Irvine Spefan might not be native to Prosperous Hill VI, but he certainly possessed the knowledge of one. The man also possessed enough awareness as a foreigner to be aware of what other visitors such as Ves and Gloriana might need or want to know.
The group boarded a very unusual vehicle that was supposed to take them to their first destination.
“Is that.. a living creature?”
Gloriana looked quite squeamish at their supposed armored shuttle. Even her husband found the vehicle to be odd.
“This is a well-functioning shuttle.” Irvin smiled politely as he approached the organic vehicle and tapped his fingers against the tough, plate-like surface. “While it is technically a living creature, it is more apt to compare it to a biomech. It is a machine that is grown out of organic matter. However, as long as you look past that, its specs and other performance parameters highly resemble its classical counterpart.”
Ves looked skeptical. “I get that, but why keep the head at the front of this vehicle? It doesn’t appear to serve an essential purpose and it disrupts the aerodynamics of the shuttle.”
“Ah, that is more of an aesthetic design choice, sir. The overall philosophy of the Lifers does not support hiding the organic aspects of the machines and other conveniences they possess. Instead, they want to make the organic nature of their biomechanical products visible and prominent in order to take pride in their area of specialty.”
While Ves could understand this sentiment, he absolutely couldn’t understand why the designers of this shuttle decided to extend the head of a rhino-like exobeast out of the front.
While the beast head was dull and unresponsive, it looked as if it might be able to come to life at any second to roar at other shuttles or take a bite out of nearby people!
Ves had a feeling this would hardly be the only unnerving sight he would see during his stay on this planet.
Fortunately for his sensibilities, the passengers didn’t have to board the organic shuttle by passing through any traditional orifices. A few plates move aside to allow a hatch to swing open.
When the shuttle finally took flight, Ves didn’t experience any fluctuations that were different from any normal shuttle.
A pair of aerial mechs flew alongside the vehicle. Other shuttles bearing security personnel also formed a protective cordon around it. While this level of protection was not capable of resisting a powerful enemy, it was still considered strong by local standards.
Due to the nature of the organic shuttle, it didn’t offer any windows, but the projections provided Ves a good view of both Veoline’s scenery and the classical mechs positioned at the flanks.
He was slightly disappointed that they weren’t biomechs, but it was not a big deal. He would be seeing plenty of biomechs once he reached his destination.
“Mr. Spefan?”
“Yes, Patriarch Larkinson?”
“As you know, we are on our way to one of the facilities owned by Dr. Frederico Navarro. What can you tell me about this mech designer?”
“Well, if you have taken a look at his public record, then you should know he is a Journeyman Mech Designer who is based on Prosperous Hill IV. The complex we are heading to is primarily a service center and a warehouse for the mechs produced in the aforementioned planet. Dr. Navarro does brisk business in this star system as he and his mech company has settled into a niche of the biomech market.”
“How prominent is he compared to his peers and competitors?”
“He’s not as famed as you in the markets you are participating in.” Irvine immediately replied. “According to sources, Adaptive Solutions sells tens of thousands of biomechs on an annual basis. That is considered to be a moderate success by the standards of the regional mech market.”
Ves nodded in agreement. Not everyone was as abnormal as him. If his design philosophy was less flashy, then he would have felt grateful for being able to sell more than 10,000 mechs a year.
Any ordinary Journeyman would be proud of achieving this level of sales in a second-rate state. Competition was much stiffer here as they had to carve out a place in a market where mechs designed by Masters already captured most of the share.
Neither Ves nor Gloriana looked down on Dr. Navarro because of the disparity of sales. While it was true that the couple had begun to design second-class mechs, their commercial business was based entirely on third-class mech models, which competed in a much less sophisticated market.
“Is he a rising star in these parts?” Ves probed.
This kind of information was hard to obtain from the galactic net. Rather than trying to judge whether the rumors, gossip and biased reporting from various different sources were accurate, he felt it was better to get his answers from someone who didn’t have any special relations with this particular biomech designer.
“It is hard for me to say as I am not a mech insider, but in my view the mech community thinks his growth is stalling. He advanced to Journeyman fairly young, but ever since then, his products have only improved incrementally. While his newer mechs definitely perform better than his older products, he hasn’t come up with anything new or drastic enough in the last decade.”
Ves had taken a look at Dr. Navarro’s mech catalog. While he didn’t understand the finer points of biomechs, the specs constantly trended upwards at a satisfactory rate.
“His mechs are getting better at a steady pace. I don’t think he’s stagnating.” Gloriana voiced.
“That is true, but the biomech market highly favors change, ma’am. Each succession of a previous mech model must introduce a new eye-catching feature in order to distinguish themselves from the older generation. Customers pay far more attention to these additions than all of the dry numbers on a spec sheet, though they also need to be in order.”
This sounded familiar to Ves. “So the buyers of biomechs highly value gimmicks, is that right? If Dr. Navarro is a savvy entrepreneur, then he should have added something novel to his mech designs no matter if it fits or not. Why hasn’t he done that?”
Irvine looked clueless. “I cannot say, sir. It may be that his adaptive mechs cannot randomly incorporate additional elements in their design. This is what Dr. Navarro has stated himself. It may also be redundant as the transformation aspect is already the most powerful feature of his mechs.”
That may be the case. The identity of the mech in question may already make additional features redundant. That was how Ves felt about some of his mechs. His main specialty was already valuable in itself and he did not want to introduce anything that cluttered up a clean design.
The shuttle didn’t take long to reach its destination. The conversation stopped as the rhino-headed vehicle landed on the grounds of a large service complex.
When the passengers moved out, Ves and Gloriana looked up at what appeared to be a massive metallic tree.
“Whoa.” Ves let out. “That’s the biggest tree I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s not exactly a tree, but it comes close.” Gloriana corrected him as she stared up at the magnificent structure as well.
“Meow?”
Lucky looked puzzlingly at the thick and smooth walls of the circular tree. The trunk was stupendously thick and broad, but it also reached several hundred meters into the air.
The entire ground was shaded in mottled shadow as huge leaves eagerly absorbed the rays shining from above.
While the entire complex looked organic, Lucky’s nose was attracted by the materials that made up of it. There were plenty of exotics and other metals infused in the massive tree structure.
Was it edible to him or not? The gem cat couldn’t make up his mind!
As they started to approach the tree complex, a distant figure emerged from the middle of the trunk.
The tree then did something amazing. A part of its bark morphed into a long branch that slowly extended downwards until it touched the ground at an angle.
The figure then proceeded to jump onto the smooth and concave surface and started to slide down along its length at an increasingly rapid pace!
“WHOOOO!” The voice of a younger man hollered as he almost neared the ground.
Just before he was about to crash, his body abruptly slowed until he retained just enough forward momentum to push his body to a standing position at the end.
“Hahaha! That never gets old!”
Now that the young man landed on the ground, the huge tree automatically retracted the long branch it had just grown out of its surface.
Both Ves and Gloriana were nonplussed at the odd sight.
“Oh, forgive my manners.” The man wearing the uniform of Adaptive Solutions quickly bowed. “You must be Mr. and Mrs. Larkinson. I am Yelkin Zernzon. Dr. Navarro welcomes you to his service complex. He is ready to receive you inside our main building.”
“Uhm, okay. Please lead the way.”
The entire group began to follow the young man forward.
“What position do you hold in Dr. Navarro’s organization?”
“I’m his prospective apprentice.” Yelkin answered. “Before you ask, that means that I am not his disciple, but I will be if my study results are good enough.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
What?!
Both Ves and Gloriana were rather surprised at that. Usually, mech designers looking to take on disciples never went after people who were so young. They were too young and imm.a.t.u.r.e to determine whether they met all of the requirements of a good apprentice.
The main exceptions to this rule were whether the young apprentice was either a prodigy or had some kind of family relation.
Ves ruled out the former because Dr. Navarro wasn’t prestigious enough to attract valued talents.
“Are you related to him by any chance?”
Yelkin smiled back. “Nope. People ask me that all the time, but it’s not like that. My teacher thinks that I am compatible with his approach to mech design. I still have to prove myself for many years, though. I have to take a lot of advance classes in order to get ready to attend the Veoline University of Applied Biotechnology next semester.”
“That’s rather fast.” Ves remarked. “Why the hurry?”
“Studying biomech design is tough. Very tough. We need to study how to design both classical mechs and pass all kinds of biology and biotech-related courses on top of that. After that, we are supposed to learn how to merge that together in order to design and grow our own biomechs. It can easily take a decade to learn all of this knowledge, and that’s with the help of a nifty implant, so you can never start too early.”
That indeed sounded tough. Even Gloriana looked like she would likely struggle through all of the subjects she needed to learn. The considerably higher barrier to entry was one of several reasons why biomechs never fully caught on in human space.
“Are there many cases like yours in the LRA?”
“Oh, sure.” Yelkin nodded. “I’m far from the youngest that got picked in advance by a respected biomech designer. There are some cases where our honored Seniors and Masters keep their eye on ten-year olds. The earlier they can nurture their potential apprentices, the better.”
This sounded absurd to Ves. He bet that the only reason why the mech designers did not look at kids younger than ten was because their genetic aptitude wasn’t clear yet. This was practically as young as the mech designers could reasonably go to select their prospective apprentices!
Ves still couldn’t wrap his mind around this custom. “Shouldn’t it be very hard to find the right seeds when they are at this age?”
Yelkin laughed again.
“Ha! Foreigners always say that. To us, it’s normal. I don’t know why all of you look at older students or starting mech designers for apprentices. It makes little sense to us. Aren’t these candidates almost done with their formative growth? It’s better to go younger so that you can actually shape the growth trajectory. That’s what Dr. Navarro has been doing this to me. As long as I meet his expectations, I’ll be sure to become an asset to his team!”
While that sounded logical to Ves, a part of him still felt disturbed for some reason. He didn’t quite know why.
