The Mech Touch

　　After an obviously-contentious discussion, the Barachs finally put down their privacy screen. The faces of some of the old and distinguished craftsmen had grown noticeably redder and one of them did not even bother to hide her tear tracks.

　　This was undoubtedly an incredibly emotional moment for the Barachs, but what did it have to do with Ves? All he needed to know was the result of their deliberations.

　　"Patriarch Larkinson." Master Sivare Coriten Barach spoke. "The House of Barach has decided to accept your offer. We… are willing to part with 33 percent ownership of our house in exchange for your support, but obtaining a tiny totem in return is not enough. We would like to receive additional assistance in order to make this deal more palatable."

　　The two sides quickly haggled for a few minutes. The Barachs weren't shameful enough to demand huge concessions, but they wanted to be certain that the Larkinsons would have their back.

　　Ves did not drive a hard bargain this time, so the talks proceeded relatively smoothly. This also helped convinced the other recalcitrant master artisans that he was not an unreasonable business partner.

　　In the end, they settled on the basic terms. They still needed to wait for their lawyers to hash out the fine print and make everything official, but in essence the deal was done.

　　The House of Barach agreed to pass on a third of its ownership to the Creation Association. In exchange, the Creation Association agreed to provide the Barachs with the right to possess and use a mini totem.

　　In addition to these basic terms, Ves also agreed to invest 200 MTA credits into the House of Barach. This was enough money to cover all of the short and medium-term obligations of the declining family company, which would allow its artisans to lift a considerable burden off their shoulders.

　　The Creation Association also agreed to provide additional assistance in the form of advice, technical support, administrative support and so on. Anything that helped the House of Barach expand its business opportunities was welcome.

　　What was interesting about this business deal was that one of the parties involved was the Creation Association. Ves wanted to maintain a separation between deals like this and the clan as a whole.

　　Even though the Creation Association was based in the Larkinson Clan, it was technically a separate organization entirely that was completely owned by Ves in a personal capacity.

　　In other words, Ves effectively owned a third of the House of Barach. It just wasn't as obvious.

　　There wasn't enough time to wait for the lawyers to do their jobs. After agreeing to hold a virtual signing ceremony a few days later, Ves passed on his mini totem to Master Sivare Barach after he gave the man a quick rundown of the rules concerning its usage.

　　"Remember, you can only take advantage of its strongest active effect once every three months. Make sure to pick the beneficiary and have a good project in mind before you donate money. We will not compensate for any poor usage of this totem."

　　"We will definitely cherish this opportunity." Master Sivare promised. "We will never joke around when the future of our house is at stake."

　　The older man held the totem as if it was a priceless heirloom. Despite its diminutive size, it was a genuine totem that exuded a weak but noticeable glow.

　　Craftsmen and artisans were far more attuned to Vulcan's glow than other people, so Master Sivare already began to feel a lot more eager to design new products!

　　Ves left the Barachs to decide on how to use their toy and left the place in satisfaction.

　　He only started laughing once the shuttle hatch closed.

　　"Hahahahaha!"

　　Getting 33 percent ownership in the House of Barach in exchange for an incredibly cheap mini totem was an incredibly lucrative exchange!

　　Although the Barachs did gain a lot from this deal, the important part was that the price that both sides had to pay was not comparable!

　　Whereas the Barachs figuratively sold a third of themselves to an outsider, Ves essentially provided them the use of a design spirit.

　　This deal proved that it was indeed viable to commercialize his design spirits!

　　Although Ves wasn't sure whether he should involve other design spirits in this particular business, it was already enough to ensure that Vulcan would get into contact with plenty of craftsmen.

　　Since the opportunity to use the totems were so precious and costly, Ves made sure that its users cherished it. The Barachs and other customers were much less likely to waste Vulcan's time and attention if they had to pay at least 1 MTA credit and wait a long time just to receive his guidance for a crucial moment.

　　As his shuttle finally brought him back to the expeditionary fleet, he continued to think about how he should organize and expand the Creation Association.

　　It wasn't until the Golden Skull Alliance accounted for all of its members and transitioned out of the Pellysa System that Ves finally turned his attention to his more immediate priorities.

　　"Ugh. I almost forgot about my new design obligation. I need to design a quick revision of the Ferocious Piranha design. Gloriana won't be happy."

　　He would have to delay his regular design obligations again. How could he possibly have time to manage the affairs of the Creation Association?

　　As soon as he returned to his office, he assigned a new job to his assistant.

　　"You helped with setting up the Creation Association, so you should know what it's all about. Find someone in the Larkinson Clan that is trustworthy and capable enough to run it. Can you do that, Benny?"

　　Gavin did not look confident. "You're asking a bit much this time, boss. The Creation Association is anything but conventional. It will take a different sort of personality from what we are accustomed to in order to lead your new 'association'."

　　"Well, our clan isn't short of strange and unusual personalities, so start looking."

　　With that taken care of, Ves could finally turn his attention back to his mech design projects.

　　"My Fearless Project is still on hold." He frowned.

　　He really wanted to resume his work on the ambitious ranged mech model reserved for the Battle Criers, but the MTA had remained quiet all of these weeks. The lack of any contact from Jovy did not bode well.

　　Ves had no idea why Jovy and whoever was behind him to deliberate for so long.

　　If the MTA didn't trust his offer to provide Jovy with a companion spirit, then why not tell that to him straight away?

　　If the mechers agreed with his proposal, then they should have reached out to him already.

　　Instead, they kept saying nothing even if Ves tried to inquire about the progress of their decision making.

　　Ves began to suspect that his offer triggered a lot more movement inside the MTA than he initially thought.

　　"It feels as if Jovy and his people are waiting for something. What is it, though?"

　　Were they waiting for him to grow older? Was the MTA planning to ship more advanced lab equipment to the Simile Halifax so that it could keep better track of Jovy's changing conditions?

　　Whatever the case, Ves increasingly felt that something big might happen once the MTA finally got back to him on this issue!

　　Ves returned to his regular duties as best as possible in the meantime. He had plenty of other work on his hands.

　　In the next couple of weeks, he occasionally worked together with Gloriana to update the Ferocious Piranha design to make it viable to be produced in the Red Ocean.

　　They did the same that Ves had already done to realize the Enlightened Warrior variant design. He swapped out all of the parts and materials that were native to the old galaxy with substitutes that were as close to the original elements as possible.

　　Although it was impossible to achieve exact equivalence, the Ferocious Piranha still performed close enough to its original parameters that they did not need to worry too much about drastically different performance characteristics.

　　Ves even felt assured enough about the minor revision that he left the testing and optimization phases to one of his design teams. There was no need for him to handhold this project any further when his assistant mech designers could already perform much of the work by themselves.

　　This was how the Ferocious Piranha Mark I Version B Mod 1 eventually came into being.

　　Even though its name had become increasingly more unwieldy, the important point was that it had not only turned into a viable commercial mech model, the Larkinson Clan could also make use of it as well!

　　Although the Larkinson Clan was short on raw materials for the moment, it was much easier to procure batches of locally-sourced goods in the long run.

　　The Design Department eventually needed to revise all of the active mech models that were currently in use. Ves just obtained a head-start by transforming the Ferocious Piranha design ahead of time.

　　"It's still a bad mech design, though." Gloriana sulked as she crossed her arms. "I can't stand how many corners you've cut this time. The Enlightened Warrior was already bad enough but the Ferocious Piranha is worse! Small differences have a disproportionately large effect on lighter and smaller mechs. The Bright Warrior design is a lot bigger and more tolerant towards deviations. The same doesn't necessarily apply to the Ferocious Piranha. It is so packed with different modules and features that I'm afraid something might go wrong due to insufficient care."

　　Ves did not show any concern. "Hey, it will be fine. The Ferocious Piranha isn't as fragile as it looks. We may have already passed on its design to Zachren Bilitsa, but one of our design teams is still in the process of stress-testing our altered work. If they discover anything severe enough to warrant our attention, we can always apply another quick fix to the new design."

　　"IT SHOULDN'T EVEN BE NECESSARY FOR US TO CORRECT OUR OWN MISTAKES!" His wife shrieked at her husband. "IF WE TOOK THE TIME TO DO THE JOB RIGHT AT THE START, WE DON'T HAVE TO HUMILIATE OURSELVES BY EXPOSING OUR SHORTCOMINGS!"

　　"Hey! Don't yell, please! We talked about this, remember? Think of our daughter!"

　　Fortunately enough, Aurelia completely disregarded the heated exchange as usual. The baby was lost in her own preoccupations as she rolled on the blanket on the floor.

　　She was wiggling her cute little body back and forth. She looked as if she was almost ready to crawl around for the first time in her life!

　　"Hihihihi!…"

　　The baby innocently giggled as Clixie circled around and offered her bushy tail as a toy.

　　The cute sight instantly melted the hearts of both parents. They set their argument aside in favor of holding and playing with their lively little baby.

　　They eventually set aside their differences and went back to work. Gloriana resumed her work on her custom mech designs while Ves resumed his progress on the Deceptor Project.

　　The light mech design project was not that complicated, actually.

　　The light harasser mech's greatest complications was its ranged weapon and its perception distortion-oriented spiritual design. Both of them required a considerable amount of thought and effort to execute correctly.

　　"Once I solve all of the problems related to these areas, the rest of the Deceptor Project should be a cakewalk."