The Mech Touch

It turned out that he did miss on a lot of developments while he was gone.

Ves learned that the sales figures of a few mech models started to pick up. The Enlightened Warriors weren't selling so hot, but the Ferocious Piranhas started to get noticed after customers learned how useful they were against both human and alien opponents.

What actually surprised him was that the Monster Slayer had quickly gained momentum!

"The mech, despite being paired with a fairly uncommon weapon type, has become increasingly more popular in several communities." Gavin explained. "The Wild Fighter Association actively promoted the Monster Slayer after its own mech critics started singing its praises. Plenty of members have placed their orders on the new model, especially when they heard it was designed by a mech designer who could actually fight better than themselves."

The Wild Fighters were pretty much the perfect target audience for Ketis. They participated in a lot of arena competitions and they had a preference for melee mechs.

The Monster Slayer model stood out for wielding an unreasonably large sword and for being able to defeat stronger and better-equipped landbound mechs!

However, a lot of customers initially held off because the Monster Slayer was exclusively optimized to fight with a greatsword. This was not an easy weapon to master and many melee specialists needed to take refresher courses in order to get up to speed.

Although the Monster Slayer was able to wield all kinds of other weapons, its structural configuration prevented it from making the most out of the alternate weapons.

This was why the Monster Slayers armed with spears, shields and maces only performed adequately.

While this sounded fine, there were many competing mech models that offered superior speed, agility, defense or attack power!

The only real advantage the Monster Slayer possessed over the competition was that mech pilots, particularly those who fought with swords, felt a lot more comfortable and in tune with their new machines!

It took time for the Monster Slayer to develop more appeal.

The pilots who stuck to practicing and fighting with the greatswords eventually showcased why the mech designed by a Swordmaster was worth the investment!

After several weeks of training, each of them began to showcase greater proficiency and more fluid movements in the arena matches!

Although their sword techniques were still rough compared to the fast and efficient moves of the Swordmaidens, it was pretty impressive that all of those novices in greatswords started to show great momentum!

The more talented among them displayed even greater mastery in wielding greatswords. Their skill increased every day and they became more and more domineering whenever they matched up against other mechs in the arena!

As Gavin continued to narrate the trajectory of the recently released mech model, Ves quietly listened while he observed the footage of a few arena matches.

Even though Ves had doubled the playback speed, he was still sharp enough to feel the ferocity and momentum of the Monster Slayer's moves.

No matter whether they fought against light skirmishers, knight mechs or other swordsman mechs, their momentum-based attacks always whipped up a lot of air while pushing back their opposition with undaunted power!

Ves might not be a mech pilot, but he possessed a decent understanding of the skill progression of mech pilots.

He could see that the pilots of these Monster Slayers managed to display at least twice as much proficiency than usual! The more talented mech pilots even showed as much as five times as much skill!

If Ves was able to pick up these details, then so did many other Wild Fighters.

Each of them fell in love with the domineering nature of the Monster Slayer and its increasingly famous ability to facilitate the swordsmanship of its pilots!

"The Wild Fighter Association projects that it will sell at least 7,000 units at the end of this month."

"7,000!?"

Ves looked surprised at this figure. Although it did not sound nearly as impressive as the LMC's sales figures in his home galaxy, the Monster Slayer was a second-class mech!

It was a lot harder for products to stand out in the second-class mech market.

The competition was fiercer and the standards were a lot higher. Many brands had long captured the hearts of customers for multiple generations, making it extremely difficult for new market entrants to gain a foothold in this lucrative market!

Ves already had high expectations for the commercial viability of Ketis' first commercial product, but this was unreasonable!

"The product life cycle of the Monster Slayer is still in the initial stages." Gavin excitedly explained. "The Wild Fighter Association not only has a lot of members, but also wields a considerable amount of influence. The customers who have ordered the Monster Slayer so far are all early adopters who were the easiest to convince. There is still a large base of potential customers that is still untapped. Once positive word of mouth about the Monster Slayer continues to spread, we project that it will sell 20,000 copies in the next month and 50,000 copies in the month after that! As long as the Monster Slayer doesn't expose any major faults or shortcomings, we believe it will not be difficult for it to become a mainstay model in many second-class competitive circuits throughout the Red Ocean!"

"This!"

Though Ves found it ridiculous that the work of a Journeyman who was younger and more inexperienced than him could achieve so much success, he quickly realized that this trajectory might actually come true.

Just like his own work, the mechs designed by Ketis offered value that far exceeded the products designed by other Journeymen.

In fact, with the unique training benefits provided by the Monster Slayer, not even the mechs designed by Masters could match this rare and unique selling point.

After all, how many of those Masters excelled at sword fighting?

How many of them could develop tailored sword styles for their own swordsman mech designs?

Did any of them ever hack their enemies apart on the battlefield in person?

There was no way that a second Ketis existed in the mech industry!

Ves grinned. A part of him might be jealous at her commercial success, but he keenly recognized that her quick rise came at a good time!

"Our clan has long been stuck in a financial hole. If the Monster Slayer starts selling big, we can finally speed up our investment plans!"

For the next five years, Ves wanted his clan to complete an extensive rebuilding and expansion program. None of the ships, mechs and infrastructure he intended to acquire were cheap. It would be incredibly helpful if his former student could immediately help with paying for all of the bills!

"How much money will we get for all of these early sales?"

"Not as much as we wish." Gavin replied. "The Monster Slayer is sold at 1.4 MTA credits, which is a typical price for the mid-range segment. However, since the Wild Fighter Association assumes all of the responsibilities for producing, selling, shipping and providing after-sales support for the Monster Slayer model, what we get is rather small."

Ves remembered the details of the initial agreement. This was merely a test for both sides. Neither the Larkinson Clan nor the Wild Fighter Association dared to commit too heavily on this cooperative venture. They first needed solid proof that working together was lucrative enough before going any further.

"I think the Wild Fighter Association should already be convinced that partnering up with Ketis is more than worthwhile, don't you think, Benny?"

Gavin nodded in agreement. "The designs of Ketis may be rough around the edges, but her future potential is high. Any rational executive from the Wild Fighter Association should be able to recognize that it is best to deepen their cooperation with her. You should discuss carefully with her on her upcoming design projects. With the successful example of the Monster Slayer, she stands a good chance of shooting into fame if her subsequent commercial mech models also gain widespread appeal."

"It depends on her wishes." Ves replied. "Earning a lot of money will make her feel validated, but I have the feeling she isn't interested in designing mech models that have the most mass appeal."

A swordsman mech designer like Ketis should be more interested in realizing more radical and exploratory mech concepts.

Any decent mech designer could design a serviceable swordsman mech, but it took a true lover and enthusiast to excel at this job.

A mech designer who purposely limited her product variety to a single mech type needed to put a lot more effort in coming up with new and original mech concepts. It was not necessarily good for their development to design similar machines over and over again.

In one of his previous talks with Ketis, Ves already gained the impression that she was done with designing swordsman mechs that specialized in wielding greatswords.

The Monster Slayer and the Second Sword models already allowed her to learn a lot of lessons.

She wouldn't be able to learn nearly as much if she designed a second batch of greatsword-wielding machines.

It was much better for her development if she went off the beaten track and explored different facets of swordsman mechs!

After Ves got up to speed on the Monster Slayer model's market performance, Gavin moved on to the other items on the agenda.

Ves displayed mild interest in the steady growth and expansion of both the Creation Association and the Open Consortium.

Both off-shoot organizations were still young and only started operations for a couple of months at most. Their development so far wasn't all that impressive, but Ves felt that both of them had a lot more future potential.

Originally, he didn't intend to intervene too much in their operations, but now that he had become a lot wealthier, he started to change his mind.

Perhaps it was a good idea to invest in both of his pet projects so that they could quickly get up to scale!

Once the Creation Association started to bind together hundreds of excellent craftsmen and artisans, his spiritual incarnation would probably develop new abilities that could offer him a lot more help in his own projects!

As for the Open Consortium, Ves wanted to increase the Larkinson Clan's weight in Davute. If he could indirectly tie more middle-sized companies to his network, his clan would no longer face as many difficulties in procuring specialty goods and services!

"Has the Open Consortium been able to lure in a second shipbuilding company?" Ves idly asked.

"I'm afraid I have to disappoint you, boss. After we have successfully managed to win over Murphy & Sons, the other local players have learned their lesson and have begun to court other shipbuilders more aggressively. Our Open Consortium can't match the benefits promised by the large regional alliances."

"A pity. We need to encourage Murphy & Sons to expand its business operations as fast as possible."

Before the Larkinson Clan managed to rope in Murphy & Sons, Ves would have been happy to develop an accord with any shipbuilding company.

Now that he had obtained what he wanted, he started growing increasingly more dissatisfied with Murphy & Sons.

Sure, the company's starship output was decent, but it was woefully insufficient for the Larkinson Clan! This was especially considering that Murphy & Sons took orders from dozens of customers!

"Benny, give me some advice. How can we convince Murphy & Sons to speed up its delivery of starships to our clan?"

The assistant frowned in thought. "The Murphies are already working as hard as they can. I can see two possible ways for them to supply more ships to us. We can convince them to build new starships exclusively for the Larkinson Clan. I doubt Mrs. Gelly Murphy will agree to that because it will make her company entirely dependent on the whims of a single party. I think it is much better if we inject a lot of cash into the shipbuilding company and offer other forms of support. This can get expensive though, and we need to make sure that Murphy & Sons reciprocate our actions."

"Hmmm…"