"These are very expensive toys, Marvaine. While they are built to be as safe and childproof as possible, you need to handle all of the parts with utmost respect. Treat them like how a real ch designer treats his own chs. Do you understand, my son?"
"I understand, papa." Marvaine cutely said. He looked so adorable when he pretended to be serious.
It didn't take long before he turned back into an overeager kid. He was rubbing the side of the boxes as if he couldn't wait to unlock them and piece together his first toy chs!
Ves could understand the kid's enthusiasm. Which ch-obsessed boy wouldn't want to play with kano? Even those that wanted to beco ch pilots rather than ch designers when they grew up played with them if possible.
While not every child was interested in the intricacies of ch design at their ages, they all loved to put together a finished kano that they could play with themselves!
This was a lot better than buying a finished action figure in a toy store. As aweso as they were, they rarely provided any room for deep customization.
In fact, entire informal communities had sprung up where children who beca good at playing with kano offered their 'design' services to other kids!
These circles beca so elaborate that they practically resembled the actual ch industry and ch market!
They even ca up with their own jargon and terminology to pretend as if it was more serious than a ga.
The kids who beca good at designing these toy chs beca known as kano designers.
The children who did not want their toys to fight by themselves with the help of semi-programmable AIs and operated them by remote control started to be known as kano pilots.
It was truly a childish reflection of the actual ch community!
Perhaps that was the point. Anyone who got caught up in the kano scene got to experience the ch community in advance.
Ves didn't intend for Marvaine to join these ga communities, but he wouldn't mind it if he did beco a budding kano designer.
It was good practice and allowed him to learn a bunch of harsh truths that he could only learn from experience rather than reading about them in textbooks.
"What is in the other boxes?!" Marvaine asked as he raced over to the next kano Set.
"That's the Basic Ranged ch Set. It contains a decent variety of ranged toy ch parts, enough for you to design all kinds of kanos that can fight at range."
"And this one?"
"The Basic lee ch Set is the sa as the last one, but is oriented towards lee combat instead. There are plenty of swords, spear, daggers, axes and hamrs, though it is lacking in more exotic weaponry such as halberds and flails."
"What about this one? I don't understand what it contains."
"I'm not surprised that you can't figure it out. This is the Basic Internals Set. It contains a large collection of internal ch parts and components that you can use to customize the performance of a kano further. You can swap a weaker power reactor for a stronger model at the cost of taking up more space and weighing down your little machine."
"And this one?"
"That is one of the thed kano Sets that the regional branch of the Machine Emporium has released. The Krakatoa Set contains all of the essential parts derived from a decent selection of commonly sold ch models in the Krakatoa Middle Zone. I am sure you can recognize at least a few of the chs on the packaging."
Marvaine circled around the last kano Set in order to observe all of the artwork.
"Your chs aren't here, papa."
Ves sheepishly smiled. "That's because the First Edition of this set was released before our Living ch Corporation gained a foothold of the market. It's at least half a decade out of date, but it is fine. I am sure that the Machine Emporium will get around to adding LMC chs in the Third Edition or Fourth Edition of the Krakatoa Set."
His cute little son beca upset. "I don't wanna wait that long! Can you make your own kano Set?"
"It's not that simple, Marvaine." Ves shook his head. "kano is a protected brand and strictly rejects parts that are not officially authorized and produced by the Machine Emporium. While I can go to a production machine and fabricate imitation parts that resemble the authentic kano components, they won't fit together. The real kano parts will sohow be able to detect that the false ones are not authentic and will actively shut down or produce glitches. This is one of the many asures the Machine Emporium employs to protect its brand."
He could fabricate entire sets that corresponded to the authentic versions, but there was little point to doing so. It would take a lot of ti to do much of the work that the Polymath and the excellent designers employed by the Machine Emporium had invested into the toy ch building system.
If he really wanted to play with sothing similar to kano but without spending so much money, he could opt for the products sold by the Machine Emporium's competitors instead.
Ever since kano broke into the scene, it had rapidly occupied the upper segnt of the market. Its rich features and its consistently high quality provided a lot of fun and benefits to the custors who were rich enough to pay for the pricey sets.
Other toy ch building systems managed to survive and occupy their own places in the market by targeting the lower segnts. They were all good in their own ways, but they simply couldn't beat a system originally developed by an actual Star Designer!
Though the Polymath had long since moved on to other, more grander projects, kano was still expanding in popularity. It didn't even matter that the honorable Clair Hamzo had long sold off most of her stake in the Machine Emporium. kano was always tied to her na.
"Can I play with them now, papa?"
"Sure you can, but only with the first set. Let's leave these boxes aside for later. You should first master the basics before you expand your range."
His son looked disappointed. "Oh."
"You need to learn how to walk before you learn how to run. Co on, Marvaine! Let's open the My First ch Set so that you can put together your first real kano!"
Ves tapped the box, causing it to automatically unfold and expand into what appeared to be an elaborate cabinet.
A projection ca to life that depicted a couple of brand logos before playing a slick introduction video.
It was clearly aid towards young children who just beca introduced to kano. The cartoon mascots cheerfully explained the basic operation of kano, so that saved Ves a lot of trouble in explaining it all himself.
Gloriana quietly walked up to his side as their son beca engrossed by the introduction video. Her eyes grew wistful as she stared at the exposed toy ch parts revealed by the unpacked box.
"I never imagined our son would begin to play with kano so soon. I was only seven years old before my mother allowed to build my first kanos. I had so much fun back then. I had strived to make as few mistakes as possible right from the beginning. I still rember all of the looks of disappointnt from my mother whenever I made a mistake or presented her with an ugly kano."
"That… sounds a little harsh." Ves frowned in disapproval. "It's all well and good to develop good habits when you are still young, but the reason why kano is so popular is because it offers plenty of freedom for its players to exercise their creativity. Experinting with kano design is an integral part of the ga. Who cares whether you got it wrong? You can just alter or disassemble a kano without incurring any cost."
Unlike a real ch, a kano could always be broken down into parts without producing any waste. Every part remained whole when pulled away and could always be used to build other kanos.
This was important because it minimized the cost of experintation and exploration.
Gloriana did not agree with her husband, however.
"Just because you can doesn't an you should. It can take many hours to develop a kano at the middle levels. Rather than waste my precious ti to build kanos that aren't even serious, I opted to approach this ga as a simulation of my future career. It has done a lot of good, actually. I wouldn't have been able to graduate from Kelma University so easily if I hadn't benefited from years of 'practical training'."
He envied her. His own father never even thought about buying a kano Set for himself. The Tier 3 sets available in the Bright Republic were too basic to provide much educational value to teenagers. Most kids his age treated kano strictly as a slightly more serious ga.
"What level of kano did you manage to reach?"
"I managed to reach Level 5." Gloriana replied. "That was when it truly started to get fun. I was not only working with smaller components, but also had to fiddle with the programming of my kanos. I gained the right to selectively edit a few lines of programming so that I could optimize their performance in specific situations. I would have wanted to move on to the next level, but by that ti I had no choice but to drop it so that I can learn how to design real chs."
Ves rubbed his hairless chin. "Level 5, huh? I guess that is pretty impressive, though I expected you to reach Level 6 considering your standards."
"Trust , I wanted to reach this level as well, but my study load was already great back then. My mother demanded that I learn so many different subjects that I didn't have enough hours to spare on kano. Entire days went by as my kanos remained half-complete. It's ultimately just a ga to , so I was not terribly upset when I could finally learn how to design real chs."
"I see. It sounds like you made good use of it in the limited ti available to you. What level will our son be able to reach, you think?"
"That is difficult for to say." Gloriana frowned. "He is much smarter at his age than I was back then. He should definitely be able to hit Level 6 and probably Level 7 before he is ready to go off to university. He may even reach Level 8, but that is contingent on many factors. If he is able to receive first-class schooling and keep up with his demanding classes, then I see no reason he should be able to acquire much of the skills of a second-class Novice ch Designer."
Reaching Level 8 did not necessarily an a child was genuinely as competent as an actual ch designer. There were still many differences between kanos and chs. The forr simplified a lot of obscure details in order to streamline the design and assembly process as much as possible.
It was still a great sign if any child was able to play with kanos at this level without getting lost!
The fact that Ves bothered to invest in Tier 8 kano Sets in the first place already exposed how confident he was in his son!
Even if Marvaine only hit Level 6 at most before he had to move on to grown-up activities, it was not that big of a waste. kano parts never beca obsolete so Ves could simply pass them on to his grandchildren.
"Papa, mama, I'm ready to design my first ch! What do you think I should start with? Ranged chs are so cool, but lee chs are also aweso. I can't choose!"
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