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Although the Survivalists did not hold the greatest amount of voting power in the Red Association, their influence reached further than was apparent on the surface.

For one, the Survivalists were by far the most prepared mechers to cope with the current circumstances. They had a lot of contingency plans that they could immediately implement by virtue of all of the stockpile of strategic materials and assets that they transferred over in advance.

Additionally, both the Polymath and the Xenotechnician were among the most useful technological leaders in the new reality.

The former was brilliant with rapidly inventing all manner of technologies that could quickly help red humanity increase its tech superiority against the aliens.

The latter had been busy with assimilating a lot of phasewater technology, making it so that people were able to steal more advantages that were previously exclusive to the aliens.

The two of them were already brilliant enough on their own, but they could accomplish great synergy if they pooled their efforts together!

Ves was not entirely certain about their political stances, though. The two Star Designers belonged to vastly different generations and likely disagreed on a lot of matters.

Then there was the Fist of Defiance. It was no secret that high-ranking mech pilots were muleheads, and enough publications had described this supremely powerful fighter as an uncompromising figure who desired to wipe out aliens preemptively before they ever posed a serious threat!

Before the Great Severing, the Big Two likely hadn't put all of their effort into wiping out the indigenous aliens of the Red Ocean.

That restraint came to bite the red humans in the rear as the disparity in numbers between the two sides had grown too lopsided!

From this perspective, the worst nightmare of the Fist of Defiance had essentially come true.

The humans in this corner of the cosmos were all at risk of getting wiped out en masse, and there was no way for the people of the Milky Way to bail them out anymore!

Given these circumstances, the Fist of Defiance must definitely feel pissed that nobody took him seriously enough before the Great Severing. He must have become even more uncompromising for that reason.

All of these political undercurrents painted the conference in a different light. Ves figured out why Jovy did not dare to say too much and cross too many boundaries.

This was because the three leaders of the Survivalist Faction had likely entered into a power struggle!

None of the Survivalists would admit to outsiders, but Ves could infer the truth easily enough now that he had collected enough clues.

It was not advantageous for the Survivalist Faction to broadcast its internal divisions to the public. That would undermine its authority and weaken its voice during high-level discussions.

Ves speculated that the primary purpose of the conference had changed since the Survivalists initially planned this event.

They used to assume the conference would mainly center around sharing ideas, meeting with more like-minded people and form a new consensus on a couple of important but relatively mundane policy proposals.

Now, the conference gained a huge amount of significance due to transitioning to a new age.

Ves already knew that much of the conference would center around presenting possible solutions to combat the rising alien threat.

What was not as obvious was that it also served as a competition for the three faction leaders to present their own visions to their shared following!

As long as a majority of Survivalists threw their weight behind one of them, then the winner would be able to effectively be able to implement his or her own plans with the full backing of the faction!

This might not be the most ideal way to run a faction, but the Survivalists understood the importance of sacrificing their individual priorities in order to do whatever was necessary to preserve the human race!

Ves was able to piece all of this together by combining his existing knowledge of the Survivalist Faction with all of the vague and indirect hints that his friend was dropping.

All of this fascinated and frightened Ves. He had a feeling that the conference was destined to become a turning point in red humanity's history.

Once the Survivalist Faction began to put its full weight behind a single plan, it would begin to solicit support from other friendly factions.

If enough of them supported this initiative, then the Red Association would adopt it as their central policy!

After that, the mechers would try their best to win the support of the other major human groups such as the Red Fleet and the first-rate colonial superstates.

So long as enough of them played along, much of red humanity would move according to the plan and ideals of a single visionary leader!

Though Ves was not certain whether the Survivalists would succeed in this grand and ambitious endeavor, the possibility of it was enough to turn the conference into an epoch-changing event!

Ves needed no more instructions on how he needed to keep his head down and avoid any missteps.

He threw a speculative look towards Jovy. Which side did he lean towards? Ves decided to see whether he could squeeze an answer out of his buddy.

"Which of the three Survivalist leaders is your favorite? Who among them do you admire the most?"

"They are all excellent humans. They all have their strong points and have made many contributions to humanity. There is little point in picking favorites as I respect all of them in equal measure." Jovy diplomatically answered.

What a boring answer. It was probably the safest one he could give, though.

"I see."

The two took a break at that point. Jovy might not be an important figure in the upcoming conference, but he had an entire schedule of his own. He needed to gain access to more resources and support in order to speed up his advancement to Master.

Just like Ves, Jovy recognized that Seniors were too marginal to play a major role in the events that were unfolding in the coming years.

Over dinner, Jovy shared a bit about his own life within the Association.

"As you know, the Association gathers many of the best first-class mech designers of human society. There is an abundance of skilled and renowned Master Mech Designers and Star Designers who design the vast majority of mechs in use. This leaves lower-ranking mech designers with little room to push their own independently designed products to our mech pilots. It would not be fair to force inferior products on them when our Association can clearly afford better."

That caused Ves to grow confused. "Mech designers cannot advance if their mech designs remain theoretical. They need their products to be used by actual mech pilots if they want to make substantial progress. How can the Apprentices, Journeymen and Senior ever make any progress if no one takes their mechs seriously?"

Jovy chuckled at this question. "The Masters and Star Designers fully understand our struggles. They used to be like us as well in the past. The solution is virtual reality."

"Virtual reality?"

"Yes. You have never truly entered the Design World or the other virtual portals that our Association has set up for mech designers like myself."

"I think you mentioned the Design World to me before." Ves recalled.

"I did, and you rejected it without knowing how significant it is. What you may not realize is that I spend over half of my time in the Design World. Here, we can design as many virtual mechs as we want. The better our designs, the more MTA merits we can earn upon their completion. The amount of rewards that we can earn is based on their performance as well as their novelty. The latter demand is particularly challenging for us. We cannot design the same mechs over and over again. We need to exercise our creativity and step outside of established works to invent truly new machines."

That... sounded awfully similar to Ves. He was reminded to the Mech Designer System's own reward system for mech designs.

"The story does not end at that point." Jovy added.

"There's more?"

"Yes." Jovy nodded. "The true test of a mech design is how well they perform when put to use. While it is not practical to fabricate and test every virtual mech in reality, it is no problem to test them in a virtual setting. Our mech pilots can choose and buy the right to pilot any virtual mech that has been uploaded to a catalog. They can subsequently pilot the machine in virtual battles against each other. The more victories attained by a virtual mech model, the more follow-up rewards its designer can earn. The matching system has set up specific tiers based on the rank of the designer and other parameters to make this competition more fair. This is how I have earned most of my MTA merits."

That also sounded familiar to Ves!

He had started his eventful mech design career by designing virtual mechs a long time ago. Ves almost forgot about those distant days, but they had done much to shape his design philosophy and approach towards mech design.

The biggest difference between Ves and Jovy was that the latter remained stuck in the virtual mech phase for a much longer time!

Ves felt it was rather sad that a young and talented Senior like Jovy had any chances to see his mechs in reality.

Nonetheless, Ves found it rather impressive that MTA mech designers were potentially able to make breakthroughs while solely working on virtual mech designs!

It sounded as if the mechers had deliberately set up the Kingdom of Mechs to support their younger mech designers.

"Can you give me a look at your virtual designs?" Ves asked. "I have always been curious to see how your design philosophy empowers your mech designs. There haven't been many opportunities for me to observe your work despite how frequently we interact with each other. You know all about my own mech designs, but I have only observed one actual mech that you have designed, and that was the Fortune Devil that we played around with years ago. You should have made many improvements since that time."

Jovy thought for a moment before nodding. "That is fair. It is indeed absurd that you have never seen any of my virtual mech designs. You can only truly know a mech designer by studying their works. I will introduce them to you later on after I have taken care of a few matters."

The two continued to eat their meals. Ves found that the food was remarkably tailored to his own physical needs, so much so that he began to grow a little suspicious.

How much did the mechers know about his latest physical transformation?

"Is it possible for other mech designers to advance all the way to Master by sticking with virtual mechs?" Ves curiously asked.

"It's too difficult." Jovy shook his head. "Don't think about it. Our Association enjoys a great advantage on this front. I will not explain why, but outsiders cannot replicate what we can do. It is much better for outside mech designers to stick to what they are already doing."

"I see."

It was not as if Ves had any problems with selling his physical mechs en masse. The only hindrance was his own lack of priority. He hadn't designed too many original new commercial mechs as of late.

The Second Eye had recently gone on sale, but the rifleman mech model did not make a big splash on the market. It looked like it would take a lot of time before his customers discovered its true utility and learned to value its unique traits.