The Mech Touch

Negotiations did not progress smoothly.

The Master that Ves tried to extract benefits from had little patience and wanted to obtain immediate benefits.

The problem was that Ves did not have any readily available samples to trade with. The T Institute was mainly preoccupied with producing death sympathetic materials at the moment, but that was not particularly troublesome for the Red Association to obtain by relying on their own proprietary methods.

Jovy helped a lot. Having him vouch for Ves and his claims did not entirely persuade the older woman to accept a deal that was based on shaky grounds, but it at least prevented him from getting kicked out right away.

"There is no need to conduct a trade straight away." Jovy interceded on Ves1 behalf. "He will need to return to his fleet and work to produce the hyper materials that you seek. He has the ability to provide you what you need, though he is probably limited by his stock of materials. It would benefit you if you keep your communication lines open and wait until he has successfully produced what you need to expand upon your collection."

The female Master paused for a moment. She glanced at Ves' badge. Although it only boasted two dots, they happened to be of the right colors.

"Very well. It does not hurt to wait if your associate here can supply the desired materials. I am willing to exchange other materials, MTA merits and certain favors in return. The value of my remuneration is dependent on the speed in which your friend can supply a rare hyper material that we have yet to discover anywhere. Mind you that 1 am already in contact with many different suppliers. If any of them are able to supply an unregistered material first, I will only provide a tenth of the original reward."

"A tenth is not enough." Ves shook his head. "It takes a lot of trouble and effort to artificially produce these hypers by leveraging rare E energy variations."

The Master crossed her arms and tilted her chin. "I care not how you supply the goods that we require. I can only promise you that our remuneration should satisfy you if our demands are met in a timely manner. Our research and development projects must progress as quickly as possible. Our time is limited. The sooner we are able to deepen our understanding of hypers, the sooner our society can make use of them on a wider scale. We must endeavor to strengthen humanity's collective strength as quickly as possible."

"I understand. I share the same sentiment. I will do what I can to contribute to our cause." Ves seriously spoke.

Of course, it wouldn't help to obtain a lot of benefits in the process.

The two hashed out a more detailed agreement in the next few minutes. Since everything was so vague, the two did not hold onto too many solid definitions. The numbers might become outdated after a few months.

Ves did not fear that he was getting ripped off with Jovy by his side.

Although the RA Senior Mech Designer was supposed to be on the side of the Association, his current capacity allowed him to look after Ves' best interests for the duration of his assignment.

The only setback that Ves faced was that he could not use this exchange to obtain exclusive knowledge on archetech.

"I work in a different department and research group from that of Master Teresa Norville." The woman explained. "I cannot arbitrarily take their research and transfer it to others. You must approach her or a member of her department if you wish to gain access to this type of knowledge."

"I see."

In the end, the female Master promised to reward Ves with hundreds of millions of MTA merits or a selection of rare materials that was useful in all kinds of different projects.

As Ves and Jovy exited the office, they took a brief break.

As Jovy walked up to a railing and looked down at a hall where hundreds of mechers and associates were walking to their next sessions, he glanced at Ves who was studying the list of events that were starting in the next block.

"How do you like the conference so far, Ves?"

"It's... great."

"You don't sound very certain."

Ves shrugged. "It is definitely a great place to be for a mech designer like myself. All of these presenters are offering free lectures on a lot of advanced and cutting-edge subjects for free. It's a bit annoying that my badge has to possess the right dots, but I can live with that. It is just..."

"You are not satisfied with what you can obtain for free?"

"Nothing comes for free. I feel like that no matter what these people are giving to us, it is only an advertisement for greater services that you need to pay for. It's quite hard to gain enough satisfaction when I don't have what the other party needs."

Jovy did not look surprised at that. "This happens more often than you think. Even in an organization as rich as the Association, we must still fight to obtain the resources we need to further our own projects. No one can make much progress if they attempt to rely on their own individual efforts. We are encouraged to specialize in our own narrow fields and use our strengths to trade what we need from each other. The more productive and successful mechers who are able to establish enough working relationships will climb the hierarchy faster. This is how the system works."

The Mech Trade Association had always worked like this, and the Red Association was no different in this regard.

Ves kind of appreciated this as it gave him an opportunity to make trades with the mechers who were already accustomed with making these kinds of deals.

"I think that I should dial back my expectations a bit for this day." He eventually concluded. "I did not expect this conference to work like a bazaar for elites. 1 don't have many bargaining chips at the moment, at least ones that others will value. 1 think I can change that for tomorrow. So long as I can convince people that my companion spirits are valuable, I can use that to obtain greater benefits."

"That may be possible to a degree, but do not forget that you are pushing to make your companion spirit fruits available to the masses. How our Association intends to roll them out is still up for debate, but you cannot charge a fortune for goods that are intended to be sold at more accessible prices."

Ves knew that. "That is true, but 1 can offer more customized services to the people who want to obtain a little more than a blank slate. Those fruits aren't all that impressive as they can only get people started with a basic companion spirit. That is already an unimaginable benefit to most individuals, but it is hardly the best of what I can offer."

"Are you planning to provide a boutique service?"

"Yep. I can offer better if I can spend a bit of time with individual recipients. I can't do this too much as it takes a bit of effort. I am also limited to providing this service to relatively weaker individuals. I have already tried and failed to impart one to an ace pilot. I think it is also beyond my ability to give one to a Master Mech Designer. They are simply too strong. Their inner qualities have transcended so much that it is difficult to create the openings I need to mold a new companion spirit."

"Do these restrictions apply to your companion spirit fruits as well?"

"I have never tested that, but theoretically that should be the case. The way they work is a little different, but their mechanisms are too fragile and will break under pressure."

"That will limit your options." Jovy frowned. "You won't be able to form a direct exchange with Masters and ace pilots, but you can appeal to their subordinates and proteges instead. There are also plenty of other people who are willing to offer substantial benefits for a companion spirit that not only promises greater benefits in the future, but also grants an immediate advantage right from the start. Let us go over the possibilities. If you target the right people with the right needs, you can gain the most benefits out of your efforts."

He was right. Companion spirits were useful to everyone, but some people benefited a lot more from them than others. Irene Mox's Emma was a prime example of that. Ketis also gained a unique opportunity by taking advantage of the fact that Sharpie was a second version of herself.

The two refined the planning of tomorrow's conference. Now that Ves knew what these sessions were truly all about, he revised parts of his upcoming presentation to put less emphasis on wavy explanations and more emphasis on examples of existing companion spirits.

He felt a little reluctant to explain the companion spirits of other people as it represented a violation of privacy.

However, the benefits were more than worth it. Ves felt it was a worthwhile tradeoff to expose the strengths of a number of his people in order to persuade the mechers to take his work more seriously.

The potential gains were just too great!

Once Ves completed his revision for the upcoming presentation, he pushed this matter aside and continued to attend various sessions throughout the night.

He learned a lot from each of them. The open session on the nunser race and their strong herd instincts taught Ves and others how they could potentially take advantage of this trait.

The session also helped to persuade people to gain more confidence in the Deep Strike Plan.

So long as humanity struck the nunser territories in the rear with thunderous force, the quadruped aliens would become so concerned about their kind that it was quite likely for them to turn around to prevent any further massacres!

However, this was not a long-term solution. The nunsers were known to launch devastating counterattacks after suffering heavy blows!

This was why people did not automatically assume that the Deep Strike Plan would work out. It relied on too many assumptions of alien behavior that might not necessarily be accurate in reality.

Ves decided to attend a closed session next. This one was more of a debate rather than a presentation. The speakers wanted to open a dialogue on whether it was appropriate to grant pioneers and other authorized individuals the right to utilize weapons of mass destruction against alien adversaries.

Suffice to say, Ves was a strong proponent in this debate. He did not hide his real opinions on this matter, but he did not speak too much either.

It was enough for him to provide his input as a pioneer who fought against multiple alien forces.

What he truly paid attention to was the opinions of other mechers. He wanted to gauge the overall sentiment within the Survivalist Faction and determine how likely it was for the Association to ease this taboo.

From what he heard from the various mechers, there was not too much support for permitting the use of superweapons. They distrusted space peasants so much that they were afraid that these impulsive humans would cause its own extinction shortly after getting their hands on extremely destructive toys!

"Mechs have enough potential to satisfy the masses. The Age of Dawn has introduced new factors that can radically alter their properties and their uses on the battlefield. It is better to rely on superior technology rather than crude and indiscriminate weapons."

The mechers all shared the same fault more or less. Their entire lives revolved around mechs, so they had so much confidence in these machines that they were prone to discounting the benefits of warships and superweapons.

While it was possible for first-class multipurpose mechs to put up a good fights against most adversaries, the problem was that a lot of people didn't have access to all of these fancy and ridiculously expensive products!

Third-raters and second-raters were unable to fight against serious alien forces. They were the ones who benefited the most from constructing lots of large but crude warships that could deploy an array of formidable superweapons.

To deny them these options out of fear of repeating past mistakes was knee-jerk behavior as far as Ves was concerned.