The Mech Touch

A day passed by without a response. Ves figured as much. He presented Jovy with a massive but incredibly risky life-changing decision. Who would want to make a decision on the spot given how dangerous it was to operate on someone's mind?

"It's like installing a cranial implant."

Ves remembered that he agonized for years before he finally decided to implant the Archimedes Rubal bioimplant in his head. Even then, he asked his staff to perform extensive updates and modifications on the highly-sophisticated device before he was willing to undergo the implantation procedure!

Although he didn't know how long it would take for Jovy to decide whether he wanted to accepted the offer, it might take weeks or even months for him to make up his mind.

Someone like Jovy had access to a lot of different opportunities. The MTA offered a dizzying array of augmentations, many of which were developed by huge, well-funded trans-galactic biotech enterprises with stellar reputations.

How could a single mech designer who didn't even possess any medical qualifications possibly claim to exceed the best efforts of the most brilliant biotech researchers employed by these megacorporations?

Still, the proof could not be denied. Ketis was the most obvious success case. Her ability to advance in two different extraordinary professions at once was clearly abnormal and unheard of, but if people found out that she had actually split her mind in two, this phenomenon made a lot more sense!

Ves and Gloriana's ability to form a seamless design network without any risky or dangerous interfacing was even more relevant to mech designers. Though Jovy only gained a short preview of this ability, what he managed to sense should be enough to haunt his dreams!

"He'll come around, I think. His chances of advancing to Master are too low even with plentiful support from the MTA. He needs to obtain more advantages for himself in order to stack the odds in his favor."

Ordinarily, Ves should have only been able to infer Jovy's situation, but the brief connection he established through Blinky allowed him to gain a much better understanding of his friend!

Although Ves only managed to lift Jovy's surface thoughts, they provided many important developments!

For example, Ves found that he was right when he suspected that Jovy's parents were genuine bigshots. No ordinary MTA mech designer could attract so much attention and resources even if he was talented.

He figured out that the Red Ocean was truly a trial ground set up by the Big Two. The MTA and CFA not only wanted to reinvigorate the human race, but also prepare everyone for an even greater initiative.

He even learned that multiple arms of the MTA were paying loose attention to Ves and the Larkinson Clan. Various research teams and research institutions of the Association kept tabs on him, but they kept their distance because of multiple reasons.

First, the MTA kept track of billions of persons of interest. Ves was not as special as he thought, and the fact that he was 'just' a Journeyman meant that he simply didn't warrant as much attention.

Second, Ves had become an associate to the Survivalist Faction. Before that, Master Willix's patron among the Survivalists had already 'claimed' Ves to a degree. He initially did not think these relationships were that important because he did not enjoy any tangible benefits from them, but they were actually highly useful in keeping the more pushy elements of the MTA at bay.

Every major faction of the Mech Trade Association developed an unofficial understanding amongst each other. They would not easily interfere with the people that had already associated with other factions.

"That's good to know." Ves muttered.

The more interesting part was the identity of the Star Designer that was backing Master Willix. Ves had already guessed that she was the most likely person to pay an interest to him, but now that he managed to confirm it through skimming Jovy's mind, he felt quite mixed about her identity.

"Of all of the possible Star Designers that could gain an interest in me and 'Mr. S.', why her of all people?"

The reason why he felt troubled was because Master Willix was actually in cahoots with the famed and brilliant Polymath!

As one of the younger Star Designers to come into power lately, the Polymath had quickly become the most prominent mech designers of this time!

Born with abnormal intelligence, she began to absorb a vast amount of knowledge at a young age. Though the official biographies of her life never clarified whether she was a designer baby who received the most luxurious augmentations during her growth, the fact that she used to be a citizen of a first-rate state meant this chance was high!

In any case, the biographies did mention that Clair Hamza originally started out a little slow. She did not graduate from a mech design university in record time, nor broke any records when she advanced to Journeyman.

The reason for that was because she constantly occupied her time with broadening her foundation to a monstrous degree.

The young Clair Hamza studied hundreds of different fields, from quantum mechanics to biomechanics, in order to become proficient in almost every conceivable aspect of mech design!

Once she finally completed her insane learning spree, she finally began to bring her prodigious knowledge to bear on her chosen profession.

"Master before 50, Star Designer at 100."

The speed in which she overcame the bottlenecks that tormented so many different mech designers seemed like a breeze to the Polymath!

She progressed so quickly that many different people, mostly jealous rivals and professional competitors, accused her of being a sentient AI, an alien in human skin, a sleeper agent of a dangerous organization and more.

Yet whenever the MTA investigated her in detail, no one found anything amiss. Her history was completely clear and none of her actions were alarming.

In the end, the Polymath not only managed to enter humanity's highest circle of power, but also became one of the co-leaders of the Survivalist Faction!

Ves became surprised when he learned that the Polymath chose to align with the Survivalist Faction rather than the Mech Supremacist Faction.

"Shouldn't she be a more natural fit for the latter?"

Everyone knew that the Polymath loved absorbing more knowledge, but she was even more famed for designing a lot of weird and quirky mechs!

Though not all of her designs met her expectations, the few that did often sent ripples throughout the mech industry! Many of her greatest innovations eventually trickled down to the mech industry after their principles fed back into future mech generations.

From what Ves had learned of the Polymath, the woman was crazy smart and never made any stupid decisions. She was probably the most successful rational mech designer to have existed up to this point, so her decisions were definitely driven by impeccable logic!

"If someone as smart as her has chosen to join the Survivalist Faction, then there has to be a good reason for that. Maybe it's not so bad that I defaulted to this faction as well."

Ves never really had a choice of which faction he could associate with. If Master Willix hadn't already ushered him to the Survivalists, perhaps he would have approached the Mech Supremacists like his wife.

After all, Ves didn't really like to get involved in messy politics and ideological struggles. He just wanted to design more mechs. There were plenty of other people who could take care of the difficult questions of governing humanity.

"Oh well."

The Survivalist Faction should not be shabby if it managed to gain the allegiance of the Polymath.

The only issue was that this woman was insanely smart, so much so that Ves worried whether she had figured out any of his deeper secrets!

It was a pity that there was nothing that he could do. Either the Polymath figured him out or not. He would just go on about his life if nothing happened.

Ves had a feeling that he would be meeting the Polymath in person one day. One of the many interesting details he obtained from skimming Jovy's mind was that the Star Designer had actually resided in the Red Ocean for over 20 years!

"What is she doing here? Is she poking around alien technology or something?"

There was no way that a junior like Jovy could know what any of the Star Designers were doing. He only vaguely knew that the Red Ocean had attracted many Star Designers.

None of this had anything to do with Ves. The chance of bumping into anyone was virtually zero. Even if they brushed past each other, there was no way these supreme figures would deign to pay attention to a random Journeyman.

Rather than worrying about all of that, Ves was better off if he went back to his work!

He frowned. "The future of the Fearless Project is in doubt, so it's best if put it in the backseat."

He could gamble on the hope that the MTA would eventually come to a new agreement with Ves, but he might have to make a lot of changes in order to comply with the new requirements.

The only feature that he truly needed to explore was to strengthen the exclusivity of his heavy luminar crystal rifles.

He had to make sure they could only be utilized by authorized personnel and no one else! Even if the Larkinsons lost a battle and had to leave a few mechs with rifles behind, the people who salvaged the valuable weapons from the battlefield shouldn't be able to utilize them, let alone reverse-engineer the alien tech!

Ves rubbed his smooth-shaven chin. "I'll have to develop new locking and security measures that can't be defeated through ordinary means. It's best if even I can't break the locks of my own design."

He already figured a number of ways to create a spiritual lock, but it was not secure enough if he could break it with ease. He had to go even further and develop a real solution.

"This is going to take a substantial amount of time!"

For now, he still wanted to work on mechs rather than spiritual locks, so he shifted his attention to the other mech design projects.

Instead of starting work on his second solo mech design project, he decided to fulfill his leadership responsibilities and check up on the progress of the other lead designers of the Larkinson Clan.

He dropped by the workplaces of numerous different Journeyman mech Designers and either surveyed their progress or discussed their early design choices.

One of the more interesting design projects that he came across was the custom mech that Gloriana had envisioned for Vincent Ricklin.

"Wow, you're doing good work, ma'am!" Vincent exclaimed as he looked at the projection of Gloriana's draft design. "This mech is even bigger and cooler than my first custom mech! I love the sculpted contours. There's none of that cold and machine-like straight lines here. It truly looks like a metallic god! The only point I'm not sure about is the girth of the codpiece. Could you make it… bigger?"

Gloriana looked flatly at Vincent while she held her lively and adorable daughter in her arms.

"Uhh… I guess that means a no?" The expert candidate sheepishly guessed.

Ves stepped forward, thereby stopping this awkward exchange from going any further.

"This is quite an interesting draft design." He said as he reached out and softly rubbed his daughter's pristine little head. "This is like a reinvented version of the Adonis Colossus that we have developed in the past. Compared to that older third-class mech design, this draft just oozes masculinity!"

"Guuuuguu…waawhheewaaa…"

Gloriana smirked. "I told you I could do it. Did you really think I understand nothing about masculinity? I know exactly what Mr. Ricklin needs to excel as a mech pilot!"

Although Ves wasn't sure whether Gloriana was as smart as she thought she was, he had to admit that she put a serious effort into Vincent Ricklin's custom mech.

He initially worried whether her warped Hexer sensibilities might interfere with her professional obligations, but so far it appeared that his concerns were unfounded.

There were several aspects about the design that Ves found questionable, though. Chief among them was the armaments of the hybrid mech.

"Why are all of these ranged weapon modules physical in nature?"