The Mech Touch

Ves gained a lot of new insights and information after concluding his visit to the First Star Mech Academy.

He was hopeful for the future of the recently-founded institution. Even though most of its facilities weren't being used at this time, the academy that would come under the administration of the Davute Branch would definitely turn into a renowned school once it adopted the right set of training mechs!

The Tutor Project was the breakthrough that the First Star Mech Academy and many other mech academies needed.

If any other mech instructor learned about this ambition, then they would have thought that Ves had gone crazy!

As Ves researched the academic sector and learned more about how other mech academies prepared their pupils for combat, he discovered that training mechs did not carry as much weight.

The modern teaching methods of mech academies placed a higher emphasis on the curriculum and the selection of mech instructors.

The latter was especially important! Veterans who not only experienced a lot of battles but also possessed a lot of didactic skills were rare and precious talents that every mech academy fought for. A good teacher could increase the survival rate of graduates by as much as four times!

Fortunately, the Larkinson Clan was not short of veterans. A few of them were even good enough with people that they could stand in front of the classroom and pass on their wisdom to a bunch of brats.

However, an effective teaching operation relied on far more than good teaching. The amount of facilities and the quality and capability of the equipment also played a huge role in readying mech cadets for their future jobs.

Surprisingly enough, simulator training gear was just as important as training mechs in improving the combat skills of mech cadets!

Training mechs allowed mech pilots to gain highly realistic piloting experiences, but it was simulator training that allowed them to exercise all of their skills and take part in much more varied battle scenarios.

A mech academy that employed the best available simulator pods and supporting infrastructure tended to raise mech pilots with considerably deeper piloting foundations.

However, if that same school did not invest as much in its training mechs, then the actual performance of its graduates would be far from what they achieved in training. Fear, nervousness and other signs of inadequate preparation severely affected combat effectiveness. Their adaptation to real battles would be so bad that they could be defeated by much worse mech pilots.

The opposite was also true. A mech academy that invested greatly in training mechs but did not invest in good simulating training systems that offered a high degree of realism often fell behind in terms of skill development.

The mech cadets that trained with cheaper and less adequate simulator pods did not get to train the more advanced skills or practice with piloting stronger and more advanced virtual mech models.

The more complicated the virtual mechs or virtual battle scenarios, the more data and processing power needed to provide mech cadets with useful training!

Although the differences between decent simulator pods and good simulator pods were not that great, the latter were considered essential to the more elite and exclusive mech academies!

All of these factors and more determine the quality of education at a mech academy.

Ves focused specifically on both the simulator pods and the training mechs employed by these schools.

"Everyone assumes that there is a separation between the two." Ves murmured. "There is no way for simulator pods to fully reproduce the experience of piloting a real mech and using it to fight a real battle. At the same time, a mech academy can never put its training mechs onto actual battlefields and expect the mech cadets to fight for their lives."

This was why both products were necessary for any mech pilot training program.

It became increasingly clear how Ves could change this equation. He already developed an ambition to merge the advantages of both solutions through developing a brand-new spiritual solution!

He had already theorized some time ago that if he was able to impart a spiritual simulating program of a sort to his training mech, his products would be able to immerse their mech pilots into extremely realistic spiritual combat simulations!

The advantages of relying on spiritual technology over virtual technology were myriad. It was much easier to completely immerse mech cadets and mech pilots into imaginary battles that they could mistake as reality.

Ves also theorized that spiritual simulations would play a much more useful role in stimulating the spiritual development of mech cadets!

Just like dropping mech pilots into actual battles, Ves hoped that the younger and more immature mech cadets could get a much better taste of their future challenges.

Compared to simulator pods that weren't really alive, Ves had much greater confidence in the ability of his living mechs to interface and connect with the minds and spirits of their mech pilots!

He just knew that as long as he succeeded, he could upend the entire market for training mechs!

"It's getting there that's the problem!"

He needed to think carefully about what he needed to accomplish and the resources he could employ for this endeavor.

Compared to last time, his situation was a bit better. He not only spent a bit of time on thinking on how he could realize the key solutions, but also gained access to additional resources that did not exist in the past.

His eyes slowly lit up as his confidence stoked his passion. "I can do it! I just need to flesh out my ideas!"

This was the start of an engaging mech design project. The Tutor Project quickly turned into one of his favorites as he became invested in its purpose and its groundbreaking functions.

As much as he wanted to hurry up and work on its spiritual design right away, Ves knew he needed to develop a good base before he could proceed any further.

"Gloriana, Sara, I need your help with the physical design of the Tutor Project. Can you lend me a bit of your time to design and optimize its frame?"

Ves knew his limits.

Considering that Ves aimed to turn his Tutor Project into a popular commercial product, he knew that he could not rely on himself to turn it into an attractive choice.

His wife and Sara Voiken were excellent contributors to the design. The former primarily invested her efforts into designing an even better internal architecture than the Chiron.

A lot of time had passed since she designed the Chiron together with Ves. She not only accrued more experience and improved her mech affinity, but also developed a lot of new design solutions, of which some of them happened to be extremely relevant to a mass market product.

Sara Voiken on the other hand mainly worked on the exterior of the design. While she was constrained by the specific look and theme that Ves had dictated, she still had plenty of ways to implement her own ideas.

Months passed as the three worked on the Tutor Project as well as the other design projects of the fifth design round.

While their split attention prevented them from progressing the Tutor Project as quickly as possible, the passage of time allowed them to put plenty of thought on how they wanted to resolve all of the challenges.

The Tutor Project slowly took shape. Unlike his collaboration with Professor Taigen Voiken, Ves retained complete creative control over his training mech design.

He did not restrain his desire to express his art. As soon as Sara completed the first iteration of the Tutor Project's adaptable and semi-modular armor system, Ves proceeded to mold and shape the exterior to fit a specific theme.

Ves visualized the Tutor Project as a knightly squire.

Unlike the Blessed Squire that was basically designed to be a lackey for the superior female mechs of the Hex Army, the Tutor Project was designed with the full expectation of turning its pilots into worthy soldiers.

One of the more interesting aspects about the Tutor Project was that it inherited the morphability of the Chiron Project and pushed it a step further.

Not only was it capable of extending and retracting the length of its limbs and its torso to a greater degree, it could also swap out its armor plating and its limbs with heavier or lighter versions!

Inspired by Professor Taigen Voiken's intention to turn the Pacifier Project into a multivariate mech design that offered a lot of different variations, Ves adopted the same approach for a mech design project that he was confident he could turn into a major commercial success!

Of course, Ves wasn't in a hurry to expand the scope of this design project. He first wanted to complete a base model before he could think about developing alternative parts and additional variants.

For now, Ves wanted to make the Tutor Project look good no matter how much it changed its proportions.

The overall result of his efforts was designing a training mech that looked like it fit a lot better on the battlefield than other training mechs.

There was nothing soft or safe about its external appearance. Ves had adopted the meaning of war as the central motif and theme of his training mech. His decision encapsulated his hope and ambition that his new training mech would become the best possible training tool for mech cadets!

"Once the mech cadets get a chance of piloting this product, they will never want to go back to piloting the training mechs designed by the competition!"

Ves also knew that as long as the Tutor Project turned into a success, he would have to revisit the Chiron design and update it so that it provided even more effective training solutions!

After all, the Tutor Project was merely a commercial mech model that was meant to generate revenue for the Larkinson Clan.

The Chiron on the other hand would always be the premier training mech exclusively available to his clansmen!

Ves already had an idea to give his Chiron model a decisive advantage over the Tutor Project, but that could wait until later.

"First, I need to transform my current training mech from a decent product to a great product."

Now that Ves and his fellow Journeymen pretty much completed the physical design of the Tutor Project, he was ready to tackle the more complicated and crucial spiritual design elements.

He had spent months theorizing and researching his options for this task. After considering numerous different alternatives, he settled upon an approach that he felt confident about.

Ves called it the Mental Simulation Training System.

This was his name for the theoretical model of the Tutor Project's defining training feature. He initially wanted to use the word 'Spiritual' or 'Metaphysical' to describe the revolutionary new simulation training system, but Ves eventually settled for a more innocuous choice in order to generate less doubts and confusion.

"Aside from being an elaborate attempt to pull both the mech pilot as well as the living mech into a spiritual combat simulation environment, the MSTS also aimed to stimulate their potential and spiritual development as effectively as possible!

According to his plans, the MSTS was supposed to accomplish this by exploiting the advantages of three different design spirits.

"The Quint is the expert on mech pilots. There is no 'design spirit' in my collection that understands mech pilots and piloting skills better than this masterwork mech!"

This was not enough, though. The Quint might understand mech pilots, but it did not possess a sufficient understanding of mechs to simulate their performance in spiritual battle scenarios.

"Vulcan is the perfect complement to the Quint!" Ves grinned. "My incarnation not only has access to everything I know about mechs, but also receives the spiritual feedback of a growing number of craftsmen and mech designers! He is by far the design spirit that is most adept in technology!"

After all, Ves created Vulcan to be the supposed God of Dwarfs, Mechs and Craftsmanship. It would be a joke if his spiritual self was incapable of simulating the performance of different mechs!

Though Ves already thought that using a combination of Quint and Vulcan was sufficient to design his ambitious Mental Simulation Training System, he suddenly realized that it was missing a major element.

"One of the most persistent complaints of conventional simulation systems is that mech pilots are unable to get too invested in the virtual battles. They all know that the scenarios are fake and that their experiences will never threaten their lives. Due to this, it is extremely difficult to raise their mental resilience and their preparedness for actual battles."

What if this was no longer the case?

What if the Tutor Project could simulate the experience of fighting life-and-death battles to a much more realistic degree?

The mech cadets and mech pilots that would get pulled into these spiritual simulations would definitely get exposed to an unprecedented level of stimulation! The chances of individuals activating their spiritual potential outside of the battlefield were much greater as a result!

Only the most hellish training programs that often produced casualties and crippled mech pilots could produce similar results!

Ves grinned wider as he thought of the right design spirit to add a bit of extra oomph to his Mental Simulation Training System.

"Only Helena can induce the threat of death in the hearts of people!"

He suddenly felt a finger poking against his back. He turned around to discover that a floating lady in gray had appeared behind his back.

The lovely glowing flower in her hair made her look adorable, but looks were deceiving. The cute black flower had already reaped the lives of millions of people!