As his birthday got nearer and nearer, the mood in the company had grown more jubilant. Even though Ves refused to turn his birthday into a company event, every employee saw it as a milestone.

Their boss was one of the youngest Journeyman in the Bright Republic! Not only that, but he became a saint of the Ylvaine Protectorate!

The repercussions of the latter slowly dawned upon the leadership of the company as they saw a lot of new opportunities in the neighboring state.

"It's kind of crazy how far demand has outstripped our supply." Calsie reported in his office. "The hype for our products has become so high that some savvy owners of our existing mechs are beginning to offer them up to the Ylvainans in the second-hand market."

That did not sound good to Ves. "Second-hand mechs aren't as good as first-hand mechs."

"There's no choice. Even with our fancy new production lines, our production capacity is wholly insufficient to service the massive amount of demand that has flooded our sales channels. If there's one bright spot, it's that the Ylvainans have learned to appreciate the differences between our labels. The gold label mechs are being resold at insane markups! Even our silver label mechs are being resold as if they are new."

The hype around his mechs was crazy, but Ves didn't expect it to last.

"A spike in demand never lasts very long." Calsie said. "According to our marketing analysts, once the Ylvainans get back to their lives, demand will subside, but it will always be several times higher than the old levels. The more we exploit our partnership with Madame Cecily, the more we can build up demand that is grounded in reality and that we can sustain."

There was a difference between the two. Hype was always something that only lasted for a short time. Ves couldn't bank on his status as the Bright Martyr to sell mediocre mechs. The LMC needed to convert the short-term advantages of hype into a long-term advantage that ensured its continued success in the Protectorate.

Ves was glad that the LMC were already developing plans of that nature. "The Marketing Department has done a good job, but I don't think they fully understand the Ylvainans. Tell them to hire some experts that can advise us how to market our products to the Ylvainans. They're really different compared to Brighters or Reinaldans."

"Will do, Ves. We've already started hiring some managers and experts to represent our interests in the joint venture in the Protectorate. Once we got some of our people on the ground, we'll be able to obtain a better read of the local mech market."

"Keep me in the loop." Ves commanded. "We need to be careful to pursue gradual growth. As long as we don't threaten to take over the mech market, our Ylvainan competitors are more inclined to accept our place in their midst."

"Sounds like you got a good handle on the politics."

The higher Ves and the LMC climbed, the greater the role of politics and cross-border relations. It frustrated him a bit that he needed to pay attention to these kinds of issues in the first place. It was a lot simpler to deal with fair competition than political compromises and backroom deals.

"How do the developments in the Ylvaine Protectorate affect our operations in the Bright Republic and other markets?"

"We mainly produce the Blackbeak and Crystal Lord at the Mech Nursery." She reported. "We've pretty much saturated the domestic market with those two mech models. While the celebrity effect that Gavin told me about has caused a surge in demand, it's not enough to flood us like the Ylvainans are doing at the moment. This is why the surge in demand from the Protectorate is like a timely rain after a drought. It keeps our production lines running at full capacity for the next year or two at the very least."

Ves nodded. The LMC already sold thousands of Blackbeaks and Crystal Lords in the Bright Republic alone. The mech buyers who wanted to obtain one of these mechs already bought them by now.

It was different in the Ylvaine Protectorate. The mech buyers there only bought a couple of hundred of his mechs so far, but now that he and his company suddenly became prominent there, thousands of mech buyers wanted to try out the Blackbeak and the Crystal Lord models!

"What about the Aurora Titan?'

"As you know, apart from the gold label editions, NORA Consolidated is responsible for producing most of them. They've reported to us that they've received a surge in demand for the Aurora Titan as well, but not as extreme as we are seeing. It's a niche mech model, and an expensive one at that. Even so, Professor Ventag's mech company has allocated several more production lines to the production of the Aurora Titan in order to meet this additional demand."

"NORA Consolidated is much bigger than the LMC. They have the production lines to spare, unlike us."

The LMC still benefited from the surge in demand. Even if the LMC was only entitled to twenty-five percent of the profits from the sale of the Aurora Titan, the model was so expensive that it still amounted to a generous sum of money!

Talking about their bottleneck in production prompted Calsie to make a suggestion. "Considering the considerable surge in demand, perhaps it would be a good idea to expand our production lines again. Our cash flow is abundant and the money we're accumulating isn't doing any good in our accounts."

If it was before, Ves wouldn't consider this option. He originally planned to accumulate a warchest in order to obtain the new licenses that would be released at the start of the mech generation.

That wasn't necessary now. The deal he made with Senator Tovar and Professor Ventag gave him easy access to future component licenses. The LMC could invest its proceeds into other investments.

He made a decision. "I'm not opposed to expanding our production lines. Draw up a plan and perform an analysis on how much we can afford to spend and how much future demand the LMC expects to meet. I want to make a decision based on our circumstances instead of my gut feeling. We also have to get the board of directors to agree with the expansion."

Even though he could simply order Calsie to expand the production capacity of the Mech Nursery by twenty production lines, would the LMC really need that much extra capacity? Perhaps in ten years maybe, but not necessarily sooner.

After Calsie noted all of the decisions he made, she left his office and made sure to get the ball rolling.

"It's amazing to see how far I've come since I founded the LMC." He whispered to himself while he leaned back against his padded office chair.

The LMC was on the right track. Aside from its tiny mech catalog, his company was doing better than ever before, which was very remarkable considering the economic malaise that was just starting to subside.

To Ves, the company operated like a 3D printer. Although it looked like a single entity from the outside, it contained a lot of moving parts inside, each of which performed a different role.

While he was a lot more hands-on at the start, he continually upgraded the 3D printer's automation to the point where it could perform its job without any input from him apart from making major decisions.

How many thirty-year olds can boast of leading such a prosperous company?

"This is the power of a Journeyman."

Of course, a company only served as a means to an end. Ves already knew that Journeymen would need to invest a lot of money into research. Advancing to Senior made it worse, as the money he was required to fund his research ballooned!

"What kind of research are Seniors performing in the first place to make them spend so much money?" Ves frowned.

It probably involved a lot of exotics. Perhaps they were seeking breakthroughs of their design philosophies by trying to see of certain exotics enhanced their effects. Perhaps they were performing some sort of alchemy by combining several remarkable exotics to achieve the effect they desired.

Whatever the case, even Master Mech Designers still spent a stupendous amount of money to further their research!

Soon, Ves would join this race as well. He guessed that his upcoming visit to the sector headquarters of the MTA would answer many of his questions related to how a mech designer progressed after reaching Journeyman.

After he daydreamed for a while, Ves decided to study the Caskar Pike design before he resumed his fabrication work.

The spaceborn missileer mech was based on a simple concept, but the Skull Architect executed it very well. He did his utmost into maximizing every component he included into its design without leaving much room for waste and inefficiency.

"To be honest, I can learn a thing or two from his design choices."

Although the promise of designing fifteen variants for the Skull Architect sounded like a heavy burden, the opportunity to study fifteen different annotated and well-documented design schematics was a hidden benefit.

As long as Ves took care not to absorb any lessons that was incompatible to his design philosophy, he foresaw that he could apply a lot of the Skull Architect's crafty solutions in his future mech designs.

"Just by studying this missileer design gives me the confidence to design my own missileer mech."

Naturally, learning like this had its faults as well, as Ves would still allow himself to be influenced by another mech designer.

"My growth needs to be sustainable."

That meant he should take just enough notes to help him develop his own solutions instead of copying them directly from the Skull Architect's own designs. The moment he relied on someone else's work as a template for his own solutions was the moment he stopped innovating and developing his own solutions.

Considering that higher advancement placed a very high demand on innovation, Ves could not afford to lose his will to fight if he wanted to advance to Master one day.

"Perhaps this is the real trap." He realized. "Aside from its control problems, the Caskar Pike is so powerful and efficient that I'm really tempted to design my own missileer."

If he truly followed this impulse, then the ingenious design choices he observed from the Caskar Pike would definitely be applied to his own design. The resulting work would share many similarities.

"What a devious trap." He quietly cursed.

The Skull Architect was the true devil among mech designers!

For some reason, he liked to torment other mech designers by seducing them to abandon their ways!

Perhaps this was the pirate designer's means to recruit subordinate mech designers into his design team. Since he wasn't a university professor anymore, he didn't have access to a large body of mech design students who he could nurture into his assistants.

"Even so, why can't he just recruit mech designers openly?!"

There were lots of desperate mech designers like Ketis who requested to be mentored by an esteemed Senior!

Instead of adopting a normal selection process, the Skull Architect instead resorted to blackhearted tricks that inevitably ended poorly to the mech designer in question.

Once a young mech designer failed to resist the Skull Architect's allure, they would be dependent on him to advance further on a path that wasn't their own.

The Skull Architect was the most morally bankrupt mech designer he had ever met! Ves could hardly fathom a mech designer who was more despicable than someone who thought that murdering an expert pilot was a good idea!

The sooner Ves got rid of the Skull Architect, the safer he would be! Who knows what kind of plans this crazy mech designer had in store!

Mech designers like the Skull Architect illustrated that only a thin line separated genius from madness.

"With all of the ordeals I've experienced lately, I don't even know how ragged my own line has become."

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