The Mech Touch

Chapter 6525 Priority Change

"Change of plans."

"What?"

"I have changed my schedule so that I can devote additional time on our high-ranking mech design projects." Ves walked up to Gloriana in the design lab and announced his latest decision. "I have decided to withhold my desire to work on additional mech design projects and only limit myself to working on three Carmine mech design projects. This won't buy me a lot of time, so I have decided to resort to a more extreme measure to speed up the completion of our projects. I am cutting back on my sleep schedule. I am thinking about sleeping once every few days, and minimizing every sleep session to just 3 hours or less."

Gloriana set aside her current design work and turned her seat around to face her husband with a serious expression.

"That is not a healthy decision. You have always resisted this in the past."

"I am a phase lord, Gloriana. Sleep holds a very different meaning to a biological lifeform that has far surpassed mortal limitations. Phasewater flows through my veins despite the fact that it is deadly to other humans. Cutting back on sleep is not as dangerous as it sounds."

"Even if that is the case, this is still an adverse decision!" Gloriana exclaimed! "Sleep is an essential habit even for transhumans and posthumans who have entirely climinated the biological necessity for sleep! There are many examples in the past where people who have gained nocturnal augmentations eventually drove themselves crazy due to persistently staying awake! Many studies have shown that their perception of time has warped and that their attachment to their own humanity has permanently weakened! Sleep may sound like a simple phenomenon, but it is one of the most effective natural processes to preserve our mental balance!"

Sleep was a phenomenon that transcended race. Almost every organism of a certain degree of complexity slept to an extent. Life persisted by alternating between activity and rest.

Most people who tried to eliminate sleep from their daily life cycles had come to regret their decisions.

Just because technology had advanced to the point where it was biologically possible to eliminate this mortal necessity did not mean that they were mentally strong and

prepared enough to endure sleepless nights!

Through theory and plenty of examples throughout history, humanity had come to a consensus that sleep was not a waste of time.

It was a necessity of human life, and that of many alien lives as well.

According to the intelligence that Ves was able to access, even phase whales and phase lords required sleep in order to maintain their physical and mental health.

In fact, there were many cases where phase leaders willingly went into hibernation and slept for thousands of years at a time.

Their ascension into 'godhood' had caused them to develop a drastically different attitude towards time.

Their vastly inflated lifespans caused them to become less attached to the moment. Once they grew bored or cared too little about stuff that was taking place in the current time period, they may easily decide to retreat to a private pocket space and hibernate for such a long period of time that most residents of the Red Ocean had already forgotten about their disappeared gods!

Ves remained steadfast in his decision, though.

"I am aware of the risks, Gloriana. What I am doing is not natural, but the challenges that. I must overcome cannot be overcome by clinging sentimentally to my humanity. If I want to do my best to protect my clan and more importantly our children from the murderous intentions of the native aliens, I need to increase my productivity by a huge extent. Completing the high-end mech design projects a few months earlier might not be enough to turn the entire Red War around by themselves, but it is the best and most effective measure I can come up with in the short term."

The female mech designer began to figure out that Ves had reasons to feel more urgent than before. She was not certain whether his judgment was correct.

"The mech designs that I am in charge of are difficult to speed up. Much of the design hinges on the integration of archetech with numerous demanding requirements. Your assistance is helpful, but limited. Is it truly necessary for you to fixate on my three projects? If you want to make a greater impact on the war effort, why not design a good mass production mech such as your recent Fey Fianna and Ultimatum models? Their recent sales figures have jumped after your latest invention has brought an unprecedented degree of attention to your works."

"I already thought about that, Gloriana. It takes too long to design a new Carmine mech or conventional mech that can help red humanity put up a better fight in the short term. My only consolation is that Ketis recently released the Stormblade Samurai Mark II model. I have already taken a look at its specs and test performance. It might not be the best swordsman mech in every situation, but it is a well-designed premium product that can make a slight but meaningful difference as long as they are mass produced and shipped to the frontlines in the coming months."

Gloriana had studied the design of the Stormblade Samurai II as well. For a mass production model that had been designed for commercialization, Ketis did an adequate job. She had clearly matured by a notable extent. Her latest work proved that her skills had improved at an impressive rate.

"If you refuse to work on another mass production model and insist on spending additional time on my projects, then you will not be able to get away with taking extra classes on archetech. I do not need you to reach my level, but you need to comprehend enough theory to assist me with solving a large amount of trivial problems. Is that acceptable to you, Ves?"

Ves nodded. "I need to learn more about archetech anyway, so I might as well do this sooner. By the way, in order to speed up the delivery of completed high-end mechs, I want to propose another change. I suggest that we do not split our time equally across all 3 projects, but instead focus on completing them sequentially."

"You want us to devote all of our time on completing one high-end mech design project at a time?" Gloriana contemplated the suggestion. "There are a number of issues that will cause us to spend more work hours on completing the projects in total. There are numerous cases where it is better if we plug in a set of parameters in a simulation program and give the processor a day or two to calculate a solution through brute force. Designing these complex mechs sequentially means that we will get slowed down at times. Making other alterations to the mech design may cause the results of the calculations to become skewed, thereby introducing potential flaws that we will not be able to detect in time."

She was right. There were advantages and disadvantages to working on multiple projects in parallel.

Both Ves and Gloriana had become accustomed to stopping their work on one project whenever they hit a wall and needed more time to mull over the problems.

They also found it convenient to work on another project whenever needed to wait for the processor banks to complete their calculations.

"We can take measures to minimize the delays." Ves responded. "For example, the times where we need to wait for our processor banks to complete their math and simulation tasks can be drastically shortened. I am prepared to spend hundreds of billions of MTA credits to build a huge underground processor facility. The processing power of Diandi Base was sufficient at first, but it has quickly grown inadequate as our needs have rapidly grown."

"Hundreds of billions of MTA credits! Are you even able to draw that much cash at the moment?"

"Our clan's expenses have admittedly grown. This is especially the case when we are building branches on many planets and funding the construction of high-quality first-class starships. However, we should still be able to bear the financial burden despite the rising inflation and the low margins of the Yellow Jacket Models. So many of them are being produced and sold every day that all of the small figures are adding up to a huge sum. The biggest difficulty is getting priority on our order as we are not. the only ones who are in a hurry, but this should not be a major issue. I think my reputation and high office should be enough to convince the processor

manufacturers to put me at the top of the list."

Ves was not a nobody or an immature upstart anymore!

He was a bigshot that had become a household name to red humanity! His wife thought over the various proposals. "If you are truly willing to cut your sleep schedule and invest billions of MTA credits to upgrade our processor capacity, then... it may actually work. We may just be able to complete one of the high-end projects in as little as two months. However, we will have to choose the project carefully and recall the associated pilot to New Constantinople in advance to conduct examinations and perform tests. I highly suggest we do not try to complete the Minerva Mark II Project first because I am still waiting for the Mentalist Crystal that you have promised. Without this crucial material, our project will get stalled at one point. It is better to wait for it to get shipped over first before we resume our work on it in

earnest."

Ves nodded in agreement. "You are right. In that case, let us prioritize the Amaranto Mark III Project first. I am on a roll when it comes to designing the Two-Step Execution Crystal. You have already overcome the biggest bottlenecks regarding the integration of lots of hyper materials in the archemech frame, so you should be able to complete your work smoothly. How do you think Harry Haikkonen will fare in completing his own assignments?"

"He is competent enough. You can rely on him to complete the redesign of the Instrument of Vengeance in time. His only weakness that is relevant to us is that he is inexperienced with working on a mech design project as high-end as this. We need to provide him with guidance on a regular basis to ensure that his work remains on the right track. The only other point of uncertainty is the Instrument of Doom. If the collaboration that you have proposed with the Red Fleet suffers delays or encounters any setbacks, then it might not get finished in time."

"Leave aside the Instrument of Doom for the time being." Ves made a radical decision. "The Amaranto originally made use of the Instrument of Vengeance just fine. The oversized luminar crystal cannon came much later. We can just repeat history and do this again. What is important is that Venerable Davia Stark gets her hands on a functional version of the Amaranto Mark III as soon as possible."

"...You do know that the Amaranto Mark II is mainly relying on the Instrument of Doom to inflict effective damage against enemy warships and occasionally phase lords,

correct?"

"Hehehehe." Ves grinned and chuckled. "That is because the Amaranto Mark II has grown outdated. Once she is upgraded to a fully-fledged first-class mech that makes use of much more powerful materials and technology, she no longer has to worry about a deficit in firepower even when she is stuck with using the next iteration of the Instrument of Vengeance!"

The high-end luminar crystal rifle was not only about to receive a massive

technological overhaul, but would also become larger and bulkier!

Ves believed that he could get away with this design choice because the extensive

upgrades to the Amaranto Mark III also increased her mobility, allowing her to move faster and haul around larger objects with greater case.

After a bit more discussion, Gloriana reluctantly agreed to work according to her husband's suggestions.

Completing the Amaranto Mark III Project as quickly as possible had become their greatest priority!