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Published at 17th of October 2019 04:38:20 PM
Chapter 846


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The long days of marching continued . The mechs and legged transports moved forward at the pace of a snail . They couldn't help it as the heavy transports needed to fight against the heavy gravity without the aid of energy-intensive antigrav fields .

Of course, they still bled an enormous amount of energy like a sieve . Their energy budget looked worse and worse by the day . The demand for a solution to their energy deficit grew stronger as the amount of charged energy cells in storage decreased .

They were like thirsting refugees fleeing across an arid desert . Where could they find an oasis? Where could they quench their raging thirst?

Ves began to involve himself with the repair and maintenance of the Vandal mechs . He also checked how much progress Ketis achieved in solving difficult problems .

"I'm quite impressed you're capable of solving these thorny issues . " He said as he browsed through a log that described the various serious breakdowns she solved . "Although there's room for improvement, you've become more and more inventive . "

She snorted . "Those mechs tend to break down in the same way . Some parts just fail harder than other parts for some reason . Also, the mech technicians aren't entirely clueless . They've been solving the same problems over and over to the point where they don't need to call me anymore when a mech rolls in with the exact same issue . "

"I see . " Ves declined to point out that she questioned the intelligence of the mech technicians many times . "All of this sounds great, but haven't you ever thought about strengthening the error-prone parts so that they don't fail in the exact same way next time?"

Ketis looked at Ves as if he spoke an alien language . "Whuzzah?"

"You're treating the symptoms instead of the root cause of the disease . "Find authorized novels in Webnovel,faster updates, better experience,Please click www . webnovel . com for visiting .

"I thought the disease is the breakdown effect . "

"Look, Ketis, the difference between mech designers and chief technicians is that the former makes sure to prevent recurring problems while the latter will keep getting hit on the head . "

"Are you calling me stupid again?!"

Ves first stopped at a projection of one simple rifleman mech and amplified its leg area . "According to the logs, you've repaired this same mech five times for the same mechanical breakdown since I put you in charge, is that correct?"

"Yeah . Look at this joint here . It can't hold up to uneven pressure at all . It's so badly-designed that it practically snaps like a twig if uneven pressure is applied, which tends to happen a lot when random parts in the legs start messing up . "

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Ves tapped his armored finger against the surface of the console . "Haven't you ever considered redesigning this joint section into a stronger version?"

"I ah . . That's kind of hard, you know . Also, I'm just a guest designer . The Vandals don't trust me if I make any changes . "


That was a valid concern . Ves expected more from Ketis, but she could be excused from holding back if she thought the Vandals didn't want her to become too involved with their mechs . She already gained a lot of insights about their machines .

Still, the Vandals had themselves to blame . None of the mech designers sent with the ground expedition were any good . Even Ketis lacked the required capability, but at least she was humble enough to know her shortcomings and earnest enough to learn .

"Alright, I'm back in charge for now, so you don't need to worry about that stuff . I'll take care of it myself . You've already learned the most valuable lessons anyway . "

"Does that mean I'm no longer in charge of supervising the workshops?" She sounded like she might actually miss the job despite complaining about it all the time .

While Ves was tempted to keep her as his free helper for a while longer, she needed to expand her horizons . He shook his head . "It's not that helpful to your development unless you're willing to take some risks and start modifying the designs of our mechs . Since this is a rather sensitive matter, I don't advise you to begin doing so with us . Go back to Mayra at the Swordmaidens and tell her what I told you . I think she'll be more than willing to show you the ropes . Modifying a mech is like designing a variant, except it already exists . "

After lecturing her a bit about the importance of learning how to modify a mech, Ves packed her off and virtually kicked her out to the Swordmaiden portion of the expedition .

Ves felt a little lonely now that Ketis had left . He knew he placed a bit too much interest in her development as a mech designer .

"Ketis, Qilanxo, what else? Am I becoming too attached to things, or is this an expression of what it is like to be human?"

He considered his interest in Qilanxo to be the same as loving a pet . That reminded him of Lucky . It had been years since he last held Lucky in his grasp . He hoped the people back on Cloudy Curtain took care of his mechanical cat and fed him lots of exotic minerals .

"I hope that mischievous cat doesn't get in trouble . "

For lack of a better option, Ves strapped the comm holding the Mech Designer System onto Lucky's neck like a collar . With regards to the System, he couldn't trust anyone but Lucky with its safety .


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Still, a long time had passed, and even more time would pass before he returned home . Ves really wanted to know how the Living Mech Corporation fared in his absence .

"At this stage in the war, reduced consumer spending, increased debt and resource shortages will surely affect my company's bottom line . The future won't be bright for the mech industry for the next couple of years . "

The mech industry in the Bright Republic followed a boom-bust cycle . Times of prosperity alternated with times of misery and both market demand and resource costs fluctuated wildly .

According to historical trends, many mech manufacturers had already gone bust, particularly the smaller ones whose mech designers got drafted to serve the Republic .

After the war, a deep recession often set in as the demand for mechs fell to a low . A lot of forces including the Mech Corps incurred huge debts when they replenished their war losses in order to maintain their combat strength .

Therefore, they no longer ordered new mechs . Sometimes, they even tried to get rid of their used mechs in the second-hand market .  

Veterans discharged from the Mech Corps cleverly founded their mercenary corps during this time and snapped up these second-hand mechs on the cheap .

Why buy a brand-new mech when a lightly-used mech that performed just as good was up to fifty percent cheaper?

It was hard for mech manufacturers to compete against the flood of used mechs . In addition, the transition to the next generation of mechs happened about half a decade later .

At this point in time, who wanted to purchase a currentgen mech that turned into lastgen trash goods in a relatively short amount of time?

Many mech procurers possessed a lot of savvy . They had to be, as even the cheapest mechs cost 3 million credits . With such vast sums being thrown around, it wasn't easy to fool these informed buyers .

"Maybe the minimum cost will be bumped up to 4 million credits instead soon . "

The Bright Republic always spent more money than they earned . All of this deficit spending sent inflation soaring and sent the economy into a tumble .  

Despite these pessimistic prospects, Ves remained confident that the LMC was able to tide over this difficult period .


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"A recession is also a blessing to those who know how to grasp the opportunities . "

A lot of businesses went bust, a lot of people got laid off and a lot of equipment and gear got dumped into the market . As long as the LMC still stood, there may be a way to double or triple its assets in less than a year .

However, the prerequisite of it all was that Ves and the company possessed an abundant amount of capital . Without money, how could he obtain anything?

Ves did not worry too much about the issue of money . Even if the LMC dug itself into a financial hole, the prosperity of a mech manufacturer depended on the abilities of the mech designer . Ves possessed enough confidence that he could make up any shortfall through both legal and illegal means .

Just the rudimentary ultracompact battery he developed by himself possessed an amazing amount of value to the tune of billions of credits . If necessary, he could anonymously sell it once or twice without drawing too much attention .

If he sold more than that in a short amount of time, he'd definitely attract unwanted attention, so he couldn't resort to such means for long .

"Well, it's just one of the many ways in which I can use what I learned to my advantage . "

Ves waved away his thoughts for the future and focused on the present . He began to fall into his familiar role of overseeing the mech workshops . He also took a step ahead of Ketis and started lightly revising the designs of individual mechs to make them less error-prone .

If the same part broke three or more times in a row, then that signified a weak point in the design . As a mech designer, Ves couldn't stand such a vulnerability left alone .

While all of this work was rather tedious and not very challenging to Ves, he felt as if he nurtured his soul by getting back to mechs .

He slowly reflected on himself and realized that he had become too obsessed with his research on neural interfaces .

"I think I went a little bit overboard there . "

His drive to learn and his hunger for knowledge cropped up again and pushed him to cross all kinds of dangerous lines . Spending too much time on this isolated planet made Ves lose all fear of repercussions .

"I can't continue that kind of behavior once I leave the frontier . The MTA and CFA may be non-existent threats here, but in civilized space they are very much a force to be reckoned with, even if they seem distracted lately . "

Nonetheless, as much as researching the man-beast connection allowed him to learn a lot about mechs and gave him a bunch of inspiration, it was a bit too far removed from his core interests .

"I have to be more rational . "

The problem was that mech designers depended heavily on passion to fuel their motivation . Ves encountered plenty of mech designers who possessed hollow passion but extremely rational minds .

They normally tended to be risk-averse cowards and losers .

"You can't get anywhere as a mech designer if you don't take some risks . The best motivation to take risks is when you pursue your passion!"

Ves needed to achieve a balance between passion and rationality . He needed to think with his mind as well as his heart .

While that sounded simple on paper, it was much harder to achieve in reality because humans were emotional creatures .

This was why he valued his return to normality . Resuming his old duties and getting his hands on mechs again cleansed his soul and doused the fires that drove him to irrational, hot-headed pursuits .

"Is this what every high-ranking mech designer has to struggle with?" He asked himself .

Ves felt a temptation to switch to full-time research . As long as any mech designer possessed a half-decent foundation in the sciences, they could explore the wondrous possibilities of what was possible by themselves and develop new theories or technologies .

Yet Ves had always been taught that a mech designer should never be a full-time researcher . They needed to stay in touch with practice by designing mechs and selling them . Only through delivering finished products would mech designers be able to stay true to mechs .

"I think the most difficult skill a mech designer isn't their design ability or their learning ability . It's not their ability to be responsive to the market or fabricate a mech without faults . "

A mech designer still had to be good at those, but at their core all of those skills depended on one of the most basic ones of all .

"No . The most difficult skill by far is self-control . "

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