The Mech Touch

Money trees weren't all that complicated. Ever since humanity first expanded its biotech capabilities, there were people who wanted to realize their fantasies of growing money on trees.

There was no logical reason why coins should be produced in such a convoluted manner.

Modern coin minting machines were much more precise and consistent in their output!

Nonetheless, humans were creatures of emotions. There were enough wealthy individuals throughout history who were willing to splurge a substantial proportion of their net worth to obtain their own money trees!

It was through the efforts of all of these rich profligates that the science and bioengineering of money trees reached a high degree of development.

Even though they were only used as prestige objects that their owners could show off to their guests, the money trees had become remarkably more efficient after generations of development.

They had turned into one of the favored objects of the nouveau riche looking to flaunt their prosperity!

It did not matter that buying the trees and making them grow coins wasted far more energy and resources than what they could yield through production.

All that mattered was their symbolism and how much they enhanced the image of their owners.

As Ves and Dr. Perris sat down behind a large desk terminal, the latter accessed a public database where they could license a huge number of gene templates of money trees.

"We can tackle this project in two different ways." The biotech expert said. "The more convenient solution is to license an existing gene template and alter their bioprogram so that they can grow the coins you require. Since everything is already in place, it takes a minimal amount of time and effort to complete this job. I do not know how that ties in with your design philosophy, but even if you need to put more work in the project, we can probably grow a small tree in a matter of days."

"What is the second option, then?" Ves asked.

"If you want to make a more serious effort, then I suggest that we license a gene template and buy a few textbooks. As long as we study these materials, we can design our own money tree based on the existing template. Although it is not as good as designing a money tree from scratch, we can apply any changes we need to help it perform the functions that you require. The amount of changes you need to make will determine how much time it takes to design the money tree and grow it into a usable state. It will take at least a week by my reckoning."

"Hmmm." Ves rubbed his smooth-shaven chin. "That's not as fast as I hope, but it will be worth it if it actually works."

For the sake of creating a viable method of producing living totems without his active intervention, Ves was willing to bear the additional time and effort!

"I have a suggestion." Dr. Perris spoke on her own initiative. "It is a risky move that will introduce new complexities to this project, but I believe it will make the end product more likely to succeed where your previous coin presses have failed."

"Please explain."

"One of the reasons why we have decided to make the meat suit out of the Titania's dead flesh is because it responds well to your methods. Rather than designing the money tree around plant cells that have fixed cell walls like ordinary trees, we can shape a money tree around the same principal material used in the Titan-3 Project."

Ves furrowed his brows. "Are you saying… you want to make a flesh tree?"

He shuddered yet again. Even if he had seen a few flesh or two back in the Life Research Association, he still couldn't get used to their sight!

"Will that even work?"

Dr. Perris nodded. "The Titania's flesh consists of cells that are similar to that of other animal organisms, but they are much stronger and more rigid than usual. They can easily be shaped into trees as long as we add enough bones as supporting structures. The resulting money tree will actually have more in common with an exobeast than a woody tree from a physiological perspective, but its behavior pattern will conform much closer to plant life."

In other words, the 'money tree' would not be a tree at all. Instead, it became a tree-shaped designer beast!

The differences between this abomination and a regular exobeast was that the latter was immobile, did not ingest food like a normal animal and was not as cute as a cat.

The mere thought of planting a Titania money tree in a garden made him feel a bit squeamish. Would such a 'creature' truly remain harmless? What if it morphed into an actual monster?

Yet… the extraordinary qualities of its flesh could not be denied. Ves had observed mountains of it in frozen form earlier in the day and he had discovered that they were compatible with some of his unique methods.

He just realized that the Titania's biomass was one of the best raw materials for combining biotechnology with spiritual engineering!

Let alone the meat suit and the money tree, Ves could develop all kinds of fantastic applications from this material that possessed powerful properties!

He even developed a growing desire to design a complete biomech with this material. Only his lack of knowledge and foundation in biomech design hindered him from going any further with this idea.

He glanced at the young biomech designer that he had picked up from the LRA.

If Dr. Perris advanced to Journeyman, he would seriously entertain the idea of collaborating with her to design a revolutionary biomech.

She wasn't at that point yet, though. Ves did not think it was worthwhile to collaborate with Apprentice Mech Designer.

"Have you made a decision, sir?"

"Ah. Yes. Let's proceed with your latest suggestion. I think we stand the best chance of fulfilling our goal if we leverage the special properties of the Titania's biomatter to our advantage. Even if the resulting flesh tree looks weirder than normal, as long as it grows the right coins, there's no need to quibble over its appearance."

Once Ves made up his mind, he began to work together with Dr. Perris to complete the first steps of the Golden Fruit Project.

They licensed the gene template of a money tree that was made with similar hardy flesh tissue to use as an example.

Dr. Perris also bought a lot of reading material that could help her master the necessary skills and theories to develop a working flesh tree.

"I will need to study all of these books and articles before I can seriously tackle this project." She told him. "Given that I have other obligations, I will not be able to complete my studies in a short amount of time."

"I understand. I'll leave you to your work and studies. Once you are ready to work on the Titan-3 Project or the Golden Fruit Project, give me a call. If I am not engaged in pressing work, I will be able to collaborate with you remotely."

Ves committed to a lot of additional work, but he felt it was worth it. At worst, he would just delay the start of the next design round for a couple of weeks.

After discussing the details of their cooperation, Ves finally left the Scarlet Garden with a lot of optimism.

He slowly forgot about the potential of biotechnology before his meeting with Dr. Perris. The discussions he held with her reminded him of all of the products he could develop that weren't possible by relying on conventional means.

There was no way of replicating the Titania money tree by relying on alloys and AI programming!

Such artificial trees lacked the fundamental qualities that enabled them to produce coins by growing them in an organic manner.

If the Golden Fruit Project worked the way he envisioned, then that opened up a lot of new doors for Ves. No longer would have to produce his totems manually when he could work with Dr. Perris to design all kinds of fleshy trees that could grow many different products.

From statuettes to firearms, there were many different ways to take advantage of this new 'production method'!

Unfortunately, it was a bit too unrealistic to develop a massive flesh tree that was capable of growing mech parts.

Such a tree would not only demand a huge amount of energy and nutrients, but also wouldn't be able to grow components that were always within tolerance. The variable nature of grown products made it virtually impossible for all of the parts produced in this manner to fit together like a seamless puzzle!

This was also why biomechs were grown as a whole rather than through assembling multiple smaller parts. Only by starting out in a relatively complete form would all of its parts and systems remain compatible while the biomech slowly grew into a mature form.

Ves put the matter aside. There were no active biomech units in the roster and there was no pressing need to add them to the current lineup.

"I should get back to my regular duties."

He just recalled that a bunch of his fellow Journeymen had recently a couple of ordinary mech design projects!

Not only that, but the other projects that were still in progress would soon reach completion in a week!

Given all of the new mech models that would soon become a part of the Larkinson Army's active lineup, he gave his fellow mech designers enough time to complete all of their outstanding work.

Once everyone was done with their remaining projects, Ves intended to hold a grand meeting so that they could survey all of the results and reflect on the completed design round.

"We're about to gain so many new mech designs that we don't even know what to do with them. There's not enough mech capacity in our fleet!"

Despite this condition, he was incredibly happy to obtain a lot of new mech models at once. The various mech legions could slowly replace their older and more redundant mechs with ones based on the newer models over time.

Once the Larkinson Clan was able to add a few more combat carriers to its fleet, enough room would open up to field the new models such as the deceptive Stingripper light harasser mech or the solid Rigid Wall defensive space knight.

"Ketis will also be ready to present her Monster Slayer model soon." Ves smiled.

The Monster Slayer was more special than the others because it was designed for the mech market from the beginning!

Although the Larkinson Clan earned a generous amount of money from selling the plunder taken from the previous battle, this was not a reliable way to pay the bills.

Publishing a new commercial mech design was the more sustainable way to earn money at this scale.

The Monster Slayer would become the first of many mech models that integrated the LMC into the Red Ocean's expansive mech market!

"I hope it will live up to the promises that Ketis has made."

The swordsman mech design was important for multiple reasons. As long as the Monster Slayer caught on in the mech market, the large and fairly powerful Wild Fighter Association would definitely seek further opportunities to cooperate with the Larkinson Clan!

"In fact, our successful business dealings with the Wild Fighter Association might inspire other powerful companies to cooperate with our Design Department!"

There were many powerful Seniors and Masters that could design more powerful mechs in the Red Ocean. The specifications of their mech designs were substantially higher, which made it difficult for Ves' work to compete against them on this basis.

However, he and Ketis possessed unique design philosophies and other advantages that allowed them to fulfill different needs.

If Ves wanted to make his mark in the Red Ocean's mech market, then he had to seek out these opportunities and spread his products further in this dwarf galaxy!