The difficulty in acquiring higher-end resonating exotics was not a problem that the Larkinsons could solve in a short amount of time.

Perhaps it would have worked if the expeditionary fleet was still in the vicinity of the Hexadric Hegemony, but now that they were in Majestic Teal and moving even further away, Ves could forget about this option.

This forced Ves to set his sights on other states. Due to the fact that the expeditionary fleet was trying to reach the lesser beyonder gate a few star clusters away, the Larkinsons wouldn't be staying in any state along the way long enough to forge new friendships.

Since relationships were important in this kind of business, Ves felt very constrained by this situation. Slowing down the fleet might allow them to develop a relationship with a state along their route, but it was unacceptable for him to delay his journey to the Red Ocean any further.

Ves wanted his expert mech designs to start off on a stronger footing. While it was not impossible to swap low-grade resonating exotics with more expensive ones in the future, that would basically entail tearing entire expert mechs open as resonating exotics were often applied to their core parts.

Still, it was technically possible to overhaul an existing expert mech, so Ves did not find this an unacceptable option.

The real problem was that Ves would have to beg a Senior or Master to integrate the resonating exotics in an expert mech. If he tried to do it himself, then the resonating exotics simply wouldn't generate any resonating abilities under the prompting of expert pilots.

This was one of the big secrets that Journeymen didn't have access to. Ves felt very frustrated by this, but he supposed the MTA had a good reason to withhold it from everyone. Besides, it was truly wasteful to let Journeymen design expert mechs when there were plenty of Seniors and Masters who were willing to take on this job.

As the first days of preliminary work passed by, Ves met frequently with Gloriana in order to keep each other up to date on what they were working on. Good communication was essential to keep everything on track.

During a brief break time, the pair cuddled together in a lounge near the design labs. The two pressed up against each other while their cats played around.

"Meow."

Lucky looked annoyed as Blinky patted his tail.

Mrow.

The companion spirit acted as if he didn't do anything wrong.

"Miaow." Clixie turned her head as if she wanted to request something to her daughter.

Nyaaa.

Goldie flew forward and gently pressed Blinky away from Lucky.

The two spiritual cats had become closer to each other as of late. Due to their spiritual forms, it was not easy for material existences such as Clixie to touch them directly. Both brother and sister enjoyed each other's company because they could do all of the cat things they liked without worrying about phasing through each other's bodies.

Mrow mrow.

The Star Cat attempted to jump onto the Golden Cat, only to get kicked away by the latter.

Nyaaaaaaa!

The two spiritual cats started to wrestle, which caused both Lucky and Clixie to look exasperated.

"Meow meow."

"Miaow."

"Hihihi." Gloriana giggled as she rested her head on Ves' uniformed chest. "They're getting cuter and cuter. You've got another cat, right? Why not summon him as well."

"Are you talking about Bygul?" Ves frowned. "He's an AI avatar. He's not a true sentient cat."

"Bring him out anyway. I'm interested to see what Blinky thinks of our electronic cat."

"Very well."

He called out Bygul, who projected his avatar body into view.

[Mew.]

Mrow?!

Blinky stopped chasing after Goldie and looked warily at the new cat. The young spiritual companion started to hiss aggressively at Bygul. It seemed that the spiritual cat really didn't like his electronic counterpart for some reason!

[Mew mew.] Bygul steadily communicated.

The electronic cat had come a long way since his initial jerky movements and actions. After so much deep learning, Bygul's behavior had become practically indistinguishable from real cats!

Since he was an infrequent sight lately, the other cats had to reacquaint themselves with Bygul's anomalous existence. He stood out way too much and failed to integrate with the cat family.

[Mew mew mew!]

"Meow!"

Lucky clawed through Bygul's body, causing the physical projection to pop and disappear.

[Mew…..]

It didn't matter as Bygul reappeared seconds later.

As the Miracle Couple observed the antics of their pets, they slowly discussed some other issues.

"I've heard you've been working on a seventh mech design project in your spare time." Ves stated.

"Didn't I tell you about that? My brother needs a new expert mech as well. I'm adopting a different approach for his machine since it isn't a part of Master Willix's deal. I'm already cooperating with a couple of Hexer mech designers so you don't need to worry about that. I only need you to contribute your specialty."

"I'll need to get involved for that, Gloriana. Do we have the time to spare on an extra project?"

Gloriana reached out and tilted his head so that he looked straight into her eyes. "You will make time for me. Don't refuse. This is a good opportunity to get some extra practice on participating in an expert mech design project. The Hexer partners I've agreed to work with will bear a greater burden and contribute more extensively than Master Willix, so this is a good opportunity to learn how professionals design expert mechs."

He wasn't sure whether these Hexer mech designers would be receptive to Ves, especially since the war was growing poorer and poorer for the Hexadric Hegemony.

In truth, Ves and Gloriana should have been working on their last batch of Hexer mech designs, but neither of them had a good idea on how to change the strategic outlook of the Hexers with their work.

The Hexers had no problem defeating the regular mech pilots of the Friday Coalition. It was the large number of Coalition-aligned expert pilots and expert mechs that truly caused the Hexers to falter as of late.

Though Ves wasn't very interested in adding another burden to his already-busy schedule, he did not deny his wife's arguments. As a mech designer, he possessed a lot of fascination for expert mechs, and this might be a rare opportunity to see how they were designed by those who possessed a lot of experience in this field.

As for the fact that Gloriana's partners were Hexers, that didn't play much of a factor in his decision. He knew his status among the Hexers had already become special since his mech designs made such a profound impact on the Komodo War.

"You're the ultimate good boy." Gloriana summed up with a smile.

Soon enough, they finished their break and went back to work. Aside from supervising his design teams, he also fleshed out his draft designs for the Chimera Project and the Sentry Project.

The latter was simpler and easier to design, so Ves started with it first. Just like Gloriana, he copied over many of the design principles of the Bright Beam Prime.

There were two fundamental differences, though.

First, the Bright Beam Prime was based on the Bright Warrior IB, which was not a specialized ranged mech design.

Since there was no pressing need for Venerable Stark to fight against powerful opponents up close, Ves and Gloriana preferred to start from scratch and design an expert mech that completely specialized in ranged combat.

Gloriana wanted no compromises in this regard and Ves was of the same mind.

"Well, just because it is weak in this area doesn't mean it's defenseless. It would be rather silly if a single ordinary melee mech can defeat an expert mech."

There were plenty of ways to prevent such a shameful outcome. If the situation was truly desperate, then the expert rifleman mech could always activate a bayonet on its rifle and stab enemies with it. If the expert mech lost its rifle for some reason, it could pull out a backup knife or better yet a foldable sword to fend off annoying light skirmishers or something.

The limitations that caused many mech designers to restrain the amount of modules they put into their regular mech designs no longer applied here.

When Ves started to browse the library of high-end expert mech components, he became amazed at how small they were. By relying on superior technology, manufacturing procedures and most important high-grade exotics, the Hexer parts reserved for expert mechs were considerably more powerful while taking up surprisingly little space!

"The most direct comparison is armor."

The mech industry paid a lot of attention to the toughness of expert mechs. This was an extremely well-developed field. As long as someone was willing to pay the price, an expert mech could easily be clad with a thin layer of armor that was nonetheless able to withstand at least ten times as much damage as an equivalent normal mech!

What was even more intriguing was that the efficiency of expert mech-grade armor systems rose drastically when they got thicker. This was the greatest reason why heavy expert mechs had the courage to resist attacks launched by offensive expert mechs.

This didn't even factor in how many useful resonating exotics could directly amplify the performance of the armor system or specific modules!

It took a lot of effort and expertise to make these modifications work, though. This was why Gloriana was so eager to secure the help of component developers.

"It's too bad the Sentry Project doesn't have that much capacity compared to other expert mechs." He sighed.

He was able to stuff all kinds of goodies in Venerable Stark's expert mech design, but it was quite limited compared to what he could put into other expert mech designs.

The biggest weakness of the Sentry Project was its relative lack of armor. No matter what expensive armor system he chose to apply to this rifleman mech, its defense would always be subpar compared to other mechs at this height.

"It's enough to make the Sentry Project a nightmare against regular mechs, but once it gets hit by a resonate-empowered attack, I doubt it will fare well!"

This was also why Gloriana insisted on allowing the Sentry Project to merge with the Bulwark Project. Ves had to make a lot of adjustments to the front half of the expert rifleman mech in order to enable the mating process.

In other words, the Sentry Project revolved around a cover-based machine. Unlike Star Dancer Mark II that his wife intended to design for her brother, Venerable Stark wouldn't be able to dance and weave in open space without putting her expert mech at great risk.

Though Ves wanted to make sure that the Sentry Project was still mobile enough to reposition itself in battle, it was not designed to be a dogfighter.

"It's a sniper, pretty much."

This meant that Ves had to prioritize precision, power and other offensive traits over defense and mobility.

The payoff would be very great. During the Battle of Reckoning, Venerable Stark didn't fire too many times, but each time she did, her impact was enormous.

"Since she can do it once, she can do it again."

Ves actually loved to design extreme mechs that completely focused on maximizing a single aspect. The problem was that he would always regret it later. The deficient mobility of the Aurora Titan and the Shield of Samar was a good example.

He shrugged. "Oh well. I'll just focus on the fun for now and leave the suffering for later."

A ranged expert mech that excelled at long-ranged combat was a valuable addition to the Larkinson Clan. No matter how poor it was in defending itself, it could always rely on cover to mitigate this shortcoming. Whether it took shelter behind the shield of Samar or the Graveyard, the Larkinsons offered plenty of shelter!