The Mech Touch

"Open your mouth and say 'Ahhhh', Aurelia."

"Ahhhhh!"

Glomp!

Gloriana performed her duties as a mother and fed her baby her custom-synthesized meal of high-density nutrients.

One of the burdens of raising designer babies was that it was inadvisable to feed regular food to them. Their special genes added a lot of advanced capabilities to them that ordinary human bodies did not possess.

When designer babies grew up, they exhibited all kinds of superior performance parameters depending on the configuration of your designer genes. Enhanced strength, accelerated thinking, improved healing and efficient metabolism were just a handful of the inhuman benefits that they acquired.

However, before designer babies acquired these envious benefits, their bodies first needed to grow the requisite organs and physique before they came online.

This necessitated a specialized diet that was tailored to provide just the right nutrients at different stages of growth. Any interruption or misalignment in the provision of rare or high-quality nutrients synthesized from organic exotics could lead to severe malnutrition and deformations!

Although they looked no different from humans, from a biological perspective designer babies had already diverged from the species they were derived from! Each of them consisted of a separate species or subspecies that were reproductively isolated from baseline humans!

All of these complications and burdens represented an investment in the future of a child. As long as the parents were able to cope with the considerable cost of raising a transhuman money pit, they would almost always be rewarded with an excellent descendant that was already ahead of the vast majority of people!

"Ahhhh!"

"Hihihi!"

Glomp!

As Aurelia continued to take bite after bite of her cranberry-flavored nutrient jelly, Ves finished up his own plate of high-density breakfast.

He needed to absorb a lot more calories than the average human due to his own abnormal physical conditions. Despite not being born as a designer baby, his Jutland organ and other half-alien modifications demanded a lot more food in order to sustain his heightened energy consumption.

Ves briefly paused and concentrated his senses inward.

The mysterious Worclaw energy cycle remained stable and did not exert any excessive pressure on his body. It hadn't shown any abnormalities for years and Ves did not expect it to act up without outside interference.

That did not mean that Ves had lowered his vigilance towards it. Dr. Jutland might have been an insane bioresearcher who had died a long time ago, but Ves knew first-hand that one's work often outlived their creators!

Before, Ves essentially had no way of investigating or 'fixing' his Jutland organ any further. The doctors employed by the CFA and MTA both examined his condition and essentially threw their hands in the air.

If Ves wanted to make real progress in figuring out his biomodifications, he needed to consult a top specialist in this field.

This was prohibitively expensive!

There was no way that a small second-class Journeyman could pay for the services of a renowned authority in human-alien organ implantation!

He smirked. "Well, luckily enough I'm not that small anymore."

Thinking about the 211,140,000 MTA merits that were about to be credited to his name caused his mentality to undergo a substantial change.

He was no longer a pauper!

He could invest a huge amount of MTA merits on all kinds of exclusive goodies and services!

Although his cash savings hadn't increased at all, MTA merits was his gateway into true exclusivity!

With enough MTA merits, Ves would be able to obtain much of the rare and exceptional stuff that the upper echelon of human society only circulated among themselves!

He had so many different choices that he didn't know where to begin. He figured it was best to ask people for advice on how he should best spend his windfall.

A fortune of 211 million MTA merits might sound enormous, but Ves could easily splurge it in an hour if he wanted to! The mechers might offer a lot of benefits that weren't available elsewhere, but they were never known to be cheap!

"Papa!"

"Don't call him papa, Aurelia. Call him dum-dum."

"Papa?"

"Papa has been naughty lately and deprived me of the MTA merits that I deserve. He's a dum-dum because of that. Dum-dum. Got it? Say dum-dum."

"Dum… dum…?"

"Yes! That's it! Say dum-dum!"

"Hihihihi! Dum-dum! Dum-dum!"

Ves suddenly shook himself out of his thoughts when he saw that Gloriana was slandering him again!

"Honey! What are you doing? Don't brainwash our daughter! Aurelia, I am your papa, not your dum-dum!"

"Dum-dum!" Their baby directed an innocent smile towards her father.

"Papa!"

"Dum-dum!"

"No, it's papa!"

"Dum-dum!"

Further down the table, Lucky and Clixie looked up from their food bowls. Both of their eyes twinkled in amusement.

"Miaow~"

"Meow meow!"

Ves wanted to barf. "Not you two as well. I'm not a dum-dum for retaining the merits that properly belong to our clan. I'm smart-smart."

"Dum-dum?"

"Smart-smart!"

"Dum-dum, hihi!"

He gave up on trying to teach a lesson to his daughter.

As he finished up his cup of coffee, his comm suddenly sounded a chime.

"Hm?"

He activated his comm and noticed that he received a high priority message. When he opened it, he discovered that it came from his wife!

"What is this… a shopping list? Wait, what the hell? You want to spend 60 million MTA merits to obtain first-class cranial implants for yourself and our six kids? That's too much!"

"What's wrong with that? Don't you want the best for your family, Ves?"

"Don't try to guilt trip me into squandering our strategic resources! I am not squandering a third of the MTA merits on cranial implants that none of our children are ready for. Aurelia's head is way too small and our second child isn't even born yet! It's way too premature to acquire expensive implants at this stage."

"It's rare for us to have access to so many MTA merits, Ves! I'm afraid you will waste those MTA merits on other goods that will offer no help to our children at all. If we invest into the future of our children early, they will grow into brilliant professionals who can earn ten times the amount of MTA merits when they are in their prime! All we need to do is pave the way as best as possible."

Ves shook his head. Although he agreed with her argument, he did not think her spending strategy was any good.

"I think you're underestimating what I can do in a couple of decades. I'm not a tier 6 galactic citizen for nothing, you know. I bet that I can easily earn tens of millions of MTA merits if I set it as goals." He stated, which instantly caused his wife to snarl. "Besides, products such as first-class implants are not necessarily exclusive. You can buy them for a lot of MTA credits. Sure, our earning potential is not great right now, but once we become Seniors and design mechs that are much more fantastic than the ones in our mech catalog, I am sure we can purchase a set of excellent first-class implants."

"What if you overestimate the profit that you can generate? What if the mech market changes to the point where your products don't sell as much anymore? Anything can happen, Ves! The only way to avoid all of this uncertainty is to secure the implants early!"

"No." Ves firmly shook his head. "The windfall of MTA merits should be spent on products and services that don't take decades to manifest. Our long-term growth prospects are already great. What our clan truly lacks is a way to speed up our development and overcome our weak and vulnerable period as fast as possible. This is why I intend to spend most of our MTA merits on boosts and enhancements that can quickly increase our strength and foundation."

"How much of the MTA merits are you spending on the clan as opposed to us? It sounds as if you are willing to sacrifice far too many MTA merits just to benefit others!"

"Our clansmen fought to secure those MTA merits!" Ves barked back! "I didn't see you hopping into a cockpit and fighting against an entire kingdom of fish-whales! All of those mech pilots believed in our clan and believed in our goals. It is only right to reward the soldiers who have braved so many dangers on our behalf. Besides, strengthening our clan will benefit us in so many ways. It's an investment, Gloriana. Don't you understand?"

His wife looked glum at that. She couldn't very well talk back at her own argument.

Ves quietly sighed. Only a night had passed since he returned home and already his wife was gunning for his MTA merits!

Properly speaking, the entire sum belonged to the Larkinson Clan as a whole. Ves only deserved partial credit for the actions that resulted in the acquisition of over 2 metric tons of phasewater.

He was tempted to spend it all on himself.

He believed he could make himself a lot smarter and more knowledgeable.

He could equip himself with excellent equipment and renovate his entire personal workshop with a first-class superfab and other useful equipment.

He could also forge a lot of relationships with many different mech designers and companies.

It was not that difficult to justify all of this personal spending. The Larkinson Clan was mainly propped up by himself, so if he became a lot stronger and capable all of a sudden, he could provide more benefits to his clansmen in turn.

Ves didn't think this was the best course of action, though.

Just as how Ves fueled the Larkinson Clan's growth, the Larkinson Clan also facilitated his own growth.

People such as his wife, Venerable Joshua, Commander Casella and so on all provided him with a lot of assistance over the years.

Ves was willing to invest in his people further with the expectation that he could obtain a greater harvest in return.

"Don't tell me how to spend our MTA merits. I'm the one in charge around here. I will consult with my own advisors to form a sound and logical plan on how we can best spend this newfound wealth."

If Gloriana developed her own ideas on how to allocate the merits, then so did other people!

Ves quickly finished his breakfast and approached his wife and daughter to say goodbye.

"Hmph!" Gloriana turned her head away from her husband.

Ves ignored his wife's irritation and bent down to kiss Aurelia's head. "Papa will be going to work now. Have fun and stay nice!"

"Dum-dum!"

"It's papa!"

He let out an exasperated breath as he left for his office.

Once there, he sank into his chair and leaned back while his personal assistant arrived to give him his daily brief.

"Yo, Benny! Long time no see. It feels like it has been ages since I last went through this routine."

"Your absence has been sorely felt, boss. There have been a lot of developments in the weeks you spent on the Purgatory Campaign. A lot of issues have piled up on your desk. None of them are critical, but you should still go over them as each of them require your input." Gavin Nuemann professionally replied.

Ves sighed. "Go ahead, then. What's first?"

"I think you should know that the Komodo War is winding down. The Hexadric Hegemony is on the verge of collapse, especially now that all of its border strongholds have been overrun. Originally, the state should have been able to put up a resistance for a few more years, but…"

"What's the matter?"

"Many Hexer dynasties and organizations have already pulled out in advance." Gavin said. "The departure of so many elites and cadre have hollowed out the defenses of the star systems and territories that they have abandoned. The Friday Coalition's mech armies are essentially sweeping them up without encountering too many speed bumps. If this trend continues, the Hexadric Hegemony will soon cease to exist."

Ves dismissively waved his hand. "You don't need to tell me about the Komodo War any longer. We have long departed from our native star sector. We don't have anything to do with it anymore. Besides, the Hexadric Hegemony was doomed years ago. This outcome is already set in stone. Just skip this news and bring up topics that are actually relevant to our clan. Is that clear, Benny?"

His assistant nodded.