The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1144

Gavin presented three interesting commissions to Ves.

The first one was to design a dueling mech for the team captain of the Mosville Fireflies.

The second one was to design original and more practical versions of his Young Blood and Old Soul virtual training mechs for the Astreya Mech Academy.

The third one was to design a hero mech geared towards ceremonial guard duty for a powerful and wealthy foreign leader.

Each of them had their pros and cons.

While more commissions doubtlessly existed, Ves trusted Gavin to act as his gatekeeper and filter out the more frivolous and insincere requests.

The personal power of a gatekeeper was not that impressive. While Gavin was effectively a nobody, his access to Ves and his responsibilities as a personal secretary to serve up the information that his boss required to make very impactful decisions turned him into the second-most important individual in the LMC!

This was a lot of power to put into the hands of a single person. Gavin was effectively able to shape Ves’ decision-making by manipulating the options he brought to the table. The power of an executive assistant sometimes even surpassed that of the Chief Operating Officer or the rest of the top management team!

Yet even if Ves knew all of this, he could hardly do all of the secretarial work himself. He’d be stuck behind a desk all day while he juggled various schedules and requested various pieces of information from the various departments of the company.

For better or worse, Ves couldn’t properly exercise leadership over his company without an executive assistant by his side.

If that was the case, he preferred having someone who stood by him at the beginning of his career. An added benefit was that Gavin originally studied marketing, so he possessed a very keen commercial mind that Ves could use as a sounding board.

Right now, Gavin showed his value yet again. "It’s a shame you don’t want to consider the commission from Astreya. Getting your hooks into the mech cadets while they are still in their formative years is one of the surefire ways to pave the way for the LMC’s future dominance in the domestic market. If all the mech pilots that graduate in the next ten to twenty years have drunk much of the LMC’s milk from birth, they’ll become loyal customers for the rest of their lives!"

Obviously, the prospect of indoctrinating impressionable mech cadets into loving the mechs of the LMC was a marketer’s wet dream.

It didn’t help that each successive mech that Ves designed became more and more pronounced into converting mech pilots into adoring the LMC’s products!

"The time constraints are really thorny." Ves repeated with a frown. "Working on two designs is a serious commitment. I only have the time to design a single mech. Although this opportunity sounds like a great way to secure greater market share in the domestic market, I don’t think it fits with the current direction of the LMC."

This time it was Gavin’s turn to frown. "You want to orient the company towards foreign markets?"

"That has always been the strategy the LMC pursued. As you know, I have a penchant for designing odd mechs that fill a narrow niche. The Blackbeak and the Aurora Titan stands out in this regard. While designing mass-market mechs is definitely on my agenda, I don’t think it’s a good idea for the LMC to put too much emphasis on the Bright Republic’s mech market."

"You have some great advantages in the Bright Republic, though. Your fame and your exploits has turned you into one of the most promising debuting Journeyman Mech Designers! If you take advantage of your public profile and work together with Jarle Brenthill or the Astreya Mech Academy, you can convert your momentary fame into enduring brand equity!"

The kind of attention that Ves and the LMC attracted recently all consisted of short-lived news. While they were very noteworthy, the public didn’t instantly recognize the LMC as a mainstay mech company in the Republic.

Although the scale the LMC had reached in recent years definitely propelled them into the ranks of major mech manufacturers, Ves had seen that there was much more to go. The old KNG and NORA Consolidated both dwarved the LMC’s relatively modest output. The larger and older mech companies also offered at least twenty to fifty times more mech models!

Therefore, if the LMC wanted to become as revered as the old KNG in the Bright Republic’s mech market, it needed to become a lot more involved in domestic affairs!

Partnering up with a celebrity or a mech academy were some of the surefire ways to improve the LMC’s brand equity!

Yet having seen the wider galaxy, Ves no longer believed there was anything special about the Bright Republic’s mech market. Why limit himself to a single market when he could cast his gaze further?

"With our current product strategy, I think it is best to develop the LMC as a true sector-wide mech company." Ves stated. "Although most of my mech designs are unlikely to capture significant market share in any single mech market, as long as my company maintains a presence in fifty mech markets at once, it’s fine if we only sell a couple of hundred mechs in each state!"

"I don’t know, boss. That sounds dangerous. What if we are suddenly cut off from all of those markets? The LMC at least needs to have a strong presence in our domestic market to serve as our fallback point."

"I don’t want my company to become too dependent on the Bright Republic." Ves shook his head.

"Ah, but that’s the beauty of the third commission, I suppose." Gavin replied with a smile. "As long as we fulfill the request posed by the Ylvainan leader, we can expand our presence in the Ylvaine Protectorate without restrictions! It’ll be our second home base!"

The third commission intrigued them the most. It offered the most bountiful rewards for the LMC. The only problem to Ves was that it sounded rather too good to be true!

"Tell me more about the background of the Ylvainan client. Who is she and why is she offering such generous terms?"

"To explain her position, I’ll need to explain how the Ylvaine Protectorate is run. Do you know their history?"

Ves nodded. Of course he did. "The basic story is that during the latter days of the Age of Conquest, some guy called Ylvaine emerged from the galactic heartland and believed himself to be a prophet. He was charismatic enough to convert billions of people into his followers while he issued all kinds of wild predictions. His burgeoning Ylvaine Faith started to become a major force to be reckoned with, so much so that the local states felt threatened and launched a huge attack on the new religion!"

The Ylvaine Faith suffered immensely at the attack from the local states! Prophet Ylvaine himself succumbed to the attacks along with the entire Ylvaine Dynasty that consisted of his harem and descendants!

Even though Prophet Ylvaine married hundreds of wives and conceived thousands of children, the assassins and bounty hunters employed by the states were very thorough!

Their flight coincided with the start of the Age of Mechs and the opening of the Komodo Star Sector. While they had too little strength left to contest the best colonization sites, they eventually managed to settle down at a decent region of space next to the newly-emerged Bright Republic. _{fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm}