After exining the rules, the executive retreated and allowed others to direct the first round. A guide brought every designer to their allocated QuickForge system.


    A marvel of engineering, every QuickForge cost as much as a hundred mech workshops. Its impressive capabilities allowed for almost instant fabrication of any device as long as itsplexity did not exceed a certain standard. Though insufficient to mass-produce any currentgen mechs, it had no trouble in pumping out two-hundred year old designs.


    "These are the toys that the students of Leemar can polish their design skills." Ves guessed. The Carnegie Group didn’t design these QuickForge units for a simplepetition. "How I envy those who gained the chance to study here."


    Designers who spent a lot of time with these miraculous systems could gain a lot of proficiency in working with real mechs. Though the assembly process was massively simplified and sped up, it still provided much more hands-on experience than working with simtions and projections.


    Once everyone reached their assigned stations, they waited for the signal to start.


    "Three, two, one, go!"


    Everyone rapidly engaged the QuickForge system. The students from Leemar had a distinct advantage. They used their familiarity with its systems to immediately start fabricating a frame. Sophisticated assembly arms sh-produced the alloys in midair, kept aloft by the most precise antigrav emitters.


    Impressed by the speed of which these systems produced a frame, Ves hurriedly tried to catch up.


    "Right. If I want to finish a frame at the fastest speed possible, I’ll have to go for a light mech."


    Though he preferred to design a versatile medium mech, itsrger mass and size meant it took more work to get it running. A light mech not only had a reduced material requirement, its limited loadout meant it only needed a couple of smallponents to make it fully functional.


    As Ves wanted to make his mech count in the first half of the round, he focused on improving his mech’s peak capabilities. It needed all the performance it could get in order to remainpetitive with the mechs submitted a few hourster. The battlefield fortunately featured small resupply depots where mechs could supplement their ammunition and energy, so mechs with shorter running times still had a chance.


    After a brief consideration, he therefore picked a sprinter mech. He rapidly scanned the list of pre-madeponents and picked out aundry list of limbs and internal parts. He particrly paid attention to the legs. Drawing from his experience with the Octagon series, he focused on prioritizing agility instead of top speed, though not to such an extreme extent this time.


    "In the early stages of the free-for-all, it’s more important for a mech to be able to avoid damage. The less damage it incurs, the longer it willst."


    Some mech designers chose to go for the opposite strategy. They built a crude heavy mech brimming with armaments. Such a heavy brick relied on its immense armor and firepower to deter others from taking it on even as it sluggishly transported a coin. The tiny light mechs like what Ves had in mind gained no advantage in taking on such monsters.


    Though fairly safe, their limited speed and mobility meant that these lumbering oafs had a lot of difficulties finding coins. They could only cover a limited area. Even if they spotted a coin, any rival mech could easily snatch it before the heavy mech reached the spawning point.


    "Heavy mechs are just a dead-end in this mode." Ves concluded. Only heavy mech specialists had a way to make it viable. Anyone else only risked their downfall if they yed with something they didn’t fully master.


    Now that he developed a concept, he had to attach the proper image to his design. In a contest like this where his entire future was at stake, he had to pull out all the stops. Even as his slower rivals all began to fabricate their parts, Ves still remained unmoved. He closed his eyes and sharpened his intent.


    "My mech will be a steed fit for the most talented pilot. A proud machine, it cherishes its freedom to move. Any location is within reach. None may spheme its integrity. Vitors will be speared by its horn if they are weak. Those who are stronger can never touch its surface, for my mech is fleet of foot and can depart whenever it wishes."


    Ves envisioned a unicorn in the form of a humanoid light mech. Proud, invible and fleet of foot. The new design he had in mindbined all three aspects into a coherent whole. He felt empowered by his vision.


    "Let’s go."


    He started to design and fabricate his mech. Though the interface of the QuickForge system wasplex, it basically functioned as a monstrous amalgamation of a design terminal, a 3d printer and an assembly system. As Ves was quite familiar with each system, he had little trouble adjusting to thebined controls.


    He put his full attention into getting his light mech assembled properly. Though the QuickForge system elerated the fabrication and assembly process to a ludicrous speed, it also risked the amplification of any unaddressed faults. A tiny misalignment betweenponents could snowball into a massive cascade of structural instability. Ves had to keep his eyes peeled and work with utmost precision in order to maintain control.


    The only snag he faced was that he had to tune out thementators.


    "...Look at the beauty Cris Adrian has in mind!" A male announcer pointed out. "From how manyponents he has in mind, he’s definitely going to make his ssh in the mid-game!"


    At least the mech designers had some measure of privacy this time. Opaque screens blocked their view of their rivals. In addition, each designer had ess to a function where they could obscure all of their actions to the entire audience. This allowed designers to hide their proprietary techniques, though they were only allotted an hour of privacy in total.


    A female announcerplemented her colleague. "Cris Adrian is one of Leemar’s top graduates of this year. He has graduated cumude in mech design, so his foundation is top notch! He recently epted an invitation to work for the Carnegie Group directly, so he’s certainly the man of the hour at this moment!"


    "While Cris is a talentedd, look at his self-dered eternal rival! Mortimer Presutti is on fire! Having climbed from a life from the slums in a dusty at the edge of the Carnegie Group’s sphere of influence, he quickly gained appreciation from everyone due to his remarkable intelligence. Now that he’s reached this stage, I’m certain this one-in-a-century talent will dazzle us all with his nimble design!"


    That caused Ves to stutter a bit, which almost screwed up his work on fusing a leg to a torso. If not for his quick reaction, he might have wasted a lot of time.


    "This Mortimer sounds like trouble. If he’s going for a light mech, then he’ll be releasing his mech in the same time frame as mine. I can’t let him get the better pilot."


    With this new information in mind, Ves began to work more recklessly. Though he started to slip up now and then, most of the errors were too inconsequential to bother addressing. He pushed his assembly skills to the limit by speeding up as fast as possible while maintaining control. He felt as if he was bncing on a knife edge. Instead of slowing down to catch his bnce, he instead moved faster, causing him to wobble harder.


    "We’ve tallied all five hundred in-progress designs and put our brightest minds to work. The preliminary results are in! About 93 are light mechs, 320 are medium mechs, and the remaining 87 are heavy mechs."


    "That sounds about right. There’s always an even proportion of light and heavy mechs every year."


    "How many of them are aerial mechs?"


    "A staggering 78 designs show openings for flight systems. It seems like a significant amount of them are built to hunt for coins."


    "The cowards! Don’t these designers have any confidence in their work! I want to see some action!"


    Ves slowed down when he reached the arms and legs. In order to preserve his design’s offensive power, he had to pay particr attention to the muscture in the limbs. The default scheme of the limbs were sorely outdated. With the advantage of two hundred years of progress, he radically tore out the oldyout and began to swiftly implement a crude but modern muscture. Though not as good as a proper scheme, his improvised work still raised the specs of all four limbs by a significant amount.


    He optimized his mech for wielding spears, though he also added in aser pistol to deter any fliers. While the pistol did not amount to much of a threat, it was sufficient in holding off opportunists who wanted to pick off an easy target.


    Though the rules did not reward a kill, one of the viable strategies in this mode was to eliminate as muchpetition as possible before they umted a lot of coins. The best targets were those who were in the middle of transporting their own coins.


    "Enough about the boys. Let’s check out how the girls are doing! Just look at Cynthia Barakovski’s fearsome light mech. It’s only partially but it already looks like a maneater. It certainly possesses the most bite out of all the light mechs."


    "Oh I don’t dispute that, but she could certainly speed up a little. By the time she finishes this monster, the battle will already progress to the middle stages."


    Ves idly noted Barakovski’s mention. Despite her average skill in mechanics, her mech should still be a formidable machine in terms of armor and weapons. If she intended to take her time, then she was certainly designing a light mech killer. That was bad news for him.


    "Looks like our mechs might sh." He muttered. If he allocated more time on his mech, he could close the gap, but that meant he’d miss out on the best pilots in the pool. In order to reach the finals, he had to give up a lot of toys and settle for something fast and cheap.