[1-200] THE MECH TOUCH

Chapter 8: Visitor

Ves' face soured as his eyes skimmed through his analytics page in Iron Spirit.

"Really, what am I paying so much crap for? I thought advertisements are supposed to work!"

He only had twenty days left to complete the System's mission of selling a hundred virtual mechs. So far, Ves only managed to sell his handcrafted Fantasia 2R Seraphim. That meant the other mechs he sold lacked his personal care and attention. Not only did their specs degrade, they also sold for twice its already ludicrous price.

When Ves visited the Seraphim's store page, he encountered hundreds of disparaging comments.

"8800 gold XD! Do you lack a few brain cells? Are you autistic? Then go ahead and buy this gold-plated piece of turd!"

"Can anyone lend me 8700 gold? I promise to pay you back once I dominate the arena. No one can withstand my secret weapon of crapping rainbows!"

"DON'T BUY THIS MECH! This is an over-engineered piece of shit that simply slaps a lot of extra parts together. Just buy a real flying mech instead!"

With comments like these splattered over his mech, no wonder he couldn't make an additional sale. Ves had learned a valuable but expensive lesson with this experience.

"I lost sight of my target audience. I thought I could have slapped a lot of components together without consequence. But the Bronze Leaguers are mostly a bunch of kids with little gold and credits to spare."

1-Star Mechs acted as training wheels in the game. As training tools, most potentates didn't bother to make an emotional connection to the mechs they piloted, considering them to be horribly outdated. The Bronze Leaguers paid more attention to the amount of performance they could squeeze at a given price.

It was a good thing he hadn't spent the rest of his time in vain. Other than stuffing Lucky with ores, he also extensively reworked the Fantasia 2R into a new variant. It had been his most major project to date, flexing all of his new skills to his limit, especially the Light Armor Optimization sub-skill.

The new Fantasia variant sported complete matte gray armor plating. Ves had painstakingly removed its original armor plating and replaced them with the newer and more efficient Mirin-21 Ultralight Armor Plating. To retain and even improve the mech's durability, Ves had to recalculate every plate's profile and thickness, bulking up the mech in many areas. Despite the increase in armor, the mech's weight still enjoyed a considerable reduction, making it faster and nimbler on the ground.

Ves felt highly satisfied with his work so far. He appreciated the miraculous powers of the System for allowing him to get accustomed to such amazing procedures in a matter of days instead of months.

In a good mood and prompted by his rich creativity, he even added in the Fayette ECM and the Festive Cloud Generator onto the custom mech's head. In keeping up with a ghost theme, he set the clouds to generate only greyscale colors, nicknaming the mech the Phantasm.

[Design Evaluation: Fantasia 2R Phantasm.]

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Variant name: Fantasia 2R Phantasm

Base model: Fantasia 2R

Original Manufacturer: Kezia Armaments

Weight Classification: Light

Recommended Role: Scout/Ambusher

Armor: C-

Carrying Capacity: F+

Aesthetics: B+

Endurance: D+

Energy Efficiency: D