[1-200] THE MECH TOUCH

Chapter 66: Novice

Only after several minutes did the entire process end. Ves took deep breaths as he tried to recover from the strange ordeal the System put him in. He was going to have to be more careful eating these strengthened candies next time.

He flexed his mind a little, but did not see any obvious results from the 0.5 point bump in Concentration. He shrugged. It might take a more concerted action to feel the effects.

Since it was a long time since he last inspected his Status, he called it up to plan his next actions.

[Status]

Name: Ves Larkinson

Profession: Novice Mech Designer

Specializations: None

Design Points: 2136

—Attributes—

Strength: 0.7

Dexterity: 0.7

Endurance: 0.7

Intelligence: 1.2

Creativity: 1

Concentration: 1.7

Neural Aptitude: F

—Skills—

[Assembly]: Apprentice - [3D Printer Proficiency II] [Assembler Proficiency II]

[Business]: Apprentice

[Computer Science]: Incompetent

[Electrical Engineering]: Novice

[Mathematics]: Incompetent

[Mechanics]: Apprentice - [Jury Rigging II] [Speed Tuning II]

[Metallurgy]: Apprentice

[Metaphysics]: Incompetent

[Physics]: Novice - [Lightweight Armor Optimization I] [Mediumweight Armor Optimization II]

Evaluation: A stalled mech designer languishing at the entry gates.

Even the System thought he was stagnant for too long. His skills and attributes had rarely moved forward even after several weeks. His virtual designs in Iron Spirit barely earned him any DP even with the lowest possible prices set on them. Only the occasional 5-star mech sale bumped up his DP significantly.

"Now that I have a windfall of more than 2000 DP, I should use it to progress my stalling status."

The System still considered Ves to be a novice mech designer. This term used to be appropriate when he was still a raw newcomer, but with two confirmed real mech sales under his belt, it now sounded demeaning.

The industry treated novice mech designers rather poorly. Novices always flooded the labor market after they graduated each year. Without any wealth or connections, these naive, hopeful designers usually got a huge shock when they saw that employers almost never hired them to design mechs straight away.

These novices had nowhere else to go. The big firms all heartlessly exploited them as excellent mech technicians, dangling the possibility of promotion down the line in front of their faces. It would take many decades before they ever got the chance to sit behind the design table.

Only after designing a commercial variant off an existing base model and selling it a couple of times did he graduate from that lowly status. The MTA likely updated their files on him to reflect his change of status. In official terms, he graduated from a novice into an Apprentice Mech Designer.