The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4161

Chapter 4161 Cormaunt Hempkamp

Merrill O'Brian's breakthrough and rise to prominence within the Design Department certainly made a lot of assistant mech designers prouder and more hopeful.

If someone like her was able to make the transition from assistant designer to lead designer, then the members of the design teams could make the same leap!

Unfortunately, not a single mech designer among the thousand or so assistants that remained had made any breakthroughs after Merrill.

The timid Apprentices did not display any exceptional moments of brilliance nor developed any fantastic solo mech designs for the Emergent Boutique.

Though the new sub-brand of the LMC definitely proved its worth by motivating the assistants and helping both Miles Tovar and Merrill O'Brian seize their opportunities, Ves had a feeling that this measure had already reaped the low-hanging fruit.

In other words, even without the Emergent Boutique, Miles and Merrill were already close to breaking through.

Perhaps it would have taken a few years longer for them to make it to their current rank, but they were already set up to succeed.

"These other mech designers on the other hand…"

Whenever Ves entered the main design labs of the Genesis Lab, he developed the habit of sweeping his spiritual senses through the different halls.

The vast majority of mech designers under his employ were still as ordinary and mediocre as before. Even the ones that had caught his eye a long time ago such as Catherine Evenson, Moltar Ringer and Rina Orion still looked as if they had years to go until they were eligible to form their own design seeds.

"A pity."

The lackluster rate of upwards mobility emphasized the brutal reality of the mech industry.

It was rare for Apprentices to be able to break through to Journeyman. Spiritual potential was an essential requirement, but that was far from enough. They needed to be smart, ambitious, persistent, creative and brilliant all at once.

It might not be difficult for an ordinary mech designer to meet one of these criteria, but they needed to be much greater in order to be qualified to become a high-ranking mech designer!

"It's much like how only a small proportion of mech pilots are actually worthy to become expert pilots."

If Ves wanted to increase the rate of breakthrough in his own clan, then he needed to be a lot more discerning about the people he recruited.

Ideally, he would be able to hire the mech designers that ticked all of the aforementioned boxes.

What actually happened was that larger, wealthier, stronger and more prestigious groups snapped up these high potential mech designers first!

Other parties weren't stupid. Even if they weren't able to discern the spiritual potential of other mech designers, they could still study the academic accomplishments, work experiences and other parameters of the young talents.

No matter whether they could ultimately advance to Journeyman or not, it was always worth it to poach these bright and hardworking mech designers!

"Well, if we can't expand the amount of Journeymen in our clan through internal promotion, then we will just have to work harder to recruit them from the job market!"

To be honest, Ves did not really like to resort to this option. Compared to mech designers such as Miles and Merrill, foreign mech designers such as the Voiken Siblings and the Power Pair had no love or attachment to the Larkinson Clan prior to their recruitment.

Though Ves and the clan had tried their best to welcome and integrate the new Journeymen in the clan, it was not the same if they had already been indoctrinated when they were Apprentices which made them much more impressionable.

Ves especially grew more concerned if his clan hired a large number of foreign Journeymen at once.

It would become a lot harder to monitor and integrate all of the newcomers, especially when they were working with many other Journeymen that had yet to integrate into the clan.

This was why he told Gloriana to focus on quality rather than quantity in her efforts to headhunt suitable Journeymen.

"Don't worry, Ves. That is what I have already been doing from the beginning." His wife reassured him. "I have no appetite to work alongside boors and jokers. I am carefully sifting through the applications and I have tasked several headhunting companies to provide me with any tips on new and useful prospects. I will only engage the potential recruits when I am certain they will be of use to us in the Design Department."

Gloriana's insistence on holding on to her strict criteria understandably caused her progress to be slow.

It took months since the start of her search before she was finally certain enough about her choice to present the prospect that she had her eye upon to Ves!

"I almost forgot about this." Ves told her as he skimmed through the record of the Journeyman Mech Designer that Gloriana had found after a painstakingly long search. "However, from what I am able to read, you truly picked a worthwhile recruitment prospect. I never expected you to find an actual neural interface specialist. How did you manage to get a hold of this guy?"

His wife smirked. "It took a lot of effort to find him and persuade him to give our Larkinson Clan a chance. Cormaunt Hempkamp is not an average mech designer, as you can see from the information that the Black Cats have uncovered of the man. Though he has a few blemishes in his career, that does not detract from his willingness to push the boundaries and excel in his chosen specialty."

"That is certainly obvious from the intelligence gathered from him. Normally, a strong desire to innovate and experiment is seen as a boon in our profession."

As Ves gazed at Mr. Hempkamp's projected face, he had the feeling he was looking as a black-skinned version of himself.

While they both possessed the hunger to go off the beaten track and explore new technologies, the problem with Cormaunt Hempkamp was that neural interfaces were not exactly the safest technology to tinker with! A single mistake could easily cause a mech pilot to suffer permanent brain damage!

Though Mr. Hempkamp did not appear to have made any fatal errors, his eagerness to 'improvise' had landed him in hot water multiple times.

Neural interface specialists also played a special role in the design of high-ranking mechs. _{frёeweɓηovel.coɱ}

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