The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1371

The Sentinel Kingdom beckoned to Ves. After getting out of the mud pool that was the Chuko Republic, he expected to make a much bigger harvest in the strong and powerful third-rate state.

Ves and his staff already made a number of orders and reservations at Sentinel. He also had a number of goals in mind while he traveled from system to system conducting various exchanges with local mech designers. _{free𝑤ebnovel.com}

From overhauling the Barracuda at a waiting drydock, illicitly obtaining the key materials required to build an ultracompact battery, accessing a lab to study the properties of P-stone, buying a remarkable pet for Ketis, finding a source of geril spice, investigating the circumstances of his father in the nearby Nyxian Gap, begging his girlfriend to procure a batch of pure ASMAS and harvesting a spiritual fragment related to tigers, Ves had a lot on his plate!

"I also have to design the Devil Tiger!"

The scope of his design project grew to an unimaginable degree. From his original intention to design an affordable, disposable experimental mech to creating a legendary machine from scratch, Ves had needlessly made things difficult for himself!

However, the reason why he broke his own rules and let his imagination run wild was because he became extremely passionate about the project!

"Sometimes, pursuing my passion is more important than sticking to practicality!"

If his goal was to earn money by designing a commercially-viable mech, then Ves would definitely have second thoughts.

"But that’s not the case right now."

His primary goal was to complete the Upgrade Missions from the System. Once he accomplished this, his Metallurgy and Mechanics Skills would finally reach a level that would enable him to design mechs that could potentially capture a significant amount of market share.

"The gap in performance between my models and the mainstream mech models will further decrease!"

Nonetheless, Ves never aimed to compete over specs. Who cared if a competing mech performed ten percent better than his own. The unique selling proposition of his mechs could not be replicated by anyone!

"No one can design an LMC mech that out-LMC’s the LMC!"

Perhaps a number of weird Class IX mech designers existed somewhere in the galaxy that could manipulate human emotions as well. Yet Ves strongly believed that even then, those who worked directly with spirituality must number extremely few.

The belief that he was pioneering an entirely new dimension in mech design always sustained his pride! His entire career was based around developing something new and unprecedented!

"And my upcoming Devil Tiger design will exemplify the innovations that I’ll introduce to the market!"

Of course, as an illicit mech design based on pirated licenses, Ves did not want the Devil Tiger to be associated with his public identity. He’d have to modify the X-Factor of his mech in a way that largely focused its influence inward. He also had to obscure some of the mechanics related to his specialization.

Perhaps in time a very clever and inquisitive mech designer might be able to uncover Ves’ fingerprints in the Devil Tiger’s design.

Ves didn’t particularly mind this possibility. He just had to obscure enough evidence to make it difficult for him to be directly tied to the mech and its design. As long as he maintained enough plausible deniability, nothing would come out of it. At most, he could simply say that someone stole a prototype of a confidential design project.

"It wouldn’t be the first time someone stole a prototype." He muttered.

Time passed. As his fleet quietly exited the Chuko Republic, Ves and everyone breathed a sigh in relief.

Ves had not envisioned his visit to the Chuko Republic to be so problematic. To be fair, he pretty much asked for it by traveling to such a troubled state in the first place.

Despite cutting his visit to Chuko short, Ves was already satisfied with the gains he made. Not only could he look forward to wearing a second shield generator once he replaced its spent battery, he also gained the insights he needed to elevate his design project to a higher level.

The Devil Tiger continued to consume his attention in the following days and weeks. It was unlike anything he had ever tackled before. Working with newfangled ASMAS tech that played a key role in enabling the Devil Tiger’s many functions forced him to hit the books.

He swamped himself in academic literature. With his Intelligence, his reading and comprehension speed allowed him to devour book after book and paper after paper. His view on smart metal technology and ASMAS technology grew by leaps and bounds in a very short amount of time!

"All of this is necessary if I want to reduce costs and increase efficiency! Pure ASMAS are simply too expensive for me to waste!"

Ves particularly focused on the properties of substitute ASMAS. He read up on a lot of material-specific papers to see what kind of materials and exotics functioned as the best building blocks of substitute ASMAS.

"Substitute ASMAS is meant to be the disposable kind of smart metal." He summed up. "If I want to make the Devil Tiger last as long as possible, then I have to enable it to replenish its substitute ASMAS from all the exotics that are prevalent in the Nyxian Gap!"

Longevity, sustainability and ease of supply dominated his concerns about his design project. He did not expect the owners of the Devil Tiger to march up to a populated trade system and order a batch of rare exotics imported from another star cluster to make up for any material shortfalls.

"Whoever possesses the Devil Tiger has to be able to scrape up minerals from a planet or asteroid and dump it near the mech so that it can perform its own repairs!"

Despite the many difficulties he faced, Ves nonetheless enjoyed the novelty of designing something different. He was working with an entirely different mold of mech design. Both the smart metal and bestial mech aspects of his design project forced him to revise many of his assumptions and move out of his comfort zone.

Exploring different avenues and keeping things fresh and interesting helped him a lot.

Some mech designers believed that they achieved the best progress by narrowing the scope of their work. By focusing on a few mech types or mech concepts, they could refine their proficiency in designing these kinds of mechs to a level beyond a generalist.