Ves beca so obsessed with designing a set of powerful water fey that he neglected to leave his design lab for several days.
This was abnormal as he had just arrived on an entirely new planet!
He originally planned to tour the most prominent sites of Bortele III. So many ch forces stopped by the port system that the place had beco livelier than Davute.
At the very least, he wanted to stop by the local branches of the Larkinson Clan, the LMC, the Open Consortium and the Creation Association.
However, he threw most of these appointnts out of the window when he beca determined to add a lot of extra oomph to his living fey.
The challenge of defeating one of the dominant ch lines in the market compelled him to work as hard as possible!
Many people regretted the fact that they would not be able to et with the famous patriarch of the Larkinson Clan, but there were also a lot of other people who felt relieved that he remained out of sight.
The less he moved around, the easier it beca for the chers to defend his life!
Ves received occasional reports about additional protectors dispatched by the Red Association.
Even the entire venue where he planned to conduct his product reveal ca under special protection.
All of this did not bother Ves too much. He had firm goals in mind and felt driven to complete them now that he had recovered from his most recent failure.
The water fey was all done. Ves had just fabricated a few batches of them after spending a day in the ch workshop. Since they were not as big as chs, it did not take a lot of ti and effort to bring them into existence.
The only issue was that the ch pilots as well as the living chs needed to spend precious ti to get accustod to their quirks.
The new fey ca with additional complications which made it a bit more troubleso to utilize them at their full capacity.
Still, now that Ves had managed to complete this essential chore, he had enough ti to focus on other priorities.
"Gavin?"
"Yes, boss?"
"Please purchase a dozen or so used chs from the second-hand ch market. You can pick and choose whatever you like so long as they are not LMC chs."
His assistant furrowed his brows. "That is an open-ended request. Bortele III has a thriving market for second-hand and even third-hand chs. Can you narrow your criteria further so that I have a better idea what I should buy?"
"I want to study how constant exposure to E energy radiation has changed them. I don't need lots of samples, so a dozen is already enough. I don't care about their ch types, quality, features and price levels. What I do care about is how long they have been used. Try and purchase chs that have been in constant use for over a decade or further. Make sure that they have also been piloted for at least several months during the Age of Dawn. The older the ch, the more I can gain from my observations. Is that clear, Gavin?"
His assistant vaguely figured out what Ves wanted to look for. The dutiful man nodded in understanding.
"Don't worry. Many chs that tend to be older than one or two decades usually consist of guard machines that have rarely seen any actual use, but there are always exceptions. I will make sure to buy the oldest available machines that are still intact. Most people usually recycle them as they are pretty much worthless after suffering so much wear-and-tear, but maybe there are a few weirdos who can't let their precious machines get ripped apart in order to recover their materials."
"Just make it happen. The sooner you bring those chs back, the sooner I can complete my research." Ves said. "Don't worry about putting them to use. 1 have no intention to field them or anything. We can send them to the recyclers once I have completed my examination."
"That will make my search easier."
Just as promised, it only took Gavin and his team a few hours to quickly scrounge up a small collection of used chs from the second-hand ch market.
It turned out that a lot of established ch forces dumped their lastgen chs in order to free up room for their shiny new hyper chs.
While there were many forces that were willing to wait a few months to upgrade their existing chs to an updated version, not every group was willing to take this route.
With the introduction of the Hyper Generation, the second-class ch market had beco filled with models that belonged to the Phasewater Generation or even older!
The conditions of these chs were actually pretty good for the most part. Even the shabbier machines got patched up in order to restore their fighting condition. This was because their owners all expected to make use of them for many more years.
The start of the Age of Dawn had changed everything, so all of these decent and serviceable chs of the Phasewater Generation suddenly turned into unwanted foster children.
"You won't believe how many of them have been piling up inside the warehouses." Gavin said as the recently purchased chs were being shipped into an underground hangar of branch headquarters of the Larkinson Clan. "Tens of thousands of them have been put on sale. An even greater quantity of chs have been sent straight to the recycling companies, who are enjoying a massive boom in business by the way. It was easy for us to pick out the oldest and most used machines among the extensive collections of intact castoffs."
Ves couldn't help but feel uncomfortable about this. This sort of treatnt fully reflected the prevailing attitude. Most people generally treated chs as objects, commodities or disposable assets.
Once they had outlived their imdiate usefulness, their owners had no qualms about selling them off or scrapping for parts and materials!
"Did you happen to see a lot of LMC chs among those heaps?"
"Surprisingly, no." Gavin smiled. "Our living chs all have glows and other functions that are irreplaceable, at least for now. There is no substitute for the Pacifier line for example. Our existing products have all undergone a lot of growth. They not only beca more useful, but also developed strong emotional bonds with their ch pilots. No one is willing to phase them out so easily. Many of them are still waiting for our clan to upgrade their models into hyper chs."
"I know. I won't make them wait too long. It is good that these custors are willing to stick to their old machines and wait to upgrade them into more modern incarnations. They will fully be able to retain their growth progress if that is the case."
As far as Ves was concerned, this should happen a lot more. He still had a lot of work to do in order to turn this ideal into a universal standard.
Ves continued to ask about Gavin's observations when he went out to buy the used chs.
Alexa Streon arrived a few minutes later.
"I heard that you were looking to examine a number of old chs. Is this related to your design philosophy, professor?"
"It is." Ves admitted and started to stride forward. "Co with . Let's take a look at them. That reminds , you should be close to choosing your own design philosophy, right? Has your extra duties delayed you in taking this crucial step?"
"It is fine, sir. I do not mind it if I can take my ti. I have continued to gather more insights from your work. The more I know about living chs, the more certainty I will gain once I have set my course. It is better to embark on ch design with a clearer understanding of what lies ahead."
She was right. Ves was on his own when it ca to developing living chs. This was the downside of becoming the pioneer of an unexplored field.
They eventually stopped in front of a worn and weather-beaten landbound hybrid ch. It used to feature bright yellow coating, but it had suffered so much neglect that it had dulled to the point where it had partially worn away.
Gavin proceeded to introduce the machine.
"This is one of the oldest chs that we managed to pick up from the used market. It is a 15 year old ch that is originally based on a model called the Balsem Indigo RIX-76P. It has swapped between four different owners according to its logs, and has been used by 9 different pilots over the course of its existence. It was already outdated during the Phasewater Generation, but it is still a cheap and useful ch when used to defend vulnerable colonies against exobeasts and enemy raids. It has seen infrequent action over the years, and has been repaired and modified too many tis to count. The only reason why it has still remained in use for so long was because it has been continually upgraded by many different ch designers."
The Balsem Indigo was a ss.
It originally started out as a normal production copy, but gradually turned into a frankenstein ch.
Ves did not need to read a log in order to perceive the history of this old machine.
Its limbs got blown off multiple tis. This was a machine that experienced more than its fair share of battles over the course of its life.
Its inferior parts got replaced by superior ones, which in turn got replaced again when newer parts beca available.
Old tech occasionally made way for newer tech, but this did not apply to every ch system. Its weapon systems got replaced most often while much of its internals remained as old as the ch itself.
The Balsem Indigo also retained the echo and imprints of multiple ch pilots. Strangely enough, Ves could only clearly perceive 6 of them. This ant that the remaining three had spent so little ti with it that they never managed to influence the machine.
All of these events and more ford a living tapestry that defined the life and history of a simple landbound hybrid ch!
It was beautiful.
"What do you think about this ch, Alexa?" Ves asked as he entered his teaching guise again. "Is it a simple rustbucket, or does it hold greater value than what is obvious on the surface?"
The woman did not answer imdiately. She instead sent out Maia in order to study the spirituality of the Balsem Indigo.
"Myah."
"I... am not entirely certain whether it holds greater value, but... I think it is alive." Alexa eventually replied. "I do not an that in the conventional sense. This ch isn't close to matching the liveliness of your living chs or even that of the Monster Slayer. It is... much less developed. It is like a mouse to a human. How can this ch be alive in the first place? Has it spontaneously gained life after being bombarded by E Energy radiation?"
Ves nodded. "I think that is an important contributing factor to its current state. In the past, I would have told you that this ch has developed an X-Factor due to being shaped by the minds of ch pilots over a long stretch of ti. Normally, that would have been the end of this story, as the concept of X-Factor is so vague and difficult to determine that most people simply don't think it exists in the first place."
"That has obviously changed. The Age of Dawn has rewritten the rules."
"That is apparently the case." Ves agreed. "My theory is that chs with X-Factor can gradually evolve into proto-living chs after being exposed to E energy radiation for a long stretch of ti. While they haven't t the standard of first order living chs, I am afraid that it may be possible for other ch designers to detect this properly and improve it through their own ans."
Both Alexa and Gavin looked shocked as they realized the implications of this statent!
"Does that an... your living ch monopoly is about to end?"
User Comments
0 comments from readers