The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1246

The subject of his age was a complicated question. Due to the effects of relativity and anomalies that distorted the passage of time, one person’s age was not always clearly defined.

Ves spent a lot of time on Aeon Corona VII. The heavy gravity planet and its time-warping environment physically aged him past thirty years quite some while ago.

To put it simply, his body already celebrated its thirtieth birthday. Only now did the standard Terran calendar belatedly caught up to this fact.

The difference didn’t matter too much. The discrepancy between his physical and his official age was less than a year. This was a lot different from the more extreme cases in the galaxy where fifty-year olds were still teenagers on their record!

He didn’t feel too different when he woke up on his bed. He yawned and stretched his arms, only to feel a weight on his chest.

"Meow."

"Lucky? Did you forgive me now?"

"Meow."

His cat lightly swatted his cheek before turning intangible and phasing away.

"Well, at least I made some progress." He muttered.

He figured that this was Lucky’s way of expressing that he hadn’t quite gotten over the incident yet. Still, some change was better than nothing. After weeks of acting like he didn’t exist, Lucky finally acknowledged his existence again.

After he freshened himself up, he looked through his wardrobe. He didn’t buy his own clothes anymore, letting Gavin take care of those trivial issues.

His wardrobe also included several sets of smart clothes preconfigured in elegant and luxurious looks. Because they were imports from the Friday Coalition, Ves wasn’t sure about wearing them. They looked a bit gaudy, as if their wearers eagerly wanted to rub their wealth in the faces of the lower classes who couldn’t afford such an outfit.

"Well, I’m a Journeyman now." He realized. "That’s a step up from many well-off citizens of the Friday Coalition."

Citizens of third-rate states always thought of themselves as inferior to a citizen of a second-rate state.

That didn’t mean that a receptionist from the Friday Coalition could smack around a CEO from the Bright Republic, but there was always a sense that someone’s birthplace determined their ultimate station in life.

Ves shook his head. "Now that I’m a Journeyman, there’s no reason for me to feel envious of Fridaymen. In fact, they should feel envious of me! I’m a galactic citizen!"

A Journeyman enjoyed high regard wherever he went. The prestige of this title guaranteed good treatment wherever he went.

After some thought, he decided to dress like he acted, and chose to set aside his preference for understated clothing and picked out some smart clothes configured in a rich green formal suit.

As Ves viewed his appearance in a mirror projection, he had to admit that he exuded confidence that he didn’t have before. If he was still an Apprentice, then he would have unconsciously thought that he was being pretentious.

As Ves headed up to his office in the LMC’s headquarters, he received many congratulations and well wishes from his employees.

"Happy birthday, boss!"

"Happy birthday, Mr. Larkinson!"

Ves smiled as he took in the optimistic mood that had spread over the entire complex. Every worker in the LMC felt lucky to be working for a mech designer who made so many achievements when he was still young.

When he arrived at his office, Gavin expressed the main reason for their optimism.

"The LMC is too small for a company led by a Journeyman." He said. "Didn’t you visit the facilities of the now-defunct Kadar-Neyvis Group once? That’s where the LMC is heading towards in a couple of years. There are already plans in the works to expand our presence, and to do that we need to hire a lot more workers who need to be managed somehow."

"And who better to manage them than our existing employees?" Ves guessed the rest.

"Indeed. While we won’t promote a cleaning bot technician into the head of maintenance overnight, as long as it isn’t too extreme, many of our workers will move on to become team leaders or managers to manage the influx."

The existing workers of the LMC may not be necessarily better or more qualified than the newcomers. Yet the company valued them more because they had proven themselves to be loyal, trustworthy and aligned with the company’s values.

The latter was especially important for the company to maintain its cohesion and identity. By letting the old hands propagate the company culture to the newcomers, the latter would eventually become indistinguishable from the former.

"I hear there are plans in the works to open up a second site." Ves mentioned.

"There is a lot of consideration for opening up a second manufacturing complex on Bentheim, boss. I don’t know what your issue is with setting up shop on Bentheim, but you should really consider it. Right now, the logistics of operating a manufacturing complex on Cloudy Curtain is manageable, but that’s only because our products are mainly premium mechs. What if you design a cheaper mech one day? The logistical burden of mass-producing so many mechs will perpetually strain our supply chain."

Ves understood Gavin’s point. It took an increasing amount of transports and cargo haulers to ship the raw materials from Bentheim to Cloudy Curtain. The time and money being wasted on this channel was growing increasingly more significant.

They would definitely balloon once the LMC began to offer cheaper mechs with lower margins. This was because a mech valued at 20 million credits used up almost the same amount of materials as a mech valued at 100 million credits!

While the quality and price of materials differed drastically, the space they occupied usually didn’t differ too much. This essentially meant that producing high-volume mechs on Cloudy Curtain would disproportionately impact the company’s profitability!

Although Ves always felt leery about expanding the LMC’s presence on Bentheim, he was no longer as afraid as before. The local gangs that ran rife on that hectic planet generally respected the properties of high-ranking mech designers.

Even if they didn’t, his friendly relations with the Blood Claws insured adequate protection.

"Draw up a plan." Ves replied, giving out his usual response to major decisions like this. "While I’m not too giddy about it, I do think it’s time to diversify our production sites. I still want the Mech Nursery to be the primary site of production for our premium mechs. It’s safer, quieter and more secure here. That’s worth the burden it imposes on our supply chain."

After they discussed some other business matters, Gavin finally smiled. "Your birthday party is scheduled to start in the evening. We’ve tried our best to keep it small, but we had to expand the venue because of the arrival of some surprising guests."

"Oh? Are there any names I should take note of in the guest list, Benny?"

Even if it sounded as if these guests came with ulterior motives, Ves didn’t mind. As a mech designer and businessman, he learned the importance of establishing an extensive network. He could obtain many conveniences that he otherwise wouldn’t be able to obtain by trading favors. _{frёewebnoѵēl.com}