Ketis returned from the Heavensword Association as a new woman. She had undergone such a drastic metamorphosis that Ves and Gloriana still exhibited some difficulties in adjusting to her new status!

The principal reasons for that were the dual identities of the Larkinson Clan's latest superstar.

To the utter bafflement of them both, Ketis somehow managed to elevate both of her professions to an extraordinary level.

This should have been impossible.

When Ves figured out that swordmasters were analogous to expert pilots, he felt it was even more incredulous for Ketis to break this rule.

Journeymen Mech Designers reconfigured their spirits into a mysterious spiritual construct which he labeled as a design seed.

Expert pilots, and by extension swordmasters, fused spirituality with their willpower to form what Ves called a force of will.

Both design seeds and force of will were powerful spiritual phenomena that only came into existence after exceptional people pushed their abilities to their limits.

When the prodigious daughter returned to the expeditionary fleet, Ves invited her over to a lounge aboard the Spirit of Bentheim in order to explain herself.

When Ketis narrated her amazing adventures on Omanderie III, Ves certainly understood that she had gone through enough situations that stimulated her to stimulate her potential as a swordswoman.

Yet what did this have to do with mech design?!

Why did Ketis simultaneously broke through to Journeyman Mech Designer in the middle of a martial arena where there were no mechs to be found?!

It didn't make sense!

The only theory that Ves could reluctantly accept was that her extraordinary nature as a 'swordmaster' had somehow become an intricate part of her design philosophy.

In other words, Ketis might be the first mech designer in existence who was able to leverage her strength as an extraordinary warrior in her design work!

Though she had yet to embark on any mech design work, Ves could already tie the clues together. Ves had ample experience in tying external spiritual design spirits to his own mech designs in order to enhance their performance beyond what he could manage by himself.

He hypothesized that Ketis would be able to adopt a similar approach, though this time she would be leveraging an internal factor rather than an external one! This was because no matter how separate Sharpie appeared to be, the evolved spiritual construct was still an intricate part of her spirituality!

"So what is the matter with all of the followers that you have brought back to the fleet?" Gloriana grumpily asked as she stroked Clixie's back in consternation. "You brought so many people back to our fleet that you could start an independent organization that is not that much weaker than our clan. Do you still consider yourself a Larkinson, or have you developed new ambitions now that you've become a big girl all of a sudden?"

"Miaow.."

Even her cat became a lot more guarded towards the new Ketis!

"Hey, cut it out, Gloriana." Ves patted her shoulder as he pressed closer to her. "She's not a threat to us. I know her well enough to be assured of her loyalty. She's a Swordmaiden, and that should be enough of an answer."

His remark caused Ketis to smile. Ves indeed understood her quite well. As a Swordmaiden and swordmaster, she took her oaths seriously. She pledged to join the Larkinson Clan and had no intentions of reneging on that promise.

There was no particular reason for her to consider otherwise. The clan never mistreated her or her fellow Swordmaidens. In fact, Ketis and her fellow sisters gained an unimaginable amount of assistance. Now that she finally acquired the strength to pay back her debts, she was looking forward to being of more use to Ves and the clan.

"I am a Larkinson." She spoke with force and in a way that left no doubt that she was being utterly sincere. "Each and every clansman is my fellow brother and sister. You are all kin to me. Back when I was still an Apprentice, I appreciated that I could be a part of a new family. That hasn't changed at all even if I have the opportunity to strike out on my own. I am still proud to be a Larkinson. The only difference is that I can contribute more to the clan. The followers that I have brought back are my first gifts to you all. We're short on manpower, so I did my best to help you solve this shortcoming. I even managed to bring back a lot of ships and mechs as well in order to alleviate our insufficient combat strength. Isn't that great?"

Ves awkwardly coughed. "That.. uhmm… even if only a portion of them have access to mechs, bringing back 10,000 mech pilots at once is a tad bit excessive. You've practically recruited an entire mech division of Swordmaidens when the rest of our mech forces can barely scrape up 10,000 mech pilots at the moment. Do you see how imbalanced our force disposition has become?!"

Ves and General Verle always advocated for balanced development when it came to the growth of the clan's mech forces. None of them should become too strong and numerous in order to prevent them from exerting an excessive influence on the Larkinson Clan's martial culture and combat approach.

This wouldn't be a big deal If Ketis only brought back a couple of thousand mech pilots. Yet now that she recruited so many soldiers at once, Ves was deeply afraid that the Larkinson Clan would soon transform in the image of the Swordmaidens!

Ketis saw his worries and raised her hand in order to assuage him. "I am not ignorant of what an effect my men and women can have on the rest of the Larkinsons. Please rest assured that the former Heavensworders under me already understand that they need to adapt to the clan instead of the other way around. I have also discussed the potential issues with General Verle over the course of our return to the expeditionary fleet and have already come up with a couple of measures."

Ves felt more at ease once he heard that General Verle was already on top of this situation. The Larkinson Clan could easily undergo a lot of upheaval if the new Swordmaidens imposed too much of their presence on the rest of the clansmen.

After asking several more questions, it became clear that Ketis did not insist on exerting sole control over all of the new people she brought back from the Heavensword Association.

"The Swordmaidens are led by Commander Sendra." She stated. "I have no intentions of usurping her command. As much as my followers all look up to me, the Larkinson Clan needs soldiers, not sheep. The Swordmaidens should have confidence in their own strength. Otherwise, they won't live up to the tradition of our original sisterhood."

"What about these so-called sword schools of yours?" Ves asked. "You told us that you have also brought some other Heavensworder organizations with you, the Annihilator Sword School in particular. Many of their members happen to be men as well. Will they become affiliated with the Swordmaidens."

"Not necessarily." She shook her head. "Whether they are men or women, the sword disciples will not necessarily join the Swordmaidens if they graduate. I was thinking about allowing them to apply to join the other mech forces under your command. After all, many of them would probably welcome well-trained swordsman mech pilots."

Ves could see the potential of this plan. Although he did not know too much about these sword schools, the fact that their heritage allowed them to raise swordmasters such as Ketis proved that the swordsmanship training they provided to their enrollees was excellent!

In this way, the Larkinson Clan would gain a distinct new specialty. Though the popularity of every other type of melee mech would suffer as a consequence, it was well worth the price as long as the swordsman mech pilots under his command became powerful elites!

Of course, all of these highly-skilled mech pilots also needed excellent swordsman mechs in order to channel their full power.

"You've never designed a proper swordsman mech that you can be proud of, right?" Ves asked.

Gloriana snorted and hugged Clixie to her chest. "She didn't put in as much as you when you were still an Apprentice, Ves. I've seen what amounted to her swordsman mechs. I spotted so many flaws that I don't know where to begin."

Ves frowned yet again. He was becoming more annoyed at his wife's petty barbs. It was clear that she felt threatened by the new Ketis and wanted to assert her dominance over the younger Journeyman.

Unfortunately for her, Ketis did not back down at all. She considered herself to be an equal to Gloriana and it showed in how she held her back straight and answered every challenging gaze.

Ves had the feeling that he had become stuck between two roaring tigresses. The only consolation was that this inexplicable dominance game among the two women did not deteriorate too much.

Everyone in the lounge knew that Ketis had hooked up with Venerable Joshua. Her breakthrough shouldn't have changed that. In fact, their pairing became more perfect in everyone's eyes. They had become the second-most prominent pairing in the clan after the Miracle Couple.

With this existing relationship, Gloriana didn't fear that Ketis would steal Ves away from her or something. Miss Juliet Stameros was a much greater threat in the possessive wife's eyes!

Ves tried to get the conversation back on track. "Ahem, now that you have become a Journeyman, you are ready to take on greater responsibilities in the Design Department. From today onwards, you will become our latest lead designer after Gloriana and Juliet. I will transmit some documents to you later that will outline all of the rules and responsibilities of your new position, but I think you already have a good idea of what is in store for you. Also, according to the Exemplar Plan, your promotion also entitles you to earn the equivalent of the dividends of a 1% stake in the Living Mech Corporation. This money is all yours, and you can spend it as you will."

Ketis grinned. She had long looked forward to earning this reward. "I look forward to investing all of this money into the Swordmaidens and the sword schools I brought back. Their growth will definitely exceed your expectations!"

It didn't really matter to Ves. It was worth it for him to give up a small percentage of his mech company's earnings in order to secure the loyalty and enthusiasm of a prominent Journeyman Mech Designer with great potential.

Besides, if Ketis flooded the Swordmaidens with money, the clan administration would just dial down the budget allocated to them in response.

"Do you have any ideas on your next design projects?" He asked. "Right now, the Design Department's main priority is to prepare for the next round of design projects, which all happen to center around expert mech designs. I'm sure that you can contribute a lot to the projects that center around designs that incorporate the weapons that you are familiar with, but you also have the right to start your independent projects if you wish."

"I plan to take advantage of that." Ketis spoke with conviction. "Both of you are right that I have never designed a decent mech by myself. I intend to change that. I am not proud of my current track record. I have studied a lot and improved very rapidly because of that. Now that I have broken through, I feel that my ability to design a mech has become a lot more mature. I need to know what I am capable of, so I intend to design a true swordsman mech that reflects my own abilities. I prefer not to collaborate with the two of you. I will work on my own design by myself from start to finish. I hope you understand."

Both Ves and Gloriana nodded. As Journeymen themselves, they fully comprehended her motives.

Ketis spent a lot of her design time on providing assistance to other design projects. While this granted her plenty of opportunities to express her abilities, she never had the opportunity to set a lot of design choices.

Assistants were free to make suggestions, but they were mostly expected to follow the arrangements of the lead designers. This caused Ketis to lack a lot of practical experience in setting her own tone and balancing different tradeoffs in her own work. This was one of many reasons why her Apprentice-level mech designs were so crude.

Ketis began to outline her much-awaited Monster Slayer design…