The System provided a very ttering evaluation of the Crystal Lordpared to its usual conduct. It always graded his designs inparison with simr models whichpeted in the same market segment, so Ves always got a good picture on how his designs would fare in the market.


    The most important take from the evaluation was that the X-Factor finally broke through the ceiling! This immediately prompted Ves to whoop in excitement.


    "I did it! Hahaha! Finally!"


    The moment he Superpublished the design, the spirit of the crystal golem finally left his mind and began to inhabit the abruptly improved design. This lifted a huge weight off his chest, allowing Ves to breathe easy for the first time in months. He hadn’t realized how much of a burden the crystal golem represented.


    Its mental strength had actually grown by a fair margin! Ves just never realized the change because it happened gradually.


    "I hope you enjoy your new home!"


    While Ves had no idea what kind of difference it made, it was still a cause for celebration. He looked forward to seeing footage of the mech in battle and see whether its mech pilots drew strength from the X-Factor.


    After he got over his jubtion, Ves sobered up and started to study his design from a more sober perspective. What had the Superpublish function aplished? The System promised that the function wouldprehensively improve his design by ten percent.


    "What does ten percent actually mean?"


    It was like iming to improve a piece of art by ten percent. How could you quantify the improvement in an objective manner? Was it a straightforward boost in specs, or would the System work in a more indirect manner? Ves was very curious about its methods, so he quickly dove into the results.


    He turned his attention back to the evaluation.


    "Hm. It’s kind of a muddle, now that I see it. That’s not very great."


    While a lot of criteria scored rather high, some of them fell short of his expectations. Even with the power of the Superpublish effect, the System could only do so much to boost the inadequacies that he left in his design.


    His design received a lot of scores in the B range, which meant the Crystal Lord performed better than average in those criteria, but not to the extent of bing apelling selling point.


    His design also came with two very impactful weaknesses that Ves hadn’t fully taken into ount before he published his design.


    First, the carrying capacity of his mech was rather dismal for its mission profile. Mechs expected to be deployed for many days or weeks needed to carry its own supplies. As big, independent war machines famous for their ability to operate under difficult conditions without excessive requirements, having a rifleman mech that could hardly carry its own supplies was a big demerit.


    "It’s like a ship geared to traverse long distances but only having the fuel capacity toplete half of it. There’s a mismatch between possibility and reality."


    Still, his customers should be able to get around this problem by passing the burden on mechs with greater carrying capacities. While that sounded like a excuse, it happened all the time with regards to light mechs.


    Larger outfits even relied on dedicated transport shuttles or cargo mechs to carry their supplies during deployments.


    So while the Crystal Lord’s carrying capacity looked disappointing, it wasn’t anything fatal.


    "The cost is another matter."


    Despite using up much less expensivepressed armor ting than the ckbeak, the cost of the Crystal Lord actually surpassed the knight mech. The difficulty in reproducing the crystals embedded in the chest jacked up the price by quite a lot. Once he improved the crystal synthesizer, Ves expected to bring down the cost by a decent amount.


    Still, even if he solved this issue, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be able to charge an affordable price for his rifleman mechs. Even with a hundred percent sess rate in producing the crystals, the fact that it gobbled up a lot of pricy exotics added up a hefty amount to the total price tag.


    "It’s not cheap to implement these gimmicks." He frowned as he looked at the breakdown of the production cost of a single copy of the Crystal Lord.


    The goldbel mech with a full-sized chest crystal cost 10 million credits more than a mech that left out this boondoggle.


    The cost became much more generous if Ves shrank its size as he nned to do with the bronze and silverbel versions of the same model. The extra costs would only amount to 4 to 5 million credits.


    The total estimated production cost was hard to determine due to the constant fluctuation in the price of raw materials. For the goldbel Crystal Lord, Ves carefully estimated that it cost around 45 to 50 million credits to reproduce a single copy.


    Ves couldn’t help but wince when he finished his calctions. "This is already more than the ckbeak."


    Many people would scratch their heads if they saw the difference in costs. Rifleman mechs always cost less than knight mechs. Only rarely would the reverse be true, especially with models that shared so manymonalities with each other.


    "Well, the ckbeak is a basic mech that looks beautiful on its own while the Crystal Lord needs a big fat jewel in order to feel appreciated."


    The ckbeak product linepeted in a fairly niche market segment. Thepetition wasn’t as intense, allowing Ves to focus on its fundamental attributes and rely on them to drive its sales.


    The Crystal Lord faced a much more brutal environment. It was not enough topete on an even ying field. It needed a step up in order to stand out from the dominant models in the market.


    Ves relied on several unique advantages to increase the appeal of his Crystal Lords. "The specs, the gimmicks, the X-Factor and my Mastery should all be powerful draws in unison."


    He didn’t let his design’s shiny toys distract him from his core goal to deliver a well-performing design.


    As the System’s evaluation attested, the performance of his rifleman mech by andrge surpassed its equivalents by a modest margin. As Ves called up the Superpublished design andpared it to the pre-published version, he spotted various subtle but ingenious improvements.


    "It’s truly worth it to Superpublish this design!"


    If he hadn’t gone for this extra step, then he wouldn’t be able to justify the prices he nned to charge for his mech. His own thoughtsbined with the consultations he held with the Marketing Department allowed him toe up with a tentative pricing scheme that would slightly put the ckbeak to shame.


    "The bronzebel variant should cost 65 million credits while the silverbel will still look appealing if I charge 75 million credits for it. As for the goldbel Crystal Lord, only a price of 90 million credits will do it justice."


    The premium he charged for the bronzebel version that the LMC would rely on third-party manufacturers to produce looked very reasonable. It cost a bit more than a ckbeak, but its performancebined with the value that the gimmicks brought to the table should lead to a brisk amount of sales.


    The LMC mass produced the silverbel version in-house, therefore they cost a fair bit more. In exchange, buyers would receive a Crystal Lord with the same crystals as the bronzebel versions, but activated with the help of the crystal cube.


    "Anyone else can reproduce these crystals given time and effort."


    When the LMC would inevitably bestow some licensing contracts to a couple of third-party manufacturers, they would receive detailed design schematics that lined out how to create the crystals.


    Ves never expected to keep its secrets to himself. Due to the MTA’s enforcement of licensing structures, Ves would still be able to benefit in case some otherpany pirated his innovations, but that still allowed hispetitors to flood the market with imitation models.


    Being an innovator meant you had to spend a lot of money and resources to invent something new. While this allowed you to release a product on the market that enabled you to recoup your costs, it also enabled rivals to copy your finished product and release their own versions without those burdens.


    "This is why the licensing scheme exists."


    The MTA knew that designs could never stay confidential and thatpetitors constantly stole from each other. The licensing scheme existed to moderate these tendencies and to encourage innovators to keep on inventing new stuff.


    To Ves, it didn’t always work, but at least it tried. "It’s better than nothing."


    The activated crystals which enjoyed a significant boost in powerpared to unactivated crystals allowed the LMC to protect itself against the inevitable outbreak of imitation models.


    When thosepetitors tried to copy what Ves had achieved, they would quickly find out that theycked an essential ingredient. Without it, their imitations would have no appealpared to the original models.


    Still, despite his many justifications for putting those high price tags on his products, it remained to be seen whether the market could stomach them. In a mech market where most premium rifleman mechs sold for around 40 to 45 million credits, asking buyers to cough up at least fifty percent more money to buy a slightly higher-performing model wasn’t easy.


    "It’s up to the Marketing Department from now on."


    Unless they convinced consumers that the Crystal Lord of the merits of its features, the LMC wouldn’t be able to charge a fair price. This would definitely be a herculean challenge for his up-anding mechpany.


    "We had a lot of help with the introduction of the ckbeak. This time, we’re on our own."


    The LMC released the ckbeak with a lot of fanfare because it was his first original design. That was something special and a milestone to any mech designer.


    Inparison with the abundant amount of publicity attracted to any debut designs, a second original design from the same mech designer hardly roused any interest. Buyers and publications both considered those kinds of product releases routine.


    "It’s going to be hard to attract the attention of a lot of publications and build up hype for the Crystal Lord."


    The problem was exacerbated by the fact that Ves might very well be absent at the uing press conference that would introduce the model to the gxy. Right now, Ves had a lot on his te, and very little time clear it up.


    "I best finish the rest of my to-do list."


    Ves proceeded to move quickly. In order to pass the MTA’s validation process for each new original mech design, he needed to deliver a physical copy for them. He therefore went up to the fabrication floor and reserved the Dortmund production line for himself.


    In the next three days, Ves carefully reproduced a wless copy of the goldbel Crystal Lord. Though he wanted to rush its fabrication, Ves forcefully pushed down his impatience and adhered to a slower pace that minimized the risk of slipping up.


    He paid the most attention to synthesizing and activating the two crystals that would apany the mech. He also capped off the finished product by personally affixing thebel and one of Lucky’s best gems in the cockpit of the mech.


    When Ves stepped back, he joined the mech technicians standing to the side. They all practically worshipped the first production mech as if it was a gode to life.


    What struck Ves the most at this point was that he could feel the impact of its powerful X-Factor in his heart. The mech radiated a sense of pride and threat in equal measure.


    Ves could not forget about the alien race’smentation for being so small. By fulfilling the dreams of the crystal golem of being put into a massive war machine that towered over most people it woulde into touch, it carried a sense ofpletion that Ves had never encountered before in his other mechs.


    The Crystal Lord hadn’t juste to life. It also enjoyed its return to the living.