The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2498

Chapter 2498: Greater Concessions

Patriarch Reginald Cross looked more and more displeased. It was difficult for him to refute the suggestion that his clan was in decline.

Although he was an expert pilot, he was also a leader. He had been in power long enough to know that he needed to gain as much leverage as possible to secure a favorable deal with someone.

He initially thought that Ves was too young and inexperienced, but the more they talked, the more leverage he was giving up. If this continued on for a couple of weeks, the Cross Clan might have no choice but to sign a deeply lop-sided agreement if it wanted to cooperate with the Larkinson Clan!

Near the end of the triumph, Patriarch Reginald finally made a major concession.

He revealed another bargaining chip. He leaned in to whisper in Ves' ear.

"Our clan may have lost many assets, but don't underestimate how many treasures we've gathered at our height. We defeated several powerful clans and tribes back in the Garlen Empire. Just as you've plundered pirates, we have been plundering much greater opponents."

"You lost most of those gains, right?" Ves replied.

"We do not deny that, but we have still managed to empty our most valuable vaults in the confusion. Among our gains are strategic reserves of incredibly rare exotics. These materials are only produced in our star sector at exceedingly limited quantities due to their scarcity. Some of the exotics can be classified as first-class materials. While our clan is reserving most of it for my eventual ace mech, we may be open to trading the excess to you in exchange for your services."

There was no way Ves could remain unmoved after hearing this. Even though he plundered large quantities of Unending alloy from the Nyxian Gap, the applicability of this material was very limited. Aside from expanding a mech's spiritual capacity, the main way to utilize this hard material was to incorporate it into the armor and structure of a machine.

In effect, this meant that any expert mech that Ves was able to design with Unending alloy would fall into a similar situation as the Bright Warrior. The armor and protection of the expert mech might reach first-class standards, but the power reactor, mech engine, flight system, inertial dampeners and so on lagged too far behind.

Granted, such a resilient mech would definitely be more powerful than regular second-class expert mechs, but Ves yearned for more.

If he followed his original plan and designed an expert mech with his current means, then Venerable Joshua and his other expert pilots would receive adequate machines.

However, there was a decent chance that his expert pilots could no longer go any further because their expert mechs failed to keep up. Once the expert pilots reached the limits of their machines, Ves would have to upgrade them at great cost and effort.

In fact, this was how state militaries such as the Sundered Phalanx and the Hex Army handled their expert mechs. While providing fresh expert pilots with high-tier expert mechs accelerated their development, the chance that they would fall was too great.

The Fridaymen and Hexers couldn't afford to waste so many strategic materials at once. Therefore, they kept their high-grade exotics and other valuable materials in reserve and developed more modest expert mechs to their expert pilots.

As long as the demigods proved their worth and grew in strength, then their expert mechs would definitely be upgraded or replaced with better ones sooner or later.

Although Ves could adopt this gradual growth model as well for his expert pilots, it was too slow and timid for his liking.

The Hex Army and so on had to meet the needs of many different expert pilots. The Hexers might have stockpiled a lot of strategic materials, but they had to ration them in order to keep their options open in the later stages of the Komodo War.

The Larkinson Clan was in a different situation. It wasn't locked in costly wars. While it possessed relatively many expert pilots and expert candidates for its size, they didn't suffer any attrition due to being forced to fight in destructive wars.

At most, his Larkinsons would have to fight sporadically against enemies they met over the course of his expedition. Having the strongest possible mechs at hand would go a long way in securing victory and preserving the lives of his precious expert pilots.

In short, the advantages of securing high-tier expert mechs early were too great for Ves to ignore!

The reason why strategic materials were called this way was because they rarely circulated on the open market.

Even if someone was stupid enough to get rid of them, they would only offer them up to buyers through exclusive auctions.

From mining to processing these high-value exotics, the states maintained a tight grip on the entire supply chain.

One of the downsides of turning his Larkinson Clan nomadic was that it was incredibly hard for Ves to obtain these strategic materials.

Currently, his most viable option was to exchange them from the MTA or Rim Guards with MTA merits. Suffice to say, Ves would have to give up at least several million MTA merits to obtain a relatively modest quantity of materials. The pricing was so ludicrously high that Ves might as well call it an outright scam!

That said, Ves wasn't sure whether working together with the Cross Clan was a viable alternative.

"Your description is too vague." Ves told the Cross Patriarch. "I need more data. Give me a list. I need to judge the value of the materials you are willing to put before deciding anything else."

Patriarch Reginald instantly sent a file to Ves through his implant.

The document did not contain a lot of information, but it was more than sufficient for Ves to make a preliminary judgement.

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