The Mech Touch

factory ship to obtain an excellent masterwork mech, I really mean it.
One thing you have to know about the second-class mech market is that it features a considerably higher price ceiling than what you are used to! The scions of the matriarchal dynasties are even willing to pay a thousand times the price of a standard mech to pilot an excellent, custom masterwork mech! ”

Translated to the Bright Republic, that meant that a mech pilot from one of the founding families was willing to pay 60 billion credits or more for a custom masterwork mech!

Such an immense price tag was more expensive than many expert mechs, and it was mostly due to the fact that it was a masterwork!

Ves shook his head.
”Even if I can accept that there are moneybags in the Hegemony who are willing to invest so much in a masterwork mech, that still leaves the fundamental problem of making them.
Why are you so sure that we can produce not one, but several within a decade? ”

Her grin widened.
”Have you forgotten about my specialty? ”

He had grown more and more familiar with what she was capable of.
Her design philosophy and her high standards pushed her to excel in almost every matter concerning mechs.
Whether it was offense, defense or mobility, she sought to develop a thorough understanding of all of them in order to ensure that every aspect of her work was as flawless as possible!

If not for the incredible capabilities and processing power of her Erestal-015 implant, she would have never been capable of keeping up with all of her studies!

In any case, her targeted focus on designing and building the perfect vessel meant that her design philosophy applied to her mech designs in a very odd manner.

The best way to describe it was that her design philosophy imposed an effect that was opposite to Murphy ’s law.
What could go wrong might not go wrong.
Any weak points and flaws in her designs became a little less serious in practice.

The reason why her design philosophy fell under Class IX rather than Class I was that this effect did not necessarily interfere with other effects applied to mechs.
Instead, her design philosophy helped them perform better by mitigating some of the flawed and suboptimal implementations!

It was no wonder the MTA regarded her so highly.
Her specialty effectively amplified the specialties of other mech designers in collaborative design projects!

The extreme and diverse range of possibilities of Class IX design philosophies mostly produced garbage, but occasionally a gem like Gloriana came around to redeem her class!

Of course, at this stage the effect was barely noticeable.
It also remained to be seen whether Gloriana could progress to the point where it was worthwhile to involve her in a project.

However, Ves remembered that her specialty also played a role in fabricating mechs aside from designing them.
She already told him that she always fabricated her custom mechs in person to achieve the most ideal result.

Having studied some of her project logs, Ves recalled that the quality of her end products always turned out to be high.
When Ves connected these outcomes to her specialty, he began to make a very bold realization.

He looked shocked at her.
”Don ’t tell me..
your specialty is geared towards producing masterworks? ”

”Hihihi! You guessed it! ” She raised her hands towards her mouth.
”How can I design the perfect vessel but fail in the execution? Such outcomes spoil much of what I am working towards! For this reason, achieving the highest quality possible in producing a mech has always been my second ambition! Nothing brings more fulfillment to me than succeeding in creating a masterwork mech! ”

The ambition she set forward frankly scared Ves.
Almost no one could reliably produce masterwork mechs! Not even Master Mech Designers could consistently produce them, and some still hadn ’t managed to produce them despite their formidable skill!

”From the rumors I ’ve heard, only Star Designers are able to make masterwork mechs on demand. ” He spoke.

”There are exceptions.
You know that, right? Some mech designers have managed to achieve this threshold at the Master-level. ”

”You ’re not a Master. ” Ves pointedly retorted.
”You ’re still a Journeyman, and a very young one at that.
Specialty or not, at this stage in your progression, you are incredibly far away from producing masterworks on a consistent basis. ”

She never let up on her optimism.
”That may be true, but as long as I make some progress, my chances of making one may become high enough that we can succeed in producing at least a couple of masterworks in the next decade! ”

”Why are you so confident? ”

”Because I have you, a mech designer who has already built his first masterwork! Do you know how hard I tried to approach the mech designers in the Hegemony who have made similar achievements? It ’s incredibly hard for them to take notice of me, especially because they are already esteemed Seniors or Masters who prefer to collaborate within their own networks! ”

”And you think that working with me can solve this problem? ”

”Why not? ” She smiled.
”I believe in you, Ves.
What ’s more, I believe that combining our design philosophies will allow us to achieve remarkable results! ”

She sure expected much out of their union! Whether their collaboration projects actually achieved the outcome she expected was still in question.

”I don ’t think we ’ll be able to make enough masterwork mechs to fund our entire grand expedition. ”

He was afraid she would go mad or something if they failed to meet this goal by the time he wanted to depart.

Surprisingly, she wasn ’t as intolerant as he thought.

”That ’s okay, Ves.
We should just do the best we can and earn as much money as we can make in the next few years.
If we still come up short, we can always cover our deficit by drawing upon outside investment.
The Wodin Dynasty and various external parties would be glad to invest in our ventures as long as we show at least some promise together. ”

That sounded a lot more reasonable.
Combining both solutions to fund their grand expedition gave them enough flexibility to go forward regardless of their results!

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