Time passed quickly after Ves had made up his mind.
While Ves and his fellow mech designers worked hard to finalize the Dullahan Project and the Ghost Project, the rest of the Larkinsons did not stay idle either.
The time to resume the Trailblazer Expedition had drawn closer. The clan had already prepared extensively for this important moment. Not only did the Larkinsons put a lot of effort into repairing and upgrading their starships, they also collected a lot of information and stockpiled a lot of useful supplies.
Almost every arm of the clan contributed to this major effort. It was no secret that the expeditionary fleet was bound to leave the Krakatoa Middle Zone and cross over into the rougher and more dangerous Torald Middle Zone.
Given all of the stories that came out of this deeper frontier zone, there was no such thing as too much preparation!
One of the most optimistic pieces of news that Ves received as of late concerned his Spirit of Bentheim.
After roughly half a year of extensive disassembly, refurbishing and refitting work, the original factory ship of the Larkinson Clan had finally completed her transformation!
So much of her hull had been strengthened and improved that she had fully regained the capital of leading the expeditionary fleet!
It actually took longer than expected for the MTA shipyard to complete the extensive refit process.
The people in charge of the project never provided a clear reason to Ves, but he suspected that it had to do with the abnormal spiritual properties of the ship. The MTA probably studied the hull of the Spirit of Bentheim from top to bottom in an attempt to figure out all of her secrets!
Ves already expected this to happen. He had nothing to hide. The Spirit of Bentheim was not a mech so he wasn't able to add too many amazing goodies to her hull.
The mechers had already notified the Larkinson Clan that they just had to conduct thorough inspections and conduct short trials to verify that the upgraded factory ship performed up to expectation.
The MTA cared a lot about quality. None of their products ever failed to drop below their exacting demands.
Once the Association made sure that the Spirit of Bentheim passed their requirements, the ship would immediately be sent to the Davute System.
Ves hoped that he would be able to complete everything he set out to do in Davute.
At this point, Ves had reached the moment where he was ready to Superpublish a mech design.
He carefully considered his decision one last time.
"Do you think I am doing what is right or do you think I have gone crazy, Lucky?"
"Meow." The cat nonchalantly responded as he floated in the air while licking his paws.
Ves shrugged. "Maybe you're right. The line between innovation and insanity is not as solid as people think. It is especially blurred when it comes to me. None of my inventions are normal from the perspective of other mech designers."
He felt a little bit better about himself. There were moments where he briefly entertained second thoughts about committing to the Empowered Blood Sharing System. It truly had too many restrictions to make it practical enough for widespread usage.
Still, Ves already came up with a few promising ideas on how to reduce its downsides and increase its practicality. Nothing was impossible as long as he was brilliant enough to come up with a creative new solution.
For example, the Dullahan Project already pointed out a way for mech pilots to be able to continue their careers once they have lost their bonded mechs.
So long as they retained possession of a substantial enough quantity of their former mechs, the mech pilots would be able to regain their ability to fight!
He could explore that in the future once he advanced to Senior or higher. Right now, he needed to pull the trigger and pull the trigger.
"Hm, maybe it is better if I leave the Ghost Project alone. It's my latest passion project and I am more confident that it will work out the way I intended. Whatever flaws and imperfections it may have in its current design won't spoil its significance."
Ves had a good feeling about the current iteration of the Ghost Project. He also had a high degree of ownership towards it. He had contributed more to this expert mech design project than any other collaborator.
From developing the basis of the Geist System to implementing and customizing the Seferath AQ-3M transphasic active stealth system, Ves alone had been responsible for designing the Ghost Project's most defining elements!
On the other hand, the Dullahan Project had been much more of a team effort. Sara Voiken had been responsible for designing most of the expert knight mech's crucial defensive systems. Gloriana took care of the internals while Ketis designed a new mech sword that was tailored for Venerable Jannzi. Master Benedict integrated the resonating materials and also worked on the energy transmission systems to make the powerful new machine more enduring.
Ves on the other hand spent much of his time on designing miscellaneous parts along with trying to design a working implementation of the Empowered Blood Sharing System from scratch. His sense of ownership towards the Dullahan Project was high primarily because it was his brainchild and because its spiritual design was such a core part of its identity.
"It doesn't really matter too much if my sense of ownership gets reduced." Ves concluded.
He no longer hesitated any further and activated the Superpublish command.
It did not take a lot of time for the Mech Designer System to process the design of Jannzi's future expert mech.
No matter how sophisticated it had grown, nothing about the Dullahan Project was inscrutable to the fragment of the Metal Scroll!
Once Ves obtained the Superpublished version of the completed mech design, his eyes widened as he beheld all of the changes.
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