The Mech Touch

Aside from designing mechs, Ves could strengthen the Larkinson Clan in other ways.

While his recent priorities left him too busy to spend his time on other priorities, his mech design projects had finally reached an advanced stage.

Ves, Gloriana and Juliet had already settled all of the difficult design choices. All six mech designs currently under development became functionally complete to the point where it became viable to fabricate some prototypes.

At this stage, the role of Journeymen was not as crucial anymore. Ves could simply assign some design teams to borrow a production line to fabricate a prototype before testing it whenever the fleet transitioned out of FTL travel.

Ves only needed to return to the design lab once the prototype testing sessions yielded the necessary hard data. That was when he needed to comb through all of the solid proof in order to derive solutions to the problems the simulations had overlooked.

If his assistants became more competent, then Ves didn't even need to spend much time on optimizing a mech design through this method. He could simply set an overall direction and let the design teams perform lots of calculations and simulate a lot of different outcomes to obtain a solution.

They weren't here yet, though, but Ves was hopeful his assistant mech designers would catch up once they obtained some augments.

The Braves who took part in the Nyxian Gap Campaign could technically redeem a set of free second-class augments straight away, but each of them chose to keep this option in reserve.

Not a single mech designer was stupid. They knew that the opportunity to upgrade their genes and to integrate their brains with cranial implants was an irreversible choice. While the gene mod templates and implant models offered by the Larkinson Biotech Institute were pretty decent, they were not considered high-end.

Those who upgraded earlier gained an immediate boost in capabilities. This would allow them to upgrade their productivity by several times, thereby allowing them to earn much more Larkinson merits.

However, in the future, their rash choice to settle for mediocre augments would likely bite them in the butt! Any colleague who waited patiently and obtained better augments would eventually overtake the early birds!

Of course, mech designers shouldn't delay their augmentation too long. Once they turned middle age or older, they already passed through the time where they could have developed rapidly. They also had less time to make use of their augmented capabilities.

What was even more important was that the Design Department wouldn't be able to squeeze as much work out of these slowpokes!

Therefore, every mech designer working for the Design Department had to make their own judgement about the right time to augment themselves.

Every assistant currently knew that the Golden Skull Alliance was heading for the Life Research Association to recruit some augmentation specialists. Therefore, choosing to augment themselves now was too premature.

"We should wait a couple of years until the new augmentation experts have settled down."

"A couple of years? We should wait at least a decade! Our clan will be much richer at that time. We'll also be in the Red Ocean where we have access to much better tech!"

"A decade is too long. We'll be in our forties and still be stuck as assistants."

"It's not as if extra genes and a brain chip can turn you into a Journeyman. There is much more to it than that."

The design team vigorously discussed this issue. More and more assistants became convinced they needed to wait until the Larkinson Clan found its footing in the Red Ocean before they chose to augment themselves. Some were even willing to wait 15 or 20 years in order to ensure they obtained the very best the clan had to offer at that time!

Suffice to say, this was a huge delay, not just to the mech designers in question, but also to the Design Department.

Ves did not want to see his assistants remain stuck at their baseline human levels for two whole decades!

He discussed the problem with Gloriana when they returned to their grand stateroom in the evening.

"Meow.."

Lucky, who had finished another shift as Calabast's sniffer, plopped tiredly on Gloriana's lap.

"Miaow!"

Clixie, who wanted to settle on Gloriana's lap as well, angrily pushed Lucky's body away before claiming the prized spot herself!

"Meow?"

Before Lucky could push Clixie out of the perch he claimed, a different cat squashed onto his back.

Nyaaaaa!

Goldie knew that it wasn't proper for her to materialize in the view of others, but she had less qualms about showing up in Ves and Gloriana's personal home. The monitoring system here was completely closed and the bodyguards such as Nitaa and the rest were all trustworthy.

In fact, Ves didn't have to obfuscate Goldie's existence anymore. It was easy to mistake her as a personal avatar.

Seeing that their cats were having fun, Ves summoned Bygul through his comm.

The electronic cat instantly appeared into existence.

[Mew.]

The other three cats instantly froze and stared.

"Miaow."

Nyaaaa?

"Meow!"

Before a jealous Lucky could swipe his claws at the latest cat, Ves issued a warning.

"Stop that! Bygul is here to stay. Get along with him, or else!"

Now that Lucky, Clixie and Goldie became preoccupied with Bygul, Ves turned back to his wife and continued to explain his concerns.

"The majority of our Braves and Erudites lack meaningful augmentations. Their productivity is too low as a result. I want to encourage them to augment themselves as soon as possible. Each year that passes while they remain pure is another year that passes where they can only perform a tenth of the work they can accomplish if they are brought up to a better standard."

Gloriana frowned a bit. "You can't force our assistants to make this choice sooner. To us, it's not a big deal if they settle for cheaper and lower-performing genes and implants. In a couple of decades, we can recruit another batch of assistants and foist higher-performing augments on them. Yet the obvious disparity in performance will upset many of our older mech designers. They aren't objects, Ves. They're people. If they have a choice, they don't want to ruin their future prospects for an immediate boost."

"We're not ruining their future." Ves retorted. "Newer gene mod templates and implants are released every day. Technology is constantly advancing forward. My Archimedes Rubal implant is in fact several centuries out of date compared to the implant models the CFA currently have access to. While I am upset about the fact that I missed out on those fancy toys, I simply don't have the qualifications to obtain them. I chose the lesser of two evils and improved my productivity to such a degree that I can design more mechs and progress my design philosophy much faster than before. This is a worthwhile result."

His words did not manage to convince his wife.

"That's easy for you to say. You don't need to put yourself down. Even I envy your Archimedes Rubal sometimes. The amount of data you can store in your mind is ridiculous! While my Erestal-015 is much more geared towards mech design, it's already out of date. The Erestal-016 implant model has already come out a few months ago. Do you know how that makes me feel?"

Technology was inherently in flux. People always wanted more. Better and better products came out all the time. Ves was not surprised to hear about the release of the Erestal-016.

If not for the fact that Tito Biosystems's current product catalog did not feature anything directly comparable to their ancient Archimedes Rubal model, even Ves would feel frustrated about the fact that a portion of him was becoming obsolete!

They turned back to the issue regarding their assistants.

After a bit of thinking, Gloriana came up with a suggestion.

"It's in our best interest if our assistants augment themselves quickly. While our Design Department will benefit if they obtain better augments, it's more important that they obtain them quickly."

This had to do with the law of diminishing returns. When the performance of an implant was already good, a model that was only 20 percent better might cost at least 10 times as much!

The ludicrous aspect about this phenomenon was that this pattern continued all the way to the top segment of the implant market. The implants utilized by the Big Two and the first-rate states were unimaginably huge, but their effective performance was not insanely better than second-class implants.

Therefore, from the perspective of a state or organization, it was much more worthwhile to buy affordable products in bulk.

Yet Gloriana recognized that individuals didn't see it that way.

"Our assistants don't care too much about achieving the best price-to-performance ratio. A good set of genes and implants directly affects their future accomplishments. To them, it is very much worth it to pay 100 times the price of a normal offering in order to obtain an augment that performs twice as good. As far as they are concerned, the benefits they receive as a result of their choice will definitely pay off in the later stages."

"That sounds good, but they can't afford it." Ves noted. "They'll have to work at least a couple of decades before they can obtain these high-end augments, and that brings us back to our problem."

"Isn't the solution obvious, then? If our assistants can't afford better augments, why don't we subsidize them? It will be expensive for us, but it will pay off in the end considering the assistants will pass on the benefits back to us. It's no different from investing in better hardware."

"Thiss…"

"If you are concerned about getting taken advantage of, then offer them a deal." She continued. "Back in the Hegemony, this is not an unusual practice among some of the mech companies and design studios that I have gotten in touch with. Regular Hexer mech designers can't afford an implant like my Erestal-015, but they can obtain something that is almost just as good by signing a contract with their employers."

That sounded interesting to Ves. "What do these contracts stipulate?"

"Oh, the usual. The employer promises to invest in the mech designer. In return, the mech designer gives up some rights and agrees to work for the employer on a long-term basis. The mech designer herself may not be valuable when they sign a contract, but once she has improved, she can continually deliver a lot of benefits to her employer. In the end, the latter will earn a lot of profit from this transaction, but it's okay, because the mech designer has benefited as well."

This was a win-win arrangement. While the employer was definitely taking advantage of the mech designer, it was not to the point where the weaker party would feel upset. After all, gaining a fantastic implant upfront simply wasn't possible without forking a lot of capital.

Ves developed a new augmentation contract as a result of this discussion.

The deal was simple. The Larkinson Clan would invest in some expensive genetic treatments and implants to improve the capabilities of a mech designer.

In exchange, the mech designer promised to work for the LMC for at least 50 years or longer depending on the prices of the augments.

The mech designer also gave up a bunch of rights and privileges. This meant that they gave up a proportion of their future earnings and could not refuse certain jobs or assignments.

What Ves cared about the most was that the contract also stipulated that any mech designer who advanced to Journeyman or higher would not be entitled to any shares in the LMC!

Fortunately for them, Ves hadn't made any changes to the Exemplar Plan. Regardless of whether they signed an augmentation contract, anyone who performed well enough would still have enough incentives to push themselves.

Once Ves unveiled this plan to the Design Department, it was if a bomb had detonated.

Pretty much every assistant mech designer, from Ketis to Dukan French, signed the contract shortly after they understood the terms!

Ves knew that as long as his clan reached the Red Ocean, his mech designers should quickly be able to augment themselves. At that time, the the design capabilities of the Design Department would skyrocket!

In fact, Major Verle and a number of other leaders took inspiration from the augmentation contract. They were already coming up with their own versions of it in order to upgrade their other personnel!

The biggest downside to this development was that the Larkinson Clan might not be able to afford all of these expensive augments!