The Mech Touch

The deal with the Transhumanist Faction was not entirely ideal.

Ves not only exposed a lot of strategic information about Blinky's cultivation, but also became dependent on the E-computer designs of the Red Association.

He did not forget about the painful lesson taught by his mother. If he rashly took over the work developed by other parties, he risked introducing vulnerabilities into his own systems!

It would not be difficult for the Transhumanists to tamper with the designs and pass on compromised computer designs to Ves.

Without an advanced background in computer hardware or software engineering, it would be difficult if not impossible for Ves to detect all of the possible traps and vulnerabilities embedded into the designs!

Ves would be a fool to trust in the goodwill of the Transhumanists!

However, Ves already thought about this possibility beforehand. He insisted on adding special clauses to the contract to account for this risk.

He managed to add a heavy punishment clause. If Ves ever managed to find proof that the work provided by the Transhumanists ever contained any improper elements that fell outside of the scope of the agreement, Ves could immediately force them to pay a lot of compensation!

This should be enough to discourage any abuse. After all, even if he did not understand how an E-computing system worked, he could always ask for Ylvaine or an ace pilot to inspect whether there was anything improper.

Aside from that, Ves had a more ambitious plan in mind. He did not want to completely rely on the work provided by the Transhumanists, but use it as a basis for a more ambitious creation that should fully satisfy his demands!

However, that was a problem for the future. He first needed a decent E-computing system that was roughly as powerful and filled with features as Gloriana's upcoming mech design-oriented cranial implant.

There was no point in exploring his latest idea when his homebrew E-computer was only powerful enough to display text.

Time continued to pass after this. Ves no longer became obsessed with developing his own E-supercomputer, but entrusted this responsibility to the Transhumanists.

He had already spoken with the members of the new research team and found out that it would probably take a few months to a year in order to obtain a decent result.

Although Ves was disappointed that he wouldn't be able to boost his internal processing power right away, he was patient enough to wait for years before he could meaningfully increase his productivity.

In the meantime, he returned his attention to his usual routine while waiting for major developments to occur.

Many different events occurred in the months that passed. Time flowed like a river. No major disruptions during this calm period, though Ves and his clan had made plenty of progress in other ways.

Ves and the rest of the Larkinsons had made a lot of progress in their ongoing design projects. While none of the important or powerful ones had reached completion, it would not take long before they reached the finish line. This was a huge relief for the Larkinson mech designers that were eager to undergo EdNet deep immersion training.

Ves and Gloriana's children had fully acclimatized to their new school. Despite the major discrepancies in augmentations, Aurelia, Andraste and Marvaine managed to keep up with their high-intensity studies and even have time left over to play with their friends and engage in their extra-curricular activities.

The Survivalists, Transhumanists, Terrans and other groups regularly corresponded and exchanged with Ves and the Larkinson Clan. They managed to advance their shared research projects and occasionally traded valuable knowledge and resources with each other.

The Streon Ancient Clan had become more active and started to invest a lot more in the buildup of its armed forces. General Axelar Streon had yet to make any public moves. His Ouroboros had disappeared from public view, and few if any people could guess that his famed ace mech had received a profound upgrade.

The Devos Ancient Clan intensified its own military buildup and had actively begun to pursue closer ties with smaller Terrans clans. It was clear that the Devosans lacked the confidence to defend the Riston Territory on their own, so they resorted to diplomacy to mitigate their shortcomings.

The Golden Skull Alliance was back on track. The departure of Ves and other key personnel did not diminish everyone's enthusiasm for glory and adventure. After the expeditionary fleet completed its resupply in the Bortele System, it had ventured out towards the deep frontier yet again!

The ongoing semester at the Eden Institute was nearing its end. Many of the students taught by Ves had made massive strides in their courses. None of them had slacked off and tried their best to perform well, if only to avoid shaming themselves in front of a tier 3 galactic citizen!

Rumors started to spread relating to the relative silence from the Red Two.

While the mechers and fleeters introduced plenty of technological advances over the months, none of them were particularly huge and transformative in nature.

Even the most ignorant red human could tell that they were keeping a lot of surprises behind everyone's backs!

The native aliens had begun to intensify their incursions of human space. More and more scattered and eclectic alien fleets arrived from the other parts of the Red Ocean and started to form into larger armadas for the purpose of committing devastating raids.

Fortunately, the introduction of the New Elites Program had invigorated so many different human powers that the border regions had become much harder to break!

The upper zones, middle zones and lower zones welcomed many new mech fleets that earnestly pursued battle against the alien invaders!

While the results were decidedly mixed, it gradually became clear which groups had acquitted themselves well enough to become warfighters and which groups deserved to be eliminated from the competition.

Not every human force was suitable to fight against alien warships!

One of the most notable events that happened during this period was that Alexa Streon finally received permission from her ancient clan to join the Larkinson Clan.

The incident actually generated a decent amount of controversy within the Streon Ancient Clan.

Even if Ves had become an important figure to red humanity, that was not necessarily a reason for the Streons to put down their pride and allow one of their prominent descendants to defect to another clan!

The Larkinson Clan did not make any compromises on this matter. Each of its members had to be completely loyal to their new clan and fellow members.

Fortunately, General Axelar Streon possessed enough influence to overcome the opposition of the elders. He did not even have to step forward in person. His Senechai had done most of the work necessary to push through the necessary changes.

Once all of the barriers had been removed, Alexa Streon formally cut ties with her ancient clan and showed up at Diandi Base the next day.

Her expression conveyed a melancholic mood. She did not want to leave her family and her ancient clan, but she did not want to abandon her ambitions either.

If not for the fact that her grandfather had given his full blessings and support, Alexa might have chosen to reject Ves' offer and stay with the Streons!

"Welcome to the Premier Branch." Ves spoke as he greeted his teaching assistant. "I have been waiting for your arrival for a long time. If you ever wish to change your mind and turn elsewhere, you are free to do so. I do not want to force you to join my clan. Even if you cannot bring yourself to become a Larkinson, I can still mentor you to an extent. I can teach you plenty of knowledge related to living mechs that I haven't taught in my introductory course."

The young woman shook her head. "That is not necessary. I have already weighed my decisions long enough. The Streon Ancient Clan can do without me. I have many relatives who are more than capable of fulfilling all of its functions. The Streons will hardly miss me if I am being honest. It is much more important for me to attain a promising design philosophy and gain the ability to design mechs that are powerful enough to change our destiny. So long as I can do that, I can help my fellow Streons much more from the outside than if I remain within my former ancient clan."

As a well-educated Terran scion, Alexa Streon possessed the capacity to make clear and rational decisions for herself. She did not allow her irrational emotions get in the way of making objectively better decisions.

Ves was still impressed by how decisively she was able to commit to a path that was emotionally difficult for her. He had seen plenty of potential first-class recruits fail the loyalty test to understand how difficult it was for proud Terrans to cut ties to their clans and superstates.

Hopefully, Alexa had managed to gather enough resolve for her to be sincere enough about working for the Larkinson Clan.

The pair began to move to the space that the Premier Branch had dedicated towards inductions.

"If you manage to pass the final test, you will need to stop thinking of yourself as a Streon or a Terran. The interests of the Larkinson Clan must always take priority over the interests of your former allegiances. That said, there is no reason to unreasonably harm or target the Terran Alliance and its many powerful clans unless they have provoked us somehow. You can still leverage your existing ties with them to increase our cooperation with its institutions."

"I understand, professor." Alexa dutifully nodded. "Will I be able to gain my own companion spirit once I join?"

"Of course." Ves grinned back at her. "I will personally make and customize one for you. I will make sure that it will come with abilities that should particularly help you master the art of designing living mechs."

"Thank you, sir! This is a gracious gift!"

Enough time had passed for more and more well-connected people to learn about the power of companion spirits.

The Red Association had yet to make companion spirit fruits on a wide scale, but there were still enough people who received this rare reward to showcase the abilities that they had gained!

It helped that many of them were expert pilots that already possessed much stronger and more developed spiritualities.

The companion spirit fruits found extremely fertile soil, and there was no need to wait for the companion spirit seeds to mature and turn into powerful new life forms!

"You don't need to thank me." Ves replied in a good natured manner. "Companion spirits are much more common in my clan. I invented them, after all. The service that I am willing to extend to you may be rare to outsiders, but it is easily attainable to any Larkinson that has proven his or her value. The best form of thanks you can give me is to utilize your upcoming gift to the best possible effect. Do not waste your companion spirit. Make use of it to design better living mechs and help me relieve my workload. You are fully capable of designing first-class multipurpose mechs that are up to standard, correct?"

"Partially, sir." Alexa answered. "My experience is not high, but I am confident that I have learned more high technologies than the average Terran Apprentice Mech Designer. I am confident that I can design a decent mid-tier first-class multipurpose mech, but without strong design philosophies to enhance its performance, my work will never be competitive enough to sell on the market."

Ves did not mind this at all. "That is already enough for a mech designer of your age. I can start to work on first-class mech design projects early if you manage to advance to Journeyman Mech Designer soon enough. If our design philosophies are similar enough, we can combine our respective advantages and collaborate on experimental projects that should have much greater value to certain first-class audiences!"