The Mech Touch

It only took half a year for Merrill O'Brian, the latest Journeyman to have emerged from the growing ranks of assistant mech designers, to shock all of the lead designers!

No one was more surprised about her unexpected accomplishment than Ves!

Though Merrill had quickly distinguished herself from the other Journeymen due to her highly logical thinking process and approach towards mech design, she was still relatively new to her position.

Everyone expected her to prioritize her own specialty and passion at first in order to give her a solid foundation in being able to contribute to other mech designs.

Her specialty, which she referred to as Imbalance Exploitation, was a rather subtle and convoluted means to generate additional power and raise the efficiency of mechs by developing interesting synergies within their internal architecture.

Her specialization resembled that of Professor Benedict, though where the latter mainly focused on optimizing and improving the electrical energy transmission systems of a mech, Merrill preferred to focus on the mechanical and physical aspects of a mech.

To be honest, Ves found Merrill's specialty to be underwhelming. He couldn't imagine what kind of solid benefits she could provide that could make him choose her over another useful mech designer such as Juliet Stameros and Sara Voiken.

After all, a lot of mechs could use a solid bump in the performance of their flight systems and armor systems. The increase in strength and value was always obvious whenever the two women contributed to any given mech design!

Though Merrill did not yet manage to impress her peers by developing a brilliant new design solution that was related to her core specialty, what she did manage to do was show off the value of having a rational mech designer in the Design Department.

This was why Ves and Gloriana both looked gobsmacked as they studied the first mech that Merrill developed in her free time.

The mech she worked on was a typical landbound knight mech, which was the simplest and easiest mech type that any designer could develop.

It was a good choice for a mech designer that wanted to embark on a new concept or approach, and it also happened to synergize well with Merrill's inherent strengths in mechanical design.

While her knight mech design did indeed incorporate aspects of her core specialty, the main surprise was that it did not look as if she had designed it by herself.

As the two leaders of the Design Department looked up at the knight mech that Merrill had fabricated with the AP-VEX superfab after she had gotten her turn, it became clear that Merrill O'Brian had been working on more specialties than just her own design philosophy!

"It's… alive." Ves spoke with great admiration. "While it is only a first order living mech, it is a proper living mech that is close to my works in the past. The reproduction rate is remarkably close!"

Ves was already accustomed to the fact that he was no longer the only mech designer who could make living mechs. He had interacted with other mech designers such as Gloriana and Ketis so much that they inevitably built up a good understanding of his specialty.

By adopting similar solutions and putting their own spin on them, both Gloriana and Ketis succeeded in designing mech models that were alive, if in a different way than the classical works designed by Ves.

If Gloriana and Ketis chose to focus on their unique takes of living mechs further, then they could do a lot to catch up to Ves when it came to adding less visible properties to their products.

However, no matter how much they tried to imitate Ves, there was no way that they could surpass him when he was in his element!

Both Gloriana and Ketis had already locked themselves into their own specialties, and their spiritual attributes and domains reflected their choices.

Merrill O'Brian should be no different, but the power of rationality was entirely different from anything else that Ves had encountered in the mech industry.

The result of her unflinching efforts to leverage her distinctive strength was the knight mech before their eyes!

"It's an experiment." Merrill admitted. "This is my first formal attempt to imitate your design philosophy, patriarch, so I tried to simplify every possible variable in order to maximize my chances of success. After making many attempts to simulate your design philosophy in my mind, I eventually found a way to do so in a manner that worked."

Ves scratched his head. Her explanation was too simple and missed a lot of essential details. He hardly gained anything useful from her words!

"Do you know that several rational Master Mech Designers of the MTA have attempted to accomplish the same feat as you? None of them succeeded. Despite their formidable expertise and their high proficiency in simulating other people's design philosophies, they never managed to create a true living mech in this style. You are the first rational mech designer to have succeeded in imitating my work! How did you do it, Merrill?! I thought a design philosophy as unconventional as mine simply couldn't be expressed through mathematical formulas and calculations!"

"You are still correct as far as I know, sir." Merrill told him. "However, I think the reason why those Masters failed was because they did not make the necessary adjustments to their approach."

"Explain further, please. What makes your approach different that allowed you to succeed?"

This was an important question. Ves had long thought that rational mech designers were unable to come to terms to his own design philosophy because it was just too weird and relied on rare spiritual attributes that were highly uncommon.

As far as Ves was able to observe, Merrill did not possess any unique advantages that clearly put her ahead of the competition. She was a young and inexperienced Journeyman who was just starting to leverage her rational approach to a greater degree.

Her spiritual attributes, though not as relevant to her specific work approach as with other mech designers, were also fairly ordinary. She did not develop any special affinity towards life.

Merrill took her time to formulate her words. "I may not be as good at designing mechs as those MTA Masters you have spoken about, but I possess at least one advantage over them. I worked in the Design Department for years. I joined the clan when it was still transitioning to a second-class organization and I have worked on over a dozen living mech designs throughout this period. I led numerous design teams that were charged with optimizing and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of different Larkinson mech designs."

That was true. Though the qualifications of the assistant mech designers of the Design Department were fairly low, they accumulated a lot of practical experience with working with living mechs.

Combined with the knowledge that got shared in the Larkinson Clan, Merrill must have learned quite a lot of details and nuances of living mechs that were difficult to express in any manual or document!

"That is only part of the reason why I was able to imitate your design philosophy, sir. Do you remember the past few design sessions where we all became connected to each other with the help of a design network?"

Ves and Gloriana both nodded. Their companion spirits were both capable of forming design networks. Though the pair did not use this powerful capability too often for fear of developing an overdependence on this solution, it still came in handy at times!

Not only did design networks make it much easier to coordinate and collaborate on a complicated design project, they were also highly effective teaching tools.

Both Ves and Gloriana had made it a habit to employ design networks to quickly transfer a basic understanding and perspective of their unique design visions to their fellow collaborators and assistants.

The goal they had in mind was not to teach others how to design mechs like themselves, but to give them a primer on what was important and what they needed to be careful about.

It was much easier to work with mech designers who already understood your pet peeves and the elements that could trigger their sensibilities!

Ves recalled the projects he worked on in the past few months and remembered that he exposed a bit more of his design approach to Merrill.

Now that she advanced to Journeyman, she became much more capable of holding her own ground. Ves did not have to be afraid of contaminating her and drawing her away from her original path.

Also, her cognitive abilities had improved by a lot so she was much more capable of understanding more complex theories and frameworks.

"So… you took advantage of those design network sessions to understand the essence of my design philosophy through direct exposure?" Ves asked.

"Yes, and apparently I succeeded." Merrill replied in a calm tone that nonetheless conveyed a lot of confidence.

For a moment, Ves felt a chill running through his spine. He had long believed that he possessed a monopoly on living mechs. He vividly recalled all of the attempts that Master Willix had made to copy his design philosophy, to no avail.

To see that a much younger rational mech designer succeed caused him to feel a lot more insecure about himself!

Fortunately, Merrill O'Brian was on his side. She was a Larkinson through and through and could be counted upon to maintain the confidentiality of his trade secrets.

As Merrill continued to explain what she had done in order to gain a basic mastery of Ves' living mechs, it quickly became clear why she succeeded where others had failed.

"I know how you think. I have seen glimpses of what goes on in your mind. I know what you feel when you become engrossed in designing different aspects of a mech. I know what you care about the most and what you do not find as important."

If Ves didn't know any better, then he would have mistaken Merrill as a stalker! The words she just spoke out were quite frightening if the context was different!

"So you took all of that knowledge and understanding you obtained from me and… simulated a mental model of myself in your mind?" Ves dubiously asked.

Merrill finally revealed a small smile. "It is a lot more complicated than that, but your simplified description roughly characterizes my operation. You are right. I create a personality model based on you and essentially channel it when I want to emulate your design philosophy. Since it is based on limited data that may or may not be reliable, the accuracy of this model of you cannot be guaranteed. However, as long as it is somewhat reasonable, the results that I can produce with it are enough to make a difference."

Both Ves and Gloriana already possessed a basic understanding of what rational mech designers were capable of, but they never expected to be confronted with one that could actually design authentic living mechs!

Sure, the living knight mech that Merrill had designed looked like the work of Ves back when he was still an Apprentice, but the properties of the machine showed that the most junior Journeyman of the Larkinson Clan already grasped the essence of living mechs!

The hardest part about getting into a vault was finding the key. Merrill had obtained this crucial object, which meant that all she had to do from now was to use it to unlock the vault and digest the wealth hidden within at her own pace!

"This… changes things." Ves concluded. "Maybe not much at first, but in the future…"

Gloriana glanced at her husband in concern. She knew how much he cared about maintaining his precious 'monopoly'. Seeing another mech designer faithfully imitate his design philosophy must have dealt a substantial psychological blow to her childish and selfish spouse.

The living knight mech that Merrill had designed essentially kicked off a new era in Ves' career!

An era where rational mech designers from other parts of human space might conceivably design living mechs of their own!

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