The Mech Touch

[Status]

Name: Ves Larkinson

Profession: Journeyman Mech Designer

Specializations: Spiritual Man-Machine Symbiosis

Design Points: 328,742

Attributes

Strength: 1.4

Dexterity: 1.0

Endurance: 2.0

Intelligence: 2.2

Creativity: 2.1

Concentration: 2.1

Spirituality: 1.3

Neural Aptitude: F

Skills

...

Abilities

[Superpublish]: Available. Can be activated once a year.

[Inventorize]: Unavailable.

Evaluation: A young Journeyman Mech Designer with a very distinct specialty.

Just before Ves stowed away his comm in his Inventory and ask Gavin to supply him with a new one, he looked up his Status.

Not much had changed, which surprised Ves a bit considering what a momentous change he had gone through.

"Part of it is because this Status isn't capturing the condition of my design seed."

Was it because the System couldn't access it, or because it didn't know how to assess and quantify it? With the amazing capabilities of the System, those possibilities did not seem very likely to Ves.

"Maybe it's too lazy." Ves snorted.

He first scanned how much DP he earned over the last seven months since he embarked on his joint design project.

While he spent a lot of DP on upgrading his Skills and acquiring Space Knight Mastery I, he earned much of it back through regular sales of his Blackbeak model. The Crystal Lord sold a lot as well, but the System withheld all the DP he earned from its sales because he Superpublished the laser rifleman mech design.

"This ability is really a double-edged sword."

Despite this price, Ves contemplated using the Superpublish ability again for his fifth original mech design. He hated the thought of rushing his next design project because he wouldn't be able to refine and optimize it to the best of his ability.

Superpublishing the design would solve all of the inadequacies that Ves had missed in his rush to bring it to the market.

"It doesn't take very long to design a functional mech, especially now that I've advanced to Journeyman. All those months spent on optimizing the design will only elevate its performance by five to ten percent at best. Superpublishing delivers an equivalent amount of improvement after only a single activation!"

There was no use deciding on this matter at this moment. He would have to design his mech first and see where he stood in a couple of months before he made his decision.

One significant chance from his last Status update was that the System finally recognized his specialty now that it had crystallized into his design seed.

"Spiritual Man-Machine Symbiosis. That's quite a mouthful to describe."

While Ves found the description the System came up with to be extremely clunky and inelegant, it nonetheless fit what he understood of his own design philosophy. All this time, he focused his attention on designing mechs that excelled in spiritually empowering its mech pilots and vica versa.

It was not a label he would be proud to carry in public, though. "If anyone asks what my specialty is, I can probably say that I specialize in metaphysical man-machine symbiosis!"

Replacing the word spiritual with metaphysical made his specialty sound ten times vaguer and broader. Hardly any mech designer would be able to figure out what Ves exactly specialized in when they came across this word soup!

"The more confused they are, the more they'll substitute the actual meaning with their own guesses!"

Ves would never tell the truth about his design philosophy to anyone. He much preferred to be as vague as possible so that other people would come up with their own logical explanations.

He next went over his list of Attributes. All of them remained the same except for a single notable change. His Spirituality jumped from 0.8 to 1.3! This was a substantial leap in score, and while Ves had difficulty figuring out the System's measurement scale for Spirituality, such a big jump meant his spiritual abilities gained a substantial boost in strength!

The most important of which was imbuing his designs with a stronger X-Factor!

"If I am able to apply more of my own Spirituality on my own designs, I'll be less dependent on the strength of external spiritual fragments."

This basically meant that Ves would be able to design mechs with a higher grade of X-Factor by depending on his own imagination. He even developed an inkling that he would be able to create images in his mind that equaled Qilanxo's potent spiritual fragment in strength one day!

"I'll probably have to advance to Master or Star Designer before I reach that point." Ves chuckled deprecatingly to himself. That was too far away for him to contemplate at this time. "At least I'll be stronger during my spiritual incursions through the imaginary realm. There are a lot of treasures there to be mined as long as I'm strong enough to brave its many threats!"

After passing over his Attributes, Ves quickly turned to his Skills.

His extensive list of Skills hadn't changed at all. Ves might decide to spend some of his DP to upgrade some of his cheaper Skills and Sub-Skills, but right now he did not feel a pressing need to do so. He was already very knowledgeable compared to other Journeymen!

The Inventorize ability rested immediately below the Superpublish ability. The single descriptor signified that Ves had already spent his single use of this ability.

"Even so, since this ability remains on my Status page, it shouldn't be impossible to gain another chance to Inventorize an object!"

The greedy, slave-driving System wanted Ves to work for the opportunity this time. Unlike the Superpublish ability which refreshed every year, Ves probably needed to work his butt off in order to earn this reward!

Speaking of tasks, the System prompted him with a message.

[You have received several new missions. Please check the Mission page for the details.]

Five new missions popped out of nowhere!

[Supply Mission]

Mission: Material Supply 1

Difficulty: S-Rank

Prerequisites: Advance to Journeyman Mech Designer

Description

The Mech Designer System needs to be supplied with several rare materials to facilitate future upgrades.

This Supply Mission can be completed by offering 45.5343 grams of Orpheidan Glow Glass.

Reward: 1 use of the Inventorize ability, 1,000,000 Design Points, 1 golden lottery ticket.

[Supply Mission]

Mission: Material Supply 2

Difficulty: S-Rank

Prerequisites: Advance to Journeyman Mech Designer

Description

The Mech Designer System needs to be supplied with several rare materials to facilitate future upgrades.

This Supply Mission can be completed by offering 2.353 kilograms of EE-343F-00334R.

Reward: 1 use of the Inventorize ability, 1,000,000 Design Points, 1 golden lottery ticket.

[Supply Mission]

Mission: Material Supply 3

Difficulty: S-Rank

Prerequisites: Advance to Journeyman Mech Designer

Description

The Mech Designer System needs to be supplied with several rare materials to facilitate future upgrades.

This Supply Mission can be completed by offering 49.53 kilograms of Timpala Steel.

Reward: 1 use of the Inventorize ability, 1,000,000 Design Points, 1 golden lottery ticket.

[Supply Mission]

Mission: Material Supply 4

Difficulty: S-Rank

Prerequisites: Advance to Journeyman Mech Designer

Description

The Mech Designer System needs to be supplied with several rare materials to facilitate future upgrades.

This Supply Mission can be completed by offering 12.556 milligrams of Yondu Milk.

Reward: 1 use of the Inventorize ability, 1,000,000 Design Points, 1 golden lottery ticket.

[Supply Mission]

Mission: Material Supply 5

Difficulty: S-Rank

Prerequisites: Advance to Journeyman Mech Designer

Description

The Mech Designer System needs to be supplied with several rare materials to facilitate future upgrades.

This Supply Mission can be completed by offering 2 complete pieces of Abalask Eyes.

Reward: 1 use of the Inventorize ability, 1,000,000 Design Points, 1 golden lottery ticket.

"What the hell? Why did you dump all these S-rank missions on my lap all of a sudden! Orphedeian Glow Glass? EE-343F-00334R? I've never heard of this crap before!"

Surprisingly, the System deigned to provide him with an explanation this time.

[The aforementioned materials are rare, high-grade exotics found in specific parts of the Milky Way Galaxy. Please endeavor to secure these materials in the specified amounts in order to complete the Supply Missions and obtain your generous rewards.]

Ves wanted to puke out blood. Although he already had an inkling that it was not going to be easy to secure these high-grade exotics, the rewards seemed very uneven!

Oh sure, earning 1,000,000 DP and another opportunity to Inventorize an object sounded great to Ves. The only objection he had was that the System only added in a single golden lottery ticket!

"I recall an A-rank mission where you rewarded me with 10 golden lottery tickets, System! Why have you cut back on them all of a sudden! Shouldn't you at least maintain the same amount?!"

[...Suggestion noted. Please wait while the rewards for the Supply Missions are being adjusted.]

Ves didn't wait and immediately browsed the details of the Supply Missions once again. The rewards for each of them changed!

Reward: 1 use of the Inventorize ability, 10 golden lottery tickets.

"What?! Why take away the 1 million DP!"

The System didn't respond this time, evidently having enough of Ves' demands.

While Ves momentarily bled over the loss of all of those points, he quickly reigned himself in. Now that he advanced to Journeyman, was it really impossible for him to earn a million DP from a single design?

DP was by far the easiest reward he could earn by himself. Although it hurt a lot for him to say goodbye to the 1 million DP reward, he figured that all of the extra lottery tickets was more than worth it! Ves hit the jackpot by winning his copy of the Amestendira from one of them! The prospect of earning more rewards as remarkable as his Inventorized laser pistol sent him into a greedy mood!

"As long as I complete all five Supply Missions, I'll not only be able to Inventorize five more objects, but get fifty golden lottery tickets to test my luck on! With so many draws, I'm bound to hit the jackpot at least once or twice!"

His luck with lottery tickets wasn't all that great. The odds of drawing a price at least comparable to the Amastendira was woefully low, but as long as Ves could go through so many lottery tickets, he was bound to get something good eventually!

The only snag was that these missions didn't seem very easy to fulfill. "I've never seen an S-rank mission before."

A-rank missions already gave him a lot of trouble. If he had to do something that surpassed the Glowing Planet campaign in difficulty, then obtaining these five different high-grade exotics should not be simple!

As soon as Ves memorized the names of the materials, he deactivated the System and put down his Privacy Shield and Lucky's ECM. He quickly went on the galactic net and searched for the plainest-sounding one.

[Timpala Steel. Processed alloy made by a long-extinct alien race. Remnants of this highly-desired material is occasionally found in the Wilting Rose Star Sector. No actual market price.]

"No market price?!"

This was worse than he thought. If the galactic net could not cough up a market price, then obtaining Timpala Steel was not as simple as throwing enough money at a supplier. This material was probably as valuable as a thin sliver of high-grade Rorach's Bone, if not more!

S-ranked missions weren't S-ranked for nothing!

Ves immediately grew suspicious at the System for imposing these missions on him all of a sudden. It strengthened his theory that the System may be incomplete or suffered from serious damage and required a number of exceptional materials to recover its former strength.

"I don't need to search the other materials to know they're just as priceless!"

He felt like the System knew him too well. It wanted these materials, and it had no scruples dangling bits of juicy bait in front of Ves in order to get him to gather them in its stead!

The worst part about it was that it was working!