The Mech Touch

His cute little daughter snuggled in the middle of the queen-sized bed of his shared bedroom with Gloriana.

His wife was lying on the other side of the bed. She softly kissed and cooed Aurelia in order to help her fall asleep faster.

It was tiny moments like these that Ves felt more happy and satisfied than ever. Even though he couldn\'t direct as much attention to Aurelia as he wished, he still cherished every little moment of his offspring\'s childhood.

Fatherhood was both stressful and magical to him. He started to understand his own father Ryncol a lot more now that he had a kid of his own. There were times where Ves would literally wish to sacrifice everything in his life just to ensure Aurelia\'s happiness.

As Ves thought about taking his daughter on another excursion, his wife finally broke the pleasant silence.

"I interviewed a number of smart armor developers today."

Ves raised his eyebrow. "Oh? That quickly?"

"Their R&D projects are all promising but demand a high amount of investment." Gloriana explained. "There is a great need to stress test different iterations of smart metal implementations. This leads to a high rate of wear and tear. While most of the nanomachines are able to produce newer copies of themselves if any of them get worn out or destroyed, there is always a loss of materials with each renewal cycle. This raises the barrier to developing a successful new application of smart metal to a large degree. All of the developers that I have spoken to today are short on money or resources, sometimes both."

"The conditions to perform R&D in the new frontier are much more challenging than in the old galaxy. If these smart metal developers are all struggling to complete their projects, then maybe they shouldn\'t have moved to a difficult place like Davute. Almost everyone in Krakatoa is short on money and resources. I don\'t think that there is much interest in investing in an expensive and extremely cost-inefficient technological application like smart metal. These guys are better off conducting their research in a more prosperous and resource-rich region."

"That\'s the thing, Ves. The places you are talking about are already saturated with better competitors. There are those who can produce better results or enjoy better funding and connections. By moving to a brand-new hub like Davute, developers can start out fresh without needing to compete against regional powerhouses that have already cornered much of the market."

Ves adopted a skeptical expression. "It sounds as if they are losers who can\'t make it in the big city, so they opt to ply their trade in a rural backwater instead."

"That\'s not an entirely accurate description." Gloriana shook her head as she held her sleeping daughter closer. "While you are partially correct that these developers cannot stand out in their home regions, they are exploring new possibilities by researching methods to enhance existing technologies by making use of the new and unique exotics that are only available in the Red Ocean. We didn\'t notice it before, but the tech industry in Davute is booming. A lot of small-to-medium research institutions and development companies have emerged in recent times."

"Hmmm. That is interesting. I will look forward to their results, if they succeed that is. Now that I think about it, the Cross Clan has also begun to expand in the tech development industry. Professor Benedict\'s ambitions are not small."

The ambitious Senior Mech Designer already intended to branch out in this sector, but the immense spoils that the Golden Skull Alliance brought back from the Garimel System supercharged his plans!

It didn\'t matter if the Cross Clan did not have a strong foundation in this industry. With a large amount of MTA merits and phasewater in his pocket, Professor Benedict could buy out entire groups of development companies and recruit some of the most brilliant researchers and developers available for hire.

Although it took a huge amount of effort to integrate and harmonize all of these puzzle pieces, once they fit together, the Cross Clan had a high chance of becoming one of the stalwarts in the region\'s tech industry!

Ves briefly thought about using his clan\'s prosperity to start a large development company himself, but quickly threw this idea out of his head.

His clan already expanded in plenty of side businesses for now. The Larkinson Biotech Institute, The T Institute, the Open Consortium, the Creation Association and most recently the First Star Mech Academy already demanded a lot of resources and attention.

He was always a believer in the notion that people and organizations should stick with what they were good at and leave the rest to others.

While he was willing to make compromises in order to reduce his clan\'s dependency on unstable and exploitative suppliers, he had to make sure he did not get ahead of himself and stretch his clan thin across too many different businesses.

"I have already chosen a smart armor system for the C-Man Project." Gloriana announced.

"Oh? That quickly? Didn\'t you intend to spend more time on weighing the pros and cons of each offering before you decide which one to adopt?"

"That\'s not necessary. Many of the products that the developers have presented to me are not that attractive to me. They are either too early in development or do not perform as well as I hoped relative to how much investment they require. There is only one stand-out invention that offers everything I need and more."

That aroused Ves\' interest. It was not easy to please a woman as demanding as Gloriana. Whatever caught her eye must be truly fantastic if she sounded so satisfied.

"What makes this smart armor different from the other ones?"

"For starters, it is an energized system that can be fed with additional power to strengthen its internal cohesion as well as its overall resistance against damage. The strengthening factor may reach as much as 1200 percent!"

"12 times!?" Ves softly gasped.

Even he knew how rare and difficult it was to achieve such an insanely high result!

"That isn\'t all. There are also other useful features. You see, the Transphasic Energized Smart Armor System can also produce a host of other useful effects. Think of anchoring the physical form of a mech in space, partially phasing it out of the material dimensions, making it invisible to conventional detection methods, allowing it to resist spatial attacks and improving its speed when engaging in warp travel. In short, this is the perfect smart armor system for an ambitious expert mech design, especially one which can equip a combat drive in the future!"

As soon as Gloriana started to talk about phasing, Ves immediately developed a suspicion on how this amazing armor system was able to produce all of those effects.

"Let me guess. This transphasic armor system makes use of phasewater, right?"

"Yup! Isn\'t this what you wanted to obtain all this time? We finally have access to another good application for all of the phasewater we acquired during our last expedition! We no longer have to keep so many of our reserves in storage all the time!"

Her positive outlook only made Ves even more suspicious. It became clearer and clearer to him that she was hiding an important aspect about the new transphastic product.

He coughed a bit. "Honey, can you tell me how much phasewater it takes to make this smart armor system work?"

"Well… Professor Almar claimed that it should take an average of 5 kilograms of phasewater to outfit a medium expert mech with full coverage of TESMAS. The requirements are lower if we only make partial use of this smart metal system."

"..."

"Hey, look on the bright side, Ves. TESMAS is absolutely powerful and can turn our C-Man Project into one of the hardiest and most versatile expert melee mech in our clan! TESMAS opens up so many new possibilities to us that we can implement many new and innovative design solutions that completely reinvents the concept of an expert mech!"

"...What do we have to pay in order to gain access to this product?"

"Well… Professor Almar has made it clear that her development company already has a sufficient number of investors, so she does not require any further funding. The problem is that her investors aren\'t able to supply enough phasewater to further her R&D. If we can supply her with a batch of phasewater, she can accelerate her research project and finish it within this year. She has promised that she will supply us with a full batch of TESMAS when her product is complete."

Ves frowned deeper. "You haven\'t mentioned any numbers, Gloriana. How. Much. Phasewater?"

"...We need to supply twice as much phasewater than Professor Almar needs to produce a batch of TESMAS. If the C-Man Project requires 5 kilograms of phasewater to equip it with TESMAS, then we need to pay 5 additional kilograms as remuneration to Melmen Advanced Systems."

"No."

"No what?"

"I\'m not going to hand over 10 kilograms of phasewater to obtain a horribly overpriced smart metal system!" Ves hissed.

"Why not?! I told you that it is perfect for the C-Man Project!" Gloriana hissed back!

Even though the argument got heated, the two parents made sure not to raise their voices too much for fear of waking up their dozing daughter.

"This developer is ripping you off, Gloriana!"

"She\'s not! She\'s a brilliant woman and a respectable senior professor at the UKC! She is much more credible than the other developers I have spoken to! Besides, you know as well as I do that the rate I\'ve mentioned is industry standard."

Ves frowned deeper. "Just because something is \'industry standard\' doesn\'t mean that we should mindlessly follow it. This is 5 kilograms we are talking about! It might not sound like much to us anymore since we have a couple of hundred kilograms of phasewater in our vault, but that stash is supposed to last us decades!"

"It\'s better to use it all up in a way that can strengthen our clan and further our design philosophies than let all of that phasewater rot in our vaults!"

"I don\'t disagree with you on that, Gloriana, but there are good ways and bad ways to spend our phasewater! If you wanted to invest 10 kilograms of phasewater to equip a high-tier expert mech with TESMAS, then I might say yes, but this is way out of proportion for the C-Man Project! Not only is it supposed to be a mid-tier expert mech at best, it is also an expert mech designed for Venerable Vincent Ricklin, who is arguably one of our most useless and expendable expert pilots!"

"Vincent is not useless!" Gloriana hissed back. "He just needs the right mech to exert his full potential. The C-Man equipped with TESMAS is the best way for him to compete and overpower enemy expert mechs in battle!"

Ves crossed his arms. "If you give me a billion MTA merits, I am confident that I can promote to a first-class mech designer and advance to master in a couple of decades, but we don\'t live in a reality where we can afford to squander so many resources while getting so little in return. You know what? Give me Professor Almar\'s contact details."

"Why?"

"So I can talk to her myself! I will do what you have clearly neglected to do in your initial conversation with this developer."

"And what is that?"

"Negotiate a better deal with her." Ves responded. "There is no way that I will give her 5 kilograms of phasewater for nothing. Professor Almar\'s negotiating position is not that strong and we aren\'t obliged to make use of her TESMAS. I don\'t believe she is the only smart metal developer in the Red Ocean who has come across the notion of incorporating phasewater into nanomachines! As long as we shop around for a bit, I\'m sure we can find a more favorable deal!"