The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1325

After several hours of contemplation, Ves developed a tentative series of steps he should take in order to mitigate the damage and make his move plausible.

First, he needed to have a reason to move to a different star cluster. No normal mech designer would leave behind his company, his connections and his other endeavors in order to start anew in a completely different region of space!

He would have to come up with a good excuse for him to do so, and for now the only one he came up with was to expand the reach of the LMC.

It sounded premature. Expanding a company’s reach to a neighbor star clusters made sense to someone like Master Olson.

It did not make sense for a lowly Journeyman. The general rule was that Journeymen ought to focus on growing their presence in their home markets. If they specialized in niche mechs, then expanding to the rest of the star sector was an acceptable strategy to pursue.

For various reasons, it was incredibly difficult for Journeymen to export their mechs across star sectors. Even founding branches of their companies in another star sector in order to produce mechs abroad was rife with complications.

"It’s already problematic for me to do business in another star sector. Moving to another star cluster is even harder!"

There was only one way he could succeed. He needed to gain access to the Rim Guardian’s extensive logistics network and secure their guarantees.

To do that, he needed to obtain their favor, which meant completing the thorny assignment they dumped on his lap.

"Goddammit.. I’ll have to pull out all the stops in order to turn William Urbesh into an expert candidate!"

If Ves failed this mission, he would face a significant amount of delay in earning the MTA fraternity’s favor. By the time he received another opportunity to prove his value to them, the Ruined Temple envoys might have reached their destination by then!

While other organizations existed that rivaled the Rim Guardians in this capacity, Ves did not have a convenient introduction on hand to get his foot in their doors.

The Rim Guardians are my only choice." He muttered.

Once he secured their favor, he could redeem his contributions for their backing in his business venture. Only when he obtained this assistance would he have a viable reason to divert to another star cluster.

Yet.. what would this imply for his mechs?

The main reason why Journeymen mostly stuck to their star sectors was because the abstruse effects of their mechs no longer worked when they moved too far away from their designers.

For example, if some rich kid from the Terran Confederation took a liking for his Blackbeak for some reason, he could order someone to import a gold label of the mech.

After decades in transit, the mech that the Terran received would look completely dull and unremarkable compared to when it was in its prime! This was because the distance between the mech and Ves was simply too far!

According to what Delta-Gina imparted to him back then, the reach of a Journeyman only encompassed a couple of star sectors at most.

"That’s basically the equivalent of a star cluster."

Moving to another star cluster would help distance himself from the Ruined Temple envoys when they arrived at the Nyxian Gap.

Yet the same move would also distance himself to the vast majority of mechs designed by him and produced by the LMC and other manufacturers.

The increased distance would definitely rob all of those mechs with the special qualities that his customers valued. Those qualities were the only reasons for mech buyers to purchase his products!

"However, does this rule even apply to me at all?"

The assumption that hampered the expansionist hopes of many mech designers may not apply to his own designs.

That was because Ves imparted his designs with their own spiritual sources!

The design spirits he bestowed to his mech designs may be sufficient to empower the mechs, even without his design seed’s assistance!

His eyes lit up. If his guess was true, then his designs might be able to sustain their psionically-empowered effects even if Ves departed from the galactic rim!

He came up with another hypothesis as well. He guessed the reach of his designs might actually be related to the strength of his design spirits!

A relatively weak design spirit like that of the aging Blackbeak likely depended more on Ves than the pale images he instilled in his design.

It was only when he designed the Crystal Lord did Ves begin to make use of external sources of spirituality to empower his images.

The strength of the spiritual fragments that Ves made use of varied significantly. The Aurora Titan’s design spirit incorporated Qilanxo’s spiritual fragment, which was the strongest spiritual entity that Ves had ever encountered!

"It’s very possible for the Aurora Titan to work throughout the entire galactic rim!" Ves shockingly realized.

His other designs were not as fortunate, particularly the Blackbeak and the Crystal Lord.

"Fortunately, I’m already planning to phase them out." He murmured. "By the time I revise these two designs, I’ll probably revisit this aspect."

The Mark II editions of his Blackbeak and Crystal Lord designs would fully reflect the lessons he learned since he designed their predecessors.

Ves had no obligation to keep the design spirits of his older designs! In fact, if he wanted to, he could probably replace or upgrade the design spirit of the current Mark I incarnations on the spot!

He shook his head. "There’s no reason for me to do so."

Not only would such revisions disrupt the piloting experiences for the people using his Blackbeaks and Crystal Lords, but it was also pointless to invest in aging designs.

Rather than go through all that effort into propping up a pair of old designs, Ves would rather save his powder for the Mark II editions where he could introduce a host of new improvements.