The Mech Touch

core of true believers.
These local technicians can be shaped and molded to fit your needs. ”

Basically, Chief Cyril aimed to replicate the same methods that the Larkinsons used on him.
It sounded a bit manipulative to brainwash the recruits from fresh, but this was standard practice from the factory floor to the military.
At this stage, Ves didn ’t require an abundance of competent technicians to assist him in his work.
It was better for the LMC to lay a good foundation.

Ves didn ’t even bother to learn their names.
All of the young men and women pretty much considered Ves to be a god.
After all, he managed to earn billions of credits in revenue in a single event.

The difference in status between Ves and the average person had widened to such an extent that it rivaled the vast distance between galaxies.
Ves had truly ascended into the ranks of upper society.

In general, if Ves needed anything trivial done, he told Cyril or Carlos, who delegated the actual job to the closest technician at hand.
Thus, a three-layer hierarchy came into being with Ves as the emperor and the mech technicians as the plebians.

For the most part, this kept Ves from being disturbed as he did his work.
While Carlos didn ’t have much of a talent for leadership, the mech technicians loved him for being a relatable mech designer, never mind that he never actually designed a commercial mech.

In short, his workshop experienced remarkable changes that elevated it from a tiny mech boutique to a proper mech manufacturing site.
The backlog of orders insured that the mech technicians witnessed first-hand how an actual mech came into being.

Once Cyril brushed up their fundamentals, they even became more involved with the fabrication of the mechs.
By the time Ves finished his fifteenth and last Caesar Augustus, their assistance sped up the fabrication process by at least twenty percent.

Ves sighed in relief once he fulfilled the most important set of orders.
Having delivered all the premium models before their customers could back out of the transaction lifted a weight off his mind.
”Now we ’re really going to pick up our speed.
It ’s already more than a month and we still have over thirty mechs to go. ”

The advantage of leaving the Marc Antony Mark II Eternal Edition as last became evident at this stage.
All ten mech technicians gained enough proficiency by now that they could be trusted to handle more important tasks.
Along with the fact that the Mark II utilized uncompressed armor, Ves managed to fabricate a single frame in less than a day.

Another month went by as they maintained a rapid pace.
Shipments flew in and out of his workshop almost daily as the workshop pumped out mech after mech.
Even though Ves pushed the pace to the limit, he never exceeded it and risk losing control.

The constant, repetitive work sapped some of the excitement out of his mech technicians, but it also indoctrinated them fully into his company.
Through constant nurturing by Carlos and Cyril, the workers became immersed in a workplace culture that emphasized initiative, cooperation and excellence.

”What about efficiency? ” Cyril asked when Ves presented them with his outline for the kind of workplace culture that he wanted to foster.
”Initiative and excellence sound good and all, but free-thinking mech technicians have a tendency to go off the beaten path and decide on inefficient methods. ”

”As long as my mechs retain their quality, I don ’t care.
Efficiency is important, but don ’t forget that my aim has always been the high-end mech market.
My profits margins are high enough that I don ’t have to be the best in the industry in this area.
It ’s more important to insure a constant flow of flawless mechs.
They might even benefit from a touch of individuality. ”

In the meantime, many of his customers have already received his products.
With the spread of his prestige mechs, Ves created another minor buzz in the mech scene.

Two different CEOs won the auctions for the highly exclusive Marcus Aurelius.
As soon as they received the mechs and transferred the payments, they displayed them prominently in front of their company headquarters.

The locations turned into local sensations with the placement of the new mechs.
The strong X-Factor radiating from the frames exerted a subtle but pervasive influence to anyone that visited the offices.
Those who worked there from day-to-day slowly adopted different work patterns.

In particular, they lost some of their short-sightedness and showed more consideration to the future.
Whether these changes benefited the companies in question, Ves wasn ’t sure, but their and stature had solidified the Marcus Aurelius as a remarkable design.

The more numerous Caesar Augustus Eternal Edition provoked a lot of comparisons with the original edition.
A couple of mech portals borrowed access to the Eternal Edition and conducted an in-depth look on what Ves had done to make them so special.

They came away with a lot of puzzlement.
For some reason, each mech overperformed in a single aspect, and they couldn ’t find a mechanical reason for this deviation.
They also couldn ’t make head or tails of the auras, though they definitely basked in the sensation.

Among the norm with gold label mechs, Ves included one of Lucky ’s unique performance-enhancing gems in the cockpit.
The mystical gems worked their magic silently as he stamped each of them with the Anonymizing Stamp.
With the promotion of the DarkSpear, Ves could easily afford the 100 DP it took to stamp each gem, though the numbers added up a bit.

With the addition of over a 100,000 DP, Ves had refrained from spending them until he finished his current set of orders.
Even though he could benefit from improving his various Assembly Skills, he didn ’t strictly require any help.
He ’d rather save the points for more important Skills.

Almost every day, Ves turned on his Privacy Shield and explored the options provided by the System.
As the time to design an original mech came within reach, he faced a difficult choice in his development strategy.

Should he widen or deepen his base of knowledge?