The Mech Touch

As Maikel and Zanthar scurried out of the design office in order to embark on their difficult graduation assignments right away, Ves reflected on what he had done.

When Gloriana originally reminded him that his students were close to graduating, Ves did not immediately set out to make their final year so challenging.

It was only after he met them and studied their results that he came up with this impulsive idea to push them into a corner.

The two reminded Ves of himself.

Although the pair of trueblood Larkinsons did not possess an advantage as insane as the Mech Designer System, the Larkinson Clan provided them with a lot of other forms of assistance.

All of these boosts had given Maikel and Zanthar a much higher starting point than many other mech designers!

When Ves was put in this position, he did not grow complacent but worked extra hard to accelerate his progress and succeed where others failed.

He clearly managed to thrive because of this approach! The biggest reason why Gloriana became so adamant about marrying Ves was because she saw a mech designer who possessed the strongest qualifications to become a Master Mech Designer compared to all of her other peers!

While the strategy she chose to hook up to him wasn't entirely proper, her vision wasn't wrong. Gloriana was smart when it came to mech design and she rightly viewed Ves as a partner with much higher potential than the elite Hexer mech designers who also graduated from Kelma University.

Right now, if Gloriana was looking at Maikel and Zanthar, she would immediately pass them over without any hesitation.

This was because the pair of Larkinson seeds had yet to show the brilliance that denoted any high potential.

How could mediocre mech designers be worthy of her attention? Ordinary professionals who could only make ordinary accomplishments were worse than the dirt beneath her heels!

"They really need to step up if they want to satisfy me a year later." Ves softly sighed.

Though Ves did not aim to pair them up with Gloriana-esque girlfriends, he did want them to get good enough to meet their standards.

Becoming Gloriana-worthy was the minimum standard to become a future lead designer in the Design Department!

"Well, now that I am done here, I better get back to my other responsibilities."

Nothing of critical importance happened during the last leg of the return journey.

One day later, the expeditionary fleet emerged at the edge of the thriving and booming Davute System.

"We've arrived!"

A lot of Larkinsons relaxed their shoulders and lost their tension as they finally made it back to a star system that offered a lot more safety than all of the other places in the Krakatoa Middle Zone.

Although absolute safety didn't exist, the risks in Davute were so low that Ves did not particularly worry about getting ambushed.

As the fleet slowly followed the instructions of traffic control and headed over to Davute VII, Ves spent many hours addressing a lot of different matters.

From arranging a masterwork inspection of the Minerva to preparing for his first meeting with the Aduc Family, Ves needed to make sure his clan was on the right track.

He couldn't neglect his mech designer responsibilities either. He scheduled numerous meetings with his fellow Journeymen in order to discuss their plans for their upcoming design round.

Enough time had passed for every lead designer to come up with numerous good ideas about their next batch of commercial mech designs.

It was important for the Living Mech Corporation to become more than an obscure mech company in the Red Ocean. The LMC and by extension the Larkinson Clan had to build up a brand and earn much more revenue than the thousands of MTA credits it earned from selling its older products in the Yeina Star Cluster.

"Dum-dum!"

"It's papa." Ves corrected in an annoyed tone.

"Papaaaa~" Aurelia cutely grinned as she lifted up her arms.

Ves immediately leaned down and picked her up in his arms. She giggled as he kissed her cheek and rocked her body.

"Are you looking forward to our upcoming holiday down in Davute?"

"Um!"

Mew!

Mana emerged from Aurelia's head and playfully circled around. The juvenile companion spirit acted as if she was a measure of how much the little girl looked forward to exploring a planet!

Ves smiled proudly at his daughter. Even though she was still awfully young, she was a bright designer baby that demonstrated more cleverness than other babies at her age.

He wasn't sure how much of it was a function of her designer genes and how much of it came from her boosted spiritual development.

He believed that both of these factors enabled Aurelia to slowly stand out in terms of awareness and intelligence.

These differences would definitely become more obvious and magnified in the coming years!

Nyaaa!

The spontaneous appearance of Mana prompted the Golden Cat to emerge from the Larkinson Mandate.

The grand stateroom became filled with warmth and love as the spiritual embodiment of the Larkinson Clan flew over to the tiny white kitten and licked the intangible furball silly!

Mew! Mew! Mewww!

"Gowdie! Stop! Already clean!" Aurelia complained!

Nyaaaaaa~

Of course, Goldie didn't listen to the little girl's protests. She continued to shower Mana with licks until the ancestral spirit was satisfied with the results.

Mew…

As Goldie began to play around with Mana, the hatch to the grand stateroom slid open.

Gloriana finally returned after she completed her shift at the design labs. She grinned as she moved close to nuzzle her daughter.

"Have you been a good girl today, Aurelia?"

"Yaaaaaaay!"

"Good girls deserve a reward, don't they?"

Aurelia nodded.

"I'll give you twenty kisses instead of ten kisses this time, does that sound good?"

The baby looked uncertain. Numbers were still beyond her grasp, but it probably wouldn't take long before she could count to ten.

After Ves and Gloriana were done with cuddling their daughter, they threw the little rugrat to their cats before they talked about more serious subjects.

"I heard about the assignments you have given to Maikel and Zanthar. You really didn't cut them any slack." Gloriana remarked.

"It's sink or swim, honey." Ves said as he sat down at a couch. "You of all people should know how difficult it is to leave a legacy behind in the mech industry. Ordinary mech designers are a dime in a dozen. I only have to open up our doors and thousands of mech designers will apply to join us in a week. They're close to worthless as far as I'm concerned. The only ones that matter to me and the clan are the mech designers that can become our lead designers. If Maikel and Zanthar can't reach this level, then I really have no qualms abandoning them. We have invested so much into them that there comes a point where we need to cut our losses."

Gloriana slowly nodded. "You're not wrong for maintaining this attitude. If we decide to raise another batch of mech design students, we need to be much more discerning in our selection. Our clan's technical schools haven't produced any notable geniuses yet, but it shouldn't be a challenge to attract external ones to receive our tutelage."

"I'm not in a hurry to teach another bunch of brats from the start again. The reconstruction and expansion of our clan comes first. Once that is done and once we have reorganized the Design Department, we will have a much better idea of which mech design specialists we are lacking in. There are certain specialists that we can pick up from the job market easily enough. There are also other specialists that we can't obtain unless we raise them ourselves."

If Maikel or Zanthar failed to live up to his expectations, then Ves would just try again with a better batch of mech design students.

One way or another, he wanted to add a qualified living mech specialist and a luminar crystal technology specialist to the Design Department!

If he wasn't able to do this, then Ves would get swamped by too many design priorities!

Gloriana understood what Ves was going for, so she did not object to his decisions.

"What about you, Gloriana? Did you provide Maisie Ann and Rennie with similar challenges?"

"Unlike you, I don't want to drive my pupils crazy. Their graduation assignments are difficult, but mainly because I expect them to design mechs that meet much higher quality standards than the works of other beginner mech designers. I don't care what they do after they have graduated, but they better show me that they can design mechs that are much closer to perfection than the shabby rust buckets that other Novices tend to design at the beginning of their careers."

For some reason, Ves felt as if her remark was specifically targeted towards himself.

He shrugged this detail aside and thought about his plans for the most crucial institution of the Larkinson Clan.

"We need to expand the Design Department again." He told her. "I know we expanded it shortly after we entered the Red Ocean, but eight Journeymen still isn't enough to keep up with our rate of expansion. I know we have already talked about hiring additional lead designers after a few design rounds, but this plan is already outdated as soon as we leave the Garimel System with over 200 million MTA merits and several hundred kilograms of phasewater. We can speed up our growth and fill up the gaps in our coverage within a year instead of half a decade."

This was new to Gloriana! She turned and stared deeply in his eyes.

"Are you sure, Ves? While I am happy with the progress we have made with integrating the Voikens and the mechanical strength specialists, adding four more Journeymen in a short amount of time will cause our Design Department to become a lot less organized."

"I am aware of the risks, but all of this is worth it if we can pump out 4 or 8 more mech designs per design round. For a long time, we have focused on increasing the quality of our output. There is nothing wrong with that. Many of our completed works have gone on to rake in a lot of profit or save our lives during a crucial battle. I think we should shift our priorities on maximizing our current gains. As long as we expand the Design Department once more, we will not only be able to earn more money, but also save a lot of time. If we want to advance to Senior quickly enough, then designing a huge quantity of mech designs is indispensable."

As soon as Ves mentioned this last argument, Gloriana had no more objections to bringing the expansion of the Design Department forward.

"Fine, then. Have it your way. If you think you can maintain control, then I am willing to let you try. How soon do you want to complete the recruitment and what specialties are you trying to obtain this time?"

"I don't want to wait too long, so I am thinking about having this done within a month or two." Ves answered. "As for the specialties, you should already have a good idea of what we are lacking at the moment."

"I do, but which roles do you want to fulfill most urgently this time?"

"We should at least be able to recruit a neural interface specialist, a ranged mech or ranged weapon specialist and a light mech specialist. As long as we can fill up those holes, it shouldn't be a problem for us to design competitive mechs in most product categories."

"Do you want the new hires to start working right away?"

Ves shook his head. "No. Nothing so exaggerated. I was thinking about giving them at least half a year to acclimatize to their new environment and familiarize themselves with our clan. They should be ready to contribute to our mech design projects after this crucial period."