[1-200] THE MECH TOUCH

Chapter 137: Teaching

Ves already possessed enough skills and experience to fabricate a flawless mech in six days. In order to compress the fabrication time to four days, he had to drop his excessive caution. He stopped double-checking and triple-checking most of his routine work and only slowed down when he reached a difficult phase.

His previous experience along with his ample preparations smoothed out his efforts to speed up his work. He already formulated standard set of responses to any problems he'd likely be facing.

"Watch carefully now." Ves instructed his attentive employee. "The fabrication of mech components is usually the most challenging portion of the fabrication process. The Mark Antony Mark II and the Caesar Augustus it's based upon are anomalies because their assembly phases are hellishly difficult. That does not reduce the difficulty of printing the parts."

Carlos raised his hand. "I can't help but notice that you haven't stockpiled a lot of spare materials. Are you that confident you won't slip up?"

"I am. As my own design, I'm perfectly aware of my limits. It's not too challenging for me to fabricate my design without any faults. I hope you can reach this point in the future."

Actually, Ves intended to build a stockpile of commonly-used resources once he finished the current production run. While he still had millions of credits to spare, he preferred to leave his savings alone unless an emergency came up.

"Alright, I'll be starting now. I have devote my complete attention to my work, so don't bump into me or anything."

Working with an audience took some time for Ves to get used to. He behaved a bit more self-consciously, which led to a couple of slip-ups. Fortunately, he managed to recover quickly and limit the damage.

Every hour, Ves took a break to relax his mind. This was where Carlos finally came into being by asking a lot of questions. His employee brimmed with questions that overflowed as soon as Ves took a break.

"Why do you slow down at that part…"

"What is the purpose of…"

"Can you tell me why you…"

Answering the questions was oddly beneficial to Ves. Before, he always worked alone, so he always internalized his approach. Now that Carlos kept digging into his methods, Ves had to package them into an existing theoretical framework and explain them using logic instead of intuition.

It provided Ves with the opportunity to revise his own choices. It also allowed him to address his shortcomings when he came up short. He couldn't simply say that he chose to apply a solution because of his gut feeling. He also declined to mention that he drew a lot of his knowledge from the skills that the System directly implanted into his brain.

Thus, when Ves answered the questions in a seriously, he gained a lot of insights into his own habits. He gained a new appreciation for teaching now that he benefited from it as much as his pupil.

The fabrication of components went without a hitch, though he took half a day extra to complete the process. He didn't expect to devote so much time explaining his methods.

Another variable that extended his breaks was that Lucky started to nag for attention. He constant shop talk and focused work left Ves with little time to play with his gem cat. The little bugger started to feel neglected, so he often dropped by when Ves put down his work.

"That's a really smart AI." Carlos complimented him when he noticed that Lucky never disrupted Ves when he was operating the machines. "I wish I had one. Where did you buy this model?"

"I didn't buy him. He's a present from my dad. I think he got it from the New Rubarth Empire, but I'm not sure. He's fairly unique I think so don't expect to get a pet as good as this one."