The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1142

Now that Ves took care of his immediate business, he turned his attention to a project that had been on his mind for a while.

"It’s time to design my fifth original mech."

This would be a milestone for Ves. As long as he completed this project to the MTA and the market’s satisfaction, he met all of the conditions to be recognized as a Journeyman!

With his thirtieth birthday within reach, Ves needed to design his next mech at a brisk pace in order to earn the much-coveted achievement of advancing to Journeyman while young!

"Mech designers who are older than thirty aren’t young anymore in the eyes of the MTA." He muttered to himself.

Although Ves and everyone else already regarded him as a de facto Journeyman, the MTA did not compromise at all when it came to enforcing their rules on others. If they say a Journeyman needed to design at least five original mechs, then they better have at least that much designs under their belt before they applied for recognition!

"If the MTA isn’t so insistent on this point, I wouldn’t be so much in a hurry to finish this project!"

The most important implication of his lack of time was that the quality of his next design would not be as good as his previous design.

Aside from the lack of time, Ves had also been deprived of a crucial advantage that helped elevate the quality of the Aurora Titan design by a substantial degree!

"I won’t have the benefit of Professor Ventag by my side this time!"

They collaborated on only a single joint design project. Now that they published the Aurora Titan design and put the model on the market, their cooperation came to an end.

Ves deeply benefited from collaborating with a Senior Mech Designer! Not only did Professor Ventag act as a sounding board for his ideas, the Senior also contributed substantially to the Aurora Titan’s internal design!

"If that isn’t enough, gaining access to his company’s expansive library of component licenses is a massive convenience!"

Now that Ves returned to designing a mech on his own, he no longer enjoyed any of these advantages.

"The only two mech designers I have on hand is Ketis and Carlos. They won’t be much help to me at this point."

While Ketis made a lot of strides over the past few months, she still had ways to go before she met the standard of becoming a contributing designer in any of the LMC’s major design projects.

As for Carlos... Ves slowly felt the onset of a headache as he thought about how extensively the war had changed his friend.

Right now, Carlos took his advice and went back to the Rittersberg region to stay with his parents for a time. Ves hoped that returning to his familiar childhood home would put some perspective in the man.

Privately, Ves already made some preparations to write Carlos off. If his friend couldn’t let go of his envy towards Ves, then it was best that they went their separate ways.

"Time changes everything, and not always for the better."

He put his two subordinate mech designers out of his mind for now. Right now, he was back on his own when it came to designing another mech.

"My fourth original design was a grand project and a marvel of innovation."

Ves wanted to make his fifth original mech design an innovative work as well, but he had much fewer means to work with this time. Without Professor Ventag and more important a powerful spiritual fragment from Qilanxo, it was inevitable that his fifth original design would disappoint him in many ways.

"It’s as if I enjoyed a taste of heaven before descending back to reality!"

He only managed to reach that height with assistance. On his own, he could never jump high enough to enter the gates of heaven!

The only way to design a mech as good as the Aurora Titan was to keep improving himself until he became capable enough to make up for the shortfall!

Therefore, Ves did not wish to place too much expectations for his upcoming design project. "My next mech has to be good enough to uphold my reputation, but that is all. It doesn’t have to sell thousands of copies a year like the Blackbeak and the Crystal Lord. It also doesn’t have to be as innovative and groundbreaking as the Aurora Titan either. Perhaps my fifth design will share the most in common with my third original design.

The short-lived and underutilized Enduring Protector design was very different from his other original designs. Developed specifically for the Flagrant Vandals, only a handful of copies had been made before the circumstances at Aeon Corona VII quickly made them irrelevant.

Ves always regretted that his Enduring Protector never received the opportunity to fulfill its purpose. It never got the opportunity to fight back against the Vesians in the hazardous red zone around the Starlight Megalodon where the breakdown effect was the strongest.

"It would be great to design a mech that doesn’t have to appeal to the market."

One of the most enjoyable aspects about designing the Enduring Protector was that Ves only needed to please the Flagrant Vandals. It was a lot easier to design a mech for a single client than to attempt to make it as appealable as possible to a wide variety of potential buyers.

With all the renown that Ves and the LMC had earned, perhaps completing a private commission wasn’t out of reach anymore!

Ves summoned Gavin to his office.