Ves derived a fair amount of the technology used in his design from studying the remains of the crystal builders. His design’s appearance and hunched posture faintly echoed the long dead race’s appearance. It was clear that the design formed something of an homage to the alien race.


    He did not do so because he worshipped the aliens, but because he wanted to please the crystal golem. The spirit inside his head had always nudged his design choices in this direction, and Ves found it best to amodate its wishes in order to maximize the chances of strengthening the X-Factor of his design.


    A thrilling sense of anticipation ran through his body as he thought about the end product. Besides its specs and its technical aspects, his design also excelled in the spiritual sense. It could in fact be one of its strongest point.


    Ves couldn’t wait toplete his design and experience its X-Factor in full force.


    "The ckbeak may be better put together as a mech, but its X-Factor simply can’tpare against this rifleman mech design."


    Still, the sess of his design in terms of X-Factor depended on the mood of the crystal golem. Ves attempted to please it in any way he could without setting back the performance of his mech.


    As for the Festive Cloud Generator, Ves decided to integrate it into the head of his design. He hesitated on the exact appearance of the head, but in the end chose to imitate the crystal builder’s strange head shape.


    Just like the alien race which inspired this mech, Ves designed the head to be a roughly humanoid shape but without any defined eyes, ears, nostrils or mouths. Instead, he spread a random amount of pin-shaped holes throughout the front, sides and back of the head. He only filled a couple of them with sensors, leaving the rest of the holes plugged at the very end.


    The head looked unsettling, and added to the threatening nature of his rifleman mech. Due to the strange shape of the head, Ves found it to be the perfect outlet for the Festive Cloud Generator. He integrated the module inside the neck and connected it to the holes in the head via dedicated channels.


    As for the color of the vapor, Ves decided to use the same understated brownish color as the exterior coating for his mech.


    "My ckbeak either releases ck or red phoenix mes, depending on the edition."


    In order to add some ir to those who requested it, Ves added in a soul blue shade as an alternative. This would turn the head into some kind of horrific entity that resembled a skeleton that came back to life. Ves thought this would give his design a much better visual impactpared to vapor dyed in earthen tones.


    "I don’t think many people will go for this option though." Ves considered. "Rifleman mech pilots aren’t eager to call out attention for themselves. If the heads of their mechs suddenly burn in bright blue, they’re liable to attract a lot more enemy fire."


    The ckbeak could afford to be focused on by enemy mechs, but his rifleman mech fared poorly if put in the center of attention. Even though both mechs shared the same same armor system, one had been designed as a damage sponge and the other had been designed to dish out the damage.


    After adding in the cloud generator, Ves essentially finished iterating his design. After this, he would no longer add new features and functionalities to his mech. From now on, he would proceed to optimize his design and smooth out its ws until he ended up with a polished rifleman mech that wouldn’t shame itself on the battlefield.


    "I’m almost finished!" He celebrated to himself, though the only one who heard his words was a bored Lucky who lounged around above his head. "Getting theseser crystals to work is a bit of a pain, but it’s well worth the effort."


    These gimmicks did not change the game entirely, but they provided a substantial amount of benefits, so long as Ves could actually turn them into reality. That was still in question, as Ves had never fabricated crystals up to this scale.


    The hardest part was already over. Afterpleting his rough and polished design, Ves no longer needed to strain his mind on making difficult design choices. All that remained was correcting any inefficiencies that Ves had inadvertently introduced in the design.


    Ves proceeded to throw his design in arge number of borate simtions. Through the use ofplicated mathematical models, Ves crunched the numbers and tested whether the armor coverage contained any hidden weaknesses or how many times theser rifle could fire in quick session before it malfunctioned or blew up.


    All of this was rtively boring work. Any results the simtions spat out prompted Ves to make minor tweaks such as thickening a te of armor by a couple of millimeters or shifting oneponent to the left by a simr margin. This was precision that entailed a lot of repetition.


    "The bigger design teams have dedicated analysts to process these simtions."


    It was a waste of time for mech designers to concern themselves with this kind of work. While it demanded a high understanding of mathematics and physics, it also involved rtively little design judgement, so the work didn’t have to be done by a mech designer.


    "If I work alone, I can finish a decently optimized design in a little over three months. If I have an entire team to back me up, I can either shorten the time by half, or get much more work done in the same amount of time."


    The tedium of taking care of every single detail brought a great burden to Ves, and it would only get worse over time. As his designs grew moreplex, the amount of details that needed to be taken care of increased as well. Eventually, it was a lot more efficient to offl-load the less essential tasks to assistants.


    "They don’t need to be as good as me in terms of design ability or mathematical understanding. They only have to be good at their assigned task."


    Manyrger mechpanies as well as the state-backed militaries relied on the works of design teams. The work of a single person always took longer toplete. Theck of involvement of others also made the mechs designed by a single person very insr in nature.


    This meant that such mechs possessed very pronounced strengths and weaknesses. This didn’t sound so bad, but sometimes a mech designer was so myopic that he overlooked a critical weakness in his design that would instantly plummet its value once revealed.


    Ves was not so conceited to think he could keep track of everything, including the things he didn’t know.


    "It seems like it’s inevitable for the LMC to be more professional."


    Ves would always treat the LMC as his own personal kingdom. He merely considered the act of expanding his design team akin to hiring a couple of court wizards. As long as Ves kept a tight leash on them, they would be unable to pose a threat to him and his kingdom.


    Still, just because he resolved to create a design team didn’t mean he could gather a number of people with the snap of his finger.


    "Hiring a number ofpetent assistants is easier than done. The best people are imed by the major yers when they are a long way from graduation."


    He needed to cultivate talent from the ranks. In that regard, calling any of his employees talented would be stretching it. The only way he could cut short the arduously long training process was to utilize the advantages of the System.


    "Before I design my third mech, I better stuff Carlos with a bunch of Intelligence Attribute Candies and see what happens."


    Ves doubted that Carlos possessed more intelligence than the average among humans. If his Intelligence Attribute happened to have shot up straight to 2.0, that was a different story entirely. His friend would experience a sea of change, and would be able to digest every textbook that Ves had gathered in a matter of days.


    While Ves daydreamed about cultivating Carlos, an rm suddenly interrupted his thoughts. A red light shed for several seconds, long enough for the seriousness of it to set in. Ves forcefully halted his istion and raced towards the terminal that connected to the outside world. He quickly called up Jake.


    "What’s going on outside?"


    "It’s bad. The Vesians havee!"


    That was all Ves needed to know. His jaw dropped and his heart skipped a beat. Even though he made a lot of preparations for their possible arrival, Ves secretly hoped they never decided toe to the Cloudy Curtain System.


    Out of all the rural systems around Bentheim, Cloudy Curtain was one of the poorest and least developed economies in the neighborhood. Despite the rising importance of the LMC to the, agriculture still remained the dominant export of this p.


    Even if the Vesians wanted to starve Bentheim of their food, the most a couple of mechs could do was burn some fields and destroy some processing nts. It would be impossible for an entire legion to scour the entire of all crops within a month.


    And when they left, the farming consortiums could simply clean up the wreckage and nt another batch of crops.


    No, the Vesians hadn’te to raid some farms. Their goal should be more than clear. Ves looked grimly at Jake’s projection. "They’reing for us, aren’t they?"


    "Sanyal-Ablin thinks that’s likely the case. The 3rd Imodris Legion is out in force and they’re simultaneously hitting over twenty differents at once. All of the targeteds in question are hosting some kind of industry rted to mechs or ships."


    In other words, the Vesians definitely targeted his Mech Nursery.


    "How many mechs are they bringing along?


    "If you take into ount the historical patterns as well as their usual modus operandi, they’re likely bringing in onepany of spaceborn mechs and twopanies ofndbound mechs. Mind you, these are full strengthpanies. They can’tpare against the mechs and people employed by the private sector."


    Leaving out the spaceborn mechs, Cloudy Curtain had to withstand the fury of more than eighty military-spec mechs.


    "Can the Mech Nursery withstand such a force?"


    "It’s doubtful." Jake replied, revealing his own apprehension at the nearing fleet ofbat carriers. "The defenses of the Mech Nursery can’t even withstand a singlepany of Legion mechs. Twopanies can absolutely overrun our base, although that doesn’t take into ount our mobile defenses."


    The Mech Nursery still possessed a way to survive the Vesian fury by relying on their allied mechs.


    "Talk to me about our mech disposition."


    "We’ve just discovered the Vesians, so it’s not clear how many mechs we can call up. Right now, Sanyal-Ablin has promised twenty-four high-quality mechs to our defense. These are top-of-the-line third-ss mechs, so they’ll be able to punch above their weight against the Vesians."


    Ves nodded in understanding. Sanyal-Ablin Security Services was a subsidiary of the Konsu n. As a partner of a second-rate state, the Konsu n was more than capable of maintaining such an expensive force of mechs in the standard of third-rate states.


    Still, even with the LMC’s current earning levels, they could ill afford to expand their already hefty contract with Sanyal-Ablin. They couldn’t rely on more than twenty-four mechs from the securitypany to defend their manufacturingplex.


    "As for the Avatars of Myth, you should know more about them than me, seeing that they’re under your solemand. As far as I’m aware of, your cousin Melkor has been drilling them non-stop in their current service mechs. Although they only bring nine mechs to the table if you include your cousin, their capabilities should be on par with the average Vesian squad."


    That brought their side to a third of the amount of mechs the Vesians would bring to bear. They were still horribly outnumbered, but if they fought cleverly, they still stood a chance of repelling the raiding force.


    "What about Walter’s Whalers? Have they gotten in touch yet?"


    "They have, but..." Jake hesitated a little. "They aren’t exactly eager toe to blows with the Vesians. They’ll do their part for sure, if only to meet their obligations, but we can’t force them to hold their ground."


    "That’s a problem." Ves frowned deeply. If the Whalers chickened out, where did that leave him? "How about the mercenaries? Please tell me they’re prepared to face the Vesians."