The Mech Touch novel Chapter 667

The foundation of most pieces of advanced engineering lay in their material composition. Powerful exotics with myriad effects not accomplishable by mundane metals such as titanium and palladium lent their abilities to achieve powerful effects such as all-encompassing stealth or reaching an unheard of amount of energy density!

In order to simplify the application of mature technology systems, they each listed out recipes of must-have exotics. Without a set number of these exotics in a set combination, the technology couldn’t be substantialized.

It was like how someone wouldn’t be able to bake an apple pie without getting their hands on an apple.

Of course, one didn’t need to follow the recipe strictly if they were proficient bakers. If they wanted to, they could replace the apple component of the pie with pears or berries. As long as the user of the technology knew what they were doing, they could perform endless tweaks on the recipe.

The list of key materials therefore listed out several key materials, each divided into low, medium and high quality tiers. The better the material, the better the performance.

An apple pie tasted better if it was made out of fresh, organically grown apples grown from natural rather than something mass-produced in a cheap, overstuffed greenhouse and then spent months rotting in the middle of maggots and other vermin. _{fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm}

The same applied to applications of any kind of technology. Some of the most crucial pieces of information contained within the condensed data packages the Skull Architect sent over were simple listings of the key materials.

As long as Ves was able to obtain the ingredients, it wasn’t a stretch to derive the recipe for an apple pie by himself. Of course, he’d have to spend years baking thousands of pies before he nailed down a good recipe, so he wasn’t looking forward to fumbling around in the dark on his own.

Fortunately, while the condensed set of files only contained the barebones principles on both technologies, they were sufficient for Ves to bake at least a basic pair of pies. For now, the basic-level applications already satisfied his simple palate. At this stage, creating something more complex was out of his means.

"I still have to bleed a lot of K-coins in order to gather all the core materials." Ves frowned. "I’ll have to budget carefully and bargain hard for the materials that I want."

For now, he didn’t have to procure new materials to reconstruct a working example of stealth tech. The stealth shuttle fragments recovered from the battlefield should have already covered it. Up until now, Ves missed the essential theory to make sense of the fragments, but he had just obtained the missing link, so he was already satisfied in that area.

Now, all he needed to shop for was enough low-grade materials to construct at least three basic ultracompact batteries. "I already invented two little gadgets that hunger for energy. I can reserve the third battery for another gadget, or better yet treat it as a spare."

He mentally tallied the number and amount of different lowest tier exotics he had to get his hands on to fabricate three complete batteries, with a small amount of margin to spare for emergencies.

He grimaced a bit. "Even the cheapest form of ultracompact battery is a money-sucking pit."

There was a reason why ultracompact batteries were considered higher technology, ranked even above the predominant form of stealth technology in this region!

Some recipes were intrinsically simple and made do with nutrient packs, while others were more elitist and demanded the use of quality organically-grown ingredients. The differences in cost was massive, but Ves couldn’t do anything about it. An ultracompact battery couldn’t be called that anymore if Ves resorted to lower-tier materials instead!

Right now, his shopping list consisted of three rare exotics that were rumored to show up in the frontier. Since Mancroft was a trading station, it inevitably sold much of the spoils from treasure hunters returning from the untamed stars. Ves hoped to get lucky and encounter the desired materials.

"Ketis."

"What is it now?" She replied, a little ticked off that she was being used as a walking search machine by Ves all day.

"I’m on the lookout for the following three medium-grade exotics: sulomnium, beta-otricine and Flesha’s Tears."

Her eyes widened and her breath shuddered at the mention of some of those exotics. "I haven’t heard about Beta-Otricine before, but both sulomnium and Flesha’s Tears are some of the most valuable exotics you can score in the frontier! Any treasure hunter that manages to stumble upon a couple of grams of the former and a handful of micrograms of the latter has struck the jackpot! Do you know how much they cost?!"

"Why did you think I dropped by the bank? I know how much they cost, that’s why I’ve pulled out my savings. Ketis, remember what you are supposed to be. Every mech designer is a money-making machine. Acquiring a few hundred-million credits is as easy as breathing to me. Journeymen like Mayra have it even better. They can each become the foundation of a large mech manufacturer in civilized space! As long as you work earnestly to advance your mech design abilities, acquiring expensive exotics will become as trivial as shopping for clothes to regular people."

Ves had ulterior motives when he said those words. He wanted to spark her greed. Unfortunately, he saw no signs this particular vice caught on to Ketis.

As a Swordmaiden who had grown up in a primitive settlement only to be picked up by Lydia and inducted into her organization as a teenager, Ketis never dealt a lot with money before. Concepts of wealth and income disparity was as alien to her as becoming an obedient housewife to a lucky husband.

If Ves wanted to corrupt Ketis into the cult of mech design, then he needed to grasp onto another handle.

No human was perfect. The female mech designer already possessed a possessed a warped personality by dint of her Swordmaiden upbringing. Ves merely had to stimulate the right personality trait to ignite her passion in mech design.