The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4057

Chapter 4057 Uncovering Talent

Ves continued to quiz the Larkinson mech instructors about the Chiron model and what their mech cadets sought from their training mechs.

Each and every instructor was a veteran who possessed an abundant amount of experience. A few even participated in major wars, thereby accruing valuable practical knowledge that could help many of their pupils survive the battles of the future.

"One of the biggest challenges to transforming immature brats into qualified soldiers is to prepare them for the cruelty and unfairness that they will face when they step onto an actual battlefield." An aged female instructor explained. "Everyone dreams of becoming future heroes and champions, but for everyone that succeeds, hundreds or thousands of colleagues get struck down without any mercy."

Another instructor concurred. "Every mech academy struggles with the same dilemma, sir. If we want our cadets to build up confidence and pursue greater and more ambitious jobs, we need to make sure that our training program does not pressure them too hard. The training scenarios and simulated battles that we craft for them need to be fair enough for them to stand a chance of winning as long as they display the level of skill that we expect of them. However, if we do this too much, then our cadets will develop a distorted impression of actual battles and be in for a rude shock once they fight their first actual battle when nothing goes their way. Will they break or will they adapt to the adversity?"

Ves frowned. This indeed sounded like a flawed solution. Personally, he was of the opinion that it was better to prepare the mech cadets for the harsh life ahead. This way, they knew how much they could take in advance and prepare themselves accordingly.

This was not the perfect solution though, as affirmed by the female veteran.

"The opposite approach isn't necessarily better either, patriarch. You may think that ratcheting up the difficulty and intensity of our training programs will produce tougher and more mentally prepared mech cadets, but that is only valid to a certain degree. If we push our cadets harder, we will increase the proportion of producing elite mech pilots, but that will come at the cost of breaking a larger proportion of bottom performers. The latter will have become so discouraged at the prospect of entering into actual battle that they will often decide to pursue safer and less intensive careers. Instead of enlisting in a mech military, they will opt for jobs at safe and boring security companies."

"I see."

Ves often looked down on mech pilots that spent over a decade of their lives training to become the future heroes of the battlefield, only for them to squander their opportunities for greatness by becoming the equivalent of a glorified security guard!

Of course, Ves was being a bit too harsh and unfair towards these humble mech pilots.

Guards played an essential role in society. There were many facilities and people that needed protection, and some mech pilots had to fulfill these essential jobs.

Even the Larkinson Clan needed mech pilots that could perform the same protection duty day in and day out without any complaint or insistence on doing more. It was not always the case that every job related to mechs needed to be fulfilled by skilled and hardened elites!

One of the reasons why Ves supported the creation of the Mercenary Hall was to give his more ambitious and battle-hungry mech pilots the opportunity to utilize and develop their skills further.

He knew their type well enough to know that they would easily get bored if they had nothing else to do in their time except participate in training sessions that got stale after a time.

Just as different types of professional mech pilots needed different treatment, mech cadets also performed better or worse depending on their treatment.

"Mech academies usually try to specialize in teaching a limited range of mech cadets." An instructor explained. "The elite ones raise their recruitment standards in order to maximize the proportion of mech cadets that respond well to harsher training. The more accessible ones are not as picky and usually focus on training mech pilots without as much expectation that they will excel in battle."

"What of our mech academies, then?" Ves curiously asked.

The female instructor smiled. "We try to do both, sir. Currently, our clan hasn't produced enough new potentates to justify the creation of multiple mech academies that operate in parallel, so the ones we have now are basically mixed. Depending on the grades, the individual performance and the aspirations of each of our cadets, we assign them to different tracks."

She raised a finger.

"There is a command track that we have opened up for the handful of mech cadets that have shown talent and passion in ordering troops in battle."

The instructor raised another finger.

"There is the elite track where we have concentrated the best-performing mech cadets that have responded well enough to our harsher training courses."

She raised a third finger.

"Then there is the normal track which is exactly what you can imagine. Most of our cadets are on this track at the moment. We maintain its training intensity at a level that meets the requirements of our clan but at the same time make it broad enough to accommodate all sorts of mech cadets."

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