The Mech Touch



Ves felt rather odd for a long time after he finally departed from Tristan Wesseling's design studio.

He expected that he would have to argue with Master Olson a lot longer in order to drag a referral letter from her reluctant hands!

"It doesn't make sense." Ves furrowed his brows as he idly stroked Lucky's back.

The irritable gem cat did not really enjoy this excursion this time. Perhaps he would have been better off if he continued to accompany Andraste and play with her whimsical games!

"Meow meow."

"I don't think that is the case. There is hardly any friendship between the two of us. Sure, we have interacted with each other in an indirect manner, but these past instances were either competitive or purely interest-driven by nature. What she has done this time is an act that comes with many downsides for her. If word ever gets out, she will probably receive greater criticism from her own state."

"Meow?"

"Hm, maybe you have a point, Lucky. I owe a substantial favor to her now. If I ever get access to a lot of first-class knowledge and resources in the future, she may want to take advantage of that to help her in her own endeavors."

Writing a referral letter for Ves was not a huge act that demanded a major sacrifice from Master Olson, but it was still a lot more consequential to her than the other Master Mech Designers!

Ves guessed that she most definitely had greater intentions in mind when she finally expressed her agreement.

It was conceivable that once she came back to him in the future, she might make a bigger request that may not be so easy to fulfill!

No matter.

Ves would be in a much better position at that time. What mattered was whether he could get in front of a classroom that was filled with first-class mech design students with her help.

"I have six letters now." He grinned in satisfaction.

There were not that many more names on his list, and they were all poor prospects.

Ves spent his remaining time on contacting people such as Master Barnard Solas Voiken.

Unfortunately, he had run out of luck. His relationship with these mech designers were not that great.

Master Barnard Voiken was especially scathing when he learned what this conversation was all about!

"You are dishonoring yourself and your profession by asking me to commit a dishonest act! It is a breach of professional ethics for any mech designer to write a referral letter that is not steeped in truth. You should be ashamed of yourself for demanding a recommendation from a Master who you have never collaborated with or met in person! If not for the fact that Taigen is still reliant on the profits and exposure brought by the Pacifier model that you designed with him, I would have cut all ongoing business relationships with you right this instant! As it is, I shall inform my contacts in the academic sector to be wary of a presumptuous Senior who thinks he can cheat his way into a professorship. Our industry does not welcome liars and thieves!"

Ves became so shocked by Master Voiken's vehement words that he only managed to regain his composure five minutes after the call had ended.

"That crusty old bastard!" He cursed.

His previous talks with other Masters had inflated his confidence. He mistakenly assumed that obtaining a referral letter was not that big of a challenge, but he was wrong.

It may be easy enough to obtain them from the Masters he knew well, but those who fell into the distant acquaintance category were not that eager to bend the rules in his favor.

Contacting Master Barnard Voiken had been a mistake in hindsight!

It didn't matter that the Larkinson Clan graciously gave two descendants of the Voiken Family a better stage for their work. That old and senile bastard was so set in his ways that he probably wouldn't be willing to bend the rules for his own children!

"Oh well."

Ves had to settle for just 6 letters in the end. Whether that was too sparse or a lot, he wasn't sure. The only certainty he possessed was that half of his recommendations came from MTA Master Mech Designers!

"Let's see if that is enough to give me a chance."

Now that he had completed this necessary step, it was time to put these letters into action and apply for a suitable school.

This was not a fast process. Every mech design university received lots of applications, especially in the periods between school semesters.

His expeditionary fleet may have already reached the Torald Middle Zone by the time he received an invitation to attend an interview session.

"Is there any way to hurry up this process?"

He couldn't think of any. As several Masters had already stated, Ves did not possess any particularly desirable teaching qualities. Perhaps the referral letters from Willix, Dervidian and Goldstein might cause a school administrator to take note of Ves, but the lack of proven teaching ability was a fault that could not be compensated in a short amount of time!

"Wait, I can also make use of another connection."

Ves had one other option he could employ in order to increase his prospects. He was still on good terms with Lord Pearian Yorul-Tavik and his powerful clan. There was still plenty of room to cash in another favor, though it would only be enough to make a university take his application seriously and process it faster.

Was it truly worthwhile to use up a precious favor for this purpose?

"Let's see how it goes without relying on connections. Who knows. Maybe there is a school that is open-minded enough to take on a 40-ish year old Senior Mech Designer."

It took a bit of time and effort to prepare his application documents. He not only had to list out his mech designs, the knowledge he learned and the research that he successfully conducted, but he also had to write a lot of stuff about what sort of professor he would like to become!

Teaching was a big deal. There were so many different methods, approaches and strategies to this important process that the outcomes were all over the place!

Ves had to inform the schools he applied for what sort of teaching style he ideally wanted to adopt and explain why he thought that was effective.

Aside from that, he also had to list out the subjects that he felt qualified to teach!

Though he was just a fresh Senior and an abnormally young one at that, Ves could still teach plenty of subjects, especially the more foundational ones that first-year students learned.

As Ves filled out basic subjects such as physics, programming, metallurgy, mechanics and so on, he already understood it was unlikely that he would get to teach these subjects.

The classes for these subjects were always the largest and most well-attended ones at any mech design university. A professor could easily get into contact with hundreds if not thousands of bright and promising students when they were still young and highly malleable!

This was an excellent opportunity for any clever professor to indoctrinate the young and impressionable first-year students by slanting a lecture in the direction of a specific design philosophy!

"The more junior and less sophisticated professors should be teaching these introductory classes, not these greedy old Masters." Ves grumbled.

He understood that he would have to start at the bottom of the totem pole at these first-class mech design universities. This was why he placed much greater importance on the teaching subjects that were a little more advanced but also a lot less popular.

"Stealth technology is a good one. I can't reveal anything concrete about my upcoming Ghost Project, but most stealth mechs tend to stay classified anyway."

The enlightenment fruit that granted him Senior-level Stealth and Cloaking gave him a lot of confidence in his ability to teach a few subjects about this field.

The only flaws were that he did not design too many stealth mechs or develop any special applications in this area. The probability that he would be able to teach this subject was still low.

"Directed energy weapons, optics, crystallography and a few other related subjects are much more promising."

Ves considered luminar crystal technology to be his strongest minor. He equipped luminar crystal weapons onto practically all of his ranged mechs. Each of them were noted for their higher-than-average performance in ranged firepower.

Even if it was not permissible for him to teach luminar crystal technology to mech design students, Ves could still break it down and teach a lot of useful insights derived from alien tech!

The best part about directed energy weapons was that most of them were rather simple in foundation but also highly scalable. This meant that the fact that he mostly worked on second-class energy weapons would not hinder him from teaching relevant knowledge to first-raters.

This was because aside from using more potent materials and slightly more sophisticated technological solutions, a first-class laser rifle performed nearly identical to a premium second-class rifle!

"I can't forget about my greatest strength. Living mechs… how the hell am I supposed to teach that in a classroom setting?"

Ves had been able to impart Ketis, Maikel and Zanthar with the principles of living mechs because they were all Larkinsons. They could easily get in touch with existing living mechs and observe how they differed from ordinary mechs!

It would be a lot harder to make the same lessons stick on a bunch of arrogant brats, especially if Ves taught them in a virtual classroom!

Thinking about all of these issues gave him a headache. He eventually shrugged and pushed this matter aside.

"I'll think about this later. Let's see if the school is willing to teach this esoteric subject to its students in the first place."

It might become an elective course, but Ves did not hold any hope that a school would trust him to that extent. At least not right away.

"What else am I qualified to teach? Oh, right. I should definitely put in mech fabrication and assembly!"

Ves probably held the record for possessing the most masterwork certificates earned in the Journeyman stage!

The only other mech designer who came close to that was his own wife!

If that was not undeniable proof that he was good at putting mechs together, then he did not know how he could present anything better!

Once he exhausted his list of academic teaching subjects, he thought about whether he should mention that he could also teach… other kinds of classes.

"How to survive getting backstabbed by your own state and find yourself stuck in the middle of hostile space."

"How to survive getting backstabbed by a state you are visiting and finding yourself stuck in the middle of a planet with no friendly mech within sight."

"How to conduct ethical human experiments."

"How to organize expeditions without getting everyone killed like Lord Yorul-Tavik."

"How to defeat a military mech force and plunder an industrial planet."

"How to defeat alien warships and alien phase lords."

"How to search and harvest as much phasewater in the new frontier as possible."

"How to lead a successful pioneering organization."

Ves realized that he had acquired a lot of useful skills over his lifetime, ones that could definitely help the next generation of mech designers succeed in their future ventures!

Given that Ves wanted to teach at a mech design university based in the Red Ocean, it was conceivable that a lot of graduates might encounter similar dangers in the future.

If Ves was allowed to impart his hard-earned lessons to these young and gullible kids, they would definitely be able to avoid a lot of preventable mistakes!

"This should definitely be of interest to any serious frontier-based mech design university!"

Naturally, Ves did not literally write down all of the earlier suggested course titles. He came up with a much more elegant label to describe his proposed teaching content.

"Let's call it frontier wisdom."