The Mech Touch

The third and final class that Ves was scheduled to teach was Advanced Manual Superfab Operation.

Different from Frontier Wisdom and Introduction to Living Mech Design, it was a lot more practical in nature. The course description already made it clear that students needed to be prepared to complete a lot of manual work as opposed to standard book learning.

The subject of fabricating mechs attracted a lot more interest from the student body than living mechs. A hundred students had been enrolled in the course.

More had actually applied before the start of the semester, but Ves and the school administration wanted to limit the number in order to make the classes more manageable.

When Ves entered the Hyper Chamber and established a connection with the Eden Institute again, the chamber began to construct a completely different environment this time.

Cool metal walls made out of unknown but extremely resilient alloys surrounded Ves on all sides.

As a mech university, the Eden Institute encompassed a large number of mech workshops. A third of them were constantly in use during a typical working day, and that occupancy tended to increase by a lot at the end of a semester.

That was the time when fifth-year students had to complete their graduation projects and prove to the school that they were fully capable of designing complete first-class multipurpose mechs.

Fabricating a mech did not have to be so complicated for many Terran mech designers. If they wanted to, they could just press a single button in order to have a materializer produce a highly accurate physical copy of a mech that previously existed in theory.

Of course, those who truly wanted to produce a more superior mech knew that there were certain processes that materializers were unable to do well.

There was still a case for using more 'manual' production machines such as superfabs. This mostly had to do with the fact that more energetic and volatile first-class exotics needed to be processed in specific ways. This could make the resulting mech perform a little better or reduce its malfunction rate.

The fact that it was possible fabricate masterwork mechs with superfabs but not with materializers was proof that it was still worthwhile to master the manual fabrication process!

Ves learned from his teaching assistant that Terran mech designers generally undertook this work when they had progressed a lot further in their careers.

They already had to do a lot of learning in order to gain proficiency in all of the essential high technologies that made up a modern first-class mech.

Then they needed to devote a lot of time on additional studies in their specializations and areas of interests.

Powerful augmentations or not, a lot of Terran students were already pressed to their limits! How could they possibly spare so much attention to learning how to fabricate their own work by relying on an outdated production method that had already been phased out in the general mech industry?

An important distinction to make was that first-class mech fabrication was incomparably more difficult than second-class mech fabrication.

The greater the proportion of advanced tech, the more variables a mech designer had to take into account.

The higher the quality of materials, the easier it was to ruin a job due to misprocessing.

Ves already had a taste of this when he had begun to fabricate quasi-first-class mechs. The jump in difficulty was not small!

It made a lot of sense that first-class mech designers chose to skip this part about mech design entirely!

The only situations where superfabs may be utilized at greater frequencies was when Master Mech Designers wanted to attain the best possible result when producing a high-end machine.

At that point, Masters had become so smart and powerful that it became a lot easier for them to master the essentials of fabricating mechs with superfabs!

Nonetheless, Ves did not think this was a good approach towards the profession. He had always been a believer that the journey was more important than the destination.

A Master who never seriously fabricated a mech until he had reached the apex of his career could never internalize the charm of making a machine by hand. Such a figure was already set in his ways. The difficulty of fabricating masterwork mechs for them was doubtlessly a lot higher as a consequence!

As the students who enrolled for this new course started to enter the mech workshop, Ves remained silent and folded his hands behind his back.

He had chosen to wear a white lab coat as was traditional in this kind of setting.

The students also changed their smart clothing to a more protective configuration even though they all wore personal shield generators.

Compared to his previous class, the students who signed up for this course all came with greater and more defined purposes in mind.

They knew that Ves was most likely the best mech fabricator that they could learn from. He had done the impossible and fabricated over half-a-dozen masterwork mechs when he was still in the Journeyman stage.

This was incredibly relevant to this batch of ambitious fourth and fifth-year mech design students!

Sure, they could learn a lot about manual mech fabrication from a stuffy 300-year old Master Mech Designer, but the gap was too great in that case!

Ves on the other hand was not as far removed from these students. This meant that his tricks and approaches might actually lead to more apparent improvement to these young men and women!

He had taken the time to briefly survey the growing crowd in front of him. Each of them looked particularly more interested and motivated to learn from Ves this time.

He knew that there was also a greater proportion of higher performers among this crowd. They were more ambitious and capable compared to their peers, or else they wouldn't have chosen to invest their valuable time on mech fabrication so early in their careers!

Once the final student had arrived, Ves started the class on this interesting subject.

"Welcome to Advanced Manual Superfab Operation, though I prefer to call it Advanced Mech Fabrication because it encompasses more than operating a production machine. I am sure you have already read the documents on this course, so I won't repeat all of that basic information. If you are here, then that means that you have not only gained a basic proficiency in the operation of superfabs in another course, but have developed a yearning for more."

Ves grinned at his audience. He spotted a few familiar faces such as Klaus and Polina, but most of them were new to him. They all knew what they wanted from this course, so he wanted to do his best to meet their expectations.

"Throughout this course, I will teach you and guide you by imparting general theories, approaches and perhaps a couple of tricks that should help you raise the quality of your works. Much of my knowledge is not actually systematic. The reason why this is a practical course as opposed to a theoretical one is because it is not about learning new skills, but applying your existing ones better. What is the common description of mech design?"

"Mech design is both an art and a science." A quick-witted young woman spoke.

Ves nodded. "Correct. Most of your courses up until this point have placed a heavy emphasis on the science component of mech design. This is completely logical as you need to master the basic rules of the game in order to gain the qualifications to play it. However, if you want to become more than just an average participant, you will need to go beyond the basics. If you ever want to fabricate a masterwork mech by yourself, then you cannot allow the science aspect of your job to dictate your approach to fabrication. You need to bring back the art that you have pushed aside for so long if you want to make an actual artwork as opposed to an ordinary commodity."

This was a hard message to the students. This became evident as soon as their expressions and demeanors became more tempered.

First-class multipurpose mechs were vastly more complicated to design and fabricate due to the involvement of a lot of advanced tech and materials!

It was practically impossible for the students to stop thinking about convoluted scientific theories and complicated math whenever they did anything with mechs!

"How can we do that, professor?" Another student asked.

"Good question." Ves grinned. "The answer is a bit complicated. You need to master your craft extremely well. If your knowledge and skills are not up to standard, then you will not even be able to get past the starting point. You also need to find and develop your own style. Just as with musicians, anyone can play the right notes of an instrument with enough skill, but it takes passion and vision to play it with style and flair. What this course aims to do is to help you play the superfab like a rockstar and add your own unique charms to your mechs!"

His words reignited the eagerness and motivation of his students!

Although Advanced Manual Superfab Operation would definitely demand a lot out of each of them, the potential rewards were great!

As long as they were able to fabricate their elaborate first-class multipurpose mechs with greater skill, then they would obtain a small but unquestionable advantage over their competitors!

After speaking a bit more about the importance of channeling their artistic senses as opposed to filling their heads with numbers, Ves decided to give them a more direct taste of excellent craftsmanship.

"Please raise your hands if you have ever seen a masterwork mech in person."

Over half of the students did so. While masterwork mechs were generally rare, it was still possible for most people to be able to witness them with their own eyes if they visited a mech exhibition hall like the Chance Bay Masterwork Gallery.

"Who among you have been able to touch a masterwork mech with your own hands?"

A lot of hands dropped all of a sudden. Only 8 students enjoyed this particular privilege.

Ves found that to be regretful. This was why he intended to do something about this inadequacy.

"Well, don't fret if you haven't been able to raise your arms. Today is your lucky day, because today you will be able to touch an actual masterwork mech, if only in a reduced form."

It was at this time that Alexa Striker came back after retrieving a secure container.

The assistant proceeded to unlock the container before carefully lifting up a mech figurine based on the Valkyrie Redeemer model.

What caught every student's attention was that this was not an ordinary scale model. It was an actual masterwork, which was unimaginable to these would-be mech designers who were still too far away from creating their own sublime works of art!

Ves had fabricated it with the help of the Hammer of Brilliance years ago. He never really had a use for this little toy aside from putting it on his trophy case. Since he did not have any better use for it, he thought that he might as well use it as a teaching aid for this advanced course.

Alexa carefully passed the miniature to the student standing on the far left. The clever Terrans did not need to be told that they should only take a few seconds to enjoy the exquisite work up close before passing it on to their neighbor.

"What do you think?" Ves smiled at his enraptured audience. "Can you feel the personal touches that I put into the work? Are you able to appreciate the stylistic choices that I have made? Do not look at this masterwork from a technical perspective. Look at it as if you are looking at a painting or a sculpture. Mechs are tools, but they are not limited to that classification. They can be artworks as well, and the proof is literally in your hands."

He saw that each student who got their hands on it treated the masterwork miniature as a genuine treasure.

He wondered how these Terrans would react if they heard that his children occasionally took it and used it to play silly little games!