The Mech Touch novel Chapter 7408

Chapter 7408: The Hibiscus System

The Bluejay Fleet finally went underway.

It left the Yernstall Central Star Node without any issue and proceeded to journey to the Terran Alliance along a safe and busy trade route.

Though trade between the first-rate colonial empires and the Red Ocean Union had dropped significantly since the latter declared independence, goods still flowed across their borders.

It couldn’t be helped. Trade was far too important to both sides. They all lacked certain resources while possessing others in abundance. Trade had to persist even if relations between the partners had soured.

Of course, the volume of trade between colonial alliances had dropped by over 50 percent.

Groups increasingly preferred to keep their goods in-house even if it incurred a greater burden on their balance sheets.

In addition, the native aliens increasingly refined their commerce raiding activities.

The border regions had become increasingly more permeable, enabling the enemy to dispatch small but annoyingly fast raiding flotillas that preyed on undefended or lightly defended transportation ships!

This problem became especially more pronounced in the zones closest to the fighting. This made it exponentially more difficult and expensive to resupply the hungry defenders at the frontlines.

Regional trade became increasingly more unbalanced as a consequence.

Trade in and around the Cybernetic Empire flourished due to being stationed furthest away from the active war zones.

Shipping became a lot more congested in the rear of human space, so much so that premiums had risen by several hundred percent in just a single month!

All of these massive shifts caused severe trade disruptions as well as unbalance many enterprises.

Ves occasionally received reports that the Living Mech Corporation and its many manufacturing partners had been forced to shut down production lines due to supply shocks and profitability issues.

Fortunately, almost every other company suffered from issues, so the LMC did not lose that much competitiveness compared to its peers.

That said, Ves noticed that the more agile and responsive members of the mech industry had already begun to adjust their business practices.

Many companies proved unable to pivot their business and development strategies to account for all of the changes.

However, many one-man shops and companies led by very active mech designers had already begun to publish mech designs that imposed a much lighter burden on logistics.

The performance of the newest batch of mech designs did not necessarily offer superior performance.

In fact, many of them actually performed 5 to 25 percent worse!

Yet what they gave up in performance, they made up for it with affordability and ease of production.

By reducing the amount of rare and strategic resources that could only be obtained by importing them from distant zones, the mech designers successfully hardened their products against supply problems.

Such mech designs became increasingly more favored because their producers could continue to reliably pump out products from their manufacturing complexes.

The costs of these new mech models also did not grow as steeply as older designs due to their inherently greater resilience to trade disruptions.

By reorienting mech designs so that their material requirements became increasingly more regional, the mech industry gradually adapted to the difficulties of the Age of Dawn.

Unfortunately, the LMC was falling behind on this aspect. Gloriana and Alexa did their best to assign design teams to update their current product offerings, but it still took time to update every product line.

It also did not help that Ves had not come up with any major new releases for a while now. The release of the first Carmine mechs may have caused an epochal shock in the mech market, but he had failed to make the most of the boost in momentum.

"It’s okay." He whispered to himself.

Ves did not think he had wasted too much time on other affairs. Multiple mech design projects continued to make steady progress while he had achieved massive gains on other fronts.

Gaining privileged access to stolen resonance technology ensured that he and his clan would not miss out on the greatest trend in the immediate future.

Securing effective leadership over the Phase Lord Department solved many of his growing safety concerns.

His recent actions and contributions to society all helped to raise his clout and influence. This soft power may sound nebulous and insubstantial, but Ves knew better than to underestimate its importance.

Yet soft power alone was not that useful.

Without becoming a Master Mech Designer or Star Designer, Ves would always be denied a seat at the highest tables.

For example, he could have taken part in the high-level discussions on how red humanity should exploit stolen resonance technology, yet because he was still a tier 2 galactic citizen, he lacked the qualifications to have his voice heard.

Ves suddenly understood the Voice of Liberty’s position a lot better. Without gaining enough hard power to pose a credible threat to other bigshots, he would always remain in a position where others could boss him around.

This was not acceptable.

He worked so hard and risked his life so many times in order to get away from such control. The entire point of founding the Larkinson Clan and shaping it into an independent organization was because he wanted to gain sovereignty over his own life.

While he had made enormous strides in the past decade, Ves felt that he had hit the ceiling of what was currently possible for a Senior Mech Designer.

Even if he doubled the amount of Ascended Giants under his command, it wouldn’t make much of a difference because they were only good for bullying the weak for the most part.

Ves scratched the side of his head. "I need to make real progress."

Fortunately, he could look forward to the completion of the Arboreal Project.

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