Before Ves was comfortable with discussing Marvaine's future trajectory, he wanted to see for himself what kind of genius he had raised under his nose.
While the test results provided by Witshaw & Seneca were filled with lots of statistics that tried to quantify Marvaine's comprehensive cognitive abilities in excruciating detail, they did not an much to him. It was all numbers and graphs. Even the reference values that were supposed to give context by making comparisons did not give him a good understanding of what his impressive son could actually do at his tender age.
This was why he opted to test his kid in a completely different way.
He gazed down at his boy. Marvaine squinted in pleasure as Gloriana neatly combed his brown tufts of hair into a more dignified style.
"Marvaine?"
"Yes, papa?"
"I have a birthday present lying around in a nearby storage cabinet. I originally wanted to wait to give it to you until you were a little older, but your mother and I are so happy that you have done well in your studies that I decided to hand it over to you today!"
His son's eyes lit up as if he was having the best day ever!
"Really? Yay! I want my present! I want my present! I want my present! Where is it, papa?!"
"Please wait. I've already ordered a couple of bots to bring over your present. It's a bit big, but it will definitely be fun, I promise!"
Ves slyly avoided any description of the present that he had prepared for his son. Though Marvaine grew increasingly more frustrated at the lack of answers, his mood soon lifted as five different lifter bots floated into the design lab.
Each of them carried secure tal crates that were typically used to hold high-value goods and materials.
Gloriana's eyes glazed over for a mont as she thought about what was in those crates.
"Brings back mories." She whispered. "I had so much fun with them. Now, my boy is following suit. I'm so proud."
She already knew what her husband had prepared for a birthday present. The two held a discussion about it a year ago. They had bought a set back in one of the luxury toy stores located in the Trinity Mall in Davute.
They bought the present in advance because it would be a lot harder to get it shipped to their flagship once the expeditionary fleet resud its journey again.
It was also a lot easier to specify the contents and the configuration of the set through a store that officially licensed the toy system.
The bots carefully put down the crates before making their way out. Ves waited until they left through the hatch of the design lab.
Once the hatch closed shut, he approached the nearest crate and transmitted a code that automatically disengaged its lock.
The tal structure soon unfolded, revealing a gleaming boxed package that was covered by bright colors and action-packed images!
A young boy and a young girl were holding different miniature ch limbs as they were in the middle of assembling a ch figurine.
A slightly older boy was doing the sa, but instead of holding an entire ch arm, he was in the middle of slotting a foot into a leg socket.
A pair of other children who almost looked to be in their teens were working together on putting together a more complicated miniature ch. They were working with parts that were so small that they had to use tweezers and other specialized tools to slot sensor modules into the sockets of a head or energy cells inside a fixed internal structure of a miniature ch.
Aside from showing off different children having lots of fun while piecing together toy chs from different building blocks, they also showed the toy chs in action.
It soon beca clear that the little machines weren't simple blocks of tal or composites when they were pieced together.
The cover of the packaging showed a jumble of completed miniature chs brawling against each other in a small arena!
On one side, a swordsman ch flew into the air with the help of its 'flight system' which was actually just a miniaturized antigrav module. Its weapon was in the middle of swinging onto a floating miniature rifleman ch which was firing kinetic projectiles made out of harmless foam.
On the other side, a miniature heavy artillery ch was firing a salvo of extrely low-powered optical beams onto a classic miniature knight ch.
A miniature light skirmisher was just about to stab its blunted daggers into the back of the artillery ch, but a miniature striker ch that was hiding from behind a fake structure fired a spray of colored water that was supposed to represent flas in the fast-moving machine's direction.
Marvaine's mood and expression grew increasingly more ecstatic when he recognized the present his father had bought for him! It was a toy franchise that was regularly featured in the ads whenever he and his sisters watched those cartoon dramas!
"It's a kano Set!" He exclaid with glee!
"That's not entirely correct." Ves grinned as he commanded the remaining secure crates to reveal their contents.
They all unfolded at the sa ti, revealing packaged boxes that depicted different toy chs and parts, but all featured the sa trademarked logo!
"It's not just one kano Set, but five of them! They will provide you with plenty of parts and components to play with for the ti being!"
Any child who was even remotely interested in designing their own chs one day would definitely go wild when they first received a kano Set!
Marvaine was no exception! He completely forgot about his mother's embrace and jumped from her lap in order to run over to the nearest box!
He pressed his cute little hands against the smooth composite surface of the attractively packaged box.
"You can already read and understand a lot of words, right?" Ves asked.
Marvaine nodded.
"Then what does this line say?"
"It says... 'My First ch Set' and 'Best entry into the world of kano'..."
"That's right, Marvaine. This set is where all kano players start with. It contains all of the basic, foundational toy ch parts and components that you will need to start putting together a variety of toy chs. They won't look fancy or anything, but you should start with this set alone before branching out to more complicated constructions."
"Ohhh..."
Ves pointed at another line. "What does this say?"
"It says 'Machine Emporium - Founded by the Polymath'. Wait, is she..."
"Yes, Marvaine." Gloriana said as she steadily walked up to him. "The Polymath is the best and youngest Star Designer of our race. She initially created kano in order to introduce young and curious children such as you to the wonders and complexity of ch design. It can start out simple, but it can beco increasingly more complex and intricate as you unlock the higher levels."
That was the most brilliant part about kano. The degree of complexity and customization of the toy parts that could be used to build toy chs could vary. Every difficulty tier was divided into different levels.
Level 1 was the simplest one. It simply separated toy chs into large and obvious parts such as arms, legs, heads and torsos.
A kid did not need to know anything to be able to slot them together into complete chs. The slots were extrely obvious and the parts would refuse to connect with each other if they were incompatible.
Level 2 was when these larger parts could be divided into smaller chunks. Half of a ch arm could be pulled away so that a kid could put an integrated gauss cannon into the exposed elbow socket.
Level 3 was considered the limit of what small children could handle without needing to learn any math, science or engineering. They could slot in big ch parts such as different power reactors and ch engines into the torso of a toy ch.
Levels 4, 5 and 6 was where kano started to beco less of a ga and more of a training tool for budding teenagers that were hoping to attend a ch design university in the future.
This was the range where they started with progressively smaller components, so much so that they could no longer assemble their toy chs by hand. They needed to make use of specialized assembly equipnt to put all of the tiny parts in place.
They could assemble ch rifles out of individual components.
They could customize the internal architecture of a toy ch to an increasingly finer degree.
They could even start with programming custom instructions that determined the behavior of the ch in a selective fashion.
Level 6 was the maximum degree of complexity that kano could initially accommodate. A child with a good understanding of high school-level science and engineering should be able to piece together a reasonably functional toy ch.
The Machine Emporium even set up entire tournant circuits where teenagers and other young prodigy publically competed against each other! It was as if they were all participating in the kids version of a ch design competition!
In practice, any child that could already handle level 6 was pretty much a half-way into becoming a decent ch designer. They just needed to attend a number of advanced university-level courses before they could move on to designing actual chs!
When the Polymath initially released kano, it quickly took the ch industry and the toy industry by storm!
Toy ch building systems already existed by that ti. One of the most popular franchises was an old one that had been producing colorful composite building blocks long before the Age of Stars comnced!
Yet when the Polymath entered this market, she quickly conquered a lot of fans because kano was simply better than its imdiate competitors!
The Polymath had worked hard to make kano as complex and intricate as the consurs wanted it to be. A typical kano Set started out at Level 1, but by transmitting a special command, the large ch parts automatically broke up into smaller parts as they switched to Level 2.
The owner of the kano Set could keep doing this until the toy parts reached the maximum level determined by the tier of the products.
Tier 3 kano Sets were by far the most common ones sold throughout human space. They could only reach Level 3 at most, but that made them cheap and easy to produce. Pretty much every toy store in every third-rate state sold a small range of sets at this tier!
Tier 6 kano Sets were more commonly seen in second-rate states. They were indistinguishable from the prior products up to Level 3. It was only when a parent transmitted a command that switched the mover to Level 4, Level 5 or Level 6 that they started to get a lot more interesting!
Originally, kano Sets could go no further than Tier 6. Going any further would an that the consur had to be a fully-fledged Novice ch Designer in order to work with parts at such a fine level!
However, for reasons that no one could figure out, the Polymath soon ca out with Tier 7, Tier 8 and even Tier 9 sets, each of which beca exponentially more expensive and demanding!
When kano reached Level 7, then the only people who could make functional toy chs out of the parts were those who already possessed the skills of a third-class Novice ch Designer.
At Level 8, only people who reached the standard of a second-class Novice ch Designer could still have fun with kano.
Level 9 was exclusively reserved for first-raters who had already beco talented and knowledgeable enough to qualify as first-class Novice ch Designers!
If that wasn't enough, there were even rumors that the Polymath developed Tier 10 kano Sets, which contained parts that were supposedly made out of nanomachines that could provide maximum control and design freedom to the few consurs who were lucky to play with these secret toys!
Ves didn't dare to dream about buying the two highest tiers of kano Sets. He had gone for the highest possible tiers that he could access and afford at the ti.
Each of the 5 sets that he had bought for Marvaine were Tier 8 kano Sets, and the cheapest one was priced at 999 MTA credits!
Though the toy store where he bought the initial kano Sets also offered more elaborate and advanced products, their prices beca increasingly more exorbitant!
It didn't matter too much for the ti being. Marvaine was still too young to be able to make good use of the advanced sets. The beginner sets were more than adequate enough to keep him busy for a few years.
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