The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1344

After his talk with Professor Ventag, Ves realized that he no longer paid much attention to the Bright Republic. His deliberate strategy to enter foreign markets as well as his personal travels abroad made him less inclined to see his home state as an important consideration.

"It’s home, but it’s so small." He whispered.

He always imagined that his business was destined to outgrow the Bright Republic. With the advantages he possessed, Ves would have to be a dunce if his business activities failed to outpace the companies owned by other peers.

Nonetheless, the pace of his outward expansion exceeded his earlier projections. His perspective had also changed. Seeing the majesty of Centerpoint firsthand opened up his eyes to the diversity and prosperity not too far from his home state.

It became harder and harder for him to direct an adequate amount of attention to the Bright Republic.

"Is it too small for a mech designer like me?"

He shook his head. He shouldn’t get too conceited. The Bright Republic was still the foundation of his mech business. It posed the least barriers to him and he could always count on it to have his back whenever he met with difficulties in his business ventures.

The Bright Republic extracted a juicy amount of tax from the LMC, after all. Flashlight also harbored a lot of ambitions to reach foreign states through a company they held shares in. His home state had taken plenty of preemptive measures to keep the LMC and Ves firmly in their claws.

"Yet... if I really want to, I can probably break out of their cage." He realized.

With a rich and powerful girlfriend like Gloriana, he could probably ask her to apply some pressure to extract some concessions from the Bright Republic.

Yet what would be the point? Not only would he uproot himself from the place of his birth, his defection would also affect the standing of his fellow Larkinsons.

"The Larkinson Family is rooted in the Bright Republic. I can’t imagine they are willing to abandon centuries of loyal service and development." He muttered.

In the future, Ves would have to make an important decision. Two decisions in fact.

First, should he pull off a ’Patricia’ and move the center of his business and design activities to a better place?

Second, should he transition from designing third-class mechs to second-class mechs?

Ves had resolved to stick to the status quo on both questions fairly recently. Yet with the sudden events that overtook him recently, he began to doubt the wisdom of his earlier decisions.

The two questions were deeply intertwined. Not only did they affect his future trajectory to an enormous degree, the choices he made also influenced the development of his design work.

The question whether he should transition to designing second-class mechs became very thorny for him recently.

One of the biggest shortcomings between his relationship with Gloriana was that she was a second-class mech designer. While she could probably design a third-class mech in an emergency, she would no doubt hate the many cost, resource and tech limitations these mechs imposed.

As for Ves, while he was confident he could get the hang of designing second-class mechs in time, he would have to familiarize himself with their characteristic design principles over a lengthy period of time before he could really hit his stride.

Ves shook his head. Though the other side looked really attractive, he had just come off a conversation with Professor Ventag who emphasized that he should stay true to himself.

"I can’t discount his advice."

Though the professor’s advice was really boring and perfunctory, his words nonetheless reflected a fundamental truth to every mech designer.

Their work reflected their heart.

For now, uprooting his foundation in order to make a permanent move out of his home was way too jarring. It wouldn’t do his future development any good if he constantly chased after shinier toys.

"Well, that’s for later. The Chuko Republic awaits!"

The Barracuda and the accompanying Battle Crier vessels quietly entered Chukan space after many weeks of travel. Many other vessels had already made a detour as they came close to the infamously troubled state. Only a handful of vessels still continued onwards despite the perils.

Fortunately, his fleet encountered no hindrance until they arrived at the Vindar System of the Redwell Province.

The Vindar System used to be one of the Chuko Republic’s many moderately industrialized star systems. Vindar’s mech industry used to be small but burgeoning. Now, it was teetering on the edge of irrelevance as domestic mech designers dealt with many problems arising from failing institutions, worsening security situation and dysfunctional logistics.

The latter problem was really acute. With trade and shipping drying up, the cost of materials ballooned. The supply of materials only sold outside the Chuko Republic became so limited that some of their prices increased by an order of magnitude!

A lot of mechs became too expensive to produce because some of their components cost ten times as much to make! This forced many mech designers out of business while compelling the remainder to design more sober mechs that made do without critical materials that they took for granted.

The Chuko Republic’s mech industry entered into such dire straits that foreign mech sales heavily overtook domestic sales.

"The Chukans lost confidence in their domestic mech designers." Ves observed.

This made a lot of mech designers desperate to leave for better pastures. Unfortunately, the central and provincial governments didn’t let them. After the initial waves of brain drain occurred, the government quickly clamped down on emigration.

The moment a state lost its brightest mind was the moment where their futures were cut off!

Right now, his visit to the Chuko Republic was very conspicuous for that reason. He was sure he’d be eyed very closely by the government authorities. The moment he made any moves to poach their local mech designers or researchers, he’d probably arouse their ire.

Even Ves did not dare to overstep his boundaries lightly in Vindar.