The Mech Touch

Ves had come a long way since he initially got his hands on the Mech Designer System. Just glancing at the sheer amount of Skills and Sub-Skills on his Status page was enough to make any other Journeyman jealous!

Nonetheless, Ves did not feel particularly proud. He knew that there were plenty of prodigies who could have accomplished the same without resorting to such a powerful aid.

Their natural intellect combined with a few modest implants and genetic tampering was enough to propel them to the top of their generation!

In comparison, the original Ves did not even have the qualifications to become an independent mech designer!

Even now, Gloriana showed little signs of falling behind. Ves genuinely admired his girlfriend for being able to improve every day without the ability to spend DP on acquiring a vast amount of knowledge in an instant.

She worked much harder than him when it came to expanding their knowledge base!

That did not mean that Ves necessarily wanted to follow in her footsteps. While he knew that it was worth it for him to spend at least some time on immersing himself in academic literature, that was mostly because he needed to learn something specific in order to solve a difficult problem.

As someone who was perennially short of time, Ves abhorred wasting it on an activity that could easily be substituted with DP. As long as he had enough points, he could skip years of diligent study!

Right now, Ves knew that it was time to take a few more steps towards the rank of Senior.

While it was unrealistic to believe he would be able to advance within five or ten years, all of those Senior-level Skills still provided a lot of benefits to a Journeyman.

At the very least, he would be able to design his mechs faster and with much more technical refinement than before!

"It's not a waste to spend 100,000 DP to upgrade a Main Skill. I can easily earn them all back once I embark on parallel mech design!"

As long as Ves made a good effort, he could earn 100,000 DP per completed mech design.

That didn't sound like much when it took three or four months to design a mech.

Yet with the addition of fifty new mech designers, it was no longer out of the question to engage in five mech design projects at the same time!

This effectively meant that Ves would be able to earn half a million Design Points in a couple of months!

Though he previously intended to retain a few hundred-thousand DP for emergencies, he was no longer as adamant about it. His life hadn't been threatened in months and with the Glory Battalion and the Penitent Sisters hanging around, no one was stupid enough to try anything against him and his clan.

Instead, Ves felt an increasing urge to spend his points. Designing a second-class mech was not easy at all, and as someone who had just been a third-class mech designer until recently, he still lacked the depth of accumulation of someone like Gloriana.

He was still not a match compared to genuine second-class mech designers, and that had always bothered him when he designed his Hexer mech!

Though the System did not explicitly delineate its Skills and Sub-Skills by class, upgrading some of his Skills to Senior would definitely go a long way!

Now, Ves had to make a choice. Which Skills should he upgrade?

"Hmmm. Assembly will probably help me operate advanced production equipment even better, but that is only relevant after a mech design has been finalized."

Upgrading it would probably increase his odds of fabricating a masterwork mech, but that was not a critical priority at the moment.

"My Battle Mechatronics Skill is still at Apprentice-level. That is pretty bad."

To be fair, this Skill was not comparable to the other ones in terms of fundamentals. It was very interdisciplinary and was inexorably tied to other fields of science and engineering.

Still, it was incredibly useful in designing original mechs from scratch. Ves knew that it would also increase his understanding of non-humanoid mech models.

While Ves did not have a burning desire to design a lot of bestial mechs, understanding their principles to a greater degree was still helpful in many ways.

"I should at least upgrade it once."

[Battle Mechatronics - Journeyman]: 25,000 DP

The price was very affordable. Once Ves confirmed his selection, his DP balance immediately decreased, and a huge influx of knowledge suddenly entered his mind!

Surprisingly, Ves felt no strain at all. The transfer process happened at an instance!

"Huh?" He frowned in confusion. "Is this Skill truly that easy to learn?"

No. Once Ves looked into his mind, he discovered why acquiring so much knowledge hadn't exerted his mind at all. It turned out that his Archimedes Rubal implant pretty much received the entire dump of data!

"It stored everything!"

That wasn't all. Once his implant received every scrap of knowledge related to Journeyman-level Battle Mechatronics, it slowly started to feed the data to his partially-digitized mind.

The entire process proceeded in an unnaturally smooth and gentle fashion. Though Ves didn't feel anything, once his thoughts wandered to this field, he immediately called up a bunch of theories that he definitely hadn't mastered before!

His eyes widened. "This is incredible!"

The entire process didn't last that long. Though his implant tried its best to prevent his mind from becoming strained, the bandwidth of data transfer was actually pretty scary!

Due to the partial digitization of his mind, Ves had become very good at processing and internalizing a lot of data.

In the end, Ves acquired all of the knowledge in an incredibly controlled and efficient manner. It was a lot better than before!

He momentarily closed his eyes and tried to test the acuity of his new knowledge. He found out that he could already make use of it, just like before. Though his utilization rate remained lower than someone who had already applied the knowledge in their work, at the very least he was a lot better off than those who simply learned everything by rote memorization!

"This is great!"

His excitement quickly died down. Journeyman-level Skills no longer bothered him even without his implant. Only Senior-level Skills caused him to feel a lot of dread. Previously, it took weeks to internalize the sheer amount of knowledge!

"Hmmm. I have 300,000 DP in reserve. That's enough to upgrade two Senior-level Skills and pick up some valuable Sub-Skills that are highly relevant to my remaining project."

After spending so much DP, he would hardly have any DP left to buy a couple of attribute candies, but Ves believed he could soon make it up after he completed his Hexer mech design.

"What I've learned just now is already incredibly insightful. I should upgrade it once more!"

[Battle Mechatronics - Senior]: 100,000 DP

As soon as Ves spent a considerable amount of DP, the System immediately served him with a mission notice.

[Upgrade Mission]

Mission: Design a Non-Humanoid Amphibian Mech

Difficulty: C-Rank

Prerequisites: [Battle Mechatronics - Journeyman]

Description

Humanoid mechs are not the only mechs in existence. The advantage of machines is that they are not constrained by a specific form. In many cases, mechs that differ from the human aesthetic can adapt to a specific battlefield than bipedal mechs with articulating limbs.

Design a non-humanoid mech that is suited for battle in an amphibian environment. Fabricate at least one copy of your amphibian mech design and sell it to a customer who makes use of it in an amphibian battle environment.

The mech design must be up to standard and exhibit your profound understanding of Battle Mechatronics.

Reward:

[Battle Mechatronics - Senior]

His face immediately turned ugly. He didn't forget about the Upgrade Missions that showed up whenever he wanted to acquire a new Senior-level Skill.

He had hoped the System would skip them on account of his strength. At the very least, he hoped to gain an easy mission that he could complete in a matter of days!

Sadly, the System was as strict as ever. Depending on its standards, Ves had no choice to but to invest months in designing a proper non-humanoid amphibian mech!

"What a strange mission. I don't even know where to begin. I don't think I have ever designed an amphibian mech. I can count the number of non-humanoid mechs I've designed with a single hand."

Battle Mechatronics was all about studying how the form and dimensions of a mech impacted its performance. It was quite important to the design of humanoid mechs, but played a much more important role to the design of bestial mechs!

Once he got over the implications of his mission, he moved on to upgrading another Main Skill.

"Which one should I choose next?"

Three choices came to mind. Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Propulsion all attracted him for different reasons.

As long as he could elevate his understanding of Electrical Engineering, a lot of problems related to his current mech design project would no longer trouble him as much!

"I would have to complete its Upgrade Mission first, and I don't know how long that will take!"

Mathematics helped him out in a lot of different fields. Aside from helping him program and configure more elaborate simulations, he would also be able to increase his understanding of highly complex theories related to high technology!

This was very relevant to the design of higher classes of mechs!

Finally, improving his Propulsion Skill would no longer hamper the mobility of his mech designs that much. His last couple of spaceborn mechs all featured abysmal mobility, which was not a good development!

Every Skill under his consideration was not only useful right away, but also laid the groundwork for the future.

His gaze finally landed on Electrical Engineering. In terms of immediate utility, this one brought the most practical benefits.

"System, can I skip the Upgrade Mission for my next Senior-level Skill? I really don't want to go through all of that trouble."

Surprisingly, the System responded to his half-serious query.

[User, diligence is an essential trait to a mech designer. Working hard is a virtue. In consideration of your current needs, the Mech Designer System is prepared to make an accommodation. As long as you agree to exchange 50,000 Design Points, you may directly pass over the Upgrade Mission.]

"WHAT?!"

Ves yelled so loudly that he startled both Nitaa and Lucky!

"Why didn't you tell me that before, you goddamn System!"

He had to resist the urge to bang the System comm against the metal crate he was sitting on. If he knew this earlier, he would have made some different choices!

Still, this offer came at a good time. While it was very wasteful to spend 50,000 DP to acquire a Skill, it all depended on how badly he needed it. As the previous Upgrade Mission had shown, the System wasn't going to let him off that easily!

"I can either spend months on designing a weird mech, or I can just skip all of that trouble for the handsome price of 50,000 DP."

Ves considered whether he should rather spend that 50,000 DP on a bunch of Sub-Skills instead. That was his original plan. Yet the more he thought about the integral ways his Hexer mech interacted with energy, the more this upgrade seemed essential.

"The better question to ask is whether my upcoming energy vampire knight mech is worth this much DP."

Even if he didn't achieve a revolutionary result, he was pretty confident that he would be able to earn 100,000 DP.

From that perspective, spending an extra 50,000 DP didn't sound like a big deal.

"Since I know that it will be useful, then let's grab it right away!"

[Electrical Engineering - Senior]: 150,000 DP (Skip Upgrade Mission)

Once he confirmed his choice, a huge amount of Design Points went down the drain. The System always demanded a price, and it would never pass up the opportunity to take advantage of him. Paying 50,000 DP to skip a mission that he could easily complete with time was probably a huge ripoff in its eyes!

Though Ves was aware of what he lost, he believed it was worth it. Sometimes, time was more valuable than all of the DP in his possession. It was just another currency to him. He could easily earn it back in the future.

"I'm just paying to win!"