Chapter 2799 - Competitive Spirit (1/2)

Ves cut so many corners that Gloriana would probably faint and collapse if she saw his work.

He did not put quality in mind at all! His only priority was to put as many components back in working condition as possible. In order to accomplish this ambitious goal, Ves relied extensively on his jury-rigging ability to improvise faster but inferior solutions.

An ugly mech was still a mech. Even if its performance had dropped to 30 percent of its peak, it was still a serviceable war machine in most circ.u.mstances!

While Ves had to employ plenty of creative solutions to shave off minutes and even hours of his time, he reveled in the challenge.

The pressure of facing biomechs that were able to heal much of their minor damage by themselves constantly loomed behind his back. He knew his opponent would show up with more extensively healed mechs, and that drove him to employ as much haste as possible.

He didn’t just fix up his mechs though. He did not forget about the warning he received. Biomechs were more malleable by nature. Dr. Navarro’s design philosophy was highly geared towards transforming his products into a different configuration.

As long as he had a few hours, he could turn a melee biomech into a ranged biomech, a heavy biomech into a light biomech and so on. Of course, not all transformations worked out, and it was very difficult to ensure a biomech retained enough battle effectiveness after going through an extensive transformation.

This was why Ves didn’t expect Dr. Navarro to pull any unexpected rabbits out of his hat. With all of the constraints he faced, it was much more reasonable to assume he would only make targeted transformations.

This was already difficult enough to deal with, though. The uncertainty of the situation daunted him the most. The fact that Ves wasn’t able to predict what surprises his opponent might add to his damaged biomechs meant that he had to take thousands of possibilities into account.

What if he prepared his mech to face a melee mech only to encounter a ranged mech that employed kiting tactics?

What if Dr. Navarro transformed his Swarm Monarch mech from a heavy artillery mech to a melee mech?

Although it sounded absurd, biomechs offered enough versatility to enable such a transformation!

Even if the resulting melee biomech wasn’t comparable in performance to a proper melee mech, it could still thrash the Transcendent Punisher if it survived long enough to get close!

”It would be great if I got a sneak peak of his work.” He idly muttered.

A few seconds later, he froze.

Was it possible for him to obtain advanced notice of the modifications that Dr. Navarro applied to his biomechs?

If Ves was able to obtain even a single image of the biomechs as they were being worked on, he could derive a lot of useful information out of what was visible!

In fact, it would be even better if he could obtain detailed scanning data and Dr. Navarro’s own doc.u.mentation. The more information, the better!

Normally, Ves would treat this d.e.s.i.r.e as an idle daydream. Dr. Navarro was fixing up his mechs somewhere else and it wasn’t as if they could pay a visit to each other’s workshops.

Yet what if he could circ.u.mvent these restrictions? What if he could obtain the information he needed?

He actually thought of at least three different methods to gain the intelligence he d.e.s.i.r.ed.

James may be dead, but Ylvaine was still alive. The religious design spirit actually fared a bit better these days as the Ylvainan contingent of the clan had managed to recruit several hundred new worshippers.

This was not bad considering the background of the new recruits. It was much harder to persuade second-raters to abandon their old convictions and embrace new ones.

Even so, Ylvaine was still a pauper. Ves didn’t think it was a good idea for him to tax the design spirit’s energy unless it was a life-and-death situation.

The other option he thought about was trying to utilize his Spirituality to take a peek.

He had already developed several ways to extend his perception beyond his visual sight by forming specialized spiritual projections and constructs.

The problem was that he was never good at extending them beyond a modest range. The underground complex below Ruuzon Arena covered a lot of distance. Dr. Navarro’s workshop might be situated at least a kilometer away from his current position!

Ves stretched his arms and pretended to need a break from his work. He slowly sauntered over to the table where Lucky was blissfully dozing off. The lazy gem cat treated this period like a nice vacation.

Yet before he came close enough to put his cat to work, Ves stopped in his tracks.

Was this the right course of action?

That was an important question.

Using Lucky to sneak into Dr. Navarro’s workshop in order to gather very pertinent intelligence was not within the scope of the design duel.

It was cheating.

Ves wasn’t supposed to gain advance notice of what his mechs would have to deal with in the second phase. The same applied to Dr. Navarro. Both of them were supposed to be working blind and depend on their own judgement to prepare their mechs for the subsequent matches.

If Ves managed to gain a peek at Dr. Navarro’s biomechs while denying his opponent the same opportunity, then the sanctity of the design duel came into question!

No matter how Ves rationalized it, it was undeniable that he cheated. His ability to spy and gather information was not related to his capacity as a mech designer.

While Ves didn’t mind cheating and taking advantage of a situation in order to advance his cause, the problem right now was that this would have the opposite effect.

”I can lie to others, but I can’t lie to myself.” He reminded himself.

Even if Ves pulled it off without getting caught, he would always know in his heart that he had acted improperly. While he was currently under a lot of pressure, his design philosophy thrived off the situation. Abiding by the rules put a lot of restrictions on him which forced him to utilize his mech design abilities to the utmost.

Cheating would put an end to this process! If he wouldn’t feel as pressured anymore, then he wouldn’t be able to make as much progress as he expected.