The Mech Touch

Chapter 7112: The Other Continents

The birthday party continued to unfold.

Although the Microplanet seemed more like a theme park than anything, it at least did a good job of entertaining most of the guests.

Aurelia was happy that people enjoyed her birthday. She wanted people to come and have an excuse to set aside their burdens and remember that there was still plenty to enjoy in the Red Ocean.

The threat posed by the native aliens and the mutated voribugs did not magically disappear, but the guests could afford to add more levity and joy in their lives.

People became far too prone to losing their humanity the longer they became embroiled in a difficult conflict. They slowly lost their ability to regard people as individual lives and increasingly treated them as disposable numbers that they could shift around on a grand chessboard.

Such resolve may be necessary to defeat the alien threats arrayed against red humanity, but it was also an attitude that caused people to become increasingly alienated from each other.

"I think that is one of the reasons why the Polymath has turned into a horrible but effective despot." Aurelia said to her father as both of them stood on a floating platform that moved across the different continents of the Microplanet.

A squad of first-class multipurpose mechs surrounded their platform in order to guard it against any attacks. The precaution was sadly necessary despite the existing security measures.

"It becomes more and more difficult for powerful people to retain their empathy for the common folk." Ves said. "In fact, a lot of successful people are born into positions of wealth and privilege. Their ability to understand the plight of those at the bottom is poor to begin with. That is not always a demerit, but it will make it a little more difficult to formulate decisions that helps our entire society instead of those who rule at the top."

He turned and directed a measured gaze towards his daughter.

Ves and Gloriana were already highly successful by the time Aurelia came to life, and they only became wealthier and more powerful when their other two kids arrived.

Though Ves and Gloriana had both taken a lot of care to raise their children correctly, it was impossible as well as highly unsafe to expose them to the conditions of the bottom layers of society.

Aurelia, Andraste and Marvaine truly had no idea how third-raters went on with their lives. Ves was afraid that his three children considered third-raters to be literal space peasants on account of how many of them populated the Red Ocean and how little value they contributed to society.

However, these numbers did not convey anything particular of what third-raters wanted and how much they felt excluded from the progress made by the rest of human society.

Although Ves himself fell victim to the same phenomenon, he at least experienced a childhood in a third-rate state, so he was not as clueless about this matter as everyone else.

This was why he had tried his best to instill a basic sense of respect for the lives of every human no matter how modest they may be. It was not good as letting Aurelia experience their lives first-hand, but at least he tried.

So far, Ves felt that his efforts bore fruit. His daughter had personally pushed back against her own mother when it came to certain decisions about how to organize her birthday party.

If Gloriana had her way, they would not have invited people who would ordinarily not be qualified to attend an event of this magnitude. She would also skip the chaotic fighting and other boisterous activities in favor of hosting more refined events such as ball dancing and theater programs.

Boring.

Well, perhaps not for everyone. These were activities that should be familiar to the members of high society, but what about others?

Aurelia did not want to hold a birthday party that solely catered to the tastes of the elites.

Hence why the Larkinsons went out of their way to book the Microplanet. This was one of the few event spaces in Yernstall that was large enough to accommodate all of the activities taking place today.

While the western and eastern continents were dedicated towards combat and mech combat, the southern continent was quite different.

Instead of hosting a large biome filled with dangerous exobeasts and simulated enemies, part of the southern continent had been transformed into a jungle that only contained a single species.

Cats.

"So cute!"

"Here, kitty kitty."

"Your fur is so soft!"

"Hihihi!"

Many young children had flocked to the cat forest, mostly under the supervision of their parents, and began to climb the low trees or roll down the grassy hills.

"Miewwwwu~"

"Miawowooo!"

"Nhaauuu nhaaauuu."

The kids eagerly chased after running cats or sat down and petted the ones that walked over looking for affection.

For many of them, this was the first time they got close to actual living cats. Many of them had fallen in love with the animals and eagerly pestered their parents to adopt their chosen fur buddies.

On the other side of the southern continent, many different fights took place.

Instead of hosting mech arenas where children and adults got to beat each other up in violent but controlled fights, children with an interest in Mekanos could assemble their own simple machines and throw them into shrunken arenas where the machines clashed against each other while remote-controlled or driven by AIs.

The children who were into Mekanos took these matches extremely seriously. They relied on their ingenuity to quickly assemble their Mekanos together before relying on specific strategies to defeat their opponents.

Many of these children had clearly been raised with the expectation of becoming scientists, engineers and most notably mech designers. Their grasp on science was much better than average and they easily manipulated the Mekanos parts as if they had been playing with them all their lives.

The Polymath may have defected from the Red Association, but not even the mechers could reject how well Mekanos could impart the basic principles of mech design to the future generations.

Marvaine found a lot of new friends at the Mekanos arena.

"Wow! Your hands move so quickly, yet they are so precise."

"Thanks. Your Mekanos look really cool. Do you always try to put the biggest guns imaginable on your creations?"

"Yes! Firepower is justice! Why bother with trying to let enemies get close when you can blast them apart from afar? Mechs with guns are much more awesome than those that swing blades around."

"Aren’t you afraid of hostile Mekanos getting close enough to chop at your works with blades?"

"I will just tell my Mekanos to detonate all of its remaining munitions and take the attacker down with it! Blow everything up, hahahaha!"

"I do not think that is a good strategy..."

The Mekanos arena was a place to have fun as well as a place for children to compete against each other in their ability to design the best Mekanos.

Mech designers visited this particular venue more often than other adults.

They all grew curious at how their potential successors shaped their Mekanos and how much skill and ingenuity they put into their works.

In many cases, the Mekanos that the children put together in a matter of hours surpassed theri expectations!

"When I was their age, the Mekanos that I could make were not even close to reaching the level of sophistication of these new creations. Why are they so much better?"

"Do you have children of your own? No. That explains it. The answer is systematic cultivation. There are multiple auxiliary methods that are safe to practice from a young age. Each of these children have managed to exercise their minds."

"Hasn’t it been proven that qi cultivation and auxiliary qi cultivation is virtually useless to young children?"

"That is the rule, but exceptions always exist. So long as these children possess the right augmentations and are meticulously taught to prevent their minds from getting distracted, it is possible for them to make limited attainments in cultivation. However, children have only been able to make progress in the simplest of cultivation methods, so their advantages are not too great."

"It is still interesting to see that many children are able to build up a greater head start than the people of the previous generations."

While the Mekanos arena was particularly popular among children who loved to put stuff together, not all kids possessed an interest in this activity.

If they loved cats, they flocked to the cat forest.

If they did not like the furry animals for whatever reason, then they could always play at one of the other playgrounds on the southern continent.

From immersing themselves in a projected reality field that was themed after popular cartoon shows to hugging and playing with thousands of AI-controlled plushies, there were plenty of ways for kids to play with their friends and entertain themselves.

Ves and Aurelia continued to observe all of this activity from above. Their floating platform turned transparent in order to give them a better view of what was taking place on the surface of the Microplanet.

"It is almost time." He told his daughter even as he placed his palm on her slender shoulder. "In less than an hour, it will be time for you to blow your birthday candles. It will also be the time to determine your genetic aptitude. Are you excited?"

"...Maybe."

"Oh? What is on your mind, Aurelia?"

"Genetic aptitude is not supposed to mean as much to children like myself anymore, but..."

"You feel like possessing the right genetic aptitude may still force you to become a professional mech pilot even if you do not have much passion for the job." Ves threw out a guess.

"That, and other concerns. I do not know whether I want to attend a mech academy." She said with a conflicted voice. "I know that they are the best places to learn how to pilot a mech, but they are awful when it comes to teaching courses that are not directly related to mech piloting."

"Is that what you are concerned about? This is not a big deal, my dear. We can arrange for half you to spend much of your time attending courses at a general university, and spend enough time at a nearby mech academy to attend the most essential piloting courses. This way, you can keep up with your regular studies while also developing a basic foundation in mech combat. Does that sound acceptable to you, or do you want to accept the Red Fleet’s offer to attend one of their naval academies?"

Aurelia frowned. "I have not decided yet, papa. I want to wait until I have the results from the genetic aptitude test before choosing where to study next."

"That is a sound idea."

As the time for the big event neared, many children and adults flocked to transportation shuttles that quickly brought them over to the central continent.

There, a giant crystal pyramid was located at the center.

The construction was terraced, with seats and tables positioned on the exterior.

This was the open-air banquet space that the Larkinsons and the mechers had prepared.

The crystal pyramid was completely transparent, but was still difficult to look through due to being riddled with complex tunnels and other shapes.

It was clear that the crystal pyramid had another purpose aside from offering interesting seating arrangements to the arriving guests.

The arriving guests were delivered at the bottom, which meant that a lot of guests had to climb up multiple flights of stairs before they could converge on their assigned seats.

If people did not know any better, they would grow suspicious at why the banquet was held on the surface of a pyramid of all things and why the seating arrangements looked so weird.

From an elevated perspective, it looked as if the guests were all voluntarily taking part in a large-scale ritual.

This was partially correct.

Most people remained ignorant about it, but the more perceptive and knowledgeable of guests somehow managed to figure out that the pyramid had quietly been turned into a vast occult ritual assembly!

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