed by Ves in an instant!
As a second-class mech designer, she accumulated a lot more knowledge and had overcome a lot more hurdles in order to design a more advanced class of mechs.
Yet compared to Ves and Gloriana, Jovy had to work a lot harder to become a Journeyman! The amount of knowledge and technical acumen required to design the most advanced mechs in existence was at least five to ten times harder than designing second-class mechs!
The barrier of entry to become a first-class mech designer was so high that it was practically impossible for baseline humans to study all of the knowledge required to become a mere Novice!
Yet once someone like Jovy became capable of designing a first-class multipurpose mech, they became eligible to participate in the most advanced circle of the mech industry!
First-class mechs were so powerful and incorporated so much advanced technology that they were capable of expressing all kinds of abilities.
As a consequence, the design philosophies that first-class mech designers developed also tended to be more conceptually diverse and advanced!
From his own experiences back in the Bright Republic and other third-rate states, the local mech designers tended to specialize in basic and fundamental aspects.
On one hand, third-class mech designers didn't have as many toys to play with. There was only so much they could specialize in, because the other options were simply too expensive or advanced for them to touch!
What was the point of a lesser mech designer specializing in something as ludicrously powerful as positron beam weapons? Hardly any mech they designed with such a gun would sell because their price tags would simply be too high!
That said, Ves didn't believe that the specializations of third-class mech designers were inferior. Though the odds were low, each of them still had the potential to advance to Master and contribute something meaningful to the mech industry.
The issue was that compared to lowly third-class mech designers, people like Jovy had more choice! Worse yet, they often took advantage of it in order to pursue dazzling specializations!
According to his record, Jovy Armalon specialized in 'probability manipulation'.
"Probability manipulation?"
Ves sounded flustered. This label sounded as useless as metaphysical man-machine symbiosis.
To those in the know, more words weren't needed.
To those who were in the dark, the description left out 99 percent of what was really taking place!
Fortunately, Gloriana provided him with a little context. "I've spent some time at Centerpoint. Whenever I hear about MTA mech designers, they're often paired with abstract, high-level specializations. Probability manipulation is absolutely not simple. If I would wager a guess, I think it has to do with affecting luck."
Affecting luck?
Ves scratched his head, taking care not to bump his implant limiter.
"How in the hell does that even work? Is he rolling a bunch of dice and picking the most favorable one? Is his mechs capable of stealing the 'luck' of their opponents?"
"I don't know." Gloriana shrugged. "All I can say is that MTA mech designers like Jovy are often groomed by the Association to adopt a certain design philosophy. Probability manipulation may be a field that his mentors or superiors are highly interested in. This means that it can be really powerful if expressed in full."
From his own understanding of the MTA, Ves knew that it liked to act like a manor lord. The Association lazily resided in its estate while the tenant farmers in the form of indigeneous mech designers toiled in the farms.
Occasionally, some of the tenant farmers made a bountiful harvest. That was the point where the manor lord dispatched his dreaded tax collectors and appropriated the bulk of the harvested crops.
However, this model did not preclude the nobles from tending their own fields. Not every mech designer who worked for the MTA had to be rational. Even the Association couldn't wait for the peasants to cultivate the crops it desired the most.
Sometimes, it was best to do the job themselves!
Despite its unassuming label, Ves did not underestimate Jovy's specialization in the slightest. He too took advantage of ambiguous words to hide the extent of his design philosophy.
As two peas in the same pod, he was certain that his dueling opponent was probably capable of confounding everyone.
If probability manipulation was as sophisticated and horrible as Ves feared, then it shouldn't have been a surprise that the MTA didn't pay more attention to his increasingly more drastic design philosophy.
The MTA already nurtured countless mech designers with odd but powerful specialties!
When Ves and Gloriana studied a sample of Jovy's work, they couldn't decipher anything. The highly-advanced first-class multipurpose mechs contained so many different systems, many of which they had never been exposed to, that the mechs themselves were shrouded in mist!
The information that Master Willix made available revealed too little about Jovy. This was a very serious deficiency.
Perhaps this was her way of compensating for all of the advantages that Ves accrued!
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat."
Gloriana remained hopeful, though. "Don't worry Ves, I believe in you. You already set the terms in your favor. Even if Jovy enjoys an information advantage, you can still beat him with absolute strength. Your design philosophy is absolutely not weak!"
She was right, but Ves still found it problematic that he essentially couldn't anticipate how Jovy's competition mech actually fought!
Even the consolation that they would be pushing forth cheap, low-spec striker mechs failed to shore up his confidence. How could a design philosophy like probability manipulation enhance the combat performance of such a mech?
Ves had no idea, and that scared him. Jovy appeared in his mind as an enormous devil who liked to roll dice!
"I guess I just have to focus on my strengths and hope for the best." He sighed.
He soon calmed down and regained his composure. This wasn't the first time he had come under pressure.
With Gloriana supporting him from the side, Ves began to sound out a couple of ideas.
"I have only three days to design a striker mech, so it will have to be fairly basic. Since this duel pits two striker mechs against each other, the competition might revolve around which mech can endure the most heat."
Gloriana shook her head. "That is not necessarily the case. Flamethrowers are the most ubiquitous weapons of striker mechs, but hardly the only one. Shotguns are the second-most prevalent weapons wielded by striker mechs. If tweaked correctly, their precision and penetrative power can be quite formidable."
The MTA developed an elaborate set of rules governing design duels. When two mech designers agreed to design a specific mech type, then their competition mechs had to fit the classic definition of their chosen archetype!
In the case of third-class striker mechs, Ves could only choose from a limited selection of weapons that were typically associated with this mech type.
Just to be sure, Ves activated his comm and called up the rules. They stated quite clearly that striker mechs weren't allowed to wield precision rifles or swords. Such weapons fell outside the scope of striker mechs!
Additionally, it turned out that he wasn't even allowed to add secondary weapons such as pistols or knives.
A design duel attempted to determine which of the duelists designed the better mech. In this case, neither of them were allowed to warp the definition of striker mechs in an attempt to counter them! That would defeat the point of the duel and negate its comparison function!
Ves rubbed his smooth-shaven chin. "Before I come up with a vision, I should pin down the primary armament. As far as I'm concerned, I have three choices: a flamethrower or a shotgun."
Which one suited this design duel the best?
There were actually more choices, but they were not very suitable due to several reasons. Either they fell outside the scope of the rules, or required a much larger budget to make them viable.
Weapons such as fluid projectors could be very effective in disabling an opposing mech. However, at their paltry budget, there wasn't enough room for an effective fluid projector system!
With just 600,000 hex credits at their disposal, both of them had to design a mech in the same price category as the Desolate Soldier.
What limited their options even further was that striker mechs were much heavier and incorporated a lot more materials than rifleman mechs.
"There's not enough money to go around!"
Both Ves and Jovy had to stretch their budget as much as possible if they wanted to elevate the performance of their designs.
Right now, Ves wondered which weapon suited his competition mech the best under the circumstances.
"Flamethrower, or shotgun?"
Chapter 2137 Vexating Luck
As Ves recently designed the Doom Guard, he knew quite a lot about striker mechs.
Even after he temporarily lost access to his cranial implant, the memories were still fresh in his mind. He possessed a good understanding of the design choices he needed to make.
Of course, the Doom Guard was a spaceborn mech while his competition mech would be a landbound mech, so there were plenty of differences.
Still, the overall framework remained the same. Striker mechs were slow but tough machines that served a defensive function. Their armament always consisted of ranged weapons with a wide area of effect but also limited range and punch.
This was because they were mainly designed to take out fast, lightly-armored mechs. These light skirmishers and the like often proved to be the bane of traditional ranged mechs such as rifleman mechs or artillery mechs.
Striker mechs were the exception to this rule. Their weapons didn't require pinpoint accuracy to hit an elusive light mech. They just had to point their weapon in the general direction of an agile machine and pull the trigger. Even if their aim was off, the billowing flames or expanding shotgun pellets would more than likely not hit the target anyway!
Obviously, this paradigm did not apply to this design duel.
Both would be fielding defensive mechs that wouldn't be zipping around the arena as if they were mice.
Instead, they would face each other off in the most brutal and direct fashion possible!
"This will come down to a battle of attrition." Ves murmured. "With such a low budget, both Jovy and I can forget about designing a mobile striker mech. We will both have clad our mechs with lots of cheap armor plating and arm them with weapons that are expressly designed to chew through armor!"
No matter how strange Jovy's design philosophy sounded, Ves doubted that the MTA mech designer could overcome the hard limitations of the striker mech type.
He began to envision all kinds of mechs and battle scenarios.
With two viable weapon types, Ves had to take four basic scenarios into account.
If Ves and Jovy both opted for flamethrowers, then the resulting battle basically amounted to which mech could endure the heat the longest!
If both of their mechs were armed with shotguns, then the battle would turn into a slugging match.
If Ves and Jovy opted for different weapons, then the results would become a lot more interesting.
In reality, Ves had to take way more scenarios into account than just these four. This was because there was a considerable amount of leeway in the design of their mechs.
As long as either of them were creative enough, they could definitely come up with something unconventional that stretched the limits of the tools at their disposal!
This was what made design duels exciting and unpredictable.
Ves did not have much time to make a choice. Time was running out and the design phase would soon commence.
With minutes to go, Ves wanted to come up with a viable vision right away.
"I think I'll go with flamethrowers." He said. "I've never worked with shotguns and while I'm confident that I can handle this simple weapon system, it's best to stick to familiar territory."
His knowledge base was also very suited to design mechs that handled heat and energy. He recently acquired relevant Sub-Skills such as Heat-Resistant Materials I, which would come in very handy in managing the heat levels of his design!
Ves figured that flamethrowers were also ultimately more suited to take down an armored mech.
The issue with shotguns was that they inflicted dispersed damage. With the dueling rules prohibiting the use of slugs or other armor-piercing projectiles, Ves could only make do with a tight spread of small-sized pellets.
Certainly, as long as the shotgun weapon system was strong enough, it could still chew through armor plating.
The problem was that the shotgun wielder needed to attack the same section continuously. Even if the opponent was a sluggish striker mech, it would never stand around and make it easy to pile up the damage on a specific part!
With a flamethrower, a striker mech could beat another striker mech by cooking it. Even if the flames weren't potent enough to melt the armor plating, the heat transferred to the metal had to go somewhere!
Usually, the heat applied to the armor plating bled through the internals of the mech. Unlike solid alloy, delicate internal components were much less capable of resisting excessive thermal energy!
Therefore, a duel between two flamethrower-wielding mechs usually ended when one of them spontaneously shut down because too many of its internals simply worked no more.
The biggest question Ves faced right now was whether Jovy chose to arm his striker mech with a flamethrower as well.
This wasn't a transparent design duel. Jovy had already been moved to another part of the workshop that was closed off from his current location. This meant that Ves had to make a very difficult design choice.
Should he design his striker mech to withstand thermal attacks, ballistic attacks or both?
The conventional answer should be to design his mech to cope with both possibilities. This was the standard answer and one that applied to most conventional striker mech designs.
His Doom Guard for example incorporated a premium armor system that offered a lot of resistance against laser beams, ballistic shells, kinetic rounds, melee impacts and so on. No matter what kind of weapon it faced, his Doom Guard easily endured the punishment!
Sadly, the same did not apply to the current design duel. The budget of the Doom Guard was around 2.5 times greater than the budget of his competition mech!
With the Doom Guard, Ves had the luxury of incorporating a decent, all-round armor system that provided adequate protection against any damage type.
With the paltry budget he was currently working with, his competition mech could never offer adequate protection against both physical damage and thermal damage.
Perhaps the only relief was that Jovy faced the exact same situation.
"You should opt for a balanced armor system." Gloriana suggested. "It's the most likely choice and one that minimizes risk. Sure, you won't win out, but you won't lose out either. Your opponent will likely make the same choice as well."
Ves shook his head. "I disagree. Since I've decided to arm my mech with a flamethrower, my mech won't gain an inherent advantage against Jovy's mech if both of us pursue this strategy. However, I'm in big trouble if he fields a mech that is specifically designed to resist heat."
"These are what ifs, Ves. You'll keep going around in circles if you obsess over these possibilities."
She was right, but Ves had a different view on the matter.
"Jovy's specialization is probability manipulation." He said. "While I'm not sure what he can do, I can make a few guesses. One of them is that he's probably pretty lucky!"
His girlfriend frowned. "What do you mean by that?"
"Let's say he flips a coin. Mathematically, there is a 50 percent chance of winning. But what if that isn't the case with Jovy? What if.. he can manipulate his luck so that he has a 60 percent chance of winning? What if he can manipulate my luck so that I have a 40 percent of winning?"
This was a dreadful power if that was the case!
"That's ridiculous, Ves! Math is math! Probability is probability! Sure, some improbable flukes might happen if you flip the coin several times. However, the longer it goes on, the more the outcomes will even out and match the theoretical probabilities."
That was the law of large numbers in a nutshell. You could get lucky once, twice or thrice, but it was impossible for someone to get lucky 1,000 times in a row!
"The issue here is that Jovy doesn't have to flip the coin so many times. Two is enough!" Ves retorted. "He needs one flip to determine the correct weapon type and another flip to choose the right armor system! If he gets lucky twice, he will win the duel before our mechs have even entered the arena!"
Jovy truly vexed his opponents with his vague and mysterious design philosophy.
Ves began to feel what it was like to stand in the shoes of his competitors when they became confused what metaphysical man-machine symbiosis actually meant.
"It's finally time for you to get a taste of your own medicine." She quipped.
When it came to luck, Ves wasn't sure how he fared. In fact, he didn't really believe this concept even existed. It might be that he had completely mischaracterized Jovy's design philosophy.
However, he didn't dare to rule out this option. Even if Jovy's specialty applied to mechs in a much more mundane fashion, manipulating luck might be one of his 'superpowers'!
Every mech designer seemed to develop some sort of ability related to their specialization. Ves was able to communicate with all forms of life. Gloriana possessed a very keen eye for flaws. Ketis could make her blades sharper.
As for Jovy… who knew.
With so many difficult choices to take into account, Ves felt as if he was stuck at a crossroads!
Which of the roads led to glory and which of them led to his doom?
"Maybe I should take advantage of my own design philosophy." He muttered. "If Jovy can abuse his superpower to his advantage, then so should I!"
Knowing that Master Willix likely kept a very close eye on him, Ves had never shed his crazy hat. He still wore it, and right now it induced him to kneel onto the floor and clasp his hands.
He concentrated his mind.
"Prophet Ylvaine, please enlighten me. What design choices should I make?"
Though he made contact with Ylvaine's spiritual fragment, it didn't really answer his prayer. The fragment merely replied with a muddled impression before cutting off the contact!
Though vague, Ves understood the answer. Ylvaine basically told him that predictions couldn't be made on demand! It was pointless to come to Ylvaine in order to ask the winning numbers of a lottery!
Ves felt the urge to vomit. Was this the best that the Great Prophet could do? Where was its vaunted prediction ability? For all of the hype surrounding Prophet Ylvaine, it turned out that his spiritual fragment could only catch uncontrolled glimpses!
Why the hell couldn't this design spirit tell him what Jovy had in mind?!
He sighed. It was just a fragment after all.
His expression hardened. "I can go round and round in circles, or I can just make a choice."
Ves decided to turn to his heart. What kind of striker mech did he wish to design?
He already knew the answer. Ves wanted to design a mech that practically embodied heat! He wanted to design a mech that not only spewed out copious amounts of heat, but also bathed in it! This was the competition mech that his heart yearned to design!
"I've made my choice." He stated.
His intuition wasn't very helpful in these circumstances. He had no choice but to go in blind and hope that Jovy did not come up with a shotgun-wielding mech clad with heat-resistant armor.
Now that he had passed this hurdle, it was time for him to formulate a vision.
"I already have something in mind." He grinned.
He wanted to design a mech that revelled in heat! No matter what kind of probability shenanigans that Jovy's mech employed, as long as the battle devolved into a contest of heat, Ves did not think his mech would lose out!
That said, Ves needed to add some extra oomph to his competition mech. His strength had always been his glows.
He needed to add the right one to his mech!
The next question he faced was whether he should incorporate a design spirit or hold himself back by employing a weaker image.
Ves had no illusions that this design duel presented an opportunity for Master Willix to see him in action in a serious setting. He might expose something he didn't want to if he made too much use of his specialty!
Chapter 2138 Planning Against Luck
The decision on whether he should go all-out or hold himself back did not occupy him for long.
He wanted to win. Even though he would still be able to earn some rewards if he lost, he really wanted the extra MTA credits and the right to permanently own the Darkbreak module. This might be the only opportunity for him to get his hands on a superb communications module.
In addition, with his crazy hat, he didn't fear exposing his ability to empower any of his mech designs with an immediate boost by instilling them with one of his existing design spirits.
In fact, such an act played right in his hand! Ves would reveal to Master Willix and the MTA that he truly did have access to the so-called proto-gods!
No matter how hastily he designed his mechs, as long as their spiritual foundation was strong enough, he could immediately impart with a powerful glow!
Though this would reveal a lot about his current capabilities, Ves did not mind it very much. Not only did such an act reinforce his current facade, it also obscured his more sensitive secrets!
Now that he made this choice, Ves had to decide what kind design spirit and what kind of glow he wanted to instill in his mech.
"It would be nice to have something that embodies fire or heat."
Sadly, his current arsenal of design spirits lacked such an option. Ves had to adopt a more indirect approach, just like he did with the Doom Guard.
Even though the Doom Guard was a striker mech that depended heavily on its flamethrower, Ves nonetheless managed to add a different dimension to it by bestowing it with a terror glow.
He would have to do something similar this time!
"Alright. Time is up! The design phase starts now! You have 72 hours to design and complete your competition mech!" Master Willix announced.
Gloriana kissed him on the cheek and wished him good luck before she scurried away.
He already missed her warmth as he called up a design interface.
Ves began to sketch some outer contours of the mech in his imagination. Due to losing access to his implant, his precision and mental calculations grew worse, causing his sketch to look very crooked!
Nonetheless, the lines already provided him with an impression of the mech that he wanted to turn into reality.
Ves wanted to design a hefty mech. Though its mobility would probably be awful, that wasn't a big deal if the duel ended up as a battle of attrition.
Only the mech that lasted the longest would win the duel!
The heat resistance of a mech depended on many factors, but two of them stood out.
First, the more armor, the better the mech could cope with heat.
Thinner armor plating not only held less heat, but also transferred it faster to the vulnerable internal components of a mech.
However, the type of materials also played a role.
Some materials warmed up faster than other materials when injected with heat.
Therefore, the thickest mech did not always outperform the thinner mechs when it came to absorbing heat. The quality of their armor system played a major role!
However, due to the current budget constraints, Ves did not have much choice. He could only choose between a large selection of cheap armor systems that didn't boast a stellar heat capacity.
To put it simply, his striker mech was already destined to be fat and sluggish. He just had to choose how much he was willing to weigh down his design.
"Should I lean towards offense, defense or strive towards balance?" He wondered.
Most of the time, Ves disliked balance. He would rather add some pronounced strengths and weaknesses to his mechs in order to distinguish them. Therefore, he only considered the first two options.
"If I pick offense, my mech will have to end the battle quickly. My machine won't be able to hold long against enemy attacks. If I pick defense, then the duel will veer even further towards a battle of attrition."
Which one fit his strengths better? Which one fit Jovy's strengths better?
The main advantage that Ves enjoyed was that he was able to affect the moods of mech pilots.
However, Ves did not forget that MTA personnel exhibited a remarkable degree of resistance against the Doom Guard's glow. Some of them even acted as if they were completely immune!
Therefore, Ves did not think it was a good idea to focus on demoralizing the opponent. He would have focused on empowering Joshua.
"It's a good thing I specifically picked him out as my champion." He muttered.
Of all of his mech pilots, only Joshua understood his glows the best. He could adapt to any design spirit no matter how incompatible they sounded.
As the only non-Ylvainan to be able to pilot a Deliverer mech, Joshua fully deserved to be one of the few adopted Larkinsons without a compound name!
With such a fantastic mech pilot at his disposal, Ves did not have to worry about potential incompatibilities or lack of immersion.
He made his choice after exploring both options.
"I need to end the battle quickly." He concluded. "I'll take an offensive approach."
The main reason why he wanted to focus on offense rather than defense was that the latter would result in a longer match.
Against a mech that had been designed with 'probability manipulation' in mind, that effectively gave Jovy's specialty more opportunities to flip a coin!
Therefore, Ves vaguely guessed that time would be against his side. The longer the match dragged on, the greater the chance an unfortunate development would cripple his competition mech.
Now that he had settled on his approach, he went over his stable of design spirits to see which one fit this emphasis the best.
He first went over one of his oldest design spirits, the Black Phoenix.
"Too weak." He shook his head.
Even though it seemed a natural fit, it didn't possess any special powers and its spiritual strength wasn't all that impressive. It was mainly a product of his earlier years when he mainly focused on the X-Factor.
At best, Joshua would only receive a modest enhancement to his aggressive instincts.
That wasn't good enough as far as Ves was concerned.
He always intended to upgrade or reshape the Black Phoenix once he was ready to modernize the Blackbeak design. For now, the outdated design spirit fell out of his contention.
Other potential choices included Zeigra, the Golden Cat, the Superior Mother.
Imparting each or multiple of them in his mech would result in profound effects.
"Hmmm."
His choice had to match his vision and complement his design concept. Since Ves intended to design an offense-oriented mech, he ideally wanted to pair it with a design spirit that complimented this focus.
He had half a mind to pick Nyxie and design a mech that incorporated this terrible being. Unfortunately, he wasn't in a position to visit his vault and harvest a spiritual fragment from this uncooperative entity.
Besides, Ves strongly believed that such an act would breed disaster! Joshua turning crazy was the least of his worries!
Zeigra was not his strongest design spirit, and he was similarly uncooperative. However, Zeigra also possessed a killer instinct and a primal aggression that would fit perfectly with an offensive mech.
His Prideful Soldier mechs already showed what Zeigra could do with just a mote of his spirituality.
The Golden Cat did not possess a strong focus in combat. Ves designed her as an ancestral spirit first and a design spirit second.
That said, she was still able to empower mech pilots in a comprehensive way. She offered every mech pilot a range of boosts, though most of them weren't very relevant in this case.
"She doesn't mesh well with a striker mech." Ves shook his head.
One of the hidden features of the Golden Cat was her potential to bestow mech pilots with the wisdom and fighting instincts of better mech pilots. The more she became exposed to Larkinson mech pilots, the more potent this ability grew.
Though Goldie never exhibited this particular ability before, Ves was pretty sure she was capable of doing so, especially now that she had matured into her powers.
"Sadly, it doesn't matter too much in this case. Striker mechs have a low skill ceiling and Joshua is already very skilled."
That left the Superior Mother, his latest and most powerful spiritual product at birth. Though she was still dormant, her passive glow already impressed Ves a lot!
As the ultimate ancestral spirit of the Hexer people, the Superior Mother was multifaceted and adaptable. She could take on the role of a protective mother or a vengeful woman.
The more he thought about it, the more he felt he wanted to give it a try. This design duel was not only an opportunity to win some juicy prizes, but also allowed him to perform a quick experiment!
Even though Joshua was not a Hexer, Ves did not worry about whether his chosen champion was unable to synergize with the Superior Mother.
Joshua would not be Joshua if he was not capable of melding with his mother!
With the Superior Mother as the principal design spirit of his competition mech, Ves filled out his vision even further.
He turned his attention back to the design interface and altered and added some more lines. He began to design a mech that was highly offensive to Hexer sensibilities.
He wanted to design a male mech that could hold its own ground!
Certainly, male Hexer mech pilots weren't only restricted from piloting defensive mechs and support mechs. Yet even if they were allowed to pilot rifleman mechs, they always ended up in a fire support role.
His competition mech was different. Ves designed the mech to be able to defeat an opposing by itself by relying on its own strength!
"This is the mech piloted by a grown-up instead of a man!"
In essence, Ves wanted to put into reality a mech that represented the ideal end state of his attempted reforms.
With the Superior Mother acting as a Trojan Mare in Hexer society, Ves dreamed of changing its entire culture so that boys would finally have the opportunity to grow into men!
Certainly, individuals like Brutus already proved it was possible for women to upgrade the status of boys. The only problem was that male expert pilots were so rare that their existence hardly shook the foundation of the Hegemony.
If mechs like the one he intended to design became popular, then the stubborn female supremacists had to face reality.
The success of this competition mech might even serve as a precursor to some of the Hexer mech designs to come!
As Ves adjusted his draft design to be more in line of his intentions, he began to think how he should characterize the mech.
"Superiority."
This was the central focus he was looking for! He wanted to design a mech that emphasized superiority! He wanted his mech to overpower Jovy's mech with a sense of superiority. He wanted Joshua to fight as if victory was inevitable!
"Hmm. I should also take Jovy's specialty into account."
Probability manipulation suggested that Jovy specialty could increase the positive outcomes of his mech while decreasing the negative outcomes of his opponent's mech.
In order to fight back against these presumed effects, Ves needed to find a way to resist it or inflict more damage in return.
Resisting Jovy's design philosophy was the main reason why Ves decided to focus on superiority. No matter what kind of bad luck befell his mech, its innate superiority would shrug it all off!
Willpower triumphed over everything, including misfortune!
If Ves didn't like the outcome of a coin flip, he would be better off if he fed the coin to Lucky than accept the outcome!
As for finding a way to outdo Jovy's specialty, a very speculative idea suddenly popped into his mind.
The Doom Guard already showed that MTA personnel were very mentally-resilient. Yet not all of them were as resilient as others. Hardly anyone could match the sheer mental and spiritual prowess of Master Willix, after all. With a fairly young MTA mech pilot as Jovy's champion, the fellow should be at least a little susceptible to influencing!
"If it's a universally hostile glow like that of the Doom Guard, then it's easy to arouse his vigilance."
Yet with the Superior Mother, Ves began to think up a different way to hinder the performance of his opponent.
The MTA mech pilot happened to be a male, so what if Ves could leverage the Superiority focus into making him feel inferior?
No matter how much luck Jovy's mech bestowed upon the fellow, as long as he lost some heart, no amount of chance could deliver him victory!
Even if the man was very disciplined, at least some influence was sufficient to decrease his piloting acumen!
Now that Ves fully fleshed out his concept, he felt ready to turn his hasty draft into a complete design.
"This is going to be interesting!"
Chapter 2139 Regressed Approach
It had been a while since he designed a mech all by himself.
When Ves looked back into the past, the last time he developed a mech by himself was when he designed the Devil Tiger.
The Devil Tiger Project had been the first time he completely consumed himself in his passion. He went so far out of his way to realize his ambitious vision that he did not even realize that he was working his way towards a masterwork mech.
Even without Lucky's gem, finishing the Devil Tiger would have still led to a lot of gains for him! That was one of the few times he truly felt as if he had vindicated his existence as a mech designer!
Afterwards, he rendez-vouszed with Gloriana at the Rev Indra System and that spelled the end of his habit of isolating himself in his design lab.
Now, he had someone else at his side when he developed this tendency!
Working with Gloriana was a joy. Both of them were very competent and possessed different but compatible views on mech design.
Designs such as the Soldier variants, the Bright Warrior and the Doom Guard exemplified the synergy they achieved.
As Ves and Gloriana both familiarized themselves with each other's strengths, they adjusted their work accordingly.
Gloriana invested herself in the details, having liberated herself from the need to take the big picture into account. As a mech designer who was highly sensitive towards tiny flaws and imperfections, she would much rather spend her time on resolving these issues than worry about the intangibles.
In contrast, Ves was a big picture guy. He didn't really care too much about the nitpicking that Gloriana often liked to engage in. In his perspective, what did it matter if some tiny flaw caused the acceleration of a mech to drop by 0.01 percent?
Of course, if there were too many flaws, those performance drops all added up to a meaningful difference, but Ves did not want to waste too much time in squashing them all out.
What he wanted to do instead was to come up with a fantastic vision and concept that was so powerful, that it didn't matter if his mech came riddled with flaws!
"Life isn't perfect!"
The difference between Ves and Gloriana was that the former liked to have a little chaos while the latter pursued order.
Ordinarily, both of them would never been able to reconcile their respective design outlooks with each other!
In practice, they learned to compromise with each other. They stepped on each other's toes plenty of times at the start, but over time they learned to walk around each other more carefully.
All of this caused the pair to focus on different aspects of mech design. They neglected their weaknesses and shored up their strengths, knowing that they could lean on their partner to take care of the issues they weren't good at solving!
Both of them thought that everything would be fine and all was right with the galaxy.
That was until Master Willix popped their bubble.
In her last visit, she easily ascertained the state of their collaboration. As a seasoned mech designer who had traveled the breadth of human space, she encountered numerous wonder couples.
She had also seen how developing a deep interdependence with a partner could lead to disaster.
The moment one half of a couple became indisposed, the other half became functionally useless as well!
Thanks to the early warning, both Ves and Gloriana had become aware of this potential outcome. This simple observation was enough to put both of them on guard.
Though neither of them had any intention of breaking their collaborative partnership, they still intended to spend some time on solo projects!
The design duel that Jovy pressed upon Ves turned into an unexpected opportunity for him to refresh his solo approach towards mech design.
Not only that, but with the implant limiter, Ves felt as if he regressed to his older self.
Over the year since he integrated with the Archimedes Rubal implant, he made increasingly more use of its versatile functions.
From storing lots of data to performing rapid calculations, the implant had become inseparable to his life and his work.
Now that the implant limiter interrupted the signal propagation between his natural brain and his artificial bioimplant, Ves felt as if he had regressed to an earlier version of himself.
Relying on his intrinsic brain matter to perform calculations was a lot slower and more imprecise. It was so bad that Ves had to make use of the calculating software provided by the design suite!
"How backwards!"
The lack of direct interfacing between his thoughts and the software slowed him down tremendously. He had to input numbers and formulas manually with his fingers. What used to take milliseconds now expended entire seconds or even minutes.
"Too slow!"
At the start, Ves felt very discomfited by all of the inconveniences of designing mechs the 'traditional way'.
It took hours for him to gradually get accustomed to the old school style of mech design. He already knew what to expect since this was how he originally practiced his craft.
Though Ves initially expected to default to his original approach, he unexpectedly made some alterations.
Ves was not the Apprentice or Journeyman from two or three years ago.
He had matured immensely, designed more mechs, increased his mech affinity and delved his design skills to a greater extent.
All of this and more had pushed him from a starting Journeyman to a rising Journeyman.
Many of the methods he used to employ in the past were crude, outdated or unnecessary.
In a design duel, speed was paramount.
Duels between mechs or infantry combatants only lasted for a few minutes to half an hour at most. Rarely did they stretch on all the way to an hour!
Design duels were different. There was no practical way for mech designers up to Senior to express even a fraction of their design ability in just 30 minutes. As for cobbling something up in a couple of hours, the resulting mechs hardly presented the mech designers in a good light!
A proper design duel had to take at least a day, and each additional day significantly increased the quality of the competition mechs.
Ves supposed that Master Willix wanted him to design a decent mech, otherwise the design duel didn't have to stretch on for so long.
A span of 72 hours was never enough to design a proper mech. Ves could never adopt the same approach he reserved for his serious design projects.
Simply put, designing a competition mech was basically a game of cutting corners.
He had to rush through many steps and budget his time in a way that allowed him output to remain as high as possible.
Good judgement was indispensable. He needed to make a very careful choice on which areas to neglect and which areas to invest his time in. He had to maximize his return on time investment!
There were many specific sections of the mech that took days or weeks to get it right, yet only yielded a modest performance boost.
It was a waste of time for Ves to go over them with a meticulous mindset. Knowing that he would only end up in a quagmire, he sloppily fleshed out his sketch in a matter of hours before moving on, knowing full where that he had left behind a host of flaws!
"Gloriana would probably go mad with rage if she can see my work now!"
Even though he only worked out a third of his mech design at this point, the mech already looked like a hot mess!
One of the benefits of working alongside Gloriana was that he had become familiar with the way she looked at mechs.
Right now, the mech was so sloppily put together that he would probably bash his head against his desk if he was anything like his girlfriend!
He loved it. Nothing excited him more than realizing his vision and making his mech come to life one step at a time.
The birth of any life was rife with uncertainty and chaos. With no nagging woman by his side to question all of his decisions, Ves freed himself from the shackles that caged his boundless creativity.
He implemented numerous solutions that he would have never applied when Gloriana was around. He made unconventional design choices that seemed sub-optimal but meshed much better with his vision for the mech.
Just because Ves chose to center his mech around superiority didn't mean that the mech should be superior in quality.
Gloriana might disagree, but Ves was different! A mech like the Devil Tiger proved that his own approach worked!
Some flaws weren't a big deal. Others were merely subjectively flawed to only some people. Even if Ves left behind some gaping vulnerabilities, it didn't matter as long as the overall performance of the mech was up to standard.
This was the essence of his design style! Ves always prioritized big ideas over small details!
With his current mech design, that meant designing a flamethrower-wielding striker mech that could scorch the competition before it got scorched in return!
Ves gambled everything on the application and management of heat. If Jovy happened to design a mech that expressly countered his design concept, then so be it. As long as this was not the case, his mech should have all the opportunities available to turn the tables on its opponent!
Knowing that his competition mech would face another heavily-armored mech, Ves opted to choose a special flamethrower system.
"I can't design a traditional striker mech." He murmured.
A humanoid striker mech often possessed articulating arms and made use of an external flamethrower.
However, this flamethrower was actually a huge vulnerability in a dueling environment!
At the very least, rifleman mechs had ways of keeping their distance against their opponents. The chance of their rifles getting shot was not that big at range, especially if the weapon had been reinforced.
However, no matter how much Ves beefed up the flamethrower, it would always be susceptible to attacks. If Jovy's mech happened to bring a shotgun, then it could easily blast the flamethrower apart, thereby winning the duel right then and there!
For these reasons and more, Ves decided to apply some frontline mech design principles to his competition mech.
Instead of adding hands to his mech, he instead cut them off and mounted internal flamethrowers into them. Due to the space they took up, Ves had to enlargen the rest of the arms themselves, causing his competition mech to resemble an upright gorilla!
These considerable changes altered the entire balance of the mech, but with his keen understanding of Battle Mechatronics, he easily adjusted the overall frame.
Regardless whether his competition mech would duel against a mech armed with a flamethrower or a shotgun, it was a good idea to keep all of the important parts behind a good layer of armor!
Every system had to be internal. From the flamethrower modules to the propellant, Ves could not afford to expose any of it to enemies.
His design choices automatically made his mech look fat and bloated. That said, Ves did not actually pile as much armor onto his competition mech as he could have. He wanted to retain at least some semblance of mobility.
He didn't feel confident in his mech if it was too immobile. While his weighed-down striker mech design still boasted weak mobility, at the very least it should be enough to provide more tactical options to Joshua!
After two days, the overall direction of the mech design had already been set. Despite all of the limitations, Ves managed to design a mech that was only moderately worse off than if he could still make use of his implant.
"This mech design is missing something." He hummed.
While everything went fairly smoothly, he vaguely suspected that sticking to convention wasn't enough to overcome a talent like Jovy!
Yet the problem he faced was identical to the one that plagued him while he design the Doom Guard.
His striker mech did not possess enough capacity!
2140 Design Philosophy Grades
Having spent two furious days on realizing his vision, Ves felt as if his competition design lacked something.
He felt the same itch whenever he felt as if his mech ideas lacked some sort of gimmick.
For example, the Deliverer wouldn't be so remarkable without Ylvaine lending his prediction ability to the mech pilot.
The Doom Guard would never have shot up from the ranks of striker mechs and form its own category if not for its terror glow.
Right now, Ves felt that while his competition mech managed to meet most of his expectations, he felt he set his sights too low.
"I can add more to mech design." He whispered.
The problem was the lack of capacity.
Choosing to center the duel around striker mechs was one of his ways of constraining Jovy.
Letting this MTA mech designer design a swordsman mech or any other mech that offered a lot of skill expression was just a disaster in the making!
With all of the tricks that Jovy had at his disposal, there were way too many opportunities for him to empower his mech beyond the level of an indigenous mech designer!
While Ves did not regret this choice, it harmed Ves just as much!
Even if competition mechs weren't required to last as long, even if Ves could tune up the performance of the individual parts to their breaking point, he still ran out of space!
This was the point where he resorted to his specialty and imbued his mech design or its intended design spirit with some special feature.
However, Ves did not need to turn his head to see Master Willix floating high above the floor.
Ever since the design phase of the duel commenced, the Master had been keeping a constant eye on both contestants. Like a goddess watching over her subjects, hardly any of their actions escaped her vision!
So far, Ves did not bother too much with her blatant observation. He couldn't do anything about it, and he hadn't done anything remarkable aside from concentrating his mind and imbuing a gradual amount of spirituality into his mech design.
So far, the mech already acquired a rudimentary spiritual foundation. Though it wasn't nearly as deep and strong as the spiritual foundations of his serious mech designs, it was already sufficient to host a design spirit like the Superior Mother!
Yet was this everything he was capable of doing? For a time, Ves slowed down his work as he began to ask himself whether he should feel resigned to this bland outcome.
His sense of deprivation grew stronger. As time went by, he increasingly felt as if he was missing something essential. Without adding this extra factor into his mech design, he could forget about winning the upcoming design duel!
He paused and halted his design work entirely. He stared dully at his current design, trying to do his best to pin down what it lacked!
Meanwhile, above the air, Gloriana had floated next to Master Willix and joined her in observing both contestants.
While Ves inexplicably paused and let precious minutes pass by, on the other side of the workshop, Jovy continued to build his design at a steady and confident pace.
No matter what kind of odd conditions he faced, this was hardly the MTA mech designer's first challenge!
It wasn't easy for him to become a mech designer and advance to Journeyman in the halls of the MTA. The workload was incredible, the amount of knowledge he needed to master was tremendous and he constantly had to compete over resources!
Winning design duels was one of Jovy's favorite methods to get ahead of his peers. Not even the thought of facing a certified masterwork mech designer swayed his confidence in his strength and ability!
"Mr. Armalon is an avid design duelist." Master Willix noted and she approved of what she saw in him. "He has dueled over sixty times, and won at least forty of them, and hardly anyone of them is weak!"
Gloriana widened her eyes. "How can Jovy be so strong?"
"Aside from working hard, his design philosophy is very formidable. What he can do for now is just the tip of the iceberg, but even so, he can already confound many rivals. Even in the galactic center, his specialty has to be taken seriously!"
"It's that formidable?! How come I haven't heard about it more?"
The Master Mech Designer sighed. "Probability manipulation touches upon some very high-level abstract concepts. There are many ways to classify design philosophies, and sorting them by subject is merely one of them. In the MTA, it is not just the subject that matters, but also the grade."
This was something that Gloriana never heard of! Even when she lived at Centerpoint, she never sorted design philosophies by grades!
"How do you determine the grades?"
"By difficulty, scope, ambition and other factors." Master Willix patiently explained. "Ordinarily, I wouldn't bring up this topic to a mech designer as young as you. Knowing the grade of your design philosophy is often detrimental to your development. However, since you have become a masterwork mech designer, you have already proven that you are firm in your research direction. It won't hurt to know where you stand and where other mech designers stand."
The Master waved her hand. "In a state such as the Sentinel Kingdom, most local mech designers have developed simple and basic design philosophies. I'm sure you are already familiar with them. They don't have much ambition and they are constrained by their environment. Therefore, they merely seek to make their mechs cheaper, more efficient, more resilient and so on. While their dreams are still admirable, their limited ambition means that it is actually relatively easy to realize their design philosophies."
Of course, owing to the same poor environment, it was very difficult for the local Seniors to advance to Master!
"Where do I stand?" Gloriana asked.
"There is no objective and authoritative way to determine that. If I use my own judgement, I would rate the grade of your design philosophy as middle-high."
That caused Gloriana to pause. A sense of dissatisfaction appeared on her face. "Why just this?"
"You will have to discover that on your own, Miss Wodin." Master Willix replied. "Don't take my word for it. My judgement is different from that of other people. In fact, in order to counteract bias as much as possible, the MTA employs a very comprehensive set of algorithms and comparisons in order to apply the exact same standard to everyone."
"Is the grade set in stone?"
"Never. Mech designers, even high-ranking ones, can constantly evolve and develop their design philosophies. Sometimes, their ambition swells and their grades automatically rise. Other times, they are getting on in their years and see no hope of realizing their impossible dream. By setting their sights lower, they don't have to overcome as many hurdles and have a much better chance of advancing to Master."
Her explanation contained a lot of implications. Gloriana had already caught many of them. "I see. Higher grades are associated with difficult but ambitious design philosophies. Though the odds of breaking through are low, once you do, you can become a very powerful Master! In contrast, lower grades don't require as much effort to realize, but such Masters simply can't strengthen their mechs as much."
"That's not necessarily the case." Willix said. "Low-grade design philosophies aren't necessarily weak, and high-grade design philosophies aren't omnipotent. It is all about how you use them and how you develop them. Even at Master, when you develop a low-grade design philosophy to an extreme, it is enough to break any high-grade design philosophy!"
This confused Gloriana a bit. "So when it comes to strength, the grade doesn't matter?"
"No, though many mech designers disagree. It's a perspective problem. There are different thoughts on this matter. Because it is less arduous to realize a low-grade design philosophy, there are many Masters who barely make the cut. This has caused the average strength of their group to be quite low. Yet I personally know of many so-called 'low-grade Master Mech Designers' who have come close to reaching the threshold of Star Designer! Once you reach this height, the grade of your design philosophy is no longer an accurate measure of your strength!"
This revelation shocked Gloriana! What Master Willix touched upon was far too high level for a young Journeyman like her to know!
She automatically inferred the situation of mech designers with high-grade design philosophies.
"If I am guessing this right, then high-grade design philosophies are so ambitious and difficult that not a lot of Masters with them have broken through. However, once they do, the performance of their mechs are substantially more powerful because they are able to perform much greater miracles, is that right?"
Willix nodded. "This act of 'performing miracles' as you say is much more drastic at the Master level. You can view it as an amplification of sorts. How strong your design philosophy is when you are a Senior will directly affect how strong it is when you become a Master. That said, many mech designers dream of realizing a powerful design philosophy, but few are able to do so within their lifetimes."
"The few that do are all monsters." Gloriana summed up. "I see. Even though the group of high-grade Masters are small, because their average strengths are so high, it is not difficult to develop the idea that high-grade design philosophies are better!"
Obviously, Master Willix disapproved, otherwise she wouldn't have led Gloriana to this conclusion.
"If it is not presumptuous of me to ask, where does your design philosophy stand?"
"My specialization is gravity systems, and it sounds exactly as boring as you think. The MTA officially categorizes it as a medium-grade design philosophy." Willix smirked. "Yet I have not taken any notice of the insults and disparagements I've received. I have worked diligently while exploring additional applications of my design philosophy in order to raise the performance of my mech designs. Nowadays, I can call myself an equal to many high-grade Masters."
Her status at Halcyon Citadel was high because of that! Not a single resident Master at Centerpoint looked down on her and her modest-sounding specialty!
Gloriana looked even more impressed at Master Willix. In her eyes, this MTA Master was practically a role model to her!
Even if Willix wasn't as exceptional as her rivals, she had long overtaken many of them and continued to make progress even to this day!
"What about Ves and Mr. Armalon?"
Willix turned to Jovy, who was still making a brisk amount of progress. "One of the factors that I have left out is the difficulty of developing a design philosophy. The higher grades are much harder to formulate and internalize. An exceptional design philosophy such as probability manipulation is ranked as a superior-grade design philosophy. This means the requirements to adopt it are extremely demanding. I dare say that in the entire Yeina Star Cluster, there is no one else who can specialize in this strange field!"
"Doesn't that mean that it becomes harder for a Master to develop personal disciples?"
"Partially." Willix admitted. "It takes a very specific person to develop a high-grade design philosophy. The odds of a mech designer meeting all of the requirements naturally is small, but that is when nobody interferes. If a Master wants to nurture a personal disciple, he can always mold a student."
"I see. You haven't told me how Ves stands, though."
"Your partner is… difficult to pin down. I have some thoughts about his design philosophy, but I cannot say anything about its grade other than that it is fairly high. It is just…"
"What's the matter?"
"What is he doing?"
Both of them looked down at Ves, who finally began to move after freezing for fifteen minutes straight.
He began to place his palm into the projection, distorting the mech design he developed up until now.
Ves twisted his fingers, which somehow caused his work to take on a slightly different air!
Chapter 2141 Spiritual Construc
One of the inadequacies that Ves had recently recognized was his overreliance on his design spirits.
No matter how you looked at it, relying on design spirits to enhance the overall value and capabilities of his mech designs was much like hiring outside consultants to perform your own work.
There was always a price to relying on others.
Though Ves did not intend to stop his use of design spirits to empower his mechs, he gradually realized that it shouldn't be his only method.
He could do more with his design philosophy.
For a rather long period of time, Ves faintly felt as if he hit a bottleneck. At his current level, there wasn't much more he could do to strengthen his mech designs.
Even the exceptional creation of the Superior Mother had only been possible by relying on another external aid. Once his high-grade life-prolonging treatment serum ran out, what could he do? It was too difficult to develop an advanced form of spiritual life by relying solely on his own spiritual energy at this point!
Ves recognized that he had to address this inadequacy sooner or later.
If his own skills couldn't keep up with the development of his design spirits, eventually both would stagnate.
He always felt as if he should do something more with the spiritual foundation of his mechs. To that end, he began to study the building blocks he had already laid.
Even though his design still needed a day to reach completion, its spiritual foundation already looked respectable and solid. While it wasn't a completely accurate description, the spiritual foundation appeared as a solid platform where it could safely stow any design spirit of his choosing.
Of course, a rushed mech design was not as spiritually solid as Ves liked. There was no helping it as the act of designing mech was like showering it with love and life.
The more time he spent on nurturing a mech design, the stronger its spiritual foundation!
In the past, the spiritual foundation served as a platform for his images. Weaker and much less livelier than his design spirits, his living images had been borne completely from his mind.
This effectively made them his own strength and an extension of his own will. Though it sounded simple to create them, Ves had to pour in an unimaginable amount of concentration in order to keep everything straight.
Of course, with the growth of his Spirituality Attribute, it became easier to create an image.
Yet no matter how many of them he made, they all started without that much life. It took a considerable amount of spiritual feedback from mech pilots to transition them into greater lifeforms, but even then they possessed too many holes to count.
Creating life was not that simple. There was a very big reason why Ves chased after multiple ingredients that came from other lifeforms.
It was much easier for Ves to rearrange life than create it from scratch!
However… now that he thought about it, creating a fully-fledged spiritual lifeform without relying on spiritual fragments sounded like a very useful ability to have.
This might even be the key to advancing to Senior or Master!
"I'm too far away from that, though." He muttered dejectedly.
Yet as he studied the spiritual foundation of his competition mech, Ves began to develop the notion that even if he couldn't create new life, what about stuff that wasn't alive?
It wasn't as if he attempted it before. Inspired by spiritual engineering, he had already attempted to form constructs with his spiritual energy. From spiritual hammers to spiritual knives, these lifeless constructs acted as his tools whenever he wanted to accomplish something.
"It's just that they disappear when I lose my concentration."
His spiritual projections had to be actively maintained. Once he relaxed, his spiritual projections broke down into a disorganized collection of spiritual energy.
Would the same happen with the spiritual foundation of a mech?
"Not necessarily, but…"
He hadn't paid enough attention to the spiritual foundation of his mechs. He treated it as a bed for his design spirits, nothing more. Yet now that he looked at it, they seem remarkably bland and boring to his eyes.
Compared to real spiritual engineering, the spiritual foundations of his mechs were no better than empty ground!
Certainly, by themselves, the spiritual foundation laid the groundwork for the X-Factor of a mech. However, they were so simple and uniform that Ves began to think he had been wasting its potential for a very long time.
It was like he was staring at an empty plot of land. There was nothing on the plot except for grass and soil. This was hardly a nice place for his design spirit to live in. Being forced to sleep out in the cold and lacking too many amenities meant that his design philosophies needed to do all of the heavy lifting.
What if Ves tilted the balance back to the spiritual foundation of his mechs?
Making it stronger by injecting more thoughts and energy into it only resulted in a more solid plot of land. No matter how high the quality reached, it was still a barren site!
What Ves truly needed to do in his opinion was to develop the land. He had to bring in some materials or take it from the existing plot of land in order to build something.
At the very least, a simple bench or a tent could do wonders in diversifying the spiritual foundation!
Of course, all of the talk about plots of lands and building tents was nothing more than an analogy that helped him put the problem in perspective.
The main point was to see if he could transform the spiritual foundation into something more interesting.
He began to reach out his arm in order to visualize what he was about to do. He wanted to manipulate the spiritual foundation.
He started off with something simple. He took a piece of the foundation and molded it into a suppressor.
He wanted to suppress the Superior Mother's tendency to look down on boys. While Ves had no doubt that Joshua was flexible enough to adjust to any design spirit, it would still make life easier for him if the Superior Mother didn't treat him like a baby!
Though he wasn't exactly sure how to make a suppressor, he let instinct and prior experience guide his efforts. Eventually, he felt as if he accomplished something.
The moment he completed his endeavor, the spiritual foundation of his mech suddenly became remarkably less hostile towards boys!
Ves widened his eyes.
This was an exceptional result, yet it took relatively little effort to achieve! Usually, he had to create entire new mech designs or blend several fragments and motes together in order to achieve a change.
Yet now, he just managed to accomplish something profound by actively developing the foundation!
However, the biggest test was yet to come. When Ves drew back, he didn't even had to lift his concentration to see that the construct fell apart.
It was as if he dug up some soil and created a sandcastle, only for the wind to scatter it into pieces!
"Damnit!"
The spiritual foundation turned back to normal once this occurred. The changes he made were temporary. For some reason, his efforts didn't stick!
Though this problem plagued him longer, this time he felt he should be able to do something.
He had tried this before with his own spiritual energy, but that was different from the spiritual foundation.
He began to experiment further, forgetting that he was wasting precious minutes that he could have used to flesh out the technical mech design further.
He became so enthralled by the idea that he was convinced he could accomplish something!
"Maybe I need to change my approach."
What was a spiritual foundation? It was the imaginary bedrock of a design. It spiritually embodied his vision for his mech design.
The more he designed his mechs with focus, the more he shaped and grew its spiritual foundation.
This was why even if he didn't instill his mech designs with any design spirits, they still exhibited some X-Factor!
Ves recalled the time where he had reached a bottleneck in the X-Factor. Instead of developing the spiritual foundation further, he entered a crooked path and resorted to borrowing power from design spirits instead.
While he didn't regret his choice, he knew that he could have eventually achieved some results if he kept on developing his original path.
"Well, I think I'm getting closer."
He had to go over all of his theories and assumptions on the spiritual foundation.
Eventually, he came up with a hypothesis.
If he wanted a construct to stick, then it had to match the character and attributes of the spiritual foundation.
Once Ves developed this theory, he twisted his fingers and began to shape a different construct.
He knew what he did wrong previously. By suppressing an existing attribute or introducing a new aspect, he deviated from the original framework of his vision.
If he wanted to make something stick, he had to create something that the spiritual foundation actually supported!
"Right now, the strongest trait of this mech design is superiority!"
Superiority was the central theme of his striker mech design and his best hope of defeating Jovy's inscrutable specialty.
So how could he make it stronger?
Ves stumbled upon an idea. He molded a portion of the spiritual foundation and turned it into a facsimile of the statue of the Superior Mother.
Even though it wasn't a complete match of the real statue, the likeness was close enough for his purposes.
He didn't settle for this. He applied another idea as well, one that sounded very counter-intuitive.
Ves began to concentrate even more and began to apply his special trick to separate certain spiritual attributes.
Right now, he wanted to draw out every attribute related to superiority and stuff it into the 'statue'.
Under normal conditions, it was very hard to keep spiritual attributes isolated. They had a tendency to diffuse like gas in the air.
When Ves attempted to corral all of the superiority attributes in a random location, they faintly repelled each other as if they all shared the same charge.
Yet once he put them into the spiritual statue, it was as if they encountered the opposite charge.
"They're sticking in place!"
The moment the superiority-attributed spiritual energy entered the statue, it began to stick to its shape, causing the entire construct to become more spiritually active and powerful!
When Ves tentatively drew back, the construct remained erect.
It was as if the plot of land suddenly hosted the statue of the Superior Mother. Though the spiritual foundation no longer radiated as much superiority, the strength and concentration exuded by the statue more than made up for it! It was as if concentrating spiritual energy that shared the same attributes resulted in some kind of magnification!
His eyes grew as wide as saucers. This odd change had not only altered and strengthened the spiritual foundation of his mech design, but also seemed to support its own existence!
It had become a permanent spiritual construct!
Even after Ves completely withdrew for a time before coming back, the construct showed no sign of dissipating or breaking apart!
This was a fundamental breakthrough, and perhaps one of the biggest since he chanced upon the idea of utilizing design spirits!
Now, even when he wasn't making any use of living spiritual entities, his mech design already exhibited more spiritual potency than usual!
Compared to the stakes of this design duel, this singular innovation was the real prize!
"Hahahahahahaha!" Ves broke out into laughter. "This is it! This is the key! This is the way to go forward!"
As Ves completely lost his composure, the two women floating far above his head looked at him with surprise.
"Your partner appears to be very.. enthusiastic." Master Willix remarked.
Gloriana smiled lovingly at her boyfriend. "He managed to achieve another breakthrough. His mech will definitely become stronger!"
Chapter 2142 Between Heaven and Hell
The design phase finally came to an end.
For three straight days, Ves and Jovy both stayed awake and spent all of their time on designing their mechs. Even when they ate or visited the bathroom, their minds were still preoccupied with designing their respective competition mechs.
There simply wasn't enough time to fit in everything they sought in a proper mech!
Despite their formidable design ability that allowed both of them to stand on top of other Journeymen in their generation, the quality of their mechs did not even come close to their proper mech designs.
They didn't need to be. A design duel was a contest of judgement, skill and speed. All of these aspects were critical to the success of a mech designer, whether they founded a business, worked for another company or served at a government institution.
If a mech designer couldn't design anything decent in three days, then how would their products amount to anything in three months? The competition would always be able to offer something better in the same amount of time!
Only a couple of exceptions deviated from this pattern. Gloriana for example physically abhorred rushed mech designs. She only participated in design duels and competitions if she had to, and most of the time her performance wasn't very stellar.
Ves took a very brief nap before he spent two days on fabricating his striker mech at a very rapid pace.
In contrast, Jovy simply uploaded his design schematics to the materializer aboard the Ubiquitous Force before pressing a single button.
Though the frigate's materializer couldn't compare to industrial fabricator, a third-class mech made predominantly with simple materials only took less than half an hour to finish!
Even Ves felt envious when he heard how quickly Jovy created his mech! Of course, to him, nothing beat the act of building up a mech step by step.
When Ves met with his girlfriend at a closed arena set aside for the duel, she offered him a strained smile.
"Your design choices are very… interesting." She began. "You sure like to play with fire, do you?"
He shrugged. "Striker mechs don't offer much room for versatility, and with such a low budget I had to make some very hard choices. Piling up on armor is prohibitively expensive, so I focused on offense and a little mobility instead."
As a result, he came up with a fairly mobile striker mech, though calling it mobile was stretching it. While it was capable of outmaneuvering other defensive mechs, his machine could forget about outracing a light mech!
The two chit chatted a bit before Jovy arrived at the balcony overlooking the dueling arena. The MTA mech designer seemed no worse for wear, as his many augmentations allowed him to forgo sleep for several days with ease as well.
Ves nodded towards Jovy in respect. "How was your experience designing a third-class mech?"
"It has been very… illuminating." The young man grimaced. "Third-class mechs are so limiting, and the mech type and budget that you have set doesn't help matters either. I enjoyed the novelty, though. At the start, I thought the design process would be child's play, but pretty soon I discovered there is a surprising amount of depth despite the lack of options at my disposal."
"When it comes to lesser mechs, you don't have as much choice, but each of them becomes a lot more meaningful."
"Well said, Mr. Larkinson! You can't imagine the sheer variety of weapon systems, defense systems, mobility systems and utility systems that mech designers can fit in first-class multipurpose mech designs. We approach limitations in an entirely different way because there is always a solution to a problem. The central question we have to grapple with is choosing which solutions to include in our mech frame. For example, the lack of capacity in third-class mechs can easily be solved by adding dimensional storage modules."
Something like dimensional storage modules that effectively added pocket spaces to mechs were completely unthinkable to third-class mech designers!
Such an expensive piece of high technology not only required a lot of expensive exotics, but also a very extensive understanding of multiple physics-related fields.
"The strengths and weaknesses of third-class mechs are almost always set in stone." Gloriana commented. "Shoring up their weaknesses isn't as worthwhile as enhancing their strengths. The customers in third-rate states already take these weaknesses into account by adjusting their tactics and mech rosters accordingly."
"It's certainly different from what I am used to back at the MTA. There, every mech can fulfill several roles at a time. They're not called multipurpose for nothing."
The transition from narrow roles to omniversal configurations still proceeded to this day. The Big Two and the first-rate superstates pioneered this development, and over the next couple of centuries, the second-rate states would slowly follow suit.
As for the third-rate states, Ves wasn't sure if he could even witness their transition to multipurpose mechs in his lifetime. The impoverished states simply had too little access to the fancy tech and materials required to fit so many features in a single mech frame.
Soon enough, Master Willix and a few members of her entourage arrived from behind.
"Master Willix." Everyone greeted and bowed.
She smiled. "Gentlemen. I hope you have put your full effort into designing your respective dueling mechs. Mr. Larkinson, I see you have enjoyed yourself during the process. Will we be witness to something remarkable in the upcoming match?"
"I hope so. I came up with some new tricks and decided to try them out on the spot."
"There is not much assurance in that answer."
"Even I don't know how my latest tricks will perform." He shrugged.
The Master turned to Jovy. "As for you, Mr. Armalon, it is clear that your familiarity with third-class mechs is quite shallow. Do you have any intentions of designing more third-class after this experience?"
This was a difficult question to answer for Jovy. He didn't dare to lie to an eminent Master.
"While I wish to broaden my horizons, I can't lose sight of who I am and what I would like to pursue. Just like third-class mechs, it is better to deepen my strengths than to compensate for my weaknesses. Perhaps later when I have made more accomplishments in my primary fields will I have the time to address the limitations I've experienced in the last few days."
"Your development is completely in your hands. We at the MTA do not force Journeymen like you down a proscribed path. We merely point out the different ways you can arrive at your destination and let you decide from there. Let me just tell you that being in a hurry is not always beneficial to your chances of advancing to Master."
"I understand what you are conveying, but I respectfully disagree, Master."
It took a lot of courage to stand up to a Master, but when it came to their own progression, mech designers such as Jovy had already made up their minds!
Master Willix merely nodded in acknowledgement before turning to one of her subordinates. "Please inform the champions to enter the arena."
Everyone at the balcony watched as the striker mechs designed by Ves and Jovy finally entered the arena grounds.
Both mechs gleamed in the light as their bare metal surfaces lacked any adornments. Even coating the mech was a waste of time, especially when the enemy mech would certainly be able to ruin it all within minutes with their wide area weapons.
Due to its advantage in mobility, the mech designed by Ves reached its assigned spot first.
The mech had become a bit leaner than Ves initially sketched. While it still looked fat and heavy compared to an average mech, it was clear to everyone that his striker mech unavoidably sacrificed protection.
"What's its name?"
"The Purgatory Envoy." Ves answered.
Master Willix raised an eyebrow at that. "In some legacy religions, purgatory is a state of afterlife that sits between heaven and hell."
"Isn't that where people go who aren't evil enough to go to hell, but don't quite qualify to go to heaven?"
"Correct, Miss Wodin. It is in perjury where this group of deceased are gradually purged of their sins. Once their souls are purified, they are ready to pass through the gates of heaven."
On the surface, the mech appeared as if it was the one doing the purging rather than being subjected by it. With its thick arms that was largely made up of embedded flamethrowers, the Purgatory Envoy looked more than ready to purify anything in its way with cleansing flames!
Jovy's mech took its place as well. When Ves studied what his opponent had designed, he reacted with surprise.
Of all of the possible configurations he could have chosen, Jovy opted for a mech that was similar to the Purgatory Envoy!
The large, flamethrower-wielding mech was capable of dishing out plenty of heat while resisting it in turn.
Different from the Purgatory Envoy, Jovy's mech obviously sacrificed firepower and mobility for defense.
The mech itself was substantially more massive. Due to budget constraints, Jovy opted to clad his mech with very thick armor plating. All of this mass not only granted his machine a high heat capacity, but also offered decent protection against physical damage.
The mech's mobility did not appear to be very great, but Ves noticed that Jovy had implemented a very unusual-looking pair of legs. Alongside this change, the mech's lower torso was almost completely circular, and Ves noticed something peculiar about the skirt of armor placed around the lower belly.
Underneath this loose skirt was a partition that allowed the mech to rotate its upper body!
"The torso can spin 360 degrees!" Ves gasped.
This meant that even if the mech wasn't able to traverse distance quickly, it could nonetheless keep rotating its upper body so that its front always faced a mech that tried to circle around its flanks!
This change partially countered the increased mobility that Ves imparted to the Purgatory Envoy.
He had actually hoped that Jovy would design a relatively immobile mech. If that was the case, then Joshua could circle his Purgatory Envoy around the enemy mech and savage the more vulnerable rear with flames!
Now, it became clear that this wasn't possible when both mechs were in peak condition.
Jovy looked proud at what he managed to accomplish. "I had a hunch you would come up with a mech like the Purgatory Envoy. While I could have designed a mech that expressly countered yours, I wanted a challenge, not a beatdown. I designed the Fortunate Devil in order to beat you fair and square!"
What Jovy claimed was that he did not wish to exploit the advantage of natural counters. If he truly knew that Ves would design a flamethrower-wielding heat-resistant mech, then the MTA mech designer could have paired his mech with a shotgun instead!
"Are your hunches that strong?" Ves narrowed his eyes at Jovy.
"If my hunch is wrong, then so be it. I can't be right all the time."
After a final check, both mechs were cleared for battle. Everyone fell silent as the Purgatory Envoy and the Fortunate Devil faced each other.
Within the cockpit, Joshua Larkinson had initially been a little nervous, but became increasingly more excited.
"What an amazing glow!" He gasped. "So this is what the patriarch has achieved with his ritual!"
The Superior Mother's glow immediately meshed with the young mech pilot. Though it took some time for Joshua to tune his mindset, his research on Hexers along with the advice provided by Ves allowed him to find the best way to immerse himself in his mech.
"I am the son, and the mech is my mother! Together, we will cleanse this devil of its sins!"
To Ves, the glow of the Purgatory Envoy had gradually grown stronger. Though Ves did not add a third eye to the mech, he would have imagined it glowing like a beacon as Joshua became increasingly more intertwined with the Superior Mother!
"Commence the duel!" Master Willix finally announced!
The fighting phase began explosively! Both mechs approached each other while already firing their flames at full blast!
The Purgatory Envoy's flamethrower spewed torrents of blue, while the Fortunate Devil responded with flames of red!
Chapter 2143 Cheating Reality
A fiery clash commenced!
Despite their similarities, the Purgatory Envoy and the Fortunate Devil both adopted different concepts!
The striker mech designed by Ves already turned into an aggressive machine in the hands of Joshua. Due to its lack of armor, the Purgatory Envoy needed to take the initiative in order to create its own advantages.
Standing in place and forcing the duel to devolve into a battle of attrition would definitely play in the hands of Joshua's opponent!
In contrast, the Fortunate Devil could afford to be patient. While its mobility was garbage and its flamethrower was a little weak, the mech was clad with armor from top to bottom!
As Ves studied Jovy's handiwork, he recognized that his competitor was a very tough nut to crack. Though the rear armor of the Fortunate Devil was not very impressive, as long as its rotating torso could keep up with the circling attempted by Joshua, it was impossible to exploit its main weakness!
"What a very tough mech!" Ves commented.
"Outlasting an opponent is also a way to win." Jovy confidently responded. "To be honest, I had a lot of difficulty adjusting to the limited capacity of my mech. I figured the only way to get some space was to make everything bigger."
The Fortunate Devil was taller and thicker than the Purgatory Envoy. Already, its substantial mass showcased its advantages by resisting and spreading all of the heat inflicted by its opponents throughout the rest of its frame!
"What a powerful heat-conducting armor system!" Ves gasped.
The cheap armor plating that Jovy piled up on his mech was not exceptionally resistant against heat. Its heat capacity did not stand out either.
Jovy only focused on adding one considerable advantage to his mech. It was difficult to cripple the Fortunate Devil!
This indirectly countered the main attack mode of the Purgatory Envoy. Joshua gritted his teeth as he maneuvered his mech around its larger opponent. Flames spewed from the integrated flamethrowers. Twin bursts of concentrated blue flames spat out from the arms and tried to sear through the armor of a leg.
Unfortunately, the fairly directional streams of fire failed to melt the armor section!
Though the section heated up considerably, already the hot armor plating rapidly transferred the thermal energy to the adjacent plates of armor. In turn, those armor plating passed on the heat to its neighbors, thereby dispersing the heat throughout the entire flame, causing its exterior to slowly heat up as a whole!
"Tch." Joshua spat in frustration. "This is taking too long!"
Though the Fortunate Devil wasn't able to bring its flamethrower to bear on the moving Purgatory Envoy all the time, once it did, Joshua always chose to retreat.
While the mech designed by Ves was capable of withstanding some heat, Joshua needed to ration the defenses of his mech as much as possible!
Already, he could tell that this duel was going to take some time to resolve!
The Purgatory Envoy couldn't chew through the armor of its opponent fast enough, while the Fortunate Devil's offensive option was rather weak!
For some time, the match seemed to devolve in a steady and boring pattern.
Unlike the flashy moves and quick maneuvering of normal mech duels, a battle between two fire-spewing striker mechs had automatically turned into a test of patience!
Despite the lack of action, everyone spectating the duel worked with mechs for a living. No one looked down on the low-specced mechs because they were both rather good for mechs designed in a matter of days.
It was because their designs had been rushed that they recognized Ves and Jovy's competence. Other Journeymen at their ages would have never been able to deliver something at this quality level within the same span of time!
Aside from the technical details that could be gleaned from the competition mechs, the observers also carefully looked for something exceptional.
Everyone knew that the dueling mech designers possessed remarkable specialties.
The one developed by Ves was already rather clear on the surface. Despite rushing its design, the Purgatory Envoy exuded a glow that wasn't much weaker than that of the Little Angel!
Though the MTA delegation didn't really know what that meant, both Ves and Gloriana knew that this was a considerable improvement from the past!
If Ves could already impart a glow that was this strong in a mech designed in a couple of days, then what if he applied his innovations to a proper mech design?
Gloriana turned to her boyfriend. "Is this the result of your breakthrough?"
He grinned. "That, and more. You'll see, hopefully. I already instructed Joshua on what to do. If the Purgatory Envoy works the way I think it does, it will likely be able to deliver a very nasty surprise to the Fortunate Devil!"
That would take some time, though. Right now, the two mechs were just trying to wear each other down. It was too difficult for either striker mech to exploit any advantages when they were both in good condition.
The Purgatory Envoy's glow didn't provide any solutions to this problem. Aside from making Joshua a lot more in tune with his mech, the MTA mech pilot didn't even show any signs of flagging despite the fact that he was within close range.
As for the Fortunate Devil, the heavily-armored machine performed steadily and held all of its care close to its chest.
Ves finally couldn't contain his curiosity any longer.
"Mr. Armalon, Master Willix provided me with a brief excerpt of your record. It stated that your specialty is probability manipulation. I have spent a lot of time on figuring out how that actually applies to your mechs. Can you elaborate?"
"Why certainly." Jovy openly replied. "Let's start what my design philosophy is actually based upon. Normally, if an object bumps into a hill, it has to climb over it in order to get past this obstacle. At the micro level, this doesn't always take place. Instead of bouncing back or expending energy to ascend the hill, there is a small but realistic chance of tunneling straight through the hill."
This phenomenon was known as quantum tunneling, and played a huge role in lots of human tech. Anything that took place at the scale of atoms could be explained with the help of quantum mechanics.
Whenever something included the word quantum, then uncertainty always followed. There was no way to determine the momentum of a moving particle at the same time as figuring out its coordinates.
This involved some very complicated concepts, but to put the long story short, reality constantly rolled an endless amount of very tiny dice in order to run itself!
"What does quantum tunneling have to do with your specialty, exactly?" Ves asked.
He had some suspicions, but he wasn't certain about any of his guesses.
Jovy seemed to know that. This wasn't the first time he dealt with confusion. He waved his hand towards the arena.
By now, the two mechs had made some progress.
The Purgatory Envoy constantly tried to exploit a weak point, but failed in all of its attempts. Eventually, Joshua decided that rather than waste time trying to outflank his opponent, he would rather focus on applying all of the damage on a single section that didn't rotate as fast as the torso.
The legs!
With its integrated flamethrowers spewing focused gouts of hot blue flames, the Purgatory Envoy pointed them downwards and began the very slow process of melting through the armor that protected the legs!
As much as the amazing heat transfer effect of the Fortunate Devil's armor system transferred all of the thermal energy elsewhere, it did not happen at once.
Joshua knew enough about striker mechs and mechs in general that he just had to transfer enough heat on the same spot to overload this defensive measure!
The mech pilot of the Fortunate Devil knew he was in a bit more danger than before. Part of the reason was because the legs and especially the feet were not ideal locations to transfer away the heat.
If the Purgatory Envoy pointed its integrated flamethrowers at the chest plating of the mech, then the heat applied to this location could easily be dispersed to the arms, head, lower torso, rear armor and legs!
Yet by only heating up the bottom parts of the Fortunate Devil, the rate of heat transfer had dropped by at least a half. This was because the heat couldn't be transferred further downwards. The floor of the arena was not as good as conducting heat as the Fortunate Devil's specialized armor composition!
However, even as the Fortunate Devil's unwieldy but very well protected flamethrower only managed to land an intermittent amount of red-hot flame onto the Purgatory Envoy, its mech pilot kept his cool and did not change his methods.
It was… as if the MTA mech pilot was waiting for something.
"Quantum tunneling is something that is solely associated with electrons, photons and other subatomic particles." Jovy calmly continued even as his mech gradually fell into a leeway. "What if it's possible to achieve it on a larger scale? What if you could make a mech physically tunnel through a solid wall as if it didn't exist? What if the mech could fire a round at a battleship that tunneled straight through the hull plating in order to damage the vulnerable interior?"
Didn't this sound like what Lucky was doing on a daily basis?
Ves frowned. "In order to achieve that, trillions of dice rolls have to land on the right number. The probability of something like that happening is so tiny that the galaxy will probably end before something like that happens."
"Ah, but a mech designer can dream, right?" Jovy said. "This dream is the start of my ambition. All of those dice you mentioned are perfect and proper. However, one day, I had a thought. What if you could replace those proper dice with loaded dice?"
"..What?"
That was some statement! Replacing the dice that reality rolled with your own loaded dice was a very daring way to distort outcomes. It was such a radical and absurd statement that Ves would have never been able to come up with it himself!
The twinkle in Jovy's eyes made it clear that he was expressing his true passion.
"When you flip a coin, there is a fifty perent chance of landing heads or tails. However, if you can access this coin and alter it so that the side that represents heads is heavier than the other, then you will have effectively increased the odds of landing heads!"
This was just cheating reality! Ves was truly impressed with Jovy's guts. Not every mech designer possessed the courage to break reality's rules to this extent!
"This is just a single instance at the micro level, though." Ves pointed out. "I admit that achieving this change on a single subatomic particle is already impressive, but that hardly allows an entire mech that consists of an unimaginable sum of atoms to tunnel through a solid wall."
"It's a work in progress." Jovy replied. "You see, once you get the hang of the trick, you can easily apply it again. Once you are able to automate this process to an extent, you can quickly scale up this effect on a substantially larger scale! Watch!"
The MTA mech designer waved down to the arena grounds, causing everyone to pay close attention to the two flame-bathing mechs.
Just as the Purgatory Envoy was making good progress in melting the Fortunate Devil's legs, its left arm suddenly sputtered. The constant release of fiery blue flames had abruptly dropped by half.
Its integrated flamethrower had malfunctioned!
Ves immediately straightened his back. "That's impossible!"
He knew his mech design the best. Though the Fortunate Devil's flamethrower had inflicted plenty of damage on the left arm, Ves deliberately made it resilient to heat.
Considering its surface damage, the left arm still had a long way to go before its internals started to reach a critical heat state.
"This is the result of my design philosophy!" Jovy proudly declared. "As long as there is an infinitesimally small chance of malfunction, it can be amplified!"
What a horrible effect! Probability manipulation turned out to have a lot more punch than Ves expected!
Chapter 2144 A Cleansing
As Joshua hastily adjusted the Purgatory Envoy's movements in response to its malfunctioning left flamethrower, he momentarily lost his composure.
While he wasn't a mech designer, he still knew a thing or two about the physical properties of mechs.
According to the internal diagnostics of his mech, its flamethrower had been quite far from reaching a critical damage state.
Mechs were complex machines. Millions of parts had to work in unison to keep it running.
Even for a brand-new mech that had recently rolled off the production line and passed MTA certification, there was still a chance for one of its parts to malfunction!
The best the mech company could do was to make as little mistakes as possible during the fabrication process. Yet even if the LMC invested ten times as much in quality control, the odds of delivering a bad mech could never be ruled out.
This was simply how machines worked. Total reliability was an unattainable goal!
However, these days, as long as the mech company did not cut any corners, the mechs it delivered rarely exhibited any defects out of the blue. It would take months for their owners to notice any signs, and by far the majority of the faults they encountered usually resulted from battle damage!
"Is this what the patriarch has warned me about?" Joshua guessed.
He didn't know what probability manipulation meant, but this inexplicable malfunction definitely had something to do with it! As he regained his composure and continued to immerse himself in his mech, he tried to explore what went wrong.
What had the Fortunate Devil done to his mech?
Why had one of the Purgatory Envoy critical components malfunctioned when it wasn't even close to sustain damage?
If his left flamethrower hadn't incorporated some redundancy, it would have been knocked out entirely, thereby reducing Joshua's offensive options even further!
"Fortunate Devil indeed. You're probably made to spread bad luck!" He cursed as he tried to dance his mech around the red-hot flames.
Before, he had been fairly confident in his chances of winning. As long as his mech retained enough functionality, he could steadily melt down the Fortunate Devil's legs.
However, now that the Purgatory Envoy's damage output dropped by 25 percent, Joshua needed to spend much more time to force his enemy into a critical state.
That extra time gave the enemy plenty of time to turn the tables!
On the balcony, Ves frowned deeper while he tried to figure out what exactly took place. How was it possible for the Fortunate Devil to induce an inexplicable malfunction on his mech?
"I'm a bit surprised, though." Jovy remarked.
"Why?"
"Your mech is actually holding out longer than I thought. According to my estimates, your Purgatory Envoy should have suffered numerous faults by now. How is your mech able to hold out so well? Is your glow that powerful?"
Before this match, Ves didn't know how Jovy's design philosophy actually worked, so he applied a bunch of possible countermeasures to his mech design.
One of them was adding a superiority-oriented glow to the mech.
Ves believed that this glow was partially responsible for weakening the Fortunate Devil's mysterious effects!
Even so, the mech designed by Jovy had plenty of time. With its thick armor and resilient legs, the Fortunate Devil kept getting hotter, but to little consequence!
Devils were made to bask in flames!
Another minute passed as both mechs tried their best to beat each other down. Ves noted that the Fortunate Devil specifically focused on applying its flames on the right flamethrower of the Purgatory Envoy.
Jovy's mech had partially crippled one weapon. As long as it could cripple the other one, then the outcome was pretty much set in stone!
"Another malfunction has occurred!" Gloriana shrieked!
One of the joints of the left leg of the Purgatory Devil slowed down. It wasn't facilitating movements as smoothly as before!
As a consequence, the striker mech designed by Ves abruptly exhibited an awkward gait. It was as if it had suddenly sprained one of its ankles.
Though Joshua was skilled enough to adjust to the sudden handicap, his confusion grew deeper.
Aside from getting hit by a few spluttering red flames, the legs of his mech had hardly sustained any damage.
He suddenly shook his head. "Damnit, this is bad! I'm letting the enemy dictate my rhythm!"
This was a rookie mistake that he hadn't made in a while. Various reasons caused his usual form to worsen.
Fighting an MTA mech pilot in a mech designed by an MTA mech designer was incredibly intimidating.
The Fortunate Devil's effects were too mysterious and confounding for him to understand.
Joshua feared another malfunction would take place at any moment. If the part that malfunctioned was critical enough and if the timing was very bad, the match could be decided right then and there!
"The patriarch is counting on me! I can't lose!" He reminded himself.
Though Ves did not tell Joshua what was at stake, his pride and reputation was still at stake!
The setbacks and confusion had slowly caused him to grow more out of sync with his mech.
The Superior Mother never faltered!
The Superior Mother never lost confidence!
The Superior Mother never let down her son!
This was his first time piloting a mech with a Hexer glow. Even though Joshua had displayed a remarkable capacity to adjust to any glow, he often had to figure out every new instance, especially if they weren't meant with someone like him in mind.
After all, he was not a Hexer himself, so he was still figuring out the glow as he battled his opponent.
Now that he recognized that he needed to adjust his state, he ignored the strange malfunctions as much as possible and continued to merge his mood with the superiority wafting from his mech.
Joshua recalled one of the instructions that Ves had passed on to him. There might be a way to turn the tables against the Fortunate Devil!
However, in order to do so, he needed to regain his cool and continue to grow closer to his mech. As his immersion grew deeper and deeper, the glow of the mech grew even stronger.
As Ves watched the changes from above, he knew that Joshua had finally deepend his bond with the Superior Mother.
The pair needed to reach a certain degree of intimacy in order to access one of the experimental new functions that Ves had added to the Purgatory Envoy!
He chuckled. "You're not the only mech designer to add a nasty trick to your mech design, Mr. Armalon. Do you know why I bestowed the name of Purgatory Envoy to my mech?"
Jovy tilted his head. "Is it because your mech comes armed with powerful flamethrowers?"
"Heh. It's more than that! See for yourself!"
As the battle continued to tilt against the Purgatory Envoy, Joshua had finally immersed himself deep enough to find the functions that Ves had hidden into the mech!
"There's two of them.. which one is the right one… ah, I'm pretty sure that this one is what I need!"
The two mechs continued to rain flames onto each other. The MTA mech pilot exhibited a great amount of patience. With its awful mobility, there was no point in moving around or performing any superfluous actions.
As long as he fought steadily, the mech itself would inflict all of the critical damage. He had been waiting for the Purgatory Envoy to exhibit a third malfunction. It was only a matter of time before it happened, and the Fortunate Devil had plenty of time at its disposal.
The Purgatory Envoy shrieked.
It had finally happened again! This time, the malfunction was a bit more serious than the previous ones. The striker mech's engines exhibited a tiny problem that nonetheless resulted in a rather noticeable drop in motion.
It was as if the mech designed by Ves had suddenly grown tired and old all of a sudden! The speed of the mech dropped again, causing the Fortunate Son to land a lot more flames onto its target.
This was bad!
Yet just as the Fortunate Son celebrated this stroke of luck, Joshua had finally figured out how to activate one of his mech's added features.
"PURGE!"
The Purgatory Envoy's frame suddenly released a powerful pulse that washed over Ves, Gloriana, Jovy, Master Willix and the rest!
"What is that?!"
"I feel as if an energy field had just passed through my body!"
A drastic change took place once the Purgatory Envoy had pulsed its glow.
The mech's left flamethrower suddenly increased its damage output.
The engine no longer exhibited any problems, causing the locomotion of the mech to grow steadier again.
The only malfunction that the Purgatory Envoy had failed to restore was the damage to one of the joints of the legs. The damage wasn't something that could be restored unless a mech technician performed repairs on the joint in question.
With the mech partially restored, Joshua became more energetic than ever! The restoration of the left flamethrower immediately boosted his confidence as he continued to apply more heat to the enemy mech's legs.
"Hah! I purged all of the filth clinging onto my mech. What will you be able to do now?!"
At this point in time, much of the leg armor of the Fortunate Devil had been melted to the point of losing its integrity. Already, some of its internal components began to reach critical heat levels.
Just one leg had to be damaged to the point of losing functionality. As long as that occurred, the Fortunate Devil could no longer keep up with the Purgatory Envoy's circling.
Let alone protecting its vulnerable rear, Jovy's mech wouldn't be able to point its flamethrower at its adversary!
"This isn't all. There's more!" Ves whispered with anticipation.
Half a minute later, Joshua finally gained a handle on the second function.
"PURIFY!"
This time, the Purgatory Envoy did not pulse its glow. Instead, the glow began to concentrate a bit inside the integrated flamethrowers.
Though the blue flames didn't change, once they landed on the Fortunate Devil, the mech suddenly attempted to step backwards before halting.
For a moment, the MTA mech pilot wanted to escape the flames!
A strange pressure acted on his head. It was as if someone set a part of his mind on fire. It took much of his will and concentration to suppress the pain and fortify his mind using some of the methods taught by the MTA.
It took a lot more pressure to unbalance an MTtrained mech pilot!
The purifying flames seemed to have failed in achieving its primary objective, but Ves guessed that it wasn't so simple.
As the battle continued to drag on, the Fortunate Devil finally showed signs of locking in place. While Jovy had applied a lot of armor to the legs, perhaps anticipating this attack, there was only so much the legs could be protected.
What discomfited him even further was that the Purgatory Envoy not only shook off some of its bad luck, but also suffered no further performance drops.
"This is strange.. my Fortunate Devil shouldn't be so unreliable." Jovy muttered.
Only Ves could explain why Jovy's mech wasn't as effective as before. The purifying flames released by his Purgatory Envoy were doing their best to wash away the sins of the Fortunate Devil!
This was one of the latest innovations he came up with! Now that he was able to shape some of the spiritual foundation of his mech design into a spiritual construct, he developed several different spiritual objects on the fly.
The first construct channeled the superiority aspect of the Superior Mother. Ves wanted it to function as a passive shield that did its best to keep them in its best state possible.
The second construct integrated something else. After exerting a lot of creativity, Ves believed he figured out the mechanism behind adding an active ability to the mech design.
Unlike the special features or abilities that were essentially controlled by design spirits, this new mechanism was fully grasped by the mech pilot as long as his bond with his mech was deep enough!
This was what Ves called a triggered ability!
Joshua only needed to think or say the right trigger word in order to activate the ability that Ves had tied to one of the spiritual constructs!
Being able to invest and affix triggered abilities to his mech designs was a drastic change from before. For the first time, his mechs were able to express all kinds of specific effects without relying on any design spirit.
In fact, these triggered abilities would probably work in a mech devoid of a design spirit!
Just as Ves thought that his new innovations clinched this duel, the Purgatory Envoy unexpectedly slowed down.
"What the hell happened?!"
"It's losing its power!"
"Nooo!"
The mech designed by Ves had done an admirable job at defending against the unknown effects propagated by the Fortunate Devil.
However, just because the Purgatory Envoy managed to suppress these effects did not mean it had become impervious to them.
All this time, the Fortunate Devil continued its attempt to spread bad luck to its opponent.
Finally, a critical component of the power reactor had inexplicably malfunctioned.
This wasn't supposed to happen. This key component was extremely well-protected and thoroughly checked by Ves. Even if it failed, the power reactor still possessed some redundancy that would allow it to retain full or partial power.
For some reason or another, none of those reducances had kicked in! Due to the failing of several critical systems, the entire striker mech lost its steam!
"Victory has been decided. Mr. Jovy Armalon has won this design duel." Master Willix calmly announced.
Both Ves and Gloriana looked devastated at the frozen striker mech. Joshua lost!
"This is impossible!" Ves uttered in disbelief!
Chapter 2145 Tricked
A loss!
The design duel between Ves and Jovy ended up in the latter's favor.
The arena had become awash with flames. Burning propellant consisting of different components had been spread around the floor. A mixture of blue and red flames emanated from them as they constantly heated up the surroundings.
It seemed as if most of the arena had turned into a very special sort of hell.
In the center of this slice of hell stood two distinct striker mechs.
The Fortunate Devil seemed at home in this fiery environment. Despite sustaining serious damage to its legs, the resilient armor plating that Jovy Armalon had clad them with had done their job. The sheer amount of heat they withstood or transferred elsewhere had allowed them to resist several times more heat damage than they could have in isolation.
Ves had no choice but to give a lot of respect to Jovy. In his vast collection of knowledge, the MTA mech designer possessed an even greater understanding of heat-resistant materials! He utilized this strength to good effect in designing a mech that quite frankly managed heat a lot better than his opponent.
As for the loser, the Purgatory Envoy appeared intact but nonetheless inert. Its armor, though substantially thinner than that of the Fortunate Devil, bore a lot of scorch marks and melted traces. Though Ves designed its two arm flamethrowers with additional protection in mind, both of their exterior casings almost looked done for already.
Yet Ves and everyone else in the arena who understood mechs knew that the lighter and more mobile striker mech still had some fight left. If not for the unfortunate stroke of misfortune that just so happened to disable the power reactor, the mech could have still fought on for a time!
Due to the relatively low budget for the mech design, Ves had neglected to take this possible attack into account. When he initially allocated the budget, he spent most of it on the flamethrowers, the mech engine and the armor system.
The quality of the power reactor was very mediocre because he didn't have enough money left to invest in a better model.
A striker mech did not demand that much power anyway. Unless it had a flight system, all the power reactor did was run various electrical systems such as sensors and more importantly power the mech engine and every other locomotion system.
While that already demanded a lot of power, the power reactor could still keep up with existing demand. It would have been another story if Ves mounted energy weapons such as laser rifles onto his mech!
Ves never expected the relatively well-protected power reactor to become the main reason for his loss today. Through some unknown means, the Fortunate Devil deactivated at least three of four critical components and subsystems that were designed to prevent the power reactor from failing!
The odds of all of those elements failing in succession when the Purgatory Envoy was 1 in a million, and that was a rather generous assessment considering the overall damage the mech had accumulated.
Yet the Fortunate Devil managed to win the lottery, as improbable as the odds appeared. Despite the Superior Mother's protection and the fairly robust design of the Purgatory Envoy, Joshua had failed to resist the outbreak of bad luck.
"It is a pity." Ves sighed and shook his head. "I was so close to winning. Joshua was so close to winning."
Whether Joshua deserved to win this match did not matter. A design duel was supposed to test the mech designer, not the mech pilot.
The mech designer developed the mech and chose the mech pilot. Good judgement was one of the critical elements to be tested so the mech pilot was usually regarded as an extension of the mech designer for the purposes of a design duel.
Even so, Joshua must be feeling crushed to have his victory snatched away from him. If he knew that the Fortunate Devil possessed such an inexplicable attack method, perhaps he would have intensified his attacks and overloaded the Purgatory Envoy's flamethrowers to breaking point!
All of that was moot, though. The match had ended as soon as one of the two competition mechs lost the ability to fight.
"This is a fine mech duel." Master Willix remarked with a hint of satisfaction. "Mr. Larkinson, Mr. Armalon, congratulations to you both for designing two different but very capable mechs. I have thoroughly enjoyed the sight of seeing your mechs demonstrate their unique prowess."
"Thank you, Master."
She turned to Jovy. "Your Fortunate Devil managed to win the duel for you, but only barely. Compared to your previous duels, your victories were much more crushing. Do you understand the reason for this difference?"
"The Purgatory Envoy resisted my specialty." He said with a serious expression. "My Fortunate Devil had difficulty affecting the probabilities of its opponent. I can see that Mr. Larkinson's glow has a lot to do with that. It's not often that I see a Class IX design philosophy being able to resist my work. Usually, it's the Class III design philosophies that frustrate my probability manipulation."
So there was a way to resist Jovy's strange specialty after all! Class III design philosophies focused on defense, and Ves could see how they could spiritually defend a mech against intangible attacks.
Ves began to suspect that he had made a judgement error! He had become too charmed by his latest design spirit to make a better choice.
He should have chosen Qilanxo instead of the Superior Mother! While Ves wasn't sure whether the sacred god was capable of resisting Jovy's specialty, she probably had a much better chance of doing so than a more all-round spiritual entity.
Master Willix turned to Ves. "Do not take your loss to heart. Your mech has fought hard and showcased much of your potential. Jovy's specialty seems powerful, but it is still subject to chance. If this duel had been fought at any other time or location, your Purgatory Envoy's power reactor might not have failed so suddenly."
"I am happy with the lessons that I have learned from this design duel." Ves graciously replied. "Mr. Armalon has stimulated me a lot with his challenge, causing me to reach further than I have gone before. Compared to my latest gains, losing this duel is immaterial."
His sober answer gratified both Jovy and Master Willix. Both of them had witnessed moments where a mech designer refused to acknowledge a loss.
No matter how the opponent achieved his win, once one mech had been downed, the mech that remained standing was declared the victor!
Jovy especially went through many moments where his opponent refused to acknowledge the loss.
It was one thing to lose a design duel because the other mech and mech pilot performed better.
It was another thing to lose a design duel because a mech the mech designer poured his heart and soul into had suffered an extremely low-probability malfunction!
The sheer frustration that Jovy's unusual method of winning generated had actually been enough to bestow him with a notorious nickname!
"Mr. Armalon is known as the Reality Trickster within the local branches of the MTA." Master Willix told Ves. "Unless you can design a mech that can quickly crush his work or resist his probability manipulation, more often than not the outbreak of bad luck will slowly deliver him victory."
The Reality Trickster!
Any mech designer who acquired a nickname was exceptional in some way.
Ves felt a little jealous that Jovy gained a nickname that reflected his professional ability.
Whereas Ves got stuck with a nickname that painted him as a deceptive manipulator of people, Jovy got to parade around with a nickname that made him sound like a god who tricked reality on a daily basis!
Society was so unfair!
He coughed and briefly shook his head. He calmly approached Jovy and stretched his arm.
Both Journeymen cordially shook each other's hands.
"Congratulations on your victory."
"It was a hard battle. You didn't make it easy for me, Mr. Larkinson."
Smiles began to appear on their faces. Neither of them were dissatisfied with the outcome.
Jovy managed to score a victory against the youngest masterwork mech designer of the star cluster. This was a considerable boost to his prestige. Even though his opponent was just an indigenous mech designer, Ves had already accumulated a considerable amount of fame and reputation!
As for Ves, he rediscovered the vigor of duels and competitions. After a long time of eschewing design duels in order to focus on his business ventures, he realized that he had been missing out a bit. It turned out that a duel with high stakes applied enough pressure for him to squeeze more potential out of his design philosophy.
If he didn't desperately want to keep the Darkbreak module, he might have never been able to make his latest breakthrough so soon!
As Ves, Jovy, Gloriana and Master Willix discussed the design of the two mechs and the progression of the duel, down in the arena, the flames slowly started to die down.
Inside the cockpit of the mech designed by Ves, Joshua had entered his own form of purgatory.
He had lost.
The mere thought of it left a foul taste in his mouth.
Certainly, he engaged in many virtual mech duels. Usually, the expert candidates such as Jannzi and Tusa often trounced him flat, but that was normal as their piloting skills and battle instincts had already exceeded mortal limits.
Yet against any regular mech pilot, more often than not Joshua handidly achieved a victory. His win rate when piloting any LMC mech was particularly stellar, as no one was able to understand the patriarch's work as much as he did. Years spent on obsessing over LMC mechs had given him an insurmountable amount of confidence when piloting these blessed machines.
That made this loss all the more painful.
Unlike his practice sessions, there was a lot at stake for this duel.
Aside from the rewards that Ves had mentioned, Joshua also fought for pride and glory. His own reputation notwithstanding, he knew that the patriarch himself had a lot riding on this duel.
It was not every day that a local mech designer received a challenge from a great MTA mech designer!
Any mecher was regarded as an elite in human civilization. They ranked above regular galactic citizens and represented the best of humanity.
If Joshua's benefactor managed to win this design duel, then this would make Ves, the Larkinson Clan and the LMC even more prominent! The gains of such an explosive victory would have boosted every clansman's fortunes further as a consequence.
Therefore, this design duel was far more than a private match between two Journeymen. Joshua could have benefited the patriarch and the rest of the clan immensely if he vanquished over his opponent, let alone boosting his own glory to new heights for being one of the few locals to defeat an MTtrained mech pilot in a fair duel!
Yet.. he lost. Decisively so.
Though the main systems of the Purgatory Envoy had lost power, enough of the cockpit and auxiliary systems remained online to tell him that there was no way to continue the match.
The power reactor failed. It did not suffer from a temporary glitch where all it took was rebooting it or banging it a few times to get it back to work. A critical component had failed and multiple redundancies failed to kick in.
The Purgatory Envoy was for all intents and purposes dead.
A very sour and indignant feeling swelled up in his mind. His mech had succumbed before Joshua did. It failed to no fault of its own. Neither Ves nor Joshua had shown any neglect that could have led to such an unanticipated shutdown.
Despite doing their best, the two ultimately failed to gain an advantage in this duel!
"I lost.." Joshua almost sobbed as he looked down his hands.
"I lost.." He repeated.
"I lost.." The cockpit fell silent.
Chapter 2146 Trigger
Though the duel had ended and the Fortunate Devil already started to turn around to wade out of the flames, the arena still remained hot.
If not for the various protective measures provided by the MTA, the observers wouldn't have been able to observe the clash between two striker mechs in peace. All of the smoke and heat would have forced them to leave the dueling arena just a few minutes after the fight commenced!
The air filtration systems and other measures were doing their best to calm the raging fires and remove all of the dangerous elements from the arena grounds. It would take some time for the grounds to become safe enough to allow for the entry of mech technicians who were tasked with rescuing Joshua from his unmoving machine.
Ordinarily, the mech pilot of a disabled mech should calmly wait for the mech technicians to safely pull him out of his cockpit.
If the mech was at risk of threatening the life of the mech pilot, then it was advisable to eject the cockpit.
If that was not possible, then there were other, riskier means of evacuating from a dangerous mech.
However, these measures weren't necessary at the moment. The Purgatory Envoy was not at risk of exploding or threatening the life of the mech pilot. It was for all intents and purposes unmoving as if it had been frozen in time.
At this time, almost everyone in the arena believed that Ves had lost the design duel.
He already accepted the outcome declared by Master Willix and already started to cast his thoughts to the future.
The design duel had ended, but many other matters required his attention. Ves was already thinking about exploring the potential of spiritual constructs, researching the mechanics behind triggered abilities and preparing for his upcoming jaunt to the Nyxian Gap.
Yet even as the mech designer of the Purgatory Envoy had already written off the mech, the mech pilot who was trapped in the cockpit still thought differently!
"I haven't lost.."
"I haven't lost.."
"I haven't lost.."
At some point in time, Joshua's mindset changed. He refused to accept his loss.
His victory had been robbed from his hands.
The match was rigged.
How could he have known that the mech of his opponent was such a massive cheater?
Instead of beating his Purgatory Envoy fair and square, the Fortunate Devil instead relied on its formidable defensive capabilities and simply played the waiting game!
Despite being piloted by an incredibly elite MTA mech pilot, the Fortunate Devil hardly showcased anything exceptional.
It made Joshua feel as if his effort had been for nothing. It was as if he poured his entire heart into the fight, only for the enemy mech to remain on the same spot and simply rely on its armor to win over time.
While such an approach was a valid method of winning a battle, it was a dishonorable tactic!
Many more mech pilots than Joshua would feel indignant in this situation, but the huge amount of opportunities he missed made his loss even worse.
Joshua was not resigned to his loss!
He began to draw himself inward and tried to immerse his mind in the bond he shared with his mech.
Even though the mech had almost entirely shut down, the cockpit contained its own power supply, though it was barely enough to do anything.
In his bond, Joshua felt as if his thoughts went nowhere. The cockpit was like the brain of a paralyzed human. Even if the mind was sound, the body had turned into an abyss!
This gave him the illusion that he had ended in a pit of darkness.
This was true purgatory.
There was nothing around him. He could shout, scream or plead all he wanted, but the mech that was supposed to be beyond had fallen silent.
Yet Joshua knew that an LMC mech was not like an average mech.
Unlike mechs designed by other mech designers, every mech designed by the clan patriarch possessed a bit of vitality.
Living Mechs, Partners for Life.
The motto of the LMC had been carved into Joshua's heart. He understood deeper than any other mech pilot he knew that every mech was truly alive.
Right now, he did not believe the Purgatory Envoy had died.
Its power reactor may have failed, but the fault did not lie in the mech!
The mech was still alive!
The Superior Mother would not succumb so easily!
Joshua began to reach out to his own mech. He surrendered his entire being in order to convince that it was still alive!
"I haven't lost!"
"I haven't lost!
"WE haven't lost!"
"WE can still fight!"
"WAKE UP!"
"WAKE UP!"
"WAKE UP!"
"HELP ME, MOTHER!"
Deep within the mech, in some other realm, the spiritual entity known as the Superior Mother sensed the pleas.
Though she was still dormant and in the process of undergoing large and profound changes, something within the recently-born ancestral spirit stirred.
Like a mother reaching out to her son, the Superior Mother became more active, if just a bit. A tiny amount of energy channeled from the spiritual entity and entered the mech.
Something profound took place.
A trigger had been pulled.
A stronger bond began to form between Joshua, the Superior Mother and the Purgatory Envoy.
Just as the group on the balcony were starting to leave, Master Willix stopped floating towards the exit and frowned.
She turned around and stared back at the arena. Her sudden behavior caused the rest to halt as well.
"What is the matter?"
"I'm not sure."
Even Ves began to look down at his own mech. Now that he was paying attention to it, he began to frown as well.
There was something strange taking place.
Inside the cockpit, Joshua paid no attention to the behavior of the people outside.
In his mind, he only had thoughts for his mech and the Superior Mother!
"We can still fight!"
"We can still bring glory to the Larkinson Clan!"
"We can still help the clan patriarch become stronger!"
"Let us fight for victory! Let us fight for Ves!"
The moment Joshua uttered the name of the clan patriarch, the resonance that had emerged between himself and the Superior Mother had peaked!
"Purgatory Envoy, there is still a lot of fight left in you. Come back to life and take back the victory that belongs to us! Do not let your birth be in vain!"
The disabled striker mech began to show activity.
Its power reactor, which should have stopped working, started to rouse!
If anyone looked inside of its internal structure, then they would have noticed that some of its subcomponents started to glow.
The malfunctioning part that had been the primary cause for shutting down the mech attracted most of the glow!
The resonance that had emerged began to work on the component, physically affecting it until the part inexplicably became whole again!
This was impossible! Parts that weren't designed with self-repair capabilities in mind did not just spontaneously put itself back together.
Yet this impossibility had become possible with the emergence of the strange form of resonance that Joshua had summoned.
Right now, his mind and will grew unprecedentedly strong and active. His willpower, which had always been strong, somehow broke a barrier.
Joshua's spiritual potential, which had always rested in his mind without showing much sign of activity, suddenly started to merge with his willpower.
The young adopted Larkinson mech pilot began to form a nascent force of will!
As the power reactor gradually fixed itself, its systems started to kick back into gear. The power reactor thrummed before beginning to supply some power to the rest of the mech.
The Purgatory Envoy was coming back to life!
The darkness and desolation of its near-dead state had not caused the mech to remain in purgatory.
Instead, with the help of Joshua's extraordinarily strong willpower, he managed to will his mech to claw its way out of the darkness and embrace the light that was life!
At this instance, Joshua obtained the answers to all of the doubts and questions that had plagued him for some time.
He found his reason to pilot a mech.
"I am fighting for life."
Life was precious. Life was wonderful. Life was his source of strength!
For a single instance, Joshua embodied life, and resonated with the life instilled within the Purgatory Envoy and the Superior Mother!
All three elements shared a common strength, and the alignment of all three resulted in a miracle that astounded the mech designers on the balcony.
The Purgatory Envoy started to exhibit a flickering glow despite not containing any parts that could evoke such an effect. Jovy and Gloriana couldn't help but drop their jaws!
"This.. this is forced resonance!" The MTA mech designer uttered in shock! "I've never witnessed this with my eyes, but the signs are unmistakable!"
Gloriana whipped out a multiscanner and pointed it at the increasingly more active Purgatory Envoy. "The resonance sensor is detecting signs of activity. The mech is outputting 0.05 laveres and growing. Joshua is breaking through!"
Though Jovy and Gloriana both reacted with shock, it was Ves who truly felt astonished.
This was because he felt something very familiar from the resonance outputted by Joshua and the mech he designed.
That resonance bore the flavor of life!
His eyes widened as he realized the implications. If his guess was correct, then Joshua's had dedicated his will towards life!
This meant that when Joshua succeeded in his breakthrough, he would become an expert candidate who possessed a primary spiritual attribute that was identical to Ves' domain.
Both mech pilot and mech designer shared the same obsession, the same domain and the same spiritual attributes.
This was an incredibly remarkable development and one that was absolutely more profound than Jannzi's promotion!
Only half a minute passed before the Purgatory Envoy's power reactor had returned to full power!
That should have been impossible.
A mech that had just suffered an emergency shutdown should have taken at least two to three minutes to regain full functionality. This was because the power reactor had likely sustained some damage due to its emergency shutdown and slowly needed to test its various subsystems to determine whether they could tolerate the strain.
The forced resonance ignored these realities and forcibly revived the power reactor without issue!
Not only that, the mech's other systems began to show some signs of restoration. Various internal components that had been damaged due to exposure to excessive heat started to function as if they were brand new and fully functional.
This was impossible!
There was no way to explain these changes with conventional theory.
What was taking place right now had exceeded the boundaries of normality and crossed into a territory that was ordinarily reserved for gods!
Joshua had taken his first step towards ascension. From this day onwards, he was no longer purely mortal. He had narrowed the distance to his girlfriend and become a bonfide expert candidate!
He was the first to do so since the founding of the Larkinson Clan!
All of the activity did not escape the Fortunate Devil. Even though the match had formally ended, its mech pilot was a true warrior and soldier.
Whenever someone challenged him, he was obliged to respond. This was what the MTA stood for. The fight was not yet over until a mech could no longer move!
"Come, young mech pilot! If you want another round, then I shall oblige!"
Even if the MTA mech pilot was facing a brand-new expert candidate who had managed to evoke forced resonance, his fighting spirit had not diminished.
He represented the MTA. Expert candidate or not, he had his own pride!
The Purgatory Envoy began to step towards the Fortunate Devil at greater speed than before! The unstable forced resonance that wrapped around the mech had elevated its performance beyond its technical parameters!
Furious hot flames began to spew from the Purgatory Envoys arms. They washed towards the Fortunate Devil's feet and melted the remaining armor within seconds.
The Fortunate Devil collapsed!
The revived clash had been decided in an instant!
Every mech designer couldn't believe what had taken place. The mech designed by Jovy stood no chance!
Chapter 2147 Rectification
A shocking outburst took place!
A duel that everyone had written off had produced a completely unexpected development at the end.
Somehow, Joshua Larkinson refused to resign himself to his loss, and single-handedly rewrote reality through sheer willpower!
This was the characteristic ability of expert pilots!
Though Joshua had only just broken through to expert candidate, his promotion was accompanied by a lot of resonance.
So much so that a dam had broken, allowing the new expert candidate to temporarily wield the strength of a higher rank!
Even so, such activities were very strenuous. A violent breakthrough like this was always accompanied with a lot of damage. As soon as the Purgatory Envoy melted the legs of the Fortunate Devil, Joshua basked in his victory.
"I've won. We won!"
Elation suffused his mood as he managed to defeat the MTA in the end. Even though it took an extraordinary amount of effort on his part, he succeeded in fulfilling the expectations set by his benefactor.
The life that suffused his mind and body began to lose strength. He had overstrained his force of will too much. Now that it was no longer necessary for him to maintain this state, the Purgatory Envoy rapidly subsided.
The flickering glow around the mech quickly faded and the mech gradually began to shut down at the command of its mech pilots.
The extraordinary life-based resonance that had formed between the mech, mech pilot and design spirit faded as well.
It had done its job.
As the life around and within the mech faded, the entire incident had come to end.
Soon enough, a team of MTA mech technicians floated into the arena and quickly forced open the cockpit. They pulled out an unconscious Joshua and placed him on a stretcher. A medical officer from the Ubiquitous Force checked him over and intended to bring the young expert candidate back to the ship as fast as possible.
Ves understood the necessity of providing the best care to Joshua. His breakthrough was just as dramatic as the one that Jannzi experienced a few years ago, and back then she was forced to rest in a military hospital for weeks.
With the MTA's excellent standard of care, Ves hoped that Joshua would recover faster and with less side effects.
Every young mech designer who had witnessed the Purgatory Envoy gaining a second life was still in the grip of their astonishment. Not even Jovy, who had witnessed many remarkable sights at the MTA, saw a mech pilot break through in person.
Such events were exceedingly rare, even at the strongholds of the foremost organization on mechs and mech pilots!
The sight of forced resonance dazzled them all. Joshua's furious advancement had made a profound impact on their psyches. The resonance that Joshua managed to evoke also touched their own spirits!
"Well… that happened." Gloriana eventually spoke.
Ves shook himself out of the numerous implications of this unexpected development. "Yes. It seems our Larkinson Clan will welcome a new expert candidate."
Both of them grew happy at the thought of strengthening their clan. Each new expert candidate increased the chance that they would have another expert pilot in the future.
Such strength could not be ignored!
As for Jovy, he was truly stunned. How could he have expected for the champion chosen by his opponent to break through all of a sudden.
"What kind of monster have you been cultivating, Mr. Larkinson?" He asked with shock still running through his bones. "Mech pilots mostly advance to expert candidates in life-and-death battles. It's almost impossible for them to promote when their lives aren't at risk. I have fought more than fifty duels and personally witnessed at least ten times as much. In none of those instances had one of the mech champions achieved a breakthrough. It's too improbable!"
Ves smirked. "As long as there is an infinitesimally chance for someone to break through to expert candidate, it can happen."
As someone who played with probabilities for a living, Jovy could not muster up a response.
While Ves managed to shut up Jovy, that did not mean that Master Willix intended to let matters be! The sudden breakthrough might be a happy event for the Larkinson Clan, but it did not mean that the outcome of the duel had been changed!
"Several minutes ago, I announced the end of the match and declared the victor of his duel." She spoke, causing everyone to shake off their astonishment in order to pay attention to the respected Master. "At that time, the Purgatory Envoy has lost power, causing it to freeze in place for a couple of minutes. In this time, the Fortunate Devil had plenty of time to disable its opponent."
That was true. Even though the Fortunate Devil was a defensive striker mech with lackluster offense, attacking an inert mech was completely different from attacking an active mech!
When a mech lost all movement, it lost the ability to defend itself. Ves knew that the quickest way for the Fortunate Devil to kill his mech in a permanent fashion was to tip the latter over until it collapsed on the arena grounds.
After that, the Fortunate Devil only had to lift its feet and step on the weaker joints of the defenseless Purgatory Envoy.
In fact, if the MTA mech pilot wanted to make an even stronger statement, he could command his mech to place its entire weight onto the chest plating of the downed machine. The sheer amount of pressure applied to the Purgatory Envoy's torso would eventually collapse the cockpit and kill the mech pilot trapped inside!
Naturally, such barbarism would never take place in a formal mech duel. The point of imagining such a hypothetical scenario was to illustrate the fact that Jovy was still the rightful winner of this design duel!
If the Fortunate Devil kept on fighting, Joshua would have never been given enough time to achieve his breakthrough!
"You are right, Master." Ves bowed in order to show his willingness to abide by her ruling. "I am very grateful for the mech pilot of the Fortunate Devil to provide my champion with the space to complete his breakthrough. This result is more than I could have ever hoped for when I accepted Jovy's challenge."
Forget about gaining total ownership of the Darkbreak module. The addition of a new expert candidate to the Larkinson Clan was a much greater prize!
Yet not everyone stood by this ruling.
Even though Master Willix affirmed Jovy as the proper winner of the design duel, the young man himself did not appear jubilant at this announcement.
He felt like he was the one who lost instead of Ves. How could he take pride of his mundane victory when the magnificence that had just taken place overshadowed all of his accomplishments?
Jovy looked up at Master Willix. "While I agree with your interpretation of the events, I would like to object to your ruling."
The Master Mech Designer curiously raised her eyebrow. "Oh? What are your reasons?"
"A design duel is a contest between mech designers. The mechs we design and the mech pilots that we have solicited are part of the contest. When it comes to the design of our mechs, I think my Fortunate Devil is just as good as the Purgatory Envoy. Perhaps my work is even better considering that my specialty has secured a considerable advantage during the match."
"And the mech pilots?"
"In theory, the champion that I have chosen from your staff is better than the champion that Ves has drawn upon. A first-class mech pilot should always crush a third-class mech pilot when everything else is equal. Yet in this, Mr.."
"Joshua Larkinson." Ves supplied.
"Mr. Joshua Larkinson has frankly exceeded the abilities of our own mech pilot, and at a considerable margin at that!" Jovy exclaimed with admiration! "While I'm aware that the circumstances are anything but normal, the fact of the matter is that Mr. Ves has designed a mech that has given Mr. Joshua an opportunity to advance his rank! In this duel, I have not come close to accomplishing the same. Rather than cling to my empty victory, I would rather hand it over to someone who deserves it more."
"I can do so if you wish." Master Willix replied with a serious expression. "Normally speaking, I would never change the outcome of a duel that has already been set, even if something exceptional has taken place. However, I agree with your sentiment. It is very noble for you to elevate yourself above your competitive sentiments and acknowledge the underlying principles behind design duels. Are you sure you wish to retroactively forfeit this duel and access a loss that you are not obliged to bear?"
"...I do." Jovy answered after he firmed up. He turned to Ves and bowed. "Mr. Larkinson, you deserve this glory. In fact, you already carry this glory. I am just carrying it without deserving it. I would feel much more comfortable if I can rectify this situation!"
How was Ves supposed to respond? "Uhm. Okay."
While he had a mind to act humble and reject Jovy's suggestion, Ves did not wish to let go of the prizes he stood to gain if he won!
2,500 MTA credits!
Permanent ownership of an exclusive Darkbreak module!
Both of these prizes were enough for Ves to go mad at any other day. There was no way he was going to shove them aside in an attempt to make himself look good.
He was already looking forward to all of the combat carriers he could acquire with such a hefty amount of money. Though 2,500 MTA credits sounded deceptively small, when converted into hex credits, he could already buy a factory ship half as big as the one that DIVA had just commissioned on his behalf!
Seeing Jovy's sincerity, Master Willix delayed no longer. "Very well. With both competing mech designers in agreement, I declare that the previous winner has forfeited the duel. As a result, Mr. Larkinson is the final winner of this design duel!"
"Congratulations, Ves!" Gloriana clapped her hands. "I always knew you could do it! You deserve this win!"
Ves smiled. He felt incredibly gratified at this turn of events. Though he still felt his victory was undeserved, he did not say anything due to the allure of all of the winnings he stood to gain.
Just as Ves thought that this event had finally passed, Master Willix made a very pertinent remark.
"It's rather curious, Mr. Larkinson. This is not the first time a mech pilot under your employ has broken through to expert candidate. The odds of any mech pilots advancing to expert candidate is quite small in the Komodo Star Sector. You can pick out 100,000 random mech pilots and still not encounter a single expert candidate or expert pilot!"
Uh oh. It appeared that Master Willix recognized a very dangerous pattern!
Ves tried his best to remain calm. "As a former member of the Larkinson Family, I grew up in the company of expert candidates and expert pilots. I dare say that in the Bright Republic, my old family understood expert pilots the best! I have profited immensely from the wisdom of my fellow Larkinsons. I have always tried to facilitate the emergence of mech pilots, especially within my circle."
The Master Mech Designers stared at Ves with an intrigued expression. "Your Larkinson Family does have a history of cultivating expert pilots. Yet when it comes to you, expert candidates seem to emerge at a considerably higher rate than average. Not all of them are Larkinsons, either. First, there is Jannzi Larkinson, a blood cousin of yours who grew up in your family. Then you have William Urbesh, a former guest of the Rim Guardians and a citizen of the Vicious Mountain Star Sector. Now, you can add Joshua Larkinson to your list, an adopted member of your clan. You have facilitated all of their advancements in just the span of a couple of a few years. That is a remarkably stellar achievement, don't you say?"
How was Ves supposed to respond without getting hauled straight to Centerpoint? He quickly glibbed out a quick reply.
"Uh.. all of those pilots you've mentioned adore my mechs. I specialize in meeting the needs of mech pilots. Evidently, my excellent designs along with my powerful proto-gods have succeeded in unlocking their potential. My products are just that good!"
If nothing else, Ves could always resort to shameless bragging!
Chapter 2148 Unfalsifiable
Though Ves felt uncomfortable, he defended himself as best as possible against Master Willix's inquiries.
He had known from early on that the emergence of expert candidates within the Larkinson Clan would definitely attract attention.
Yet even if the mech pilots under his charge possessed a higher chance of advancement than others, this was not unusual.
Plenty of other groups and organizations that nurtured mech pilots in-house managed to surpass the average.
Just looking at the average rate of advancement to expert candidates in civilized space was not very useful. The individual rate between states, organizations and even mech regiments differed a lot, so much so that a mech pilot in one place was a hundred times likelier to advance than if he went to another place!
Ves put forth two simple arguments to explain why expert candidates seem to pop up like mushrooms under his command.
First, he inherited most of the wisdom and best practices of the Larkinson Family.
The original Larkinson Family was famed for its ability to nurture at least a couple of expert pilots within every generation. Considering the relatively small population size of each age group of Larkinsons, that was a very high rate, though the frequent wars against the Vesia Kingdom helped as well.
It was well-known that once a family or organization boasted a few expert pilots, they were often able to nurture even more! Expert pilots were some of the best teachers imaginable because their skills and understanding towards their profession had reached beyond human levels.
Just like how having a lot of money made it easier to make more money, having a lot of expert pilots often allowed for other expert pilots to emerge!
This was already a powerful defense that Ves believed would deflect most suspicion.
He decided to take it a step further, though. Master Willix was not some faceless MTA snob who could be fobbed off with a single excuse. Ves had to make a more convincing case!
"So what you are saying is that your 'proto-gods' bless your mech pilots…?" She asked in a doubtful tone.
It wasn't often that someone managed to make a Master confused! Even Jovy looked surprised at the gumption displayed by Ves!
"It's very simple." Ves spread his hands and grinned as if he was completely convinced of his theories. "What do all expert pilots have in common? Belief! Conviction! Will! What sustains these beliefs? Emotions! My uncle Ark, a famed expert pilot of the Bright Republic, once told me that emotionless expert pilots don't exist. Those who possess scattered hearts and don't have anything to fight for will never have what it takes to step on the road to godhood. In order to transcend their human nature, mech pilots have to embody it first!"
His statement surprised everyone. Even Master Willix showed some more reaction. "That is an interesting theory. It falls in line what our Association has discovered as well, though we do not phrase it in such a fashion. Human nature…"
"This is part of the reason I developed my current design philosophy. My time growing up among the Larkinsons has given me a very good understanding of mech pilots and what they require. I understood back then that a mech is never devoid from the mech pilot. They are one system, one entity, one partnership! Mech designers who only focus on one but not the other miss the point about mechs!"
"Well said, Ves!" Gloriana cheered and clapped.
Her design philosophy also revolved around this premise! Though Ves and Gloriana disagreed on a lot of matters, it was the few ideas they had in common that allowed them to remain together!
"How does that tie to expert candidates and expert pilots?" Master Willix asked.
"Since I embarked on this career, I have sought a means to help my family members increase their chances of advancing to a greater height. Eventually, I have been fortunate to step onto a path that focuses on empowering both mechs and mech pilots by increasing their symbiosis. After making a lot of progress in my design philosophy, I have eventually made a very important conclusion."
"And that is?"
"Mech pilots aren't the only people who are able to step on the road to godhood!" Ves shouted in his most fanatical act he could muster! "Mechs are able to advance as well!"
Every member of the MTA delegation looked surprised. They did not expect to hear such a radical statement!
Ves didn't care. He continued to spew whatever nonsense that came up in his mind! "I have always believed that mechs are alive. If that is so, then just like mech pilots, mechs can advance and become existences akin to gods as well! For now, I have only been able to create proto-gods and associate them with my mech designs, but that is just the start. As long as they advance step by step, they will eventually reach the heights of ace pilots or god pilots in the future! This is my ultimate ambition! The best way to help mech pilots evolve into gods is to pair them up with mechs that are also capable of becoming gods!"
Though some people such as Master Willix were accustomed to the mention of gods, Jovy looked a lot more confused!
Though the tale spun by Ves sounded strangely compelling, it clashed with the secularists views held by Jovy! As a mech designer who dared to cheat reality itself, he never believed in the existence of supernatural entities with powers beyond human ken.
The questioning did not last much longer. Though Master Willix asked some interesting questions, Ves always returned to the same answers. He deliberately dragged in gods and made exaggerated statements that were essentially unfalsifiable.
This was a very devious debate tactic! Part of the reason why people with faith were so difficult to argue with was because their claims couldn't be proven wrong!
How could you prove that gods did not exist in a scientific manner?
It couldn't be done! Even a great Master Mech Designer like Moira Willix was unable and unwilling to enter this swamp!
Therefore, when Ves kept holding on to this defense, she helplessly stopped inquiring and simply accepted what Ves had said from the onset.
The emergence of expert pilots were correlated by strong beliefs and emotions, and turning mechs into gods was one way to evoke them. LMC mechs were very famed for their ability to affect the moods of others with their glows, and the ones who became affected the most just happened to be their mech pilots!
Now that the duel had come to an end, Master Willix and her entourage soon departed the arena.
"We shall be wrapping up our visit here." She explained. "We have already examined the Little Angel in detail. The two you can expect to receive your latest masterwork certificates within a day. We will look forward to receiving this exquisite masterwork mech in a year. Mr. Armalon, you may spend some time with these young talents if you wish. Despite their origins, they are very remarkable and well worth befriending."
Jovy immediately nodded. "Those are my thoughts as well."
The departure of the serious 'adults' considerably lightened up the mood between the Journeymen. The massive presence of Master Willix no longer loomed over their heads.
This gave Ves a lot of relief! Though Master Willix hadn't departed the Cinach System as of yet, at the very least he didn't need to walk on coals anymore.
"Would you like to head somewhere more comfortable?"
"Certainly."
Ves, Gloriana and Jovy all left the mech arena and headed to a private lounge inside the Larkinson Clan's base.
Along the way, they grew a bit friendlier. While Jovy already built up a considerable amount of respect for Ves, after their design duel, he no longer regarded the winner as an indigenous mech designer.
Ves directly proved that he was not necessarily inferior to his colleagues back at the MTA!
As they entered the lounge and took their seats, Ves could no longer hold in his curiosity.
"Strictly speaking, you didn't have to concede the duel to me. What Master Willix has described is very correct. Why would you take the initiative to forfeit your win?"
The MTA mech designer smiled. "I am genuinely impressed that your mech managed to help a mech pilot reach a higher state. Even if advancement is not a criteria for winning a duel, it is a goal that many mech designers are chasing after. How could I possibly feel as if I bested you when I have yet to achieve this myself? Besides, another win or loss won't affect me all that much. You stand to benefit a lot more than myself. After all, it is not often you hear a local mech designer defeat a representative of the MTA in a fair match."
That answer still didn't satisfy Ves. No one did anything out of the goodness of their heart. He didn't believe that Jovy was as magnanimous as he sounded!
Yet as their conversation continued, Ves began to realize that Jovy truly wasn't putting on airs anymore. The MTA mech designer not only acted very sociable, but also tried to forge a friendship!
It was then that Ves understood Jovy's motivations. The fellow wanted to build up a favorable impression in order to establish a connection with the mech designer who impressed him. Sacrificing a bit of reputation and allowing himself to be used as a stepping stone for someone else might affront others, but people like Jovy easily endured these minor setbacks.
In his mind, befriending the likes of Ves was worth the investment!
This wasn't the first time that Ves met with people who wanted to forge a closer relationship. His fame, reputation and incredible accomplishments had long convinced people such as Calabast and Tristan Wesseling that he was likely destined for greatness!
He did not expect that an elite mech designer like Jovy who would likely have the entire galaxy at his reach in the future would choose the same approach.
Jovy absolutely did not need to reach out to a local mech designer, as he was already in touch with plenty of amazing mech designers in the Association!
"You don't have to sell yourself short, Ves." He spoke. They had already reached first-name basis. "Your design philosophy is both interesting, profound and strong, even if your principles are rather.. strange. Regardless, while you are not the only mech designer who managed to mitigate my specialty to an extent, you are a lot more versatile than those blockheads who only focus on pure defense."
It did not take long for Ves to figure out Jovy's underlying message. "Are you thinking about.. collaborating together?"
A very devious smile appeared on Jovy's face. "Something along those lines. Even though we both possess Class IX design philosophies, I have a feeling that they won't clash. In fact, I am confident we can complement each other! Unfortunately, it's still too early to consider any collaborations at this time. To make it worth it, we need to design a powerful first-class multipurpose mech, and you are far from reaching this point."
This was an amazing offer! Yet the moment Jovy mentioned first-class mechs, the enthusiasm within Ves quickly doused.
"You're right. I'm not ready yet. It will probably take a few decades before I am comfortable with laying my hands on a first-class mech design." Ves modestly responded.
"I'm glad you know your limits. Even so, it would be nice to keep in touch with each other. Even though our classes differ, I believe you are too good to stagnate along the way. The same goes to you, Gloriana. Your Little Angel has already showcased a glimpse of your future ability."
Gloriana imperiously nodded as if that was already a given. "In the future, every mech I make will be a masterwork!"
"Hahaha!" Jovy erupted. "If others make that claim, I usually look down on them. To a masterwork mech designer like you, I have nothing but respect for your ambition. Both of you give me the feeling that the legendary mech touch won't be out of your reach!"
Chapter 2149 Unmasked
The MTA's third visit to Ves soon came to an end.
Master Willix formally completed the certification of the Little Angel. Ves and Gloriana both received official notices that informed them of their new masterwork certificates.
They also gained 500,000 MTA merits each.
Aside from that, Ves also received a whopping sum of 5,000 MTA credits in his personal MTA account. He already considered half it as his participation fee. Even if Jovy didn't concede the design duel, he already had that sum in the bag, but he didn't say no to receiving double.
With this much money, Ves no longer had to wait until the LMC accumulated enough funds to enact one of his spending plans!
He had already sent a message to Major Verle and Ophelia Kronon to look into ordering a large batch of second-class combat carriers and support ships from the Hegemony.
5,000 MTA credits equated to around 900 billion hex credits. This was already incredibly close to the 1 trillion hex credit goal he set to upgrade his entire fleet!
Though Ves felt tempted to spend his winnings on his upcoming factory ship, it wasn't necessary. Her current configuration already gave Ves a lot of confidence. It was more important for him to get rid of the fragile third-class light carriers and other vulnerable vessels in the hands of the Larkinson Clan.
Only when the Larkinson Fleet consisted entirely of second-class ships would Ves be ready to venture into other star sectors!
As for the Darkbreak module, the local MTA branch on Cinach VI promised to deliver it by the end of the day.
When the time arrived where the Ubiquitous Force was scheduled to lift off and return to Centerpoint, Ves and Gloriana approached the landing zone where the armed frigate warmed up her systems.
As the pair bid farewell to Jovy, who floated upwards and passed through the passenger hatch, Master Willix lingered for a while longer.
Though Ves still regarded her as a massive threat to his safety and freedom, he couldn't help but feel a bit more at ease in her presence.
In their three encounters, Master Willix had always treated Ves and Gloriana in a benevolent manner. The MTA didn't entirely consist of elitist jerks who regarded everyone else as lowly space peasants.
Due to the MTA's relatively open recruitment policies, it was impossible for many of them to grow completely out of touch with the humans they guarded.
While Ves wasn't sure whether there were more open-minded people such as Master Willix within the Association, he knew he was lucky to have met her instead of someone from the Prime Human Fraternity of the MTA.
Just as Ves thought that Master Willix wanted to start up another mildly-uncomfortable conversation, she made an astonishing claim!
"I have deciphered your secret."
"What?!" Ves suddenly shook. "I mean, what secret?"
The Master tutted at him. "You do not have to pretend anymore. While I have enjoyed your charade, there is no need for you to hide your secret from me. I know who you are. I am aware of your hidden heritage. Do you really think you can keep secrets from the Mech Trade Association?"
Her words struck straight at his paranoid heart! Had she figured him out after she observed him throughout the design duel? Did he inadvertently slip some clues along the way that revealed his ties to the Five Scrolls Compact?
A chill ran through his spine. If she found out that he was a Holy Son who possessed the Mech Designer System, there was no way the MTA would let go of him! He expected Master Willix to invite him to step aboard the Ubiquitous Force any moment now. Once he entered the ship, he might never be able to escape the clutches of the Association in his life!
Meanwhile, Gloriana shared none of his distress. She looked curiously at him. "What secret are you holding, anyway?"
"You're not helping, Gloriana!"
Ves wanted to cough. Was his girlfriend even on his side?! This was a very serious crisis!
"Don't think your distraction will work. Will you admit it or do I have to say it out loud?" Willix frowned.
Damnit! Even if Master Willix figured him out, Ves still wanted to maintain his facade to the end!
Seeing that he remained as obstinate as ever, the Master Mech Designer no longer held herself back.
"Your design philosophy intrigued me quite a bit once I learned about it." She calmly began. "Your ability to empower mechs with emotions and 'proto-gods' is not weaker than Mr. Armalon's ability to affect probabilities. It is very rare to encounter such a difficult high-grade specialty in someone who's background is as modest as you. A mech designer who emerged from a tiny state such as the Bright Republic cannot develop such a profound and powerful design philosophy without external help!"
Was this the moment where she revealed what the MTA managed to uncover about his mother?
"I do not deny that I had help, but I am bound by secrecy. I can never break my vows!" Ves lied.
"That is understandable." Willix nodded as if she accepted his flimsy excuse! "I won't force you any further. Let me tell you what I have uncovered. I have uncovered the identity of Mr. S."
Did that mean she figured out that he held the much-desired Metal Scroll? The entire MTA would go mad once Willix told the Association of her investigation. Even if she merely ventured a guess, it was enough to call down an entire warfleet on his head!
Ves froze even further. He tried his best to remain still, but he had no idea how much his microexpressions betrayed. The panic welling up in his mind instantly escaped the boundaries of his mask!
"Mr. S… is a very private individual. As far as I'm aware of, he doesn't want anything to do with the MTA."
That was technically true. The Mech Designer System already showed its disdain towards the MTA multiple times!
Ves tried his best to paint the fictional mech designer who had supposedly mentored him as an inaccessible person. Whether it worked or not remained to be seen!
His response only made Willix more confident. She floated closer, causing her to loom even more over his head!
"I was reasonably assured of my guess, but hearing you has raised my confidence level. The abilities that you have shown are too distinct! Mr. S. must be the elusive Ouroboros Designer!"
"The.. what?" Ves genuinely revealed his confusion.
Master Willix looked wistful for a moment. "I have traveled wide and far in the galaxy in my earlier years. While I have spent most of my years in the galactic heartland, I had the privilege to visit the Greater Terran United Confederation. It was at that time that I met the Hero of New Terra at an official function!"
Ves widened his eyes. He recognized that title! Didn't he encounter it a few years ago when he completed another Mastery experience?
"General Axelar Streon is a truly exceptional Terran and ace pilot." Master Willix's tone conveyed genuine respect. "He is truly an example that the Terran Confederation isn't as rotten as it seems. Of course, what is most exceptional about him isn't his heroic bearing. It is his famed mech, which has accompanied his entire career for almost a century!"
She waved her hand, causing an incredibly lifelike projection to appear in front of her. The projection depicted a very powerful ace mech!
"The Ouroboros is one of the most admired mechs of its kind in the galactic center." She spoke as her eyes glinted at its magnificent shape. The mech not only exuded power, but also an exceptional vibe that was not much different from a glow! "The Serpent of Creation and Destruction has confounded every mech designer who were fortunate enough to witness it in the flesh. Despite its rather humble beginnings and its continuous upgrades, the essence of the mech still remains the same. In fact, it has grown stronger!"
As a rational mech designer, Master Willix rarely raised her voice. She had always maintained a very tight grip on her mood and emotions.
For her to exhibit considerable excitement meant that her admiration towards the Ouroboros was absolutely not simple!
It was not hard to see why the Ouroboros earned such a high regard. When Ves stared at the projection of the hero mech in its current incarnation, it exuded an air that was considerably more powerful than the mech that Ves originally designed for the former drug addict whose body he once possessed!
The Ouroboros, despite passing through the hands of many Terran Seniors and Masters, presented a vision of the future to Ves. It showed how mechs he instilled with life continued to grow with their mech pilots. Not only did they grow stronger, they also evolved and developed their character!
The current Ouroboros had deviated far beyond the initial Creation and Destruction themes he applied to it. Axelar Streon had continuously affected its evolution as the years went by until the famed ace mech completely matched his inclinations!
Now, it seemed that Master Willix had managed to tie the existence of the Ouroboros to Ves! He never expected that one of his products he designed in the past would be able to haunt him in this fashion!
Yet.. Ves also realized the script wasn't entirely right.
"After observing your work so much, I am certain of my judgement. You must be a hidden disciple of the Ouroboros Designer, correct?"
"Wha..? Isn't the Ouroboros supposed to be designed by General Streon himself?"
"That is the story that he has maintained to this day, but our investigation has already made it clear that he never possessed the skill to design the original Ouroboros at the time. We have already concluded that he enlisted the help of a unique mech designer."
The MTA wasn't fooled at all by Axelar's delusions.
Yet because of this judgement, Master Willix developed an unusual theory!
"This is why I am telling you that you do not need to hide any longer. The Ouroboros Designer personally passed on his teachings to you. If not him, then you might be the disciple of one of his disciples." She continued. "His existence entered our Association's attention more than ninety years ago. That is enough time for Mr. S. to pass on his teachings several times, though you are the only suspect that I am aware of at the moment."
Ves finally realized that Master Willix had missed the mark. Though she had indeed uncovered one of his secrets, she drew an entirely wrong conclusion!
For a moment, he felt rather silly.
Even Gloriana looked astonished. She turned to Ves with an unbelieving expression. "Why didn't you tell me your teacher is a great Master from the galactic center? I can't believe you hid the fact that you studied under a Terran Master mech Designer!"
"Gloriana! It's not what you think!"
"I thought you trusted me! Why didn't you let me know?"
When Master Willix told Ves that she figured him out, he thought he was in trouble.
Instead, the revelation turned out to be a farce! Due to the evidence she gathered, Master Willix became convinced that 'Mr. S.' was the original designer of the Ouroboros.
What she didn't know that Mr. S. did not design this famous mech.
Ves had designed its original incarnation!
Didn't this mean.. that Master Willix accused Ves of being his own student?
This realization caused him to feel very strange but also very relieved. He was incredibly glad that he managed to avoid a calamity.
However, he also felt as if he had plunged into a very strange territory. The evidence that Master Willix pulled up was quite convincing. Anyone who studied the Ouroboros and his mechs would become aware that they shared a lot of commonalities.
If Ves didn't know any better, he would have made the same conclusion as Master Willix!
Chapter 2150 Forgotten Trash
Though Master Willix drew a shocking conclusion about Ves, it was completely untrue!
He didn't know whether he wanted to laugh or cry. How could an incredibly intelligent and astute Master Mech Designer come to the conclusion that Ves was actually his own apprentice?
Just because he traveled back in the past and designed a hero mech for a mech duel, the MTA suddenly developed a theory that the Ouroboros was actually the product of an unfathomable mech designer!
It was not hard to make this conclusion. The glow exuded by the Ouroboros far surpassed any LMC mech. Not even the Quint or the Little Angel could come close to the power exuded by this century-old mech!
Though the Ouroboros started off as a relatively low-quality first-rate hero mech developed with the help of an auto designer program, Axelar somehow never got rid of it. Instead, he stuck by it, likely due to its attractive X-Factor and aura.
As his participation in the brutal Trail of Tears training program managed to unlock his potential, Axelar did not exchange the Ouroboros for a better model.
Instead, he made the rare and unusual choice of upgrading it. Though he had to hire other Senior and Master to do so, all of the mech designers he enlisted all respected the original design of the Ouroboros.
Those skilled high-ranking mech designers carefully tried to preserve the essence of the hero mech that Ves originally imparted in its design. In this fashion, the spiritual character of the Ouroboros never weakened.
Even if it did, the growth it experienced in the hands of an expert candidate, expert pilot and currently ace pilot always compensated for the loss!
Ves already suspected that the spiritual character of an individual mech might experience substantial growth when it was paired with a high-ranking mech designer.
Unlike regular mech pilots and expert candidates, the force of will exhibited by true expert pilots and higher was strong enough to affect reality! There was no way the force of will of such powerful figures would avoid affecting a mech, especially if it contained a bit of life!
Still, Ves found it rather strange that the MTA concluded that the designer of the Ouroboros was some kind of great figure. Master Willix sounded very certain, though, and he had no intention of trying to pop her bubble!
This misunderstanding was of immense help to him! His design philosophy was no longer as inexplicable. If Ves managed to tie his specialty to some fictional Master who originated from the Terran Confederation, then he could keep referring to Mr. S. everytime someone entertained suspicions about his design philosophy.
In fact, becoming associated with a legendary mech like the Ouroboros and a famed ace pilot such as Hero of the New Terra was a blessing in disguise. With the apparent ties between his specialty and the pairing, he could essentially borrow the latter's reputation in order to deflect uncomfortable probes.
He objected much less to Master Willix's flawed assumptions. Let her believe what her own mind had together out of scattered evidence. As long as her theories didn't have anything to do with the System, everything was fine!
Master Willix gazed at him with genuine appreciation. "The Ouroboros Designer has only sporadically left traces throughout the galaxy. He must have his own plans. As a fellow peer, I will not interfere with his designs on you. Do not betray the expectations of your teacher and strive to fulfill the potential that he has doubtlessly recognized in you. Do you have any further questions?"
"Uhm, I'm good." Ves dully replied.
"Very well. One last reminder. I am obliged to register my deduction to our internal records. You don't have to be concerned about your identity leaking out. The MTA respects all secrets and we will make sure that this detail of yours will remain inaccessible to the public. This is the best that I can offer."
"Okay. That sounds fine."
After an awkward exchange, Master Willix finally entered the Ubiquitous Force, which soon departed from the planet.
Ves still stood frozen while Gloriana turned to him with an indignant expression.
"Secret or not, I expect you to be a little more forthcoming next time!"
She departed his side with a huff.
Though Gloriana sounded peeved, Ves didn't feel very bothered by her. As long as he stuck to his impromptu cover story, she would eventually forgive him. After all, Mr. S. forced him into a vow of silence.
He shrugged and tried to recall his current priorities.
The MTA delegation originally stopped by in order to certify the Little Angel. The design duel that Jovy initiated had been an unexpected development that distracted him from his current plans.
"I should select a mission from the Rim Exchange." He whispered.
The task force that the Military Bureau had assembled was almost ready to go. Major Verle and Fleet Coordinator Ophelia had done an admirable job in prepping all of the mechs, ships and personnel for the upcoming expedition.
According to the most recent reports, the clan already procured all of the supplies the task force needed to remain self-sufficient for up to a year.
Of course, this was just a very vague estimate. Every battle always consumed some supplies, and frequent clashes could quickly drain all of the goods and materials that his forces held in reserve.
Though Ves wanted to bring more supplies, it was very hard to do so without adding more sluggish supply ships to the task force.
That was something he refused to do. His task force had to be as nimble as possible in order to waste as little time as possible in the Nyxian Gap.
Considering that his subordinates had already taken care of everything, Ves did not bother with this matter any further.
He began to think about what else he should do in the few days before his departure.
Ves recalled the design duel and made a couple of important realizations.
First, Joshua Larkinson advanced to expert candidate. This was a significant event and one that he had long anticipated.
"This might be a good occasion to hold a celebration for the entire clan!" He realized.
Holding a huge party right before a portion of the Larkinson Clan engaged in a dangerous venture would definitely boost morale and foster more kinship. There was no reason for him to miss this golden opportunity!
He raised his comm and dispatched a message to Gavin to look into organizing a celebration that involved the entire clan.
"This will also be good for Joshua!"
Ves had long maintained a lot of interest in Joshua Larkinson. The young but talented mech pilot did not disappoint his expectations.
Though Joshua's breakthrough was a bit long in coming considering all of the battles he went through, his force of will was one of the most remarkable that Ves had ever encountered.
After coming into contact with numerous expert pilots, each of which developed a different obsession or conviction, Joshua's force of will centered around a highly interesting domain.
Life!
While Ves wasn't sure of Joshua's actual principles, they definitely related to his specialty! Whenever Joshua piloted an LMC mech or shared his experiences, he always exhibited a sincere respect for life.
Joshua was one of the few mech pilots that Ves knew of who genuinely considered LMC mechs to be living entities rather than lifeless machines.
While it was easy for a random person to look at an LMC mech and state that it was alive, their mind or their heart wasn't really convinced.
Those who believed in the LMC's motto and looked beyond the design spirit were exceedingly rare.
There were plenty of people who misinterpreted the LMC's motto and thought that the source of an LMC mech's glow was alive.
While they weren't wrong, that did not fully encompass his perspective.
Design spirits were alive and they definitely added a lot of vitality to his mech designs, but what if they were absent?
Could mechs still be called alive if Ves neglected to impart a design spirit on their designs?
In his heart, he believed that even his earliest products were alive! His recent breakthroughs concerning spiritual constructs only strengthened his conviction!
Right now, Ves developed a great desire to return to the Purgatory Envoy in order to inspect the innovations he conceived under pressure.
Back then, he was so short of time and in such a focused state that he never had the opportunity to stop and process all of the implications of his latest solutions.
Spiritual constructs and triggered abilities represented a major step forward for his design philosophy! For the first time in years, Ves managed to empower a mech without resorting to messing with design spirits.
This time, he had gone back to his roots and finally recognized that he did not have to leave the spiritual foundation of his mech designs alone.
They were like clay that he could mold into various spiritual constructs!
Not only would he be able to tweak the X-Factor and the glow of his mech designs at a much finer degree of control, he also developed a reliable means of imparting abilities that could be activated on command.
That last part alone was enough to revolutionize his upcoming mech designs! Triggered abilities might not be as powerful as the famed resonance abilities of expert pilots and expert mechs, but they did not come with any prerequisites. Any mech pilot could trigger them at a time and place of their choosing!
When Ves looked up what had happened to the Purgatory Envoy, he immediately raced towards the mech arena where the match had recently taken place.
All of the advanced hardware that the MTA installed in order to monitor the duel and contain all of the damage had already been removed.
Aside from that, the rented facility still hadn't been cleaned up. Plenty of scorch marks and other battle marks still littered the arena grounds. A few puddles of slag and blackened pieces of metal were strewn around the center.
Ves left the hall and entered into a backstage area. Some bots had unceremoniously deposited the damaged and battle-scarred Purgatory Envoy in a corner.
Even though Ves only designed it in 72 hours, he looked at the competition mech with a lot of affection.
He intended to restore and study it until he figured out everything he could derive from the mech!
Just as he began to dream about adding triggered abilities to all of his future mech designs, he suddenly recognized the presence of another mech.
Dumped in another corner, the damaged remains of the Fortunate Devil laid on the floor like a corpse. Its separated legs rested on the side of the mech.
"The MTA.. left Jovy's mech behind?"
Ves almost couldn't believe it. Any work from an MTA mech designer should never be casually dumped, especially one designed by someone with a remarkable design philosophy as Jovy Armalon!
"Then again.. this is hardly his best work." He realized.
Unlike Jovy's genuine first-class multipurpose mech designs, the Fortunate Devil was just a cheap, third-class mech. Due to the terms that Ves had set, the defensive striker mech contained classified components or exclusive technology.
Even if Jovy applied some very sophisticated techniques onto the mech in order to elevate its performance to the best of his ability, there was nothing particularly valuable about the wreck.
The MTA probably regarded it as trash.
Yet Ves saw much more in this forgotten machine. If Ves concentrated very hard and peered closely into the Fortunate Devil, he managed to sense an unknown spiritual trace running throughout the entire mech.
This trace was tied to Jovy's specialty!
Ves immediately thought of trying to harvest this trace.
On its own, it was useless. Without sharing Jovy's domain and unique mindset towards mech, there was no way that Ves could emulate probability manipulation.
"Yet.. what if I do something else with this trace?" He whispered.
What if he used it as an ingredient for a luck-based spiritual product?
Perhaps it was impossible for Ves to replicate Jovy's incredibly strong design philosophy. Yet it was a different story when created with a design spirit that could achieve the same result!
Ves suddenly gained another huge realization.
"Doesn't this mean.. I can potentially imitate every design philosophy imaginable?"
