The Mech Touch novel Chapter 84

While it felt good giving Floyd a mental smack, Ves knew he provoked an angry bear. If the stakes weren’t so high, he’d rather take a step back. Now, his pressure increased. He was not content to take second place this time. He had to dazzle the audience and mesmerize at least one of the masters present.

"The road ahead has just begun. If I take Floyd as a standard, then I will only encounter tougher opponents."

Plenty of contestants wanted to dispute the results. Most of them mainly blamed the AI pilots for failing to unearth their mech’s potential. Most of the complaints came from the fliers.

"You cheated! There’s no way a nobody like you can beat my awesome mech!"

Sadly for Floyd, no one cared about his accusations. While a student supervisor arrived to address his results, he had no leeway in giving the alumni from Leemar a helping hand.

"According to the logs, both mechs are designed within acceptable boundaries. Mechanically, there’s nothing fishy there, even if both of you made some unconventional choices."

"What about my crappy AI pilot? I obviously got a retard for a pilot!"

The supervisor shook his head. "Every mech in every simulation started with the same AI pilot. They all have the same capacity for learning and adaptation. According to the logs, the AI pilot for your centaur mech peaked midway. It couldn’t figure out new strategies. As for your opponent’s medium mech, its AI pilot constantly unearthed new things to try."

In other words, one mech provided slightly more options than the other mech. There was a limit how diverse a pilot could utilize the tools at hand. The main factor that limited the centaur was its crippling slow speed. The lack of speed narrowed its options to purely offensive and defensive stances.

As for the design submitted by Ves, the AI pilot was able to take the initiative in most battles due to its freedom of movement. It could charge straight ahead or it could take it slow by flanking its opponent. This was actually the main reason why heavy mechs never achieved dominance. Without sufficient mobility, a mech was nothing different than a sitting duck.

After verifying the validity of the results, the supervisor took the devastated Floyd away. Sadly, some of the losers kept making a fuss, though they were easily taken care off with a few stun bolts. Ves couldn’t believe how many designers broke down and acted like babies.

"I always thought it took discipline and constant study to become a mech designer. I have no idea how these rich kids managed to graduate with a degree in mech design."

"Pff. It’s genetics man." A fellow walker supplied. "Everyone knows their parents constantly injected their kids with genetic boosts. They take 1 hour to learn a theory that regular people like us take a day to understand. There’s different injections available that can strengthen your muscles, make you smarter or even remove the need for sleep."

That was fairly new to Ves. "I thought those kinds of things are illegal or don’t even exist."

"To commoners, they might as well be fairy tales. It’s a conspiracy the upper echelon is happy to keep under wraps. They even banded together in order to suppress any credible mention about these boosts. If you don’t believe me, then try and uploading a post. I can guarantee you’ll be arrested quicker than you can take a leak."

Ves almost didn’t believe it if not for one thing. Had he already taken some ’injections’ himself? When he recalled the few times he ingested the System’s attribute candies, he measurably grew stronger in a couple of areas. Was the System messing with his genes each time he ate a candy?

The news shook his view of how the galaxy worked. He always treated those rumors about genetic tampering as air, but perhaps he underestimated the progress humanity made over the years in terms of human genetics.

"Do you have any proof?"

"Pff! Of course not! I’d be dead if I had anything. I’ve only been able to learn a bit because I have a moneybags for a friend."

As today’s program came to an end, everyone slowly left the parade ground. As Ves tried to keep an eye out on Dietrich and his cat, he reconsidered the matter of upgrading his attributes. Now that he developed some decent skills, perhaps it was time to upgrade his intelligence.

"If I had another windfall of DP, I can afford to splurge on a couple of intelligence candies."

The price of a candy corresponded with the height of his current attributes.

Any attribute between 1.0 and 2.0 could be upgraded by buying a candy worth 1,000 times the desired height. For example, with his current intelligence of 1.2, if he wanted to raise it to 1.3, he’d have to spend 1,200 DP.

If he wanted to raise his intelligence to 2.0, he’d have to spend a cumulative amount of 13200 DP in total.

After reaching the threshold of 2.0, the price of the attribute candies multiplied by 10,000, meaning that he’d have to spend 21,000 DP to upgrade his intelligence to 2.1.

The price of upgrading an attribute grew to stupendous heights the more it growed. At his current level, Ves had no way of earning enough DP to upgrade his intelligence to a meaningful level where it could make a difference.

That was why up to now, he always emphasized the acquisition of skills. They provided concrete benefits at reasonable costs. Ves always planned to upgrade his intelligence and perhaps some other attributes in the long term. Despite his envy, he maintained his current stance. At most, he’d upgrade his intelligence by a couple of points so that he wouldn’t come across as stupid when faced with a master.

Ves sighed when he thought about his empty DP reserve. All of his plans meant nothing if he didn’t gain another source of DP. With both his virtual and real universe sales stalling, he had no way of buying anything anything from the System to help him out in the competition. He had to rely on himself to reach the top.

He only became a little disappointed when the Mech Designer System became less unique. The rich and powerful had their own ways of getting ahead even without a supposed reality-altering software program.

Ves finally found Dietrich near the exit. The pilot yawned as he greeted his friend.

"Man, this is the most boring competition I’ve ever watched. There’s nothing exciting about watching thousands of nerds geeking out over a couple of stupid exams. The only part that interested me was the duels, but it finished way too quickly for me to enjoy."

"Haha, it might not be very exciting for you, but for mech designers like me, it’s been a thrill."

"Are you sure you mech designers are still human? I’m not surprised if you’ve all been replaced by aliens."

Without a technical background, pilots like Dietrich could never appreciate these kinds of events. Ves enjoyed the opportunity to cash against his peers. Watching his skills grow better from a boring Status was much less tangible than winning an actual match against a living person. It made all of his improvements look real.

"Now, let me begin with the third round. This time, the format revolves around teamwork. As you all know, mech designers often work together with other designers when involved in a major project. The best and most widely used designs are always a collection of each designer’s best results. No mech designer in existence claims to be the best at everything, though the Polymath comes awfully close." _{ƒгeewёbnovel.com}