During the two months of travel, Ves spent most of his time puzzling over the Skull Architect’s designs. Wary of traps, Ves approached them with caution, causing him to take a bit longer than he liked to achieve significant progress. With his Spirituality still in recovery, Ves keenly felt the difference between his current state and his optimal state. His passion, energy and drive suffered a lot, forcing him to push through his work even if he would rather do something else. "A mech designer must be dedicated to his craft." Ves whispered to himself. "How can I call myself a lover of mechs when I can’t sustain my interest through tougher times?" He considered his difficulties to be a test of his perseverance. It was easy to get caught up in designing mechs when he enjoyed the experience. Yet Ves couldn’t always keep delaying until he entered in the right mood. Instead of treating his debilitated state as a disadvantage, he instead saw it as an opportunity to train himself. Only by pushing through adversity would he be able to make the most gains! Therefore, despite his low energy, Ves managed to summon up enough motivation to keep working on the designs. He didn’t linger too long on the Caskar Pike. After studying it over and over again, Ves concluded that the spaceborn missileer mech didn’t possess any hidden traits. The Skull Architect tasked him with designing a variant, so that was what he did. Aside from tweaking the design and its programming to make it easier to pilot, Ves also imparted it with a pale image to add some life to his variant. While Ves didn’t infuse his image with his precious spiritual energy, he figured that the X-Factor of his design would not be any less than that of the Blackbeak. "That should be sufficient to give the mech pilots of my variant a modest push. I don’t have to pull out all the stops." It was rather refreshing to Ves to design a variant. While he became accustomed to designing original mechs, he felt like he had gone back in time to the start of his career. "It’s like I’m getting back to basics." When he designed an original mech, he entered a completely different mindset. He controlled every aspect of a mech design, but bore all the responsibility of its success and failure. With variants, Ves merely had to look for opportunities to improve or change the configuration of the base model to fall more in line with his own vision. Aside from finishing up his variant for the Caskar Pike, Ves also started to tinker with the Toroz Ruby, a spaceborn striker mech, and the Jinven, an aerial marksman mech. The latter two mechs possessed a bit more depth, but not too much. Through careful and meticulous study, Ves found areas in which he could make worthwhile tradeoffs that vastly improved the overall piloting experience of his variants. While he couldn’t maintain the same level of performance, the various tricks he employed significantly lowered the burden on the mech pilots of his variants. "Mech pilots should always prefer my variants over the base models unless they’re elites." Elite mech pilots such as Taon Melin from the Ylvaine Protectorate or Lord Javier from the Vesia Kingdom were already rare in civilized space. In a barren, undeveloped region like the frontier, it was simply too difficult to train true elites that could pilot the Skull Architect’s mechs to their full potential. Therefore, Ves immediately knew without a doubt that if the Skull Architect started to produce his variants, his sales would instantly double or triple. "I really hope he doesn’t. I don’t want my mechs to be used by thousands of pirates." The Skull Architect was a very principled mech designer. He refused to compromise the performance of his original designs even if the market demanded change. Such a mech designer would definitely struggle with the decision to publish his variants. "Well, it’s not like I can influence his decision." Ves shrugged. "I’ll just see what he does with my work. Perhaps he only needs my variants for research purposes." He chugged along inside his stateroom for the rest of the journey to Centerpoint. He took no notice of the destinations he passed along the way. Even when the Barracuda entered the territory of the Friday Coalition, Ves did not express any interest in visiting them despite their various attractions. Despite his dread towards his upcoming visit to the sector headquarters, Ves saw no point in trying to delay his journey. He already developed numerous contingency plans where he prepared a number of strategies to deflect suspicion. While the MTA posed a threat to him, they weren’t enemies. The concerns of the Association went far beyond figuring out the eccentricities of a single oddball mech designer. They possessed much greater priorities, such as ensuring their dominance over human space, suppressing the Five Scrolls Compact, keeping recalcitrant states subservient, maintaining parity with the CFA, guarding against alien threats and most importantly propping up the galactic mech industry. "Lately, the Big Two seem to be preoccupied with other matters." Ves observed various situations where the CFA and the MTA should have intervened, but chose not to. That was very unusual as the Big Two loved to throw around their weight. While the CFA eventually mobilized to the frontier in order to fend off the wave of sandmen aggression, the MTA hardly moved out at all in the last couple of decades. The more he witnessed their inaction, the more he suspected that they were gathering their strength. "What are they guarding against?" Well, whatever they feared, it shouldn’t be any of his concern. He merely went back to his work while the Barracuda and the Greenfeather continued to close the distance to the Centerpoint System. Both ships encountered a fair amount of resistance during FTL travel. The gravitic tides hadn’t been favorable, causing them to progress several weeks slower than their most optimistic projections. Even so, after almost two months of constant travel and FTL transitions, the pair of ships finally transitioned out of FTL at the edge of the Centerpoint System. "What a magnificent sight!" Ves gasped as he stood next to Captain Silvestra. Through the augmented visual projection of the local star system, Ves beheld over a dozen populated planets as well as five stars of varying sizes and luminosity! "Centerpoint is one of the few quintuple star systems of the Komodo Star Sector." Captain Silvestra explained. "We should have been blasted by radiation by now if the MTA hadn’t come in and built Dyson spheres around them to siphon away much of their energy." When the Komodo Star Sector first opened up for sanctioned colonization, the MTA immediately claimed the Centerpoint System as their own due to its powerful suns and mineral-rich planets. While the five suns orbiting in a weird fashion around each other made the star system practically unlivable at first, the MTA did not let that stop them. They embarked on a huge construction project and enveloped all of the stars in immense artificial megastructures. Stars were the most convenient sources of heat and energy, so how could the MTA let them all go to waste? The Dyson spheres they built around the suns only partially captured all of the energy they generated. They left open enough gaps to release a healthy amount of light and heat to sustain life on the nearby planets. The MTA expended quite a bit of effort to shift the orbits of all of the terrestrial planets and gas giants in the system so that they all fell within the goldilocks zone. Ves even encountered a rumor on the galactic net that the MTA imported additional planets to the Centerpoint System to provide more space for themselves! "The entire Centerpoint System is an enduring marvel of human ingenuity!" Ves softly admired. Aside from the partially-sphered suns and the densely-populated planet, the sheer amount of traffic in-system also boggled his mind. Millions of ships of varying sizes, roles and ownership flew back and forth. Humongous trade convoys that began their journey from distant star sectors arrived at Centerpoint after months or years of constant travel. Robust passenger liners offering passage to the galactic heartland picked up their latest batch of hopeful immigrants looking for a better life. Most of those immigrants would doubtlessly fail, but exceptions always existed. These ships only formed a small part of the total ship traffic in the system. Some consisted of in-system transit between different planets and space stations. A significant amount of these vessels traveled a lot faster than Barracuda as they incorporated advanced propulsion technologies that put the modern corvette to shame! Only a modest amount of ships traveled this fast. The majority of traffic within the system consisted of vessels that conveyed trade goods and passengers to and from the rest of the star sector. Captain Silvestra shared some of her thoughts while the Barracuda communicated with traffic control. "The amount of trade and transit passing through Centerpoint can definitely put Bentheim to shame. The two aren’t in the same league. It’s central location and its abundant facilities and production centers makes it the premier trading hub of the star sector. Anyone looking to export goods to other star sectors will always start from Centerpoint." Ves had already read up on these facts, but witnessing the sheer scale of industry and trade up close made him feel very small! Despite the humongous amount of ships entering and exiting the system, traffic control efficiently handled their entry in the star system. As a highly-populated star system that saw an immense amount of traffic, the Barracuda and the Greenfeather were not allowed to fly independently. Each time they wanted to fly to a different planet or space station, they needed to submit their flight plans ahead of time. Traffic control would then issue them a specific route that they needed to follow very strictly. If not for this precaution, ships would definitely crash into each other despite the immensity of space! This problem was especially acute when the ships neared their destination as thousands of them converged in close proximity at the end! It only took a few minutes for traffic control to approve their flight plans and issue their routes. "Setting course for Halcyon Citadel." The helmswoman said as she keyed in the new route. "We’ll arrive at our destination within a week!" The Barracuda and the Greenfeather transitioned out of FTL very far away from the center of the star system. Not only did the five suns force ships to emerge further away, but the MTA also installed twenty-four immense gravitic anchors in an extended sphere around the Centerpoint System to force them to exit FTL even further away! While this introduced a lot of inconveniences to people looking to travel to the inner system, it enhanced the security of this strategically-important star system. "We’re being subjected to over a thousand long-ranged scans." The captain reported as the sensor console lit up with a deluge of alerts. "The MTA and many other parties in the system are constantly keeping tabs on who goes in and out." "Will they be able to scan the insides of our ships, captain?" "Definitely. At the very least, you can assume that we can’t hide any goods from the MTA’s scanners. As for the spotters in the star system, their scanners are probably much less capable. The Barracuda is quite well-shielded against most probing scans, but I can’t say the same for the Greenfeather." Ves nodded. "That’s fine. It’s not like we are carrying any contraband." The assets that he truly wanted to hide were safely stowed away in his Inventory. Perhaps the only point of concern to Ves was Lucky. The mechanical cat was too damn remarkable for his own good. Fortunately, Lucky also assimilated CFA-grade ECM technology. That should be enough to fend off any powerful sweeps. If that wasn’t enough, he could still employ his Miniaturized Stealth Generator to escape targeted scans. "Inform me when our ships are being subjected to penetrating scans." He ordered. "Even if we can’t do anything about them, I would still like to know if we are being watched."