The welcoming program for the new mech designers was fairly extensive. It not only served to introduce them to the rules and regulations of their new positions, but also sought to instill them with the principles and values that the Larkinson Clan embodied.

One of the more interesting parts of the program was the time they would spend with the mech forces of the clan. Every mech designer had to spend a week among the Avatars of Myth, the Living Sentinels, the Battle Criers and the Flagrant Vandals.

After their week with one group had passed, they rotated to another group, and so on. This not only allowed every mech designer to gain a thorough understanding of the various mech forces operating on behalf of the clan, but also provided them with a lot of hands-on practice with every LMC mech.

This was very important for Ves. He needed his mech designers to understand his design philosophy so that their efforts wouldn't clash with his own. As far as he was concerned, other than revealing his core secrets, the best way to get them up to speed was to expose them to a large amount of LMC mechs.

Overall, the month-long welcoming program was designed to kill multiple birds with a single stone!

"It's essentially an intensive indoctrination program." He muttered with a smirk.

By living alongside the different groups of Larkinsons, the mech designers would quickly absorb the culture and deepen their integration into the clan. By the time they returned to the Design Department, Ves expected them to be truly ready to contribute to his mech design projects!

The design lab quickly turned empty as every other assistant mech designer had been tasked with guiding and supervising the new hires.

It didn't matter. Right now, Ves and Gloriana only worked on one remaining mech design project. The Hexer mech design they stewed over for so long was almost complete, but much of the work still had to be done by the pair themselves.

They couldn't help it. Second-class mech designs were simply too complicated. A third-class mech designer could easily ruin a huge portion of the design with a single, careless mistake!

"Our first iteration is almost ready." Ves remarked as he finished another mental design session with his girlfriend. "I'm not quite sure it is up to par, though."

Gloriana frowned and crossed her arms. "I feel the same way. It's a lot harder to refine this mech design than I thought. The technical challenges posed by this design are exacerbated by all of the military technology and components we are required to incorporate. It's very tough to stick to those standards!"

While their landbound knight mech was commissioned by DIVA, the mech utilized a lot of mid-tier specifications from the Hex Army. Every mech serving under its banner had to abide by a host of exacting specifications.

As a large organization that only fielded a limited amount of approved mech designs, the Hex Army always pursued efficiency in production and logistical support.

This meant that in order to minimize as many inefficiencies as possible, a lot of their mechs used the same parts and standards.

Cross-compatibility was a very high priority to the Hexers. For example, a single given power reactor could be put into dozens of different mech models without requiring any custom adjustments!

Once this applied to many other instances, the gains in efficiency built up to a very scary degree!

The variety of parts and materials stocked by a typical Hexer mech regiment was probably just a third of that of a Fridayman mech regiment!

All of this came at a cost, however. What the Hexers gained in efficiency, they lost in versatility.

Every Hexer mech design was very optimized, but also fairly rigid. If Ves had to describe it briefly, he would say that they all fit into the same boxes.

This was because the mech designs were all built around the same set of components. These components all served to constrain a mech design within a narrow band. It was too difficult to design anything truly new if their mech designers all drew from the same pool of parts!

Both Ves and Gloriana faced plenty of difficulties for this reason. Sometimes, they wanted to incorporate something that was outside of the scope of the parts they added into the design, but that was impossible!

Up until this point, Ves still had several complaints about the current state of his Hexer mech design.

The knight mech's shield and armor was a bit too light for its role.

Its energy storage capacity wasn't large enough.

The extra appendages designed to siphon energy from a fallen edge were a bit too weak.

Fortunately, the combination of all of these traits still resulted in a serviceable mech design. The mech might not excel at any single criteria, but it possessed enough strengths to turn it into a viable new addition to the lineup of the Hex Army!

Ves just wished he had more leeway in the design. While Gloriana didn't have much of a problem with the circumstances, Ves chafed at the restrictions!

"I really wish you Hexers would provide more options for your male-gendered mech designs." He grumbled.

His girlfriend leaned into his body and pecked his cheek. "It's okay. As long as we prove we can contribute to the Hex Army, we might earn another opportunity! Once we receive a commission for a female mech design, we will have a lot more options at our disposal! Women always enjoy the best in our state."

Ves still couldn't get used to the arbitrary discrimination the Hexers practiced on a daily basis. Their attempts to impose gender differences in mech design was completely baseless to any normal person!

That reminded him of something.

"I plan to hold a very elaborate.. ritual when we are ready to finalize our mech design." He slowly spoke. "This is my first true second-class mech design, and I think I can turn it into something special. I have a lot of plans in store, but I am afraid that they might raise a considerable commotion."

"What are you up to now?" Gloriana asked in suspicion.

"I can't tell you right now. I still have to make a lot of arrangements and I'm not sure if they will all go through. Suffice to say, it is going to make our mech design truly special!"

"Does this have to do with the birth of your next proto-god?"

He nodded. "Partially. Well, mostly. Do you remember the founding of the Larkinson Clan? I plan to conduct a larger and more elaborate ceremony in order to create an even stronger spiritual product!"

Ves learned a lot of new insights when he created the Golden Cat. He learned even more when he witnessed the ancestral spirit's growth and evolution. He couldn't wait to put his new theories to use in his next attempt!

"Aren't you afraid of attracting Master Willix again?" Gloriana instantly brought out one of his greatest fears! "She already portal-jumped straight to our star system when we published the Doom Guard. Do you think that our upcoming Hexer mech design will be interesting enough to attract her attention yet again?"

Ves widened his eyes. He would rather endure the Doom Guard's glow for a week than spend a minute in Master Willix' company!

At least the former never aimed at his design philosophy!

No matter how fearsome the Doom Guard became, it would never surpass his fear of the MTA stealing his trade secrets!

He coughed. "Hopefully, the stench I've gained will repel her from making a repeat visit. She has already inspected our work just a week ago. I don't believe a busy Master enjoys so much free time!"

What happened during the recent final selection process leaked out to all of the news publications. There were hundreds of aggrieved mech designers who wanted to take revenge on Ves and the LMC for passing them over or imparting them with severe mental trauma!

However, outside of his expectations, the outrage on the galactic net was very muted. Part of it was because none of the candidates had been allowed to take any recordings, so they could only describe what happened with their own words or with the help of simulated reconstructions.

The blood wasn't real. The descriptions didn't do justice to that day. It was not that easy for other people to care about the suffering of some stuck-up nerds.

Compared to the immensely tragic Sand War or the incredibly sickening Friedmont Massacre, who cared about the fact that some crazy madwoman chopped off the limbs of a bunch of mech designers?

The LMC reattached those limbs immediately afterwards, so no one suffered any permanent harm. There was no reason for the public to care what had taken place! Besides, Ves was such a prominent mech designer that it wasn't strange to think he could get away with these kinds of stunts!

Ves could only chuckle at this surprisingly feeble response.

Perhaps the only serious 'damage' he suffered was that the mech industry didn't think so well of him anymore. Plenty of mech designers admonished his barbaric decisions, accusing him of besmirching the image of their noble profession!

This was enough for Ves. He wanted to raise his reputation with his customer base while simultaneously earning some contempt from his own kind!

It would be best if the MTA looked down on him further. Hopefully, as long as Ves pushed his eccentric act far enough, he would become way too stinky for someone like Master Willix to associate herself with him any further!

The conversation quickly shifted back to their mech design.

"Before we get to that point, we need to make sure our design is as optimal as possible." Gloriana warned. "To be honest, I've been thinking about something."

"What is it, honey?"

"Designing a mech according to the standards of a Hex Army is.. not that easy for us. While I am confident in our abilities, you have to remember that the standards are geared towards the Master Mech Designers of our state. We're essentially trying to fill in some very big shoes. Though we have done decently enough, it is becoming clearer and clearer to me that we need.. external assistance."

Ves immediately furrowed his brows. "I thought that only we are supposed to work on this mech design. It won't be purely ours anymore when we turn to someone else for help."

"You misunderstand, Ves. I'm not looking for another contributor or partner. I am merely suggesting that we could use some technical consultation in order to smooth out the most persistent problems of our mech design. I can contact some Seniors from my alma mater for help. I'm sure we can persuade one of them to lend us a hand!"

"Absolutely not!" Ves vigorously shook his head! "I know these problems are troubling you, but we can take care of them ourselves! I don't want some Hexer Senior butting her head in our project! It's vitally important that we retain full ownership of our design choices!"

He didn't trust any Hexer mech designer other than Gloriana to abide by the spirit of their mech design.

His girlfriend didn't look pleased. "I'm serious, Ves. I'm not satisfied with what we have managed to accomplish so far. I don't believe we can solve all of the problems by spending more time on this project! Its sophistication vastly exceeds that of the Doom Guard project!"

She wasn't wrong. Ves couldn't easily refute her point because both of them had already worked incredibly hard on the Hexer mech design project. They did their best and put in their earnest effort, only to fall short of some of their goals.

There were two ways to solve this problem.

The first option was to take up Gloriana's suggestion and borrow the capabilities of a better mech designer.

The second option was to upgrade their own capabilities!

His eyes slowly lit up. Though he had slowly forgotten about it, didn't he possess something that could easily help him do that?

"What are you thinking about, Ves?"

"Something that I've neglected for a very long time. Let's table this discussion for today. I need to check up on something."