The Mech Touch

If this was a decade ago, Ves would have become ecstatic if he obtained such a large and elaborate collection of heirloom equipment.

Almost everything possessed a lot of value.

The modern transphasic weapons were much more powerful than their normal counterparts due to their ability to penetrate armor and energy shields. Only transphasic combat armor and transphasic shield generators possessed the means to resist this effect. As long as they were powerful and artistic enough, both types of equipment could be sold for thousands of MTA credits. The best pieces could even be sold for over ten-thousand MTA credits if the Larkinson Clan could find the right buyers!

The older antiques that possessed outdated tech might not be as usable anymore, but the rich and powerful colonists who ruled over Pima Prime V tended to collect them by the dozens or even the hundreds.

"These older fellows really like to decorate their walls with rows and rows of historical guns." Ves mildly remarked as he swept his gaze across a table that contained over a hundred phased-out Terran handguns. "Personally, I'm not a fan of this stuff. I can recognize that they were all good products over time, but these guys spent way too much money just so that they can brag about their collections."

Calabast chuckled. "Everyone needs hobbies, Ves. The high disposable incomes of a small subset of the population of the Gauge Dynasty encourages more extravagant spending. Collecting all of these relics is not just a sign of wealth, but also a sign that you possess the appreciation to value these refined objects and the connections to obtain these rare goods. Other people will think more highly of those that meet all of the qualifications to amass these kinds of collections. This is a similar dynamic to collecting hunting trophies. Mere numbers in a bank account cannot fully convey a person's success."

"I see."

As someone who most people considered nouveau riche, Ves still hadn't come around this elitist mindset. People tended to spend a lot of money on the most ridiculous luxuries.

Ves admittedly indulged himself in this manner as well, though it was mostly his wife who spent the most on luxury consumer goods such as handbags,dresses, shoes and even baby clothing.

At the very least, Ves tried to keep his profligate streak as productive as possible by channeling his urge to splurge into his mech design projects.

For example, he already drafted a plan to allocate a considerable chunk of the profits of the recent raids to fund the Dullahan Project.

The latest two revisions of the Shield of Samar cost the Larkinson Clan a lot of money to say the least, and that was when much of its armor and structure already consisted of Unending alloy that hadn't been priced into the design budget.

The Shield of Samar fell in battle due to participating in the raid of Pima Prime V to begin with. It was only right for Ves to make it right by using a large chunk of the proceeds of the planetary raids to fund its possible transformation and rebirth.

Ves considered it an attempt to ease his guilt and compensate Venerable Jannzi for the suffering she was enduring.

Calabast picked up a random antique and activated it before aiming it carefully up the ceiling. The Terran-made gun might be out of date, but its high-quality tech and material composition still granted it a huge amount of power in a comfortably small package.

"Can we keep a couple of hundred of these guns?" She asked. "Many of them can be life savers for the Black Cats in the field. Their styles and origins can help a lot with allowing our spies to blend into more well-off communities."

Ves glanced around the entire hall. The Larkinsons had plundered thousands of pieces of equipment from the villas and mansions of the wealthiest district of Ardam.

Though he found it a bit odd that their owners had left so much wealth behind, when he saw how much cargo space it would take to carry them all away, he figured that the hasty evacuation process left people with little time and space to take away their material goods.

Nothing was more important than safeguarding one's own life!

"You can keep 10 percent of this stuff." Ves finally replied. "You can keep the best and most practical gear, but I am not letting go of the revenue that we can earn from selling the rest to the right buyers. If the Fridaymen appreciate them to the point of adding them to their personal collections, then there ought to be plenty of discerning customers in Davute who are willing to pay serious money for this haul."

The spymaster frowned at the answer. "That is less than I was asking for, but I suppose it is better than nothing."

The woman carefully put down the weapon in her hand and continued to survey the other pieces of equipment.

Ves and Calabast proceeded to inspect the items that deserved the greatest amount of attention. Each of them were special in different ways.

For example, Calabast brought Ves over to a separate table where a full set of high-quality gear had been placed on the surface.

Ves had already noticed the peculiarity of this set as soon as he entered the hall, but now that he got closer, he was fully able to appreciate this exceptional display of craftsmanship.

His inner Vulcan already became excited at the sight of all of the works.

"This is…"

"This is the Arminio Collection, one of the most renowned collections of personal gear that has ever been produced in the Friday Coalition." Calabast proudly introduced in a way that made it sound as if the Larkinsons had been entrusted with the coordinated pieces of equipment.

Ves had observed plenty of masterwork mechs throughout his life. The Masterwork Galleries were his favorite types of museums in the Red Ocean.

He and his clan even made a bunch of masterwork mechs themselves. Whenever Ves was in the mood to contemplate his craftsmanship or just wanted to enjoy the sight of a fantastic example of craftsmanship, he could visit the hangar bays where one of the several Larkinson masterwork mechs were stored.

Yet despite his unusually extensive experiences with masterwork mechs, Ves became increasingly more impressed at the sight of the so-called Arminio Collection.

On the surface, it consisted of a full set of top-grade second-class equipment that was made roughly a decade before the start of the Komodo War.

"They're all masterworks!"

"That's right, Ves. It took one-and-a-half years for Master Smith Kelaco Urvier to design the collection and source every rare material before he handcrafted each and every piece of equipment. He proceeded to earn several prestigious industry awards for completing this string of masterworks."

As a mech designer who possessed a bunch of masterwork certificates, Ves fully understood how difficult it was to make so many consecutive masterwork products, especially when they were discrete from each other.

Though it looked as if the difficulty of turning imposing mechs into masterworks was much more difficult due to their vastly greater scale, the truth was actually a lot more nuanced.

Mech designers simply accomplished difficult feats a lot easier due to their extraordinary characteristics.

Gunsmiths and armorsmiths did not necessarily enjoy the same benefits, so they had to be able to make masterworks by relying on nothing but impressive skills, extensive experience and personal brilliance.

People like Master Smith Kelaco Urvier deserved almost just as much respect as Master Mech Designers for their accomplishments and their excellent ability to develop new products!

When Ves used his comm to look up the maker in question, he discovered that Master Urvier was a 300 year old geezer who came from a long line of celebrated gunsmiths and armorsmiths.

The Urviers emerged way back during the height of the Age of Conquest when humanity had reached its zenith!

When Ves tried to find out more about the man's design philosophy, he found articles that described that Master Kelaco Urvier did not pursue any extreme concepts.

Instead, the old man prized the integration of technology in people's daily lives. He made his products with the intention of making them as practical and useful as possible.

This was why many of his works were remarkably small and light. The intention was to make their owners carry them around and have them handy when they were needed the most.

It was a pity that the last owner of the Arminio Collection completely disregarded the maker's wishes. The valuable pieces of gear had remained locked inside a dark and isolated vault throughout the crisis that had befallen Pima Prime V.

Now that he familiarized himself with the smith that created the collection, he began to inspect the individual pieces in further detail.

The elegant suit of light combat armor was the largest, most expensive and most prominent piece of equipment. It was surprisingly small, thin and light and could be folded into a large suitcase for convenience and camouflage.

Despite its lack of bulk, it still managed to cram in a full set of advanced components and systems due to a heavy reliance on miniaturization.

Unfortunately, the high priority on making the suit of combat armor as portable as possible meant that it did not come with inherent defensive boost or any other extra functionality.

In line with the armor's compact design, it was paired with two different compact weapons, a small laser pistol and a heated combat knife. The weapons were each made to exacting standards and continued to adhere to the uniform design concept of making them as powerful as possible while still adhering to strict size and mass constraints.

To complete the ensemble, the maker of this collection created additional modules that could be slotted to the combat armor at the cost of making it bulkier.

There was an ECM module that could drastically make it easier for the wearer of the collection to hide himself from detection.

There was an automatic repair module that could fix and maintain the elaborate collection in the field without requiring the help of any engineers or technicians.

There was also a back-mounted shield generator that provided the combat armor with a massive increase in defensive power at the cost of adding a lot of bulk.

Overall, this was a fairly complete and rounded loadout that was completely designed to work with each other.

At its greatest, the Arminio Collection was exactly what Ves would have wanted to wear when he went out on dangerous excursions in past events!

Ves felt tempted to reserve it for his own use even now. There were several reasons why he decided not to claim the Arminio Collection for himself.

First, it was made by someone else. Ves had become accustomed to designing and making gear for himself. Since he possessed sufficient skill and expertise to meet his own needs, why should he bother with products made by others?

Even if Master Urvier was undoubtedly more skilled in developing personal equipment, Ves could never fully understand the pieces of the Arminio Collection.

Second, the configuration was not entirely fitting to Ves. If he ever ended up in another crisis situation, he would rather entrust his life to bulkier and more robust pieces of equipment. He wanted to have access to serious hardware that didn't look like they could snap in half as soon as they endured greater pressure than they were rated to withstand.

However, there was also a third and more important reason why the Arminio Collection did not satisfy his needs.

"This is an excellent ensemble of masterworks, but… the gear is already dated." Ves sighed. "The pieces are not just relics from the previous generation, but they're also incapable of keeping up with the latest transphasic products."

"You can always upgrade them by adding phasewater to them." Calabast suggested.

Ves shook his head in rejection. "That is extremely complicated and would take a huge amount of time. Not only that, it would be disrespectful for me to tamper with a set of masterworks that Master Urvier designed with a specific vision and intentions in mind. He may be a Fridayman, but that does not stop me from respecting him as a fellow artisan."

"What do you want to do with this collection if you don't intend to use it for yourself?"

"I'll add it to my trophy case." Ves smiled. "It's a nice way to commemorate the success of Operation Saturday Market. Perhaps it might provide me with inspiration as I stare at it whenever I am sitting in my office."