Ves waved his hand, causing a projection of the original Fantasia 2R Seraphim to emerge into view.
Lucky, who was lounging on a table while crunching a chunk of mineral, looked up at the impressive female-shaped mech.
"Meow."
"Yeah. Those were the days. Back then, I couldn't have imagined earning even a single MTA credit."
Though it was only five years ago, Ves had risen from a humble Novice into one of the most successful young Journeymen in the star cluster in this span of time. The contrast was immense, and anyone who studied his rapid progression would have been astounded.
It was no surprise that outside observers suspected that Ves had not been able to make so many accomplishments alone!
His average performance at the Rittersberg University of Technology should have never produced a mech designer who was able to trounce a peer from the MTA in just five years of time.
Only Ves and a handful of others like Calabast and Nitaa knew he took advantage of the Mech Designer System to rapidly improve his design capabilities.
Everyone else who tried to figure out the truth had all been misled by their mistaken assumptions. They collected too little information and couldn't conceive that Ves owned something as mythical as the long-missing Metal Scroll.
These kinds of misunderstandings continued to deflect suspicion from him, which was very convenient to him. While he had no illusion that these misunderstandings would protect him forever, as long as he survived his early growth phase, he and his clan would definitely be able to grow strong enough one day.
He shook his head. "That will take a while."
He returned his attention back to the Seraphim. As one of his earliest variants, he didn't need to be as discerning as Gloriana to spot the countless flaws and suboptimal implementations.
That along with the primitive, early generation components caused the mech's performance to be very lackluster compared to modern mechs.
The difference was night and day!
The performance of the Seraphim was so bad that mech cadets with only a few years of training under their belt could already pilot it proficiently. In the first century of the Age of Mechs, mechs weren't nearly as complex and complicated to master.
Various innovations that gave mech pilots greater power and control over their machines only emerged in subsequent generations. Neural interfaces grew increasingly more capable. Their greater bandwidth and fine control allowed mechs to control almost every function of a mech down to the output of a single servo motor!
Despite the frankly awful state of his Seraphim design, Ves still gazed at it with rose-tinted glasses. Despite the various difficulties he encountered, he still missed those simpler days.
"Well, that's over now."
As much as he liked to return to simpler times, he couldn't afford to do so. Even with the help of the System, he had worked hard to climb his way up to success while overcoming many threats to his life.
Finally, he achieved a measure of power that allowed him to shrug off the control of most states and power players. The LMc had grown to the point where it could easily rival established second-class mech companies. His Larkinson Clan rapidly shot up past the point where it could readily establish and maintain its own sovereignty.
Yet as far as he had come in five years, this was just the start. He needed to go much further if he wanted to fulfill any of his great ambitions.
Part of the steps he needed to take was to procure an excellent factory ship.
"And to do that, I need to fulfill my end of the deal with DIVA." He muttered.
His eyes continuously studied the projection of his Seraphim design. The more he reminisced about the virtual mech, the more he comprehended Gloriana's desire for them to modernize and reimagine it for the modern battlefield.
"It's already pretty much a Hexer mech."
The original Fantasia had been designed as an explicitly female mech. It tried to form a contrast against all of the stocky masculine-shaped mechs that already became the dominant trend since the early generations.
Ves grew curious and began to call up the statistics and usage data of the Seraphim.
Despite being several years old and not that good of a mech design, it still enjoyed a decent amount of popularity in Iron Spirit. While it wasn't exactly a competitive mech design at the low tiers, it was a very fun and pleasurable virtual mech to pilot.
Any mech pilot would feel a rush by piloting such a fast and impressive-looking mech.
"Since that's the case, my reimagined mech design should definitely appeal to female Hexer mech pilots!"
Ves understood the other reason why Gloriana suggested him to design a mech based on his early Seraphim design.
If he disregarded all of its flaws, it was quite an attractive mech to women.
In order to fulfill their deal to DIVA, the Miracle Couple had to design eight Hexer mech designs. This was a hefty number, and Ves did not wish to waste all of his time on designing modest, constrained male Hexer mech designs!
The gap in performance and impact between male and female mech designs in the Hex Army was very apparent!
"Those damn Hexers. They're not even letting off mechs in their obsession to discriminate by gender!" He cursed.
The problem for him was that he was a man. If he wanted a bunch of man-haters to adopt a mech designed specifically for their stuck-up female mech pilots, then he needed to overcome their intense opposition and bias.
Ves already anticipated a lot of resistance towards his recently-completed Blessed Squire design, and that was just a supportive male Hexer mech design.
The backlash would probably be ten times as worse as soon as he tried to introduce a female Hexer mech design!
In short, there was a lot at stake. Ves could not afford to fail this design project. If he did, then he could forget about designing more female mech designs!
He waved his hand, causing the projection of the primitive Seraphim design to be replaced by a sketch of a much more sophisticated design.
The sight of the sketch caused Ves to curl his mouth in a smile. "Gloriana inherited some of my flair."
The 'Valkyrie Redeemer' concept she came up with inherited most of the charm of the Seraphim design, but introduced a few more Hexer elements.
The mech had been beefed up a bit. Its curves became a bit more pronounced as its slightly thicker armor plating provided a lot more protection to the mech.
"It's not a light mech anymore. It's a light-medium mech."
The weapon loadout of the mech diverged from the original Seraphim. Instead of kitting it out with a marksman rifle and a combat knife, Gloriana instead chose a set of weapons that better reflected the aggressive tendencies of female Hexer mech pilots.
"Female Hexer mech pilots usually leave long-ranged fire support to their male counterparts." Ves reminded himself.
The Valkyrie Redeemer instead came armed with a pulse submachine gun. Though it wasn't as powerful as full-sized weapons, the submachine gun still packed enough punch to tear through most light mechs.
As a pulse weapon, the submachine gun fired a lot of powerful particles that mainly inflicted energy damage. The weapon mainly needed to be replenished with energy rather than physical ammunition, which meant the mech wouldn't be too unduly encumbered.
"This is a good fit for the Valkyrie Redeemer."
Even though a single pulse submachine gun wasn't very threatening on its own, it could still allow a squad of mechs armed with the weapon to tear through any mech, especially when circled!