The second round comnced after various bots cleaned up all the debris from the pressurized arena ring. Two very different aquatic chs erged from the hatches.
The Cava City Sea Dragons sent out a stubby eel-like ch. The announcers already laid out their predictions.
"Slippery Winston has entered the stage! Will the third-strongest mber of the Sea Dragons deliver another victory for his team?"
"Not very likely in my eyes, as the Velton Myrmidons an business this ti! Look who they brought into the ring!"
The Myrmidon supporters among the crowd erupted in support of the ch athlete who entered.
"Firebreather! Firebreather! Firebreather!"
Unlike other aquatic chs, Firebreather’s ch took on a shape that didn’t resemble any terrestrial animals. From the comntary the announcers provided, Ves learned that the designer adopted an original shape that didn’t resemble any Terran or exo creature.
If Ves had to describe Firebreather’s ch, he’d say it resembled an octagonal honeycomb. Its symtrical angular sides all featured octagonal-shaped armor plating. Besides functioning as modular armor, the armor plating also camouflaged the placents of thrusters, boosters and weapon hardpoints.
The logic of its unusual design beca evident once the round comnced. The eel ch approached the octagon ch, slithering forth with electric grace. Sparks of current ran throughout its fra, making it obvious that tangling with it up close was a bad idea.
Slippery Winston started off the engagent by launching a pair of high-powered harpoons at the octagon ch. Both of them puncturered through the octagon ch’s relatively weak plating.
"Firebreather got harpooned! But will it stick?"
A strong current ran through the cables between the harpoons and the eel ch. Yet before it could do much damage, a spark of liquid heat erupted from the affected side of the octagon ch. The cables lted apart, freeing Firebreather from the electric attack.
The octagon ch started to spin a bit and present an undamaged side to the eel ch. Its strange shape gave the ch a lot of options as it possessed an array of weapons and thrusters at each side. Constraints in disposable space limited their power, but the enormous redundancy gave the ch a lot of options.
Not content to sit back and let Slippery Winston out of his grasp, Firebreather sent his ch forward and fired off volleys of short-ranged heat attacks.
Even if Slippery Winston gained his fa for his ability to dodge all kinds of attacks, the wide area heat sprays proved extrely difficult to avoid. His eel ch specialized in agility, but its top speed left sothing to be desired.
"It’s like a battle between a striker and a skirmisher." Raella noted. "Except this skirmisher is a little slow."
"It’s hard to design an aquatic ch that can go faster under these circumstances."
ch designers had to allocate an exponential amount of power to mobility if they wished to make an aquatic ch go faster. Thus, most deep sea designs emphasized agility and power over pure speed.
Right now, Slippery Winston’s eel ch started to looked cooked as its armor plating started to break down from the continuous exposure to heat. The duellist of the Sea Dragons attempted to fight back by launching harpoons and missiles, but the octagon ch’s ridiculous amount of redundancy made it look like they fell into an endless hole.
"This match is over." Ves predicted. He could tell that the eel ch didn’t have much in store except to go all in.
Ordinarily, such a move would be best as it could use its deadly electrical currents to fry its prey from within.
Slippery Winston must have realized his predicant. As his eel ch started to get cornered, he finally stopped avoiding the attacks and dove head-first into the octagon ch.
"Oh, Winston is going in! Will this be the end?"
"He’s falling right into Firebreather’s hands!"
The octagon ch blasted out a giant spray of heated liquids that struck the eel ch head-on. The sheer amount of heat distorted the water around them, but Ves could see that Slippery Winston cleverly rotated his ch to spread the damage over its fra.
However, the octagon ch kept pumping out a constant torrent of thermal energy. Firebreather decided to dump his full arsenal at this mont, which rapidly degraded Winston’s ch.
Yet the eel ch still persisted under these circumstances. It used the tail end of its fra to lash against the octagon ch, smashing aside the armor at those spots.
The two chs continued to batter at each other, hoping to force their opponent to concede first. The contest of endurance turned into a contest of wills. Whoever lost their nerve first would be savaged by the pumped up crowd!
Even Raella clenched her fists at the action underneath their floating room. "Get closer!"
"I can’t. There’s too many rooms in the way!"
A whole pile of floating rooms had congregated around the side where the fighting took place. The VIPs all wanted to get close to see the outco of this decisive mont with their very own eyes.
Monts like these reminded Ves why he adored chs. The visceral combat stimulated the primitive part of his brain that craved for blood. For all humanity pretended to be civilized, deep down they still let themselves be ruled by the instincts that evolution had been slow to erase.
The sense that he lost his purpose started to fade as he got caught up in the fight. He made an important realization during this match.
"chs embody violence."
When Ves recently worked on his limited edition chs, he explicitly designed them to be display models. While there was nothing wrong with designing chs for peaceful purposes, it should never be his primary focus.
A real ch should be bred for war. Any refinents that Ves chose to add to his chs should never overshadow their primary purpose of destroying their enemies.
The duel reached its final stages when the octagon ch managed to burn a large gap in the fra of the eel ch. Firebreather instantly capitalized on the weak point by focusing all of his heat attacks on that spot!
A low boom echoed from the do as sothing critical inside Slippery Winston’s ch exploded! The disruption caused by that explosion opened up the insides of his eel ch to water, which quickly crushed the delicate internals inside the affected compartnts.
The referees forced a halt to the fighting because Winston had been knocked unconscious from the sudden shock. Fortunately, his cockpit’s integrity remained intact, so he escaped from the duel with his life intact.
Ves lost interest in the tournant at this point. The subsequent matches proceeded rather taly as the ch athletes played conservatively and dragged out the ti. None of them wanted to end up like Slippery Winston.
Even Raella started to yawn when the standoff between two shark-like chs went on for more than fifteen minutes. Both chs primarily relied on spikes and torpedoes to harass their opponents to death.
Only the dedicated fans remained excited for their adopted teams. Ves stopped caring about the outco and instead focused on the chs themselves.
All of the chs he had seen so far possessed a spark of life. Ves could tell that each ch adopted a unique design that had gone through nurous evolutions. Each ti they sustained significant damage, their designers tweaked the designs so that the chs fared a little better next ti.
They were very much opposite to the clinically clean and lifeless machines of the MTA. chs produced through materialization paid for their perfection with their souls. Even if they delivered superior performance over chs produced through fabrication, Ves wondered if they represented the answer to making better chs.
It depended on the potential of the X-Factor. Ves only scratched the surface with this taphysical phenonon. He suspected that a stronger X-Factor might have dramatic effects, but he was years away from another breakthrough. At his current level of progress, achieving those levels seed far away.
"What do you think about materialized chs?" Ves asked his cousin out of the blue.
"You an that fancy new production technique from the galactic center? It sounds like it’s really expensive. I’ll probably be dead before materialized chs beco mainstream in our neighborhood."
"Do you think they’re better?"
"Of course! It’s more expensive, so it must be worth the money, right?"
Her answer revealed that Raella didn’t know much about ch production. A ch pilot like her wouldn’t know the difference.
Would Ves still have a place in a future where materialization beca reasonable enough to take over the galactic rim? If ch pilots started to beco more exacting about their demands, then Ves expected to face a lot of difficulty trying to achieve the inhuman level of quality that materialization easily provided.
Sothing started to crystallize in his mind as he wrestled over this issue. Ves had always been fascinated by the X-Factor. Since he already achieved so progress, he owed it to himself and the System to see this journey through.
Even if materialization ca with many benefits, it could not replace the fundantal value of plain-old craftsmanship. chs should co with a human touch.
His newfound conviction seed to cleanse his mind once again. Rather than regard materialization as an inevitability or a looming threat, he treated it as an alternative that he already ruled out.
If the ch market progressed in a way that favored materialized chs, then Ves would continue to fight for chs produced through more traditional ways.
He’d prop up his own market if he had to.
That was not to say that he aid to fight against this technology. Materialization offered a lot of benefits in other industries that had always been chasing after zero errors. Progress couldn’t be stopped once it was unleashed. The ch industry as a whole stood to gain a lot from this thod of production as well.
"Not everyone cares for a handmade ch."
The vast majority of chs sold today consisted of cheap, mass-produced chs. Once materialization beca more affordable, the lower end of the market should gain a lot of benefits as the overall quality went up.
The Sea Crown Tournant reached its final act as the Sea Dragons and the Myrmidons went even with each other. Both teams eked out two wins, beating most people’s expectations that the reigning champions would easily steamroll the challengers.
Ves regained his interest in the tournant once the final round comnced. Both teams sent out their team captains for this decisive match.
"Jackknife Jake is carrying the final hopes of the Myrmidons! Will he be able to deliver on the promise he made to his fans, or will he return to Velton with empty hands?"
"Not if the Sea King has anything to say about it! With over nine years of duelling experience, the King has reigned over our planet for three consecutive years as he led the Sea Dragons to victory ti and ti again!"
Jackknife Jake piloted a dium-sized angular fish ch with lots of retractable weapon hardpoints. Ves could tell his ch relied on hit-and-run attacks with its sharpened fins to grind his opponents down.
In contrast, the Sea King piloted a sea dragon-shaped ch. The extravagant machine had clearly been designed to evoke a sense of majesty, as if it was a given that the Sea King should reign over Moira’s Paradise. Its design achieved an optimal balance between power and flexibility. Its two claws added a lot of extra options to the Sea King’s arsenal.
"Jake!" The Sea King broadcasted through an open channel which the arena passed on to the crowd. "Your team did well this year, but your lucky streak has co to an end. You’ve never defeated before. The outco is already set!"
The team captain of the Myrmidons responded, if only to please his supporters. "Boast after you win, not before! I’ve crawled through countless rivals to get to this point, beating expectations along the way. Even if you have the better machine, nothing is ever set in stone!"
While Jackknife Jake piloted a very good aquatic ch, the amount of money invested into the sea dragon ch beggared the mind. From what Ves could tell, the Sea King’s ch was worth at least three tis as much as Jackknife Jake’s machine.
"Is the outco already determined?" Ves softly asked to himself. Personally, he found the Sea King’s attitude to be repulsive. He started to root for the Myrmidons again. "Co on, Jake, show him what a better pilot can do!"
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