The Mech Touch

"These are very expensive toys, Marvaine. While they are built to be as safe and childproof as possible, you need to handle all of the parts with utmost respect. Treat them like how a real mech designer treats his own mechs. Do you understand, my son?"

"I understand, papa." Marvaine cutely said. He looked so adorable when he pretended to be serious.

It didn't take long before he turned back into an overeager kid. He was rubbing the side of the boxes as if he couldn't wait to unlock them and piece together his first toy mechs!

Ves could understand the kid's enthusiasm. Which mech-obsessed boy wouldn't want to play with Mekano? Even those that wanted to become mech pilots rather than mech designers when they grew up played with them if possible.

While not every child was interested in the intricacies of mech design at their ages, they all loved to put together a finished Mekano that they could play with themselves!

This was a lot better than buying a finished action figure in a toy store. As awesome as they were, they rarely provided any room for deep customization.

In fact, entire informal communities had sprung up where children who became good at playing with Mekano offered their 'design' services to other kids!

These circles became so elaborate that they practically resembled the actual mech industry and mech market!

They even came up with their own jargon and terminology to pretend as if it was more serious than a game.

The kids who became good at designing these toy mechs became known as Mekano designers.

The children who did not want their toys to fight by themselves with the help of semi-programmable AIs and operated them by remote control started to be known as Mekano pilots.

It was truly a childish reflection of the actual mech community!

Perhaps that was the point. Anyone who got caught up in the Mekano scene got to experience the mech community in advance.

Ves didn't intend for Marvaine to join these game communities, but he wouldn't mind it if he did become a budding Mekano designer.

It was good practice and allowed him to learn a bunch of harsh truths that he could only learn from experience rather than reading about them in textbooks.

"What is in the other boxes?!" Marvaine asked as he raced over to the next Mekano Set.

"That's the Basic Ranged Mech Set. It contains a decent variety of ranged toy mech parts, enough for you to design all kinds of Mekanos that can fight at range."

"And this one?"

"The Basic Melee Mech Set is the same as the last one, but is oriented towards melee combat instead. There are plenty of swords, spear, daggers, axes and hammers, though it is lacking in more exotic weaponry such as halberds and flails."

"What about this one? I don't understand what it contains."

"I'm not surprised that you can't figure it out. This is the Basic Internals Set. It contains a large collection of internal mech parts and components that you can use to customize the performance of a Mekano further. You can swap a weaker power reactor for a stronger model at the cost of taking up more space and weighing down your little machine."

"And this one?"

"That is one of the themed Mekano Sets that the regional branch of the Machine Emporium has released. The Krakatoa Set contains all of the essential parts derived from a decent selection of commonly sold mech models in the Krakatoa Middle Zone. I am sure you can recognize at least a few of the mechs on the packaging."

Marvaine circled around the last Mekano Set in order to observe all of the artwork.

"Your mechs aren't here, papa."

Ves sheepishly smiled. "That's because the First Edition of this set was released before our Living Mech Corporation gained a foothold of the market. It's at least half a decade out of date, but it is fine. I am sure that the Machine Emporium will get around to adding LMC mechs in the Third Edition or Fourth Edition of the Krakatoa Set."

His cute little son became upset. "I don't wanna wait that long! Can you make your own Mekano Set?"

"It's not that simple, Marvaine." Ves shook his head. "Mekano is a protected brand and strictly rejects parts that are not officially authorized and produced by the Machine Emporium. While I can go to a production machine and fabricate imitation parts that resemble the authentic Mekano components, they won't fit together. The real Mekano parts will somehow be able to detect that the false ones are not authentic and will actively shut down or produce glitches. This is one of the many measures the Machine Emporium employs to protect its brand."

He could fabricate entire sets that corresponded to the authentic versions, but there was little point to doing so. It would take a lot of time to do much of the work that the Polymath and the excellent designers employed by the Machine Emporium had invested into the toy mech building system.

If he really wanted to play with something similar to Mekano but without spending so much money, he could opt for the products sold by the Machine Emporium's competitors instead.

Ever since Mekano broke into the scene, it had rapidly occupied the upper segment of the market. Its rich features and its consistently high quality provided a lot of fun and benefits to the customers who were rich enough to pay for the pricey sets.

Other toy mech building systems managed to survive and occupy their own places in the market by targeting the lower segments. They were all good in their own ways, but they simply couldn't beat a system originally developed by an actual Star Designer!

Though the Polymath had long since moved on to other, more grander projects, Mekano was still expanding in popularity. It didn't even matter that the honorable Clair Hamzo had long sold off most of her stake in the Machine Emporium. Mekano was always tied to her name.

"Can I play with them now, papa?"

"Sure you can, but only with the first set. Let's leave these boxes aside for later. You should first master the basics before you expand your range."

His son looked disappointed. "Oh."

"You need to learn how to walk before you learn how to run. Come on, Marvaine! Let's open the My First Mech Set so that you can put together your first real Mekano!"

Ves tapped the box, causing it to automatically unfold and expand into what appeared to be an elaborate cabinet.

A projection came to life that depicted a couple of brand logos before playing a slick introduction video.

It was clearly aimed towards young children who just became introduced to Mekano. The cartoon mascots cheerfully explained the basic operation of Mekano, so that saved Ves a lot of trouble in explaining it all himself.

Gloriana quietly walked up to his side as their son became engrossed by the introduction video. Her eyes grew wistful as she stared at the exposed toy mech parts revealed by the unpacked box.

"I never imagined our son would begin to play with Mekano so soon. I was only seven years old before my mother allowed me to build my first Mekanos. I had so much fun back then. I had strived to make as few mistakes as possible right from the beginning. I still remember all of the looks of disappointment from my mother whenever I made a mistake or presented her with an ugly Mekano."

"That… sounds a little harsh." Ves frowned in disapproval. "It's all well and good to develop good habits when you are still young, but the reason why Mekano is so popular is because it offers plenty of freedom for its players to exercise their creativity. Experimenting with Mekano design is an integral part of the game. Who cares whether you got it wrong? You can just alter or disassemble a Mekano without incurring any cost."

Unlike a real mech, a Mekano could always be broken down into parts without producing any waste. Every part remained whole when pulled away and could always be used to build other Mekanos.

This was important because it minimized the cost of experimentation and exploration.

Gloriana did not agree with her husband, however.

"Just because you can doesn't mean you should. It can take many hours to develop a Mekano at the middle levels. Rather than waste my precious time to build Mekanos that aren't even serious, I opted to approach this game as a simulation of my future career. It has done me a lot of good, actually. I wouldn't have been able to graduate from Kelma University so easily if I hadn't benefited from years of 'practical training'."

He envied her. His own father never even thought about buying a Mekano Set for himself. The Tier 3 sets available in the Bright Republic were too basic to provide much educational value to teenagers. Most kids his age treated Mekano strictly as a slightly more serious game.

"What level of Mekano did you manage to reach?"

"I managed to reach Level 5." Gloriana replied. "That was when it truly started to get fun. I was not only working with smaller components, but also had to fiddle with the programming of my Mekanos. I gained the right to selectively edit a few lines of programming so that I could optimize their performance in specific situations. I would have wanted to move on to the next level, but by that time I had no choice but to drop it so that I can learn how to design real mechs."

Ves rubbed his hairless chin. "Level 5, huh? I guess that is pretty impressive, though I expected you to reach Level 6 considering your standards."

"Trust me, I wanted to reach this level as well, but my study load was already great back then. My mother demanded that I learn so many different subjects that I didn't have enough hours to spare on Mekano. Entire days went by as my Mekanos remained half-complete. It's ultimately just a game to me, so I was not terribly upset when I could finally learn how to design real mechs."

"I see. It sounds like you made good use of it in the limited time available to you. What level will our son be able to reach, you think?"

"That is difficult for me to say." Gloriana frowned. "He is much smarter at his age than I was back then. He should definitely be able to hit Level 6 and probably Level 7 before he is ready to go off to university. He may even reach Level 8, but that is contingent on many factors. If he is able to receive first-class schooling and keep up with his demanding classes, then I see no reason he should be able to acquire much of the skills of a second-class Novice Mech Designer."

Reaching Level 8 did not necessarily mean a child was genuinely as competent as an actual mech designer. There were still many differences between Mekanos and mechs. The former simplified a lot of obscure details in order to streamline the design and assembly process as much as possible.

It was still a great sign if any child was able to play with Mekanos at this level without getting lost!

The fact that Ves bothered to invest in Tier 8 Mekano Sets in the first place already exposed how confident he was in his son!

Even if Marvaine only hit Level 6 at most before he had to move on to grown-up activities, it was not that big of a waste. Mekano parts never became obsolete so Ves could simply pass them on to his grandchildren.

"Papa, mama, I'm ready to design my first mech! What do you think I should start with? Ranged mechs are so cool, but melee mechs are also awesome. I can't choose!"