"Not now."

"Meow."

Lucky landed on his head and treated his hair like a mat.

"Are you getting fatter? You’re heavier than last time!"

"Meow!"

Ves no longer bothered with his misbehaving cat and turned his attention back to the four battle bots he almost finished servicing.

A large number of workshop bots were installing the parts he disassembled and repaired. Ordinarily it would have taken at least a week to effect these repairs on his own, but the Scarlet Rose’s well-equipped mech workshop came with many of the same advanced tools as those owned by Gloriana.

While the machines all came from Coalition manufacturers, their functions and operation methods closely abided by the standards set by the MTA.

Standardization made everything easier. If an equipment manufacturer refused to conform to standard, then hardly any customer would seek to purchase their products!

Taking advantage of his familiarity with the same type of equipment, Ves managed to get the hang of them pretty quickly, to the point where he operated them just as well as Aisling!

"Second-class mech designers sure have it good." He sighed with admiration.

Of course, elite Journeymen like her weren’t very common even in a large state like the Friday Coalition. Ves just happened to meet two of the brightest young Journeymen from their respective states, which somewhat skewed his perspective.

Not every Journeyman was as freakish as these two young women!

His perceived disparity towards these mech designers lit a fire under his butt. With the replenishment of his spiritual energy, his passion and motivation returned, and with it an unrelenting drive to catch up to the likes of Aisling and Gloriana!

Ves could accept many circumstances, but he could not accept remaining inferior to his girlfriend and his would-be kidnapper!

Though they possessed vastly different backgrounds, their ages were similar. There was no excuse for Ves to be unable to design at the same level as them! With all of the advantages he possessed, becoming proficient in designing second-class mechs should be well within his capabilities!

For this reason, Ves decided to stop increasing his control over the Scarlet Rose and instead focus all of his efforts on deciphering and understanding Aisling’s former bodyguard mechs.

The more he spent time with them, the more he grasped the paradigms related to this class of mechs.

The performance on these mechs were on another level compared to the toys he used to fiddle with. The results of the previous battles spoke for themselves. Against hundreds of enemy mechs, the pilot-less machines were still capable of crushing and disheartening entire mercenary corps with their awe-inspiring might!

Touching, servicing, repairing and witnessing the battle bots in battle rapidly accelerated his comprehension of second-class mechs and second-class technology.

As a mech designer who always liked to be hands-on, working with machines was a lot better than reading hundreds of textbooks!

This was not just because he could see the cause and effect in person, but also develop a natural feel towards this class of mechs!

Ves vaguely sensed that his design seed and his intuition both experienced some growth and changes as a result of his activities.

He believed that as long as he returned to safety, it would only take a couple more months of focused study and tinkering to gain a satisfactory proficiency in second-class mech design!

Though it sounded a lot, Ves knew that this process couldn’t be rushed! He was already progressing at the limits of his learning capacity!

"As long as I get to keep these battle bots, I’ll definitely be able to harvest more and more from Aisling’s work!"

Of course, relying too much on studying the converted mechs had its downsides as well.

Ves had to be careful not to get swept up in Aisling’s approach to her work.

By studying her design choices, Ves would doubtlessly copy some of them without making sure they conformed to his own design style.

However, Ves was very confident about his design capabilities. It wasn’t easy for someone else’s design style and design philosophy to contaminate his own approach.

"Study always involves adopting someone else’s best practices." He muttered. "As long as it is better, there is hardly an excuse to ignore it in favor of an inferior solution."

Ves didn’t have the time to take it slow and steady like Patricia. With Gloriana’s mother expecting him to prove himself in less than three years, he rapidly needed to master a higher class of mech design!

Not only that, but Ves also had to earn a humongous amount of MTA merits to become a galactic pioneer and take part in the great phasewater rush.

He would definitely feel regret for the rest of his life if he missed the first waves of humanity’s invasion of this new and exciting dwarf galaxy!

Ves had always been someone who worked better under pressure. With so much on the line, his passion burned hotter, stimulating his emotions and causing him to be utterly consumed by his determination to master this class of mechs!

What aided him a lot was that the four pilot-less second-class mechs each consisted of a different archetype.

Not only that, but they happened to be among the most fundamental and common mech types in the mech market!

The Paravin was the simplest mech of all. As a space knight, it featured a simple but very sturdy internal architecture. Even with more advanced tech, Aisling still abided by the same common principles that governed all defensive mechs.

Simplicity did not necessarily equate to inferiority. The Paravin’s solid design and construction elevated its damage resistance and shock-absorbing capabilities to a level Ves had scarcely witnessed elsewhere!

The Selzer was the standard of ranged mechs. As a rifleman mech, it possessed a great balance between firepower, endurance, mobility and range. Aisling managed to find a great balance with all of the materials tech at her disposal. Her design brought out all of the strengths of her resources without exhibiting any excessive waste.

Its dual-type weapon was a great object of interest to Ves. The commonalities between laser weapons and particle beam weapons meant that it was not impossible to design a weapon that accommodated both weapon types.

As Ves was very familiar with laser weapons, he only studied this aspect for a brief period of time before he thoroughly comprehended how they could be scaled to second-class standards.

"Particle beam weapons are much more interesting." He muttered.

Particle beam weapons were basically weaponized particle accelerators. They electromagnetically propelled charged atomic or subatomic particles to relativistic speeds.

Though the mass of these particles were almost trivial, when their speeds approached the speed of light, the kinetic energy they carried was incredibly powerful!

Upon hitting a target, all kinds of detrimental effects occurred. The energies involved in a collision dealt both physical and energy damage that was extremely damaging against any manner of defense, but worked especially well against physical armor!

Of particular interest the type of particles the weapons accelerated. The Friday Coalition’s particle beam weapons mostly accelerated ionized atoms, which was a lot easier to work with compared to subatomic particles.

"It seems the Friday Coalition can’t easily make use of more sophisticated particle beam weapons." He observed.

The Selzer was already a fairly advanced mech in the standards of the Friday Coalition.

Yet its particle beam rifle simply didn’t compare to the positron beam weapons utilized by the first-class multipurpose mechs that Ves witnessed during one of his Mastery experiences!

A positron was a subatomic antiparticle. In simple terms, it was the mirror version of an electron.

When a single electron and a positron met together, they annihilated each other, converting all of their matter into energy!

The release of energy was incredibly tremendous and surpassed that of a nuclear reaction of the same scale!

Compared to this awesome destruction, Ves felt a bit underwhelmed by the modest parameters of the weapon wielded by the Selzer.

"It probably doesn’t help that the rifle also has to fire laser beams." He muttered.

Particle beams were incredibly destructive, but they differed from pure energy weapons by their dependence on particles. Incorporating a backup option that purely relied on energy extended the deployment time of the Selzer, as its heat and energy capacities were quite formidable for a machine of its size!

Ves already designed multiple rifleman mechs. The Crystal Lord was his first proper landbound rifleman mech, while the Desolate Soldier was his first ranged product for battles in space.

Developing the Deliverer increased his depth in ranged mechs. Yet when he compared his previous works to the Selzer, Ves realized that he had a lot more to go before matching its sophistication.

The Kravon was the big brother of the Selzer. Though not a heavy mech, its mass and properties closely approximated one. In exchange for increasing its capacity and armor, Aisling decisively sacrificed a lot of mobility.

Due to the limitations of its weight class, it only incorporated two weapon systems, both of which were burdened by the fact that they used up a lot of ammunition.

This turned the artillery mech into the opposite of the Selzer. Whereas the rifleman mech was capable to outputting continuous damage over the course of a long, drawn-out battle, the Kravon hit hard but expended its ammunition very quickly!

It was all worth it though as the Kravon’s damage reached an astounding level. Leaving aside the missile launchers which could fire all kinds of specialized missiles with different payloads, its massive gauss cannon was a sight to behold.

Compared to the Executor that Ves had paired with the Deliverer, the Kravon’s main armament was a weapon that could pose as the primary of secondary armament of a warship!

It was too bad that a weapon of its power and potency was too advanced for Ves to reproduce. Just the materials capable of handing the forces the weapon had to withstand were too difficult to obtain!

Compared to the size and bulk of the Kravon, the Fliskin was a lot slimmer and smaller.

As a spaceborn light skirmisher, its armor was the worst out of the four machines, but its insane mobility made it even harder to destroy than the Paravin!

As long as the Fliskin possessed enough energy, it could dance circles against almost any foe!

"It’s too bad that energy is also its main limitation." He sighed.

As a small and compact mech, the Fliskin really didn’t have much room for energy cells and other essential components.

Ves could practically sense Aisling’s pain as she had to make many unsatisfying compromises in order to avoid making the Fliskin too uneven.

For all of the Friday Coalition’s technologies, the light skirmisher only made use of a pair daggers and a submachine gun.

He always found that to be a bit disappointing. Couldn’t a mighty second-rate state manage to achieve anything more?

Yet once he delved into the Fliskin’s design, Ves realized that Aisling didn’t want to bite off more than she could chew.

Just like with the Paravin, instead of stuffing too many systems and modules in an already-compact mech, she instead focused most of her efforts on elevating its fundamental specs!

For a light skirmisher, nothing was more important than its acceleration and agility! As long as its comprehensive mobility attributes were high, the mech fulfilled an indispensable role in the team of four mechs.

"What’s not important is how these four mechs perform in isolation. Instead, what matters more is how well they work together!"

He couldn’t help but be intrigued by Aisling’s design philosophy. Her paradigms partially overlapped with his own, and he always exhibited an interest in increasing the coordination between the users of his products.

Any method which improved the performance of mechs without increasing their cost was of great value to mech designers.

Those who merely relied on expensive materials to improve the performance of their products were the laziest mech designers of all!

If Ves wanted to gain a foothold in the second-class mech market, then Ves had to refine his own specialty and design style to compete against mech designers who were just as good if not better than Aisling!historical