[1-200] THE MECH TOUCH

Chapter 43: Miss Me, System?

When Ves returned to his hotel room, he faced two things. First, a cranky gem cat angrily yowled at him for neglecting his pet all day. Second, he received a notification from his bank account that Marcella sent him the seven million advance for his material needs.

"Sleep can wait." Ves said to himself as he activated a terminal and visited the Mech Trade Association's online market. He already took note of all the materials he required, so after a meticulous check he put all the items in his shopping list and confirmed his purchase. The seven million bright credits vanished from his account like it never existed.

"At least I paid for express shipping. The goods should arrive by my doorstep by the time I exit from the shuttle."

As he laid down on his bed, he reflected on the tumultuous events he experienced in his trip to Bentheim. In just two days, he put his name on the map by winning second place in a side tournament of the Young Tigers Exhibition. While not as prestigious as the main event, it was nonetheless one of the best prizes a young mech designer could win in the Republic.

Not only that, he enlisted the services of a well-established mech broker. With Marcella Bollinger taking care of selling his products here in Bentheim, Ves could devote his full attention to fabricating his mechs and coming up with new designs. Still, the ripoff twenty percent commission she took out of his gross profit hurt his bottom line. Still, if she could ensure a steady volume of customers, the amount of profit he made over time could be a lot higher than if he wasted time selling the mechs in person.

"Maybe Marcella has a point. If I hire my own people, I can do my own thing and let my employees take care of all the annoying stuff."

Naturally, that was something to consider once his business got up and going. For now, his mech boutique was so small scale that any employee he hired now would just be sitting on his thumbs.

After taking a long and deep sleep, Ves woke up a little late. It barely left him time to shower and pack up his luggage. He was barely able to grab a quick sandwich before Captain Gillian hustled him together with the other contestants to the spaceport.

This time, the crowd of mech pilots regarded him with a different attitude. Some looked impressed by his accomplishments. Others were puzzled why a talent like him settled down in the hinterlands of the Republic.

In any case, Ves knew he'd be stared at like this for quite a while. Of all the graduates who participated in the YTE, only he achieved the best results. The next best pilot only barely managed to scrape into the top fifty.

Ves wanted to focus on his upcoming fabrication project, so he fobbed off most attempts by the mech pilots to spark up a friendship. It wasn't that he appreciated new friends, but he simply didn't have the time.

Just after the shuttle flew up and escaped Bentheim's gravity, he was already pulling up his comm and making a detailed flowchart of his fabrication process. His slapdash way of fabrication might work with Iron Spirit's modern 3D printer and assembler, but his equipment in the real universe faced a lot more constraints. It might take only one wrong setting to ruin a component worth a million credits. So it paid to be prudent.

He also applied for a production license of the festive cloud generator while he was at it. As one of the two only non-native components of the Marc Antony, Ves couldn't produce it with the MTA's approval if he hadn't applied. Fortunately, as the component was more of a joke than anything else, Ves only had to part with a hundred thousand credits to get a 10-year production license for the decorative part. His cash reserves instantly halved.

The space shuttle leisurely fell behind a spacious queue towards their designated Lagrange point. The heavy traffic to and from Bentheim caused these Lagrange points to be congested, though that was only a relative term considering the vastness of space. Still, only a limited amount of ships were able to depart at the same time without disturbing the local spacetime too much, so each ship had to queue up and wait in line.