The Mech Touch novel Chapter 703

Decreasing the transmission of raw data to the cockpit by sixty percent sounded impressive.

However, it did not measurably lessen the pain experienced by Acolyte Gien. Ves estimated that he needed to cut the data stream by at least ninety-eight percent for it to stop causing permanent harm to the mech pilot!

"Solving the problem completely isn’t doable. Not only will the mech be almost uncontrollable to Acolyte Gien, it also spits in the face of the Church’s intentions."

What Ves had effectively done was to make the torture device a little less lethal. The torture victim practically felt just as much pain, but he’d be able to endure the torture at least twice as long, prolonging his suffering!

Ves snorted at the morbid notion that popped up in his mind. "If I can’t make it as a mech designer, I can always transition into designing torture machines."

Working on modifying the design of the Evaporating Spear had exposed the full horror of what a faulty neural interface could unleash! Ves always knew that mech pilots risked sustaining permanent brain damage in theory, but to contribute on a mech where this became a feature instead of a fault was something else!

To state that his design philosophy remained pure and unchanged was a lie. The pressure it endured had left some marks. In the future, his design philosophy would bend more easily under pressure. In exchange, it lost some of the backbone that made it pure.

Time would tell whether this change benefited him more than it cost, but Ves willingly embraced this shift.

Ves already witnessed the strengths and drawbacks of a rigid design philosophy. Single-minded in focus, as long as the mech designer kept following the proscribed paths, they advanced relatively quickly and improved quite fast.

However, once they fell into a completely different circumstance, they encountered many difficulties in trying to adjust their design philosophy to the changes they experienced.

The Skull Architect with his extremely narrow-minded research focus suffered from this fault.

Ves did not lack for confidence in his ability to advance his own path in mech design. He already did so since the start with his pioneering work on the X-Factor. With his various advantages, he did not require an additional boost in this department.

What he valued instead was adaptability! With a potential career that spanned for several hundred years at the very least, human society would doubtlessly experience many changes. Ves wanted to insure he retained the flexibility to keep up with the times.

If his design philosophy was flexible enough to bend to any storm, then Ves would be able to prosper regardless if he based himself in the Bright Republic, the Friday Coalition, the frontier or even the galactic heartland or the galactic center!

His paranoia urged him to be constantly prepared for danger no matter where he based himself. He needed to be ready to abandon all that he worked towards and flee to safer regions.

Ves came to the realization that one of the major reasons why mech designers in the galactic rim rarely chose to relocate closer to the center of the galaxy. Their design philosophy simply couldn’t adapt to the changed environment. A different mech industry, a different mech market, mech designers were forced to discard too many habits and customs they took for granted.

Still, despite the fact that these highly focused mech designers likely fared poorly should they relocate to a different region of the galaxy, they excelled at the areas they were good at. Ves guessed that the most successful mech designers were those who put their entire heart and soul into their primary pursuits.

"The Star Designers form the best example of what an obsession can amount to when pursued to the extreme."

Of the hundred Star Designers in existence to this day and age, the majority spent the vast majority of their early careers in doggedly becoming the best in a specific field!

However, examples to the contrary existed as well. The Polymath served as the quintessential example of how a broad focus or a complete lack of focus did not stop a mech designer from reaching the pinnacle in mech design!

Though it made his future advancement a little more difficult, he felt liberated for making this choice. Unbound by rules, decoupled from the MTA and able to bend in any situation, his changing design philosophy experienced a fundamental paradigm shift.

If he had to summarize the most important change, then his new design philosophy cared less about the process and more about the end result.

He wouldn’t care too much if he needed to break a few eggs to make an omelet.

"I suppose that also answers the question of whether I should care about the mech pilots I’m serving."

His new shift enabled him to remain callous and unfeeling even if he contributed to harming the mech pilots who used his mechs. Though this didn’t forbid him from selectively caring for some of his favored clients and customers, his default state could be described as indifferent.

In other words, he didn’t care!

Did this mean he let go of the mech designer’s creed? Not entirely. He still recognized its exemplary value and an ideal to measure up to. Ves simply regarded it as a guideline instead of a hard rule to follow.

The loss of innocence may be a regretful matter to some, but Ves reaped the benefits of it as the strain of working on the Evaporating Spear faded into the background.

His design philosophy exhibited the flexibility of a tree in the middle of a storm. As long as the wind didn’t blow too hard or too often, Ves would be able to retain much of his old values even as he did the opposite of what he was supposed to! He was basically having his cake and eating it too!

"Brilliant!" He uttered as the design came closer to exhibiting a satisfactory level of performance. Instead of being wracked with guilt, he reveled in the challenge and enjoyment of working on such an unusual project. "I should have figured this out sooner!"

Guided by a design philosophy that bent but never snapped, Ves finalized the entire design, rebirthing it from its humble and neglected origins and shaping it to become a mech fit for dueling!

As Ves studied the finished redesign, he frowned a bit when he picked up a trace of spirituality from its design.

"I failed." He said, causing Acolyte Villis to jerk confusedly at him. "I’m too strong for my own good."

The mech designers who worked on the Evaporating Spear before Ves got his hands on it were barely above amateur level. Both their technical ability and their design philosophies simply couldn’t hold a candle to Ves.