MTA merits were incredibly valuable. Just because Ves earned around 7 million MTA merits after extracting his costs did not mean they were easy to earn.
In fact, Ulimo Citadel possessed the power to wipe out much stronger fleets. The main reason why the Larkinson Clan escaped calamity was because of two reasons.
First, the Larkinsons that infiltrated Ulimo Citadel interrupted the ritual from within.
Second, Jannzi broke through to expert pilot to such a violent degree that she was able to punch vastly above her weight!
How many other forces could replicate these exceptional circ.u.mstances? Almost none! Perhaps only a fleet presided over by an ace pilot might have a decent shot, but why would anyone venture into a forbidden place like the Nyxian Gap?
Therefore, even if the Big Two promised to double the merit rewards for certain actions in the Nyxian Gap, anyone who thought they could replicate the Larkinson Clan's feats would be in for a rude surprise!
Well, it was none of his business what other people hungry for merits chose to do. Ves wouldn't go out of his way to publicize all of the dangers of these doom seekers might encounter.
After ending his call with Master Willix, Ves returned to his office and thought about whether he should do as she suggested.
It wasn't unusual for mech designers to request the assistance of someone more experienced or capable. Sometimes, they needed to design a mech but lacked the capabilities to do it on their own. There was nothing shameful about asking for help, and there were even ways to keep that a secret.
Even so, neither Ves nor Gloriana possessed sufficient good relations with any Masters to get them to move out of friendship or generosity. Only cold, hard benefits would convince them to set aside a portion of their very busy schedules to assist some young and inexperienced juniors.
"How many merits does it cost?" He wondered.
He activated his desk terminal and performed some quick searches through the galactic net. It turned out that the price heavily depended on the extent of help and the reputation of the specific Master.
The old monsters who were born in the first centuries of the Age of Mechs rarely paid attention to this activity. It was usually the younger and fresher Masters who engaged in this kind of trade.
Apparently, when mech designers broke through to Master, they needed to expand their scope and knowledge quickly. Acquiring all of this was very costly, especially when they wanted to learn from their fellow Masters.
Spending a portion of their time on helping some younger mech designers in their design projects was a very convenient way to earn a lot of merits. These Masters hardly needed to spend much time and effort to line their pockets.
"What a great deal!" Ves sighed with envy.
A good Master could easily earn millions of MTA merits in just a month by spending just one hour a week on consulting!
The reason why they were able to command such ridiculous prices was because their depth of knowledge and design ability was truly precious. Even if they refused to invest their full attention on any project, their vision was so high that just a couple of casual remarks was enough to increase the quality of a mech design by as much as ten percent!
This was the first time that Ves realized that teaching or guiding other mech designers could actually be profitable!
"When will I reach the point where cute young mech designers are willing to throw a million MTA merits at me for an hour of my time?"
Not soon, that was for sure! Even if he was the creator of glows and the male half of the Miracle Couple, the benefits he provided weren't worth an extreme amount of merits.
He set aside his unrealistic fantasies of earning his beyonder ticket by offering his glows to other mech designers.
His quick searches gave him a general idea on what he could obtain for a given amount of merits. The biggest problem he encountered was that Masters charged substantially higher prices when it came to any projects related to expert mechs!
"Damnit!"
It made sense. Expert mechs not only incorporated very advanced materials and tech, but also had to be molded to specific expert pilots. Making sure that the mech played to the expert pilot's strength demanded a bit more involvement.
"Consultants are all scammers!"
After insulting a group of people he deeply envied and wished to join, he turned his attention to other matters.
For example, his listless cat.
Usually, Lucky was filled with boundless energy and curiosity. He never remained in a single place for long. Many times, the cat wandered off to explore other locations.
None of that was the case this time.
"How are you, Lucky?"
"Meowww…."
Lucky sprawled his dull, damaged body on his desk. He possessed so little energy that his tail didn't flick or curl!
"When will you get back to normal?"
"Meo. Meowww…"
"Don't take too long. We're still in the Nyxian Gap, so who knows whether you need to reprise your role as commando cat."
"Meeoww…"
Ves paid no more attention to Lucky. At his current state, the gem cat could only rely on himself to get back to normal.
He spent some time on reading some reports and exercising some of his responsibilities. After almost a week at Ulimo, the Larkinson Clan were already beginning to pack up their loot and leave.
Due to all of the valuables his clan wanted to bring back, his clan planned to convert a couple of captured pirate vessels as cargo sh.i.p.s.
There weren't as many sh.i.p.s as the Larkinsons would have liked. One of the most important requirements was the presence of FTL drives.
How could Task Force Predator bring all of its plunder to the Sentinel Kingdom if a couple of cargo vessels stopped right outside the Nyxian Gap?
It was incredibly excruciating to bring so much riches away, only to abandon some of it halfway!
Combined with the fact that pirates were rarely able to take good care of their starsh.i.p.s, the amount of sh.i.p.s that were intact enough to be of use was limited.
One of the complications was that the value of the loot wasn't exceptional. Sure, some of them were quite unique and difficult to obtain, but the market price for them wasn't so hot, especially for the bulkier exotics.
What interested him more was some of the more unusual loot, such as the statue of the Unending One.
So far, his people dumped the alien relic in the mech workshop of the Scarlet Rose. Ves didn't want to store it on another ship due to its extremely high value. Keeping it on his own ship meant that it was extremely unlikely that Ves would lose access to so much Unending alloy!
He wasn't close to making use of the Unending alloy, and there wasn't much he could glean from it by studying it. Right now, he could only set the statue aside and allow it to take space in his mech workshop.
"What else can I do?"
He decided to explore one of his highest design priorities.
"I need to rediscover how to introduce individuality to my mech designs."
Ves thought for a while before calling up his Chiron design from his desk terminal. He studied the incomplete design.
On the surface, there was hardly any individuality to be seen. The mech frame was rather generic in that it didn't possess any pronounced strengths in any areas.
Of course, that was just the Chiron in its neutral state. When configured for melee or ranged combat, the training mech was able to perform considerably more effectively.
In fact, there was more to the Chiron than being able to switch to different mech types. Its limbs, torso and finer structures were all adjustable.
Gloriana had done a very fine job designing the mechanisms to make this possible. She had to include a wide range of variability while at the same time keeping the Chiron design as robust as possible. This wasn't easy and she had to make many compromises in order to maintain a high degree of reliability while still offering plenty of changing.
The transformability of the Chiron was key to its identity as a training mech. The premise of this exclusive Larkinson Clan machine was that it could grow and adjust to the mech cadet over the years.
The Chiron already expressed his growth ideals!
This was what made the mech design so suitable to implement his new ideas.
The Valkyrie Redeemer was a much more powerful mech design, but it was a mech that would likely be used en masse by the Hex Army. Individuality had to make way for more important priorities such as attaining higher technical performance and making sure that its offensive glow was able to act upon distant enemy mech pilots.
"Can uniformity be achieved at the same time as individuality?" Ves wondered.
In his perspective, it should have been possible to reach an optimal balance. Ideally, the glow of a mech put the mech pilot in question into the correct mindset.
However, Ves wanted the mech to adapt to the growth of its mech cadet over time. This meant that he had to ask himself whether he needed to preserve the original glow of a design.
"I don't need to worry about this for the Chiron."
The mech was made to alter its shape. Why not alter its character as well? While it was easy to change its physical proportions and configuration, Ves was a bit less clear about altering its spiritual aspects.
"The key to this is life. If I can draw out the life that is inherent in any mech, I can turn it into a machine that actively develops a relationship with its pilot!"
There was an important requirement to make this work.
The mech cadet had to be assigned to the same Chiron mech for the duration of his academy days. Once the mech cadet graduated, the Chiron he paired up with essentially became irrelevant.
While it was possible to assign the used Chiron mech to a fresh cadet, Ves wasn't sure whether this was a good idea.
On one hand, the more cadets the mech grew up with, the greater its wisdom and ability to offer help.
On the other hand, a mech that was molded to other mech cadets would never develop a close intimacy with a mech cadet. The first time was always special.
"This is a difficult choice. Both have their pros and cons." Ves furrowed his brows.
One option emphasized maximum compatibility. The other option prioritized building a legacy.
Which one would benefit the clan's future mech pilots the best?
"Maybe we can do.. both?"
Regardless of what he and his clan eventually chose, the Chiron needed to have the capability to grow with their mech cadets.
He didn't have any solid ways to facilitate this phenomenon. Creating images and blending it with the spiritual foundation of his mech was only somewhat effective. He needed a more drastic way to accomplish these changes.
Spiritual constructs weren't helpful in this case. They were most useful in affecting a broad change in the character of the spiritual foundation. They were also vehicles which Ves could use to impart triggered abilities to his mech designs.
However, doing something as detailed and sophisticated as making the mech more alive, more proactive and more responsible to the mech designer was different.
He needed to develop a different spiritual technique to effect such a huge change.
"How am I supposed to do this?" Ves pressed his fingers against his brow.
Wait. The Shield of Samar and probably some other Larkinson mechs had already developed a close bond with their mechs. Why not study them to figure out how they developed and became more aligned with their mech pilots?
