The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3184

Chapter 3184: A Day Aboard the Discentibus

"Maaow."

A grey shorthair hopped onto a bunk and prodded her paw on a sleepy face.

"Maaow. Maaow."

"Come here, Syrcy."

A pair of slender but toned arms embraced the cat for a moment. Lanie luxuriated in the warmth of her pet before she roused from her bed and freshened up. After donning her cadet uniform and trying her brown hair in a simple ponytail, she exited her small cabin and moved to the nearest mess hall with her cat padding after her stride.

"Hey Lanie."

"Good morning, Jacob."

"What's up, Gigi?"

"I hope you studied enough to pass the test this time, Imri."

"Don't even start on me about that. I don't have a cranial implant yet like you guys!"

Several other cadets who woke up at the same time strode towards the same mess hall situated close to their block of cabins. Once they entered the large compartments, they approached their tables while bots floated in while putting trays of nutritious meals.

In the early days, the meals consisted of industrial meals prepared by autochefs and large food preparation machines, but the cadets complained so much that the ship soon took on human chefs.

As the future of the Larkinson Clan, the cadets deserved to enjoy some refinements. Nothing was more important than supplying their growing bodies and minds with the nutrients they needed.

"Maaow." Syrcy rubbed her head against Lanie's boot.

"Go off to your little friends, Syrcy. I'll be okay."

"Maaow!"

The slender cat rubbed her face against Lanie's leg one more time before running over to a dedicated pet section of the mess hall. She threaded through throngs of dogs, birds, lizards and other pets before reaching a small circle of cats who greeted her arrival with slight enthusiasm before getting back to putting their heads back into their bowls.

As Lanie dug into her bowl of warm and filling porridge while chatting with the cadets sitting at the same table, someone sat down next to her at one point.

"Good morning, Lanie." He said as a bot plumped down a hearty meal consisting of eggs, sausages, beans and eggplant.

"Ohhh." A female cadet dramatically uttered. "It's the highborn again, looking to woo the princess of our clan."

"I'm not a princess!" Lanie barked back.

"That's not what everyone else is thinking, you know. You're one of the few trueborn Larkinsons in the academy and you're the highest performer to boot. You're still at the top of your year, right?"

Lanie shrugged. "I just have a head start, that's all. Once more people get invited to the Dragon's Den to receive their suite of augments, I'm sure they'll catch up eventually."

Due to her excellent performance in the academy, she received priority access to a suite of high-quality gene treatments and cranial implants that were especially developed by the Lifer biotech experts over at the bioresearch ship. Even though the augments weren't very refined, they were quite expensive and improved a lot of piloting-related parameters such as mental acuity, reaction time, high impact force resistance and other helpful improvements.

While it wasn't necessary for a mech cadet or mech pilot to possess augments in order to perform well, it made it a lot easier to pass the classes. Over time, the standards of the Larkinson Mech Academy had risen and it became increasingly harder for ordinary cadets to keep up with the curriculum.

Lanie didn't understand why the implants were only provided early to the best performers of the class. The gap between the top cadets and the bottom cadets of every class became wider. At this rate, the top graduates would probably receive a direct invitation to join one of the elite mech legions while the bottom performers might not even make it into the Living Sentinels.

It was none of her business, though. She was just a young cadet and had no right to tell the mech instructors that they were wrong for ignoring the less talented cadets.

She felt sad about some of her old friends that she had fallen out of touch with. They were no longer able to hang out as often due to enrolling into different classe. With her rapidly developing skill set, it made no sense for her to remain stuck in the more basic classes.

That had led her to hang out with a different crowd of potentates, chief among them the boy that tried to befriend her in recent times.

"Are you still planning to pursue a ranged specialization track? It's a real shame for you to commit to it when you are so good with melee weapons."

"I'm not changing my mind, Petrus." She said as she was halfway done with eating her porridge. "I do enjoy my time in the melee classes and I did score highly in the last exams, but I don't see this as my future. I'm much more interested in improving my marksmanship and hearing about the amazing new Amaranto and the new luminar crystal technology that will soon become the new standard has only made me more enthused about my choice."

Petrus Purnesse looked disappointed. "That's a great waste of your talents, Lanie. Won't you at least consider taking up at least some advanced swordsmanship classes? Maybe you can become the next Venerable Joshua Larkinson one day and be able to fight with any mech at any distance."

"Ugh, those new Heavensworder instructors don't like wafflers in their classes." Lanie grimaced. "They're good, there's no doubt about it, but they demand complete dedication to the sword."

"There are always other melee classes. You can join my axe classes, for example. Axes might not be as popular as swords in our clan, but they're excellent at breaking through armor."

"No thanks. I am already enrolled in a lot of other marksmanship-related classes. I still need to improve in many areas such as accuracy, energy weapon theory and also the new introductory class on luminar crystal technology!"

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