Ves completed his work at the Mech Nursery in quick order.

Aside from fulfilling all the orders for the gold label Aurora Titans, he fabricated two extra copies. He transferred one copy to the Avatars of Myth and the other one to the LMC to be used as a display model.

This time, Ves would be traveling aboard the Barracuda as always.

Although the Centerpoint System should be safe, the trip to and from the center of the star sector wasn't risk-free.

Considering the low odds of requiring a landbound mech escort, Melkor opted to prioritize spaceborn mechs over landbound mechs for this journey.

The Avatars of Myth were still in the process of raising a spaceborn mech company, so they did not have that many spaceborn mechs on hand. However, Melkor did the best he could to prepare for this trip. He managed to scrounge up eight spaceborn mechs and mech pilots to accompany Ves to Centerpoint.

"We've charted the fastest and safest route from Bentheim to Centerpoint." Captain Silvestra said as Ves boarded his corvette. "A lot of trade flows from Bentheim to Centerpoint, so the most direct port systems and stopover systems have long been cleared of any pirates and other impediments."

That made sense. "How long will it take to reach Centerpoint?"

"Not that long due to all of the port systems allowing us to make huge hops. If the gravitic tides are favorable, we can reach the system in six weeks. If not, two months. Mind you, we can go faster if you decide to leave the Greenfeather behind. Although the light carrier is fairly fast for her class, she's still a snail compared to the Barracuda."

"Acceptable. Please make sure to prepare the Barracuda for the long journeys ahead. We might remain outside the Bright Republic for an extended year of time depending on the commitments I take on at Centerpoint or Leemar."

The Barracuda and the Greenfeather both jumped from Cloudy Curtain to Bentheim without any issue.

Only a handful of companions accompanied him for this journey.

Lucky tagged along because he expected Ves to spoil him with exotics.

Gavin naturally followed Ves along as his executive assistant.

Ketis already notified him of her intention to remain at the Mech Nursery in order to design her first variant.

Leland couldn't do anything in Centerpoint and the Friday Coalition. Instead, he devoted a lot of his attention to rooting out spies and informers within the company.

After all, Flashlight firmly considered the LMC to be their turf. How could they tolerate other spies snooping around in their backyard?

"At least he's useful for something." Ves muttered.

He quickly noticed Ketis' absence. Her enthusiasm, passion and cheer always brightened up his day. Now that he had separated from her, Ves found his days to be bland, as Lucky didn't want to play with him and Gavin was more of a butler than a friend most of the time.

His listless Spirituality didn't help either. His mind only replenished his empty tank a little bit in the past couple of weeks. While he expected his depleted spiritual energy to recover by a third by the time he reached Centerpoint, that was still a distance away from full recovery.

"I really need to find a way to fill up my tank faster."

Once the Barracuda stopped over to Bentheim, Ves spent some days on the busy planet under escort. He took Lucky around some exotic materials markets and visited several exhibition halls to view some noteworthy mechs.

Sadly, his plan to see if he could siphon the spiritual accumulation from the mechs on display faltered. While he identified several mechs that accumulated a significant amount of spiritual accumulation, it was simply too heterogeneous.

When Ves attempted to take the spiritual accumulation and see if he could extract any useful spiritual energy out of it, he hadn't found a single compatible attribute.

"It's like digging up a random clump of dirt and expecting to find a trace of exotics!"

While Ves found it fascinating that certain mechs could accumulate spirituality as well, their degree of heterogeneity essentially meant that all of it was junk to him.

Though experimenting with clumps of spiritual accumulation taken from dozens of impressive display mechs, Ves made an important observation.

It appeared that his spiritual attribute was extremely specific to him. Perhaps every mech designer developed a unique attribute. He guessed that it might be related to the design philosophy locked within the design seed of a mech designer.

"That's a bummer."

It meant that for now, Ves saw no possible way for him to replenish his spiritual energy faster. He couldn't plunder it from external sources because their attributes simply didn't match. He could only rely on the natural regeneration of his mind.

Due to this setback, his trip to Bentheim mostly devolved into a culinary trip for Lucky. The pair visited a bunch of shops and marketplaces which sold a variety of exotics shipped from the frontier or other states.

"Another billion credits down the drain." Ves sighed.

He bought enough exotics to keep Lucky's tummy content for a couple months.

At least his cat stopped treating him as a pariah.

"The way to Lucky's heart is through his stomach, it seems."

"Meow!"

Before he departed to Centerpoint, Ves took the time to stop by the office of one of his business partners.

"I'm sorry I haven't been able to catch up to your birthday." Marcella said as she greeted Ves in her office. "I've been preoccupied with a problem that's becoming an increasingly bigger problem for the LMC."

Ves didn't have to think too long to figure it out. "Copycats."

"Yes. A lot of unscrupulous mech designers see you making a killing by selling expensive mechs. While the margins of the Blackbeak and the Crystal Lord aren't as good as before, they're still hefty enough to attract the attention of dozens of greedy underground mech manufacturers."

The damage these copycats mechs did to the LMC was considerable. While the imitation mechs mostly looked identical to the originals, their quality often fell short. The sloppy production processes also left numerous flaws behind in each copycat Blackbeak, Crystal Lord or Aurora Titan.

Yet despite all these faults, mech buyers who were short on money still bought them anyway because they were considerably cheaper than the authentic versions!

The worst part about this copycat situation was that the black market mechs often retained at least some X-Factor of the original design! As long as the black market manufacturer didn't mess with the original design schematics, they could still replicate some of their distinctive charm!

"We can't eliminate copycats and imitations entirely." Marcella said grimly. "As long as your mechs remain attractive products, there will always be someone with a production facility who wants to cash in on your success."

"What have you done then to mitigate this problem?"

"Most of the copycats originate from the Reinald Republic."

"How come that doesn't surprise me? Of course the Reinaldans are at the center of this operation."

Ves recalled the time he encountered an illicit copy of his own mech in one of the marketplaces in the Harkensen System.

"While it's impossible for us to stop the Reinaldans from producing copycats of your mechs, we can still request the more established players from doing so. That will cut down on the amount of copycat mechs in circulation. The reason why I couldn't make it to your birthday celebration was because I was stuck in the Harkensen System cutting a deal between the LMC and the three largest underground mech manufacturers."

"What does the deal entail?"

"In exchange for paying them a considerable amount of money, they promise not to produce copycat mechs based on our mechs."

Ves felt like puking blood. "What?! They're demanding bribes?!"

"There's no other recourse we can take, Ves. The Reinaldan authorities won't do anything to stop their illicit activities. The only way we can achieve actual change is by giving in. These black market manufacturers have made similar deals with countless other mech designers. It's probably their main source of revenue at this point."

"What a ridiculous extortion racket! Why hasn't the MTA cracked down on this practice?"

Marcella shrugged. "The black market manufacturers are quite elusive. They fabricate the mechs in decommissioned factory ships and logistic ships. Trying to hunt them down is like trying to chase after rats. The problem is too tedious. Even if the MTA succeeds in taking some of them down, more will pop up afterwards."

"The MTA has grown lazier and lazier by the day. There are so many problems in this star sector, but they've been holing up in their strongholds for decades."

"You can't blame them, Ves. On a philosophical level, deviant behavior like this will always take place. It's a force of nature that can't be stopped no matter how hard the MTA enforces their rules. I think they made the conscious decision to let such activities take place as long as they don't displace the legal market for mechs. The existence of copycat mechs also helps to pressure complacent mech designers."

The existence of copycat mechs essentially served as an indirect form of arbitrage. The more copycat mechs that emerged, the greater the pressure for the mech company to reduce its prices.

This fell in line with the aims of the MTA. They always encouraged competition in the mech market whenever possible.

As Marcella explained what she managed to accomplish, Ves didn't feel so repulsive of her actions. While the LMC was on the hook for several hundred million credits a year, the black market manufacturers she negotiated with held a lot of sway in their industry.

Not only did they promise to end their use of LMC's design, but they also promised to exert some pressure onto the smaller illicit manufacturers.

While some of the smaller fish would always continue to produce copycat mechs, at least they wouldn't be as pervasive as before.

"Mind you, the deal only addresses the production of copycats from the Reinald Republic." She cautioned him. "There are other centers of illicit mech production that might also decide to copycat your mechs in the star sector."

"And all of them will want a bribe as well to encourage them to stop imitating our mechs?"

"Yup."

"Scumbags!"

Ves considered these black market manufacturers to be vermin. Instead of investing their resources into developing their own mech designs, they would rather steal them from someone else! They did not deserve to profit from another mech designer's success!

"Stop moping, Ves. If there's one thing I've learned after spending decades building up my mech brokerage, it's that the mech market isn't fair. The MTA isn't doing anything about this practice because mech designers ought to be able to withstand this degree of adversity."

She was right. A mech company that was forced to shutter due to copycats shouldn't exist in the first place.

Once Ves learned all he wanted to know about the deal, he asked one more question.

"As you know, I'm about to depart to the Centerpoint System. Do you have any advice for me?"

"Not much. I haven't visited Centerpoint myself." Marcella replied. "I've heard that it is a central nexus for mech pilots and mech designers. Not only does the star system attract mech insiders from all over the star sector, but it's also home to many people who originate from other star sectors. The only problem is that the standard of living there is extremely high. Even visitors from the Friday Coalition will feel the pinch if they remain there for a couple of years."

As a star system directly controlled by the MTA, Some of the planets and habitats in Centerpoint primarily catered to core internal MTA personnel. The living standard there came close to that of a first-rate superstate, but the downside to that was that even Ves with his flush bank account was nothing more than a pauper in these places!

Fortunately, Centerpoint offered several other places where space peasants still had a chance to live! Ves and Lucky didn't have to worry about starving to death if they stayed in the star system for a couple of weeks!