[401-600] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 418: Eternal Sorrow

"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.

"What were you working on as your second design?"

"It doesn't matter anymore." Jim sighed. "This war has made everything moot. My company will certainly be shuttered without my presence. I'll have to figure something out once the Mech Corps releases me."

Out of everyone in this room, Jim appeared to be the least successful mech designer. Ves got the sense that he had barely made any progress since reaching Apprentice.

Even Morgan possessed a better track record, though that could also be accounted to his age. The older man truly designed a substantial amount of mechs, each one better than the last one, though none of them ever sold more than a couple of thousand copies each.

As they got to know each other, they realized that besides their rank, they had very little in common.

Morgan possessed the most experience by far, but his insane theories caused him to stall in his progression.

Jim achieved the least success, but he could draw on a lot of help from the Ronan Family, either through paying less for raw materials or through direct cash infusions.

Bart grew up in a comfortable environment, having everything handed to him with a silver spoon.

As for Ves, though he only published two designs, he built up everything on his own, though he conveniently left out the role the System played in his rapid ascension.