As a mech designer who grew up within the confines of the MTA, Jovy Armalon enjoyed a very privileged background.

He was not some talent that the MTA recruited later in life. Instead, he was born into the Association, and that pretty much set him up for life.

As long as he didn't slack off in his studies and earnestly pursued the path laid out by his parents, there was no way he would fail as a mech designer!

Of course, the biggest hurdle stopping many ambitious MTA mech designers from gaining real prominence was the jump from Apprentice to Journeyman.

Even the MTA couldn't ensure guaranteed promotion. No matter how many tricks the Association pulled off in order to skew the odds in its favor, the next generation of mech designers ultimately had to rely on themselves to advance!

Quite a lot of promising mech designers failed. No matter how many mechs they designed or books they studied, those with worse talent and discipline nonetheless managed to exceed them due to pure chance!

To many privileged young mech designers, this was unfair!

Even space peasants who could only design mechs that were just a fraction as strong were able to advance to Journeymen, yet some of the best young talents of the MTA simply couldn't!

No matter if someone was a lowly space peasant or a veritable galactic prince, becoming a high-ranking mech designer remained an elusive dream to many of them! Stopping at Apprentice for the rest of their lives was an indignity that many of them couldn't stomach.

Only a few of their friends and former classmates managed to overcome this hurdle. Once they became Journeymen, the MTA invested heavily in their subsequent advancement, because each of them had the potential to advance to Master.

The same could not be said for the masses that had been left behind!

While the MTA still treated these stalled Apprentices well, their role in the Association would never amount to anything unless they switched career tracks.

Those who gave up early often succeeded in transitioning to a management or other professional career track.

Those who persisted in their efforts continued to languish at the local branches and other bottom positions.

Fortunately, Jovy Armalon escaped this fate. In comparison to his peers, he advanced to Journeyman when he was 27 years old, which was quite average within the Association.

On the surface, Ves, Gloriana and Jovy all stood at the same height. All three of them carried the title of Journeyman Mech Designer.

In practice, they were vastly different.

For a long time, Ves sat at the bottom of the totem pole. He was a third-class mech designer, which meant that his skills and design experience only allowed him to design the lowest class of mechs.

No matter how talented he was, no matter how promising his design philosophy could be, it did not change the fundamental fact that he would amount to nothing if he was dumped in a first or second-class state!

Gloriana started off at a higher height. Though she had not reached the top, any casual mech she designed could squash anything developed by Ves in an instant!

As a second-class mech designer, she accumulated a lot more knowledge and had overcome a lot more hurdles in order to design a more advanced class of mechs.

Yet compared to Ves and Gloriana, Jovy had to work a lot harder to become a Journeyman! The amount of knowledge and technical acumen required to design the most advanced mechs in existence was at least five to ten times harder than designing second-class mechs!

The barrier of entry to become a first-class mech designer was so high that it was practically impossible for baseline humans to study all of the knowledge required to become a mere Novice!

Yet once someone like Jovy became capable of designing a first-class multipurpose mech, they became eligible to participate in the most advanced circle of the mech industry!

First-class mechs were so powerful and incorporated so much advanced technology that they were capable of expressing all kinds of abilities.

As a consequence, the design philosophies that first-class mech designers developed also tended to be more conceptually diverse and advanced!

From his own experiences back in the Bright Republic and other third-rate states, the local mech designers tended to specialize in basic and fundamental aspects.

On one hand, third-class mech designers didn't have as many toys to play with. There was only so much they could specialize in, because the other options were simply too expensive or advanced for them to touch!

What was the point of a lesser mech designer specializing in something as ludicrously powerful as positron beam weapons? Hardly any mech they designed with such a gun would sell because their price tags would simply be too high!

That said, Ves didn't believe that the specializations of third-class mech designers were inferior. Though the odds were low, each of them still had the potential to advance to Master and contribute something meaningful to the mech industry.

The issue was that compared to lowly third-class mech designers, people like Jovy had more choice! Worse yet, they often took advantage of it in order to pursue dazzling specializations!

According to his record, Jovy Armalon specialized in 'probability manipulation'.

"Probability manipulation?"

Ves sounded flustered. This label sounded as useless as metaphysical man-machine symbiosis.

To those in the know, more words weren't needed.

To those who were in the dark, the description left out 99 percent of what was really taking place!

Fortunately, Gloriana provided him with a little context. "I've spent some time at Centerpoint. Whenever I hear about MTA mech designers, they're often paired with abstract, high-level specializations. Probability manipulation is absolutely not simple. If I would wager a guess, I think it has to do with affecting luck."

Affecting luck?

Ves scratched his head, taking care not to bump his implant limiter.

"How in the hell does that even work? Is he rolling a bunch of dice and picking the most favorable one? Is his mechs capable of stealing the 'luck' of their opponents?"

"I don't know." Gloriana shrugged. "All I can say is that MTA mech designers like Jovy are often groomed by the Association to adopt a certain design philosophy. Probability manipulation may be a field that his mentors or superiors are highly interested in. This means that it can be really powerful if expressed in full."

From his own understanding of the MTA, Ves knew that it liked to act like a manor lord. The Association lazily resided in its estate while the tenant farmers in the form of indigeneous mech designers toiled in the farms.

Occasionally, some of the tenant farmers made a bountiful harvest. That was the point where the manor lord dispatched his dreaded tax collectors and appropriated the bulk of the harvested crops.

However, this model did not preclude the nobles from tending their own fields. Not every mech designer who worked for the MTA had to be rational. Even the Association couldn't wait for the peasants to cultivate the crops it desired the most.

Sometimes, it was best to do the job themselves!

Despite its unassuming label, Ves did not underestimate Jovy's specialization in the slightest. He too took advantage of ambiguous words to hide the extent of his design philosophy.

As two peas in the same pod, he was certain that his dueling opponent was probably capable of confounding everyone.

If probability manipulation was as sophisticated and horrible as Ves feared, then it shouldn't have been a surprise that the MTA didn't pay more attention to his increasingly more drastic design philosophy.

The MTA already nurtured countless mech designers with odd but powerful specialties!

When Ves and Gloriana studied a sample of Jovy's work, they couldn't decipher anything. The highly-advanced first-class multipurpose mechs contained so many different systems, many of which they had never been exposed to, that the mechs themselves were shrouded in mist!

The information that Master Willix made available revealed too little about Jovy. This was a very serious deficiency.

Perhaps this was her way of compensating for all of the advantages that Ves accrued!

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat."

Gloriana remained hopeful, though. "Don't worry Ves, I believe in you. You already set the terms in your favor. Even if Jovy enjoys an information advantage, you can still beat him with absolute strength. Your design philosophy is absolutely not weak!"

She was right, but Ves still found it problematic that he essentially couldn't anticipate how Jovy's competition mech actually fought!

Even the consolation that they would be pushing forth cheap, low-spec striker mechs failed to shore up his confidence. How could a design philosophy like probability manipulation enhance the combat performance of such a mech?

Ves had no idea, and that scared him. Jovy appeared in his mind as an enormous devil who liked to roll dice!

"I guess I just have to focus on my strengths and hope for the best." He sighed.

He soon calmed down and regained his composure. This wasn't the first time he had come under pressure.

With Gloriana supporting him from the side, Ves began to sound out a couple of ideas.

"I have only three days to design a striker mech, so it will have to be fairly basic. Since this duel pits two striker mechs against each other, the competition might revolve around which mech can endure the most heat."

Gloriana shook her head. "That is not necessarily the case. Flamethrowers are the most ubiquitous weapons of striker mechs, but hardly the only one. Shotguns are the second-most prevalent weapons wielded by striker mechs. If tweaked correctly, their precision and penetrative power can be quite formidable."

The MTA developed an elaborate set of rules governing design duels. When two mech designers agreed to design a specific mech type, then their competition mechs had to fit the classic definition of their chosen archetype!

In the case of third-class striker mechs, Ves could only choose from a limited selection of weapons that were typically associated with this mech type.

Just to be sure, Ves activated his comm and called up the rules. They stated quite clearly that striker mechs weren't allowed to wield precision rifles or swords. Such weapons fell outside the scope of striker mechs!

Additionally, it turned out that he wasn't even allowed to add secondary weapons such as pistols or knives.

A design duel attempted to determine which of the duelists designed the better mech. In this case, neither of them were allowed to warp the definition of striker mechs in an attempt to counter them! That would defeat the point of the duel and negate its comparison function!

Ves rubbed his smooth-shaven chin. "Before I come up with a vision, I should pin down the primary armament. As far as I'm concerned, I have three choices: a flamethrower or a shotgun."

Which one suited this design duel the best?

There were actually more choices, but they were not very suitable due to several reasons. Either they fell outside the scope of the rules, or required a much larger budget to make them viable.

Weapons such as fluid projectors could be very effective in disabling an opposing mech. However, at their paltry budget, there wasn't enough room for an effective fluid projector system!

With just 600,000 hex credits at their disposal, both of them had to design a mech in the same price category as the Desolate Soldier.

What limited their options even further was that striker mechs were much heavier and incorporated a lot more materials than rifleman mechs.

"There's not enough money to go around!"

Both Ves and Jovy had to stretch their budget as much as possible if they wanted to elevate the performance of their designs.

Right now, Ves wondered which weapon suited his competition mech the best under the circumstances.

"Flamethrower, or shotgun?"