The Mech Touch novel Chapter 418

The hierarchy among mech designers looked like a very fat and short pyramid. Novices were as abundant as red dwarfs in the galaxy.

Only a fraction of them reached the Apprentice-level, but anyone could advance to this stage as long as they studied hard and received some opportunities.

Reaching Journeyman Mech Designer was a watershed. Many tried but failed to reach this rank despite all the effort they put in their development.

Ves did not have a good clue what it took to reach Senior and Master-level, but it must have been accompanied by extremely stringent demands, because less than one per mille of mech designers in the preceding ranks managed to break through.

As for reaching the rank that went beyond Master, most people didn’t dare to dream about it. Even though enough Masters existed in the galaxy to fill up an entire planet, only the MTA only recognized seventy-or-so Star Designers.

Perhaps a few more Star Designers existed who hadn’t made themselves known, but by and large there shouldn’t be more than a hundred of them across all of humanity.

Their power and influence transcended states. At that stage, even the first-rate superstates treaded lightly around them. Many Star Designers renounced their former loyalties and became independent entities that worked for the common good of mankind.

It could be said that Star Designers transcended their former bonds and shackles and have reached a level of existence on par with god pilots. Both types of humans formed the absolute best of what humanity had to offer and were worshipped by trillions of humans.

Low-ranked mech designers like Ves, Bart and Jim constantly thought about how to reach Journeyman-level. It was way too soon to even think about advancing to Star Designer, but Morgan amazingly already thought about a strategy to reach this supreme existence.

Although Morgan’s theory sounded logical, Ves read the same biographies as well. They were mandatory reading in school. Every mech designer should have read at least a dozen different biographies.

"Star Designers emerged through chance, opportunity and coincidence." Ves explained the common understanding on Star Designers. "Many geniuses who have quickly reached the Master stage have never been able to touch upon the threshold to the next rank. Although we don’t know why that is so, no one has ever told us it’s due to a supposedly ’bad’ foundation. Besides, if the only way to get a good foundation is to linger in the Apprentice stage for hundreds of years, then the galaxy would be flooded with Masters right now."

Morgan instantly shook his head. "Ves, my friend, I thought you looked smart, but you fell into this trap as well. Just think for one second about the biographies you’ve read. Is all of it true?"

That caused everyone at the table to blink. Certainly they told the truth, right?

"Why would they lie?"

"Why won’t they lie? Those biographies read like fairy tales or adventure novels! Do you really think those Star Designers went through all that nonsense and transformed into strange existences that has turned them into something special? It’s all drivel fed to the masses in order to keep the upper echelon in power!"

Morgan continued to rant about his assertions for a couple minutes. Ves, Jim and Bart all looked at each other with perplexed smiles.

Ves couldn’t take it any longer. "It’s all well and good to state that the biographies are fictional, but what are their true stories? Just because the early days of those Star Designers don’t conform to what is being told in the books, that doesn’t mean they adhered to your theories either. You have no proof."

"That’s because they’re keeping it all a secret! It’s a conspiracy against nobodies like us!"

The man could claim all he wanted, but nobody else bought his shtick. After finishing his bland dinner, the rest of them tried to move on from this topic. Ves got to know about his other two bunkmates.

"I’ve never gone to any universities or institutions." Bartholomew Yi began. "My father is a mech designer as well and he believes he can teach me a lot better than any school in the Republic."

"So you learned everything you knew from your dad?"

"Correct. I even joined his design team and assisted in developing a couple of his models. They all worked out well. The experience gave me enough confidence to design my mechs."

"Did you start your own company or are you working for dad?"

"The latter. There’s no point in starting up a seperate company if I’ll eventually inherit my dad’s existing company."

Bart’s story sounded fairly typical. A small but substantial portion of mech designers learned the craft from their parents. Such a teaching method was even more intimate than apprenticing to a Master, because one’s father or mother always taught their descendents with utmost care and attention.

That said, the mech industry as a whole looked down on homeschooling. Mech designers who learned from their parents and no one else often ended up as pale imitations of their parents. They knew the theories and could replicate a past work, but when it came to applying their knowledge to develop new designs, that was where most of them fell short.

Ves didn’t say anything about that to Bart. He didn’t want to piss the homeschooled mech designer off.

"How many mechs have you designed?"

"Not much, only four. Like my father, I specialize in spaceborn mechs."

"That’s more than than me. I only have two original designs under my belt, and my second design only came out recently. What about you, Jim?"

"Hm, I only designed one original mech, a nice little light mech. I’m still taking it slow."

It turned out Jim’s design hadn’t caught on in the market. The disappointing sales figures burdened his company with losses, which forced him to crawl back to the Ronan Family for some money to tide his company over.

Naturally, Jim didn’t sound so pathetic when he meandered through his story, but Ves was sharp enough to pick out the truth.