In hisst Mastery experience, Ves spent a week inside Eloise Pelican’s mind.
Venerable Pelican was a respectable mech pilot even before she became an expert pilot.
While Ves did not relish his stay inside the mind of a woman and especially a mother who missed her son, he had nothing toin about when it came to her deployments or her battle performance.
A decade of harsh living and dealing with constant shortages turned Eloise and the rest of the mercenary corps she was a part of into stoic, disciplined warriors. Their conduct was exemry for remaining stuck in the horrible Dark Sphere for so long.
This was very different. For some reason that Ves couldn’t fathom, the System had the bright idea of inserting his consciousness into the mind of a drugged-out wastrel!
In the six hours that passed since Ves entered Axr’s mind, he spent most of that time trying to anchor his consciousness in ce against the violent waves of pleasure and euphoria induced my frequent injections of recreational stimnts!
Benny Smit, Axr’s tough and sturdy-looking bodyguard, obediently brought out a seemingly endless amount of high-tech syringes from his uniform!
"Oh, hell no, not another injection! This is your fifteenth already! How can an utterly degenerate person like you still remain alive with all of the drugs running through your body?!" Ves mentally wailed, not that Axr was even coherent enough to detect the intrusion in his mind!
As the waves of chemical pleasure grew into yet another tsunami of euphoria, Ves endured the tides as best he could while he tried to dig out the details of where hended this time.
Axr’s constant highs made it very difficult for Ves to dig up details from the mind of his host. If Ves hadn’t broke through to Journeyman, he would have faced a steeper challenge.
Fortunately, his vastly-improved Spirituality allowed him to resist the tides and employ his abilities with more finesse. Even under adverse conditions, Ves slowly managed to glean some details about the current time and ce.
As soon as Ves found out in which state hended in, his consciousness practically jumped out of Axr’s mind!
"What! I’m in the Greater Terran United Confederation!"
This was a massive surprise! This was so far beyond his previous Mastery experiences that Ves turned speechless.
The System deposited him deep inside the gctic center!
Not only that, but Ves also entered the mind of a highborn scion of the Streon n, which ruled over several hundred star systems in the extremely prosperous Radiant Pulsar Star Sector!
The Radiant Pulsar Star Sector wasn’t anything like the Komodo Star Sector. Comparing the two was likeparing a in nutrient pack to a twenty-one course meal prepared by the best human chef in the gxy!
No third-rate states existed in the Radiant Pulsar Star Sector. In fact, no second-rate state existed either. The entire star sector was just one of many ludicrously prosperous star sectors in the Greater Terran United Confederation.
Still, just because Radiant Pulsar was only ruled by a single state didn’t mean that everything was peaceful.
Just like how the noble houses of the New Rubarth Empire struggled for power, wealth and influence, the Terrans were little different.
Various ancient ns with pedigrees spanning for thousands of years constantlypeted against each other.
The only difference was that the Rubarthan houses frequently rose and fell. Hardly any noble house could rest on theirurels and rely on their past achievements to enjoy their positions of power.
As the originator of the Societal Vitality Theory, the Rubarthan houses were constantlypelled to fight in order to maintain or expand their current positions in their huge superstate.
While the Terrans snobbishly regarded themselves better than the Rubarthans, thepetition between its ancient ns was just as serious, if not as frequent or violent.
Any conflict orpetition that yed out between the various rivalling ns only yed out in extremely restricted battlefields determined in advance. Ves already knew that ns could only send out a restricted number of mechs to another star system and engage in battle in a very narrow region in order to determine whether the conquest seeded.
This pattern of fighting led to a very peculiar mech culture in the Greater Terran United Confederation.
While ns still spent huge amounts of resources to maintainrge standing mech armies, they nheless put most of their attention to training a smaller number of elite mech forces.
With every conflict between the ns restricted to a rtively modest number of mechs, it was vitally important that each n raised at least one elite mech corps!
The amount of mechs the Terrans allowed to fight at any one time for the ownership of a star system differed from star sector to star sector. In the Radiant Star Sector, the maximum amount of mechs a n could bring to a restricted battle was 50,000 mechs, which amounted to a full mech corps.
This sounded like a lot, but it was actually very smallpared to the sheer number of mechs that ancient ns had at their disposal!
"It’s the equivalent of determining a battle by sending out champions." Ves mentally concluded.
The ancient ns could easily field millions or even billions of mechs at a time! However, a battle involving so many mechs was extremely destructive! Not only would most of those mechs be trashed, but the sheer amount of coteral damage that ensued with the use of highly advanced and destructive weapons could wipe out all life on every habitable!
The fear of squandering so many assets and resources led the Terrans to adopt this custom of limiting the amount of mechs involved in a battle.
The strength of a n and the amount of star systems they ruled no longer depended on their total military might. Instead, it depended on how well they are able to train and equip their elite mech corps!
One of the unintended consequences of turning every internal battle in the Confederation into a fairpetition was that it turned into public spectacle!
While the Terrans still held many versions ofpetitive mech games, the actual battles between the ns drew the attention of countless Terran and foreign citizens!
Axr Streon was a legitimate highborn scion of the Streon n. While he wasn’t the firstborn heir of a prominent figure in the n, he nheless enjoyed a very privileged station in life!
At the moment of his conception, his genes had already been tailored to perfection! The Streon n spared no expense in insuring the genes of their main n members was as superior as possible!
The result was that Axr was already exceptional as a human from the moment of his birth! He was smarter, faster and stronger than the average citizen of the Confederation.
Compared to baseline humans who lived outside the first-rate superstates, the disparity in capabilities grew even wider!
Axr enjoyed a pampered upbringing. The high position of his parents ensured that he was constantly surrounded by luxuries.
Naturally, Axr quickly turned into a spoiled brat.
His situation changed a bit when he turned ten. Axr’s parents found out that their son possessed the gic aptitude to pilot mechs!
This was a great opportunity for Axr. His parents instantly packed him off to one of the Streon n’s many premier mech academies.
For the next fifteen years, Axr endured a very rough time. While the mech academies he attended treated any Streon n member very well, the mech instructors nheless forced every student to be good at piloting mechs!
No matter what background the Streon n members possessed, the mech academies did not let up on them just because their parents were powerful!
For Axr, his time at the academies was hell! There wasn’t a single hardworking bone in his body. He often got in trouble with the mech instructors for doing less than his best to learn how to pilot mechs.
Despite these odds, Axr managed to graduate from both the basic and advanced mech academy with respectable grades.
Two reasons allowed him to pull through.
First, his gic aptitude was graded at A-, which was extremely good! This meant that Axr needed to spend less time in practice to be proficient in a specific skill!
Second, the talented young mech pilot resorted to taking stimnts in order to get through the day!
Even after he graduated from the advanced mech academy, Axr still continued to take recreational stimnts. Even though he visited a doctor in order to flush out his body and remove his physical dependence to stimnts, his mental addiction still remained as strong as ever!
"What a huge waste of a mech pilot!" Vesmented.
Axr Streon was only a little bit inferior to Venerable Foster when it came to piloting talent. In fact, his superior gene treatments and the other advantages he received should have turned him into an even better mech pilot than Relia Foster in her pre-expert days.
Yet Axr did not spend his time on polishing his piloting skills. Although the Streon n transferred him to an elite mech corps upon graduation, the wastrel actively avoided serving with them and instead spend much of his time in an incoherent daze due to all of the stimnts he took!
"What a stupid pig!" Ves berated his host. "You’ve got all of these advantages! Trillions of people in the gctic rim would kill to enjoy even a fraction of your good fortune!"
Of course, Axr was so insensate that Ves could be yelling for hours without ever arousing the junkie’s attention.
To Ves, this was no way to live!
"Don’t tell me that my entire Mastery experience consists of witnessing Axr getting high all the time?"
What about piloting mechs? The entire reason why Ves went along with this trip to the past in the first ce was to witness a mech pilot in action from their very minds! He did not sign up to get caught up in the constant euphorias of a useless druggie!
"Benny, please hit me up with the seventh form. I’m in the mood for something more mellow this time."
"Master Axr." Benny coughed. "You have a mech duel on the agenda. One of your friends havee to visit your home. You agreed to duel him tonight."
"Ah.. is that so? I don’t remember. Well, a buzz won’t hurt while I’m piloting my mech. Give me the seventh form, please!"
"If that is what you wish."
Ves looked with amazement as Benny acquiesced to Axr’s demand. As a different wave of pleasure erupted in the mind of his host, Ves simply couldn’t fathom how Axr continued to partake in stimnts with a mech duel just hours away frommencing!
After Benny tucked away the syringe containing the seventh form, he raised his voice yet again.
"Master Axr, seeing as you are about to enter another duel, you should prepare your mech at this time."
"Okay.. please summon the interface."
Benny pressed a button on hism which summoned arge projection of what appeared to be a very slick and simplified mech design interface.
To Ves’ amazement, Axr raised his shaky fingers and began to manipte the interface. He selected various parts which the software automatically put together. Through picking and choosing all of the essential parts of a mech, the AIs working behind the scenes automatically put them together into a single, technically-sound design!
Not only that, but the AIspleted the design without the input of any human mech designer!
Axr grinned like a bleary drunk. "What do you think about mytest creation, Benny? It’s a work of art! Just look at its smooth lines and its cool posture! I’ll definitely be victorious tonight!"
"It is an excellent, Master Axr. No mech designer can ever equal your work!" Benny said with a smile. The attendant manipted the interface before turned it off. "Your mech is being materialized right as we speak. It will be ready for your uing duel."
Ves practically looked on with horror with what had just urred. The mech that Axr designed in his highly intoxicated state was anything but a piece of art! It was a bona fide abomination that should have never existed in the first ce!