The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1479

The Barracuda, overhauled to become more secure than ever, joined up with the Battle Criers before transitioning into FTL.

Their visit to the Sentinel Kingdom came at an end. Departing the Sentinel Kingdom and travelling all the way to the Hertog Dominion took a bit less than two months of travel.

The Barracuda could manage faster, but the slowest ships of the Battle Criers wouldn’t be able to catch up in that case.

Ves didn’t mind. He obtained an incredible amount of valuable materials, and needed time to study them and process them into useful applications.

First, he obtained four additional P-stones, thereby bringing his total collection to six. With so many P-stones, he could begin to perform comparisons and study what they had in common. If he was lucky, he might gather enough clues to deduce the reason why they gained their spiritual attraction properties!

Second, he obtained a second F-stone. Ves had high hopes for it, because the first F-stone possessed the remarkable property of charging his spirituality with an additional offensive attribute. _{ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com}

Third, he won Item #613 from the Circle of Mota’s auction. The rose-gold rock was a completely new type of spiritually-reactive exotic. Ves couldn’t wait to figure out its effects!

Fourth, he obtained a sample of unprocessed Synthra Umbra after completing Finlay’s commission. Since Ves valued his privacy and secrets very highly, processing this high-grade exotic into a cloth before weaving it in a variety of useful articles of clothing was vitally important!

Fifth, the grandest prize of all was Item #1255, otherwise known as the Ancient Sarcophagus. It’s value was undeniable! Finlay coughed out the equivalent of 20 billion bright credits to win this red crystal-like growth that enveloped the body of an unknown humanoid alien from the same auction!

"Too expensive! That’s enough to fund the development and fabrication of an expert mech! It’s enough to cover the cost of founding a large mercenary corps!"

Ves could have put that sum of money to a lot of good uses. If he truly spent this much money on a single strange object, he would have beat himself up for days!

Fortunately, someone else paid for it all. Finlay and his mysterious noble faction bankrolled the entire sum, thereby saving Ves the trouble.

The only payment he had to make was to form a modification plan that turned regular doom crawlers into engines of mass destruction. Though Ves frequently worried about how his work would be used, he couldn’t do anything about it anyway.

"I’ve already made my decision and done the deed. It’s too late to soothe my conscience." He muttered.

Ves decided to keep his eye on the news in the region regardless. He wanted to know if the Spyre Helix Annihilators ever showed up. If Finlay spoke the truth, the Annihilators would only be put to use in the Nyxian Gap, and only once. There should be no reason for them to be put to use in civilized space.

For some reason, Ves was rather skeptical of Finlay’s claims. Now that he thought about it, going through so much trouble to upgrade eighty doom crawlers, only to employ them in a single attack did not make sense!

Even if Sentinel nobles were wealthier than usual, Finlay’s hesitance in spending so much firthals during the auction showed his hesitation at throwing around these kinds of sums.

A normal person or organization would never invest upwards of 50 or 60 billion bright credits just to form a bunch of single-use weapons!

Ves grimaced even deeper. "It’s out of my hands."

One of the realities of being a mech designer was that he had no control over how his customers used or misused his products.

His mechs could be used for noble purposes, such as fighting pirates or guarding vital trade convoys.

They could also be used for abominable ends, such as massacring civilians or engaging in piracy.

Though Ves tried his best to ignore the latter, it still happened from time to time.

"It’s not my fault!"

This was the stance he leaned towards! Ves was just a mech designer. Why should he be responsible in the first place? No mech was inherently sinful upon creation! Even a mech armed with nuclear weapons could be put to good use by exterminating pirates and hostile aliens!

Ves took a deep breath and cleared his mind. He refused to let the potential misuses of his Spyre Helix Annihilator design stop him from improving himself. The rewards he earned from his commission was more than enough to shut up his conscience!

Instead of imagining all of the awful ways his doom crawler variant could be put to use, he instead diverted his attention to something more pleasant.

He had a lot of new materials to study and process!

"I can do a lot of work in two months!"

In fact, Ves doubted he’d be able to complete all of the work he could do on his ship by the time the fleet reached the Hertog Dominion. He had to set priorities and tackle the tasks that provided him with immediate boosts.

Anything that required longer-term study or work to draw out their benefits could be left for later.

"I can’t forget about fabricating a new ultracompact battery to replenish my second shield generator." He muttered while scratching his chin. "I’ve already gathered the materials, but I’ve never set aside enough time."

He couldn’t help it. He only had so much time at his disposal. The warnings given by his fellow mech designers came to the fore.

Just because he could do almost anything as a mech designer, didn’t mean it was a good idea for him to spread his time so much. He should focus first and foremost on his core profession.

From this perspective, Ves shouldn’t necessarily be wasting his time on fabricating personal equipment such as another ultracompact battery. The only reason why he didn’t object to doing so in this case was because scaled-up ultracompact batteries also appeared in high-end mechs.

As much as Ves wanted to dive into studying the Ancient Sarcophagus, he believed it wouldn’t be so easy to make some gains in this instance.

Though he hadn’t been subject to any danger lately, he still prioritized enhancing his own safety whenever it was convenient. He’d already been subject to a few assassinations in his life, and he did not wish to be underprepared when someone else decided to throw a bunch of men to end his life.

"Goddammit, I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of that last assassination attempt back in the Chuko Republic." He grumbled.