The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4158

Journeymen were the heart of the Larkinson Clan's renowned Design Department.

In the absence of Seniors and Masters, Journeymen wielded great authority within this highly productive department.

Their titles already showed how much leeway they obtained. Every Journeyman in the Design Department automatically received the title and position of lead designer.

Though each of them needed to undergo a small assessment period, as long as they proved their abilities, Ves was more than willing to let them loose and decide on their own projects and work assignments.

This was a level of freedom and autonomy that mech design organizations rarely granted to Journeymen!

In institutions where Masters and Seniors were in charge, Journeymen were simply higher-level assistants who could be entrusted with more complicated design tasks.

The latter rarely received more comprehensive opportunities to design brand-new original mechs where they could implement their own ideas and design philosophies!

As such, many Journeymen that went on to become lead designers in the Larkinson Clan began to love their jobs!

This was also one of the primary means that Ves employed to keep the growing number of Journeymen in the Design Department happy and unwilling to leave.

Though every member of the Larkinson Clan was loyal to it by default, Ves wasn't willing to take any chances and test the boundaries of his personnel.

As the amount of commitments of the Design Department increased, everyone's workload continued to increase. More and more lead designers were needed in order to keep everyone's time schedules reasonable!

Fortunately, a steady trickle of Journeymen joined the Design Department through two different channels.

These channels consisted of both internal promotion and external recruitment.

There were advantages and disadvantages to both channels.

Internal promotion allowed the Larkinson Clan to obtain trustworthy Journeymen among those who had worked in the Design Department for years.

They had not only acclimated to the Larkinson Clan and the Design Department, but were also heavily influenced by the work of Ves, Gloriana and other established lead designers.

This meant that they immediately fit into their new positions and knew exactly how to fulfill their new work responsibilities!

Their loyalty was never in doubt since their time in the clan had thoroughly influenced their thoughts when they were still fairly impressionable.

However, the downside to this was that they were so similar to other long-standing members of the Larkinson Clan that there wasn't enough diversity in opinion and thought.

Internal lead designers were also less spectacular to those that were recruited from outside of the clan.

While every Journeyman started off as a Novice and Apprentice, there were still differences in talent, qualifications and motivation.

The ones that advanced within the Design Department possessed relatively modest to average backgrounds. No matter how many skills they learned while they diligently worked to advance to the next rank, there was only so much they could do to widen their knowledge base.

Gloriana even considered them to be rather dull and uninspiring due to the relative lack of imagination and innovation in their works.

Ves was not so quick to dismiss the value of these 'boring' mech designers.

Not everyone needed to be a superstar and the Design Department could use a lot more solid and stable personalities in order to counterbalance the more crazy ones such as himself!

The quintessential representative of this class of mech designers was Miles Tovar-Larkinson.

The man had been a Journeyman candidate within the Design Department for years.

In fact, Miles showed so little progress and ingenuity since he became a Journeyman candidate Ves and Gloriana frankly forgot about the former highborn Brighter!

It was hard not to feel disappointed in Miles. He had become a Journeyman candidate at roughly the same period of time as Ketis. While the latter had broken through a long time ago and designed one innovative swordsman mech after another, Miles was still mucking about as an Apprentice who had gotten stuck in the mud!

Therefore, no one expected Miles to break through to Journeyman a few years after the Larkinson Clan temporarily settled in Davute.

"You sure took your time." Ves simply said as he met with the man who belatedly advanced to Journeyman.

Miles looked fairly hapless despite reaching the same rank as his superior. "To be honest, I did not expect to become a Journeyman Mech Designer myself. I had just completed another aerial mech design for the Emergent Boutique. I had higher hopes for it than my other projects, but never did I realize that it would be the design that would push me forward."

"Can I take a look at your design?"

"Ah, certainly. Here you go, sir."

Ves studied the design schematic as well as the supplementary documents.

"This flight system looks odd."

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