The Mech Touch novel Chapter 895

The CFA never really saw eye-to-eye with the MTA. Both claimed stewardship over humanity after the dark days of the climax of the Age of Conquest, yet one always thought they were better over the other. One organization represented the most powerful weapons of war known to man, while the other organization pushed for a new hope.

Their ideological clashes regularly divided human space. Their rivalry also kept them in check against each other, preventing any single organization from becoming the only hegemon of human civilization. Yet hostilities became so heated in some cases that extremely destructive ’incidents’ occurred from time to time!

Therefore, as soon as Ves declared he wanted to take the recruitment test for mech designers, Virtual Lieutenant Baskanson immediately threw him the stink eye. The AI may act like a bot sometimes, but its programmers pretended to give it some personality.

[Commencing recruitment test in ten seconds. Chosen profession: mech designer. Please stand by. Warning: cheating is not allowed. Violators will be disintegrated!]

Ves took that last warning extremely seriously. With all the high technology the Starlight Megalodon revealed so far, he knew she possessed a thousands ways to kill him in the most horrific way possible.

The entire surroundings morphed into an extremely well-equipped workshop and design studio. Ves looked around and noted his metallic surroundings and peculiar markings. It seemed as if he entered one of the Starlight Megalodon’s many mech workshops!

Virtual Lieutenant Baskanson appeared into view again. He stared at Ves with a cool glare before raising his palms.

A projection of a timer appeared on one palm. It started at 5 minutes but already started counting down!

The test had already begun!

From his other palm, a data pad appeared.

[Please read the mission contents and complete the assigned task within the alloted time.]

Ves picked up the data pad and felt the weight and shape of it through the feedback from his Earth Ant. "So this is the fabled physical projection!"

The projection technology common in the galactic rim conjured up realistic illusions. People could easily distinguish fake from real when it came to cheaper projections. More premium projection systems lacked this flaw and could easily project a convincing environment. Combined with a positional sound projection system, it was as if two speakers light-years away from each other were right next to each other!

The only flaw was that poking your hand through a projection instantly broke the illusion. No matter how realistic a projection appeared, it was ultimately a product of sound and light without any ability to interact with touch.

Yet physical projection technology broke this rule! Through some means which Ves didn’t understand, a physical projection system possessed the ability to resist force. While such systems inevitably possessed a limit, preventing it from projecting a deadly mech or an unbreakable object, such a development still provided a lot of potential, expanding the applications of virtual reality.

[Task: design an original spaceborn light skirmisher mech with the following parameters...]

The first task demanded that he design a fully-fledged mech. He didn’t have to design it from scratch as the virtual workshop offered him a library of in-house component designs. Ves figured the mech type and the parameters he needed to meet would be randomized each time he repeated the task, because the demands the task set sounded extremely eccentric.

"What are these demands?!"

The specific demands on the shape and performance metrics of the mech prevented him from designing an existing light skirmisher design from memory. Obviously, the recruitment test already foresaw such possibilities.

The problem was that the minimum performance of the mech that the task had set was way too high! Not only that, he had less than five minutes to fulfill this task!

With his current capabilities as an Apprentice Mech Designer on the verge of advancing to Journeyman, he might be able to rush his design in two or three hours. However, even with the advantage of ’future knowledge’ in the perspective of the time period of the Starlight Megalodon, his design would only be able to perform sixty percent from the task requirements.

That forty percent performance gap was too massive as the law of diminishing returns came into play!

"This test is impossible to complete in the allotted time!"

Perhaps it would have been possible for Ves to take his time and spend an entire year to design a mech that met all of the design and performance requirements. The main reason why a hasty design fell short on performance was that Ves didn’t have the time to weigh his design choices carefully and optimize his mech through numerous iterations.

Yet did the task care about that? No! It demanded Ves to complete a year’s work of design work in just five short minutes!

"Not even a Senior Mech Designer can complete this task! Only Masters can comfortably complete such a design this fast!"

Ves suspected that the CFA and the Starlight Megalodon deliberately made things difficult for mech designers. While his knowledge of technological advancements over the last three-hundred years since the Starlight Megalodon got cut off from the rest of the galaxy helped him out quite a bit, that advantage was ultimately trivial in the face of this task.

He wanted to curse in front of the virtual officer’s face, but refrained from doing so. He didn’t want to trip some hostility alarm, and considering that he was a mech designer, the battleship wouldn’t hesitate to disintegrate him if he crossed the line.

The next four minutes or so proceeded exactly as he expected. He raced through the library of component designs and slapped a mech together as fast as possible. Yet a mech design consisted more than puzzling together some parts. He barely had the time to unify the components before he reached the ridiculously short time limit.

[The mech design is incomplete. Verdict: task failed! The recruitment test ends now.]

With those merciless words, Virtual Lieutenant Baskanson immediately kicked him out of the physical projection. He turned his head until he faced Ketis who seemed similarly distressed.

"This test is ridiculous! There’s no way that anyone can design a mech in five minutes!"

The Vandals and Swordmaidens all laughed at their distressed states. It was a rare form of entertainment for those left behind in this safe zone. It was better than wallowing in their pity and anger for not being able to take part in the battle against the Vesians.