The Greatest Mecha-Chapter 83: The Battle Of Five Minds

Justin McClaire came with a new wave of enthusiasm that swept the stadium in a way Alto had never experienced before. He had never seen so many people in one place before and most especially not in such a jovial state, compared to the mech division at Soto, this was an air of peace and happiness. Back there everyone was always brooding, except for the professor who always found a way to make fun of everything.

"Now before us today are the six silver pillars of mech designing." Justin said gesturing to the six tall silver pillars that reached far higher than the platform where Alto and the other participants were, seated there were six angelic figures dressed in white robes, the air they emanated was non existent like they chose to exist outside any normal sense.

Everyone’s faces looked to them like they were slmore sorcerer’s than scientists. Alto’s eyes started to scan through them trying to find the professor, he wanted to see this part of her he knew nothing about. He wanted to see what it felt like to be seen by the world’s best and greatest minds. But more importantly, he wanted to understand.

Justin started from the seat on the left and said. "On the first we have an old man who has pioneered the great generation of mechs for decades. Building and refining theories, and shaping the minds of the greatest innovative minds in the galaxy. Silver seat Auren Bolvinoxia." A round of applause and roars of praise followed as the old man with grey hair and a somewhat wrinkled face appeared on the screen, his face looked more dead than alive.

Justin let the applause roll for a few more seconds before shifting to the second person, "Next week have a woman who has brought great innovation into the prospect of biomechanics, bringing in a new age of mech which operate more efficiently with human systems. Silver seat Claurix Hanz."

Another round of applause followed and Alto could see the image of a woman with short black hair, dark skin and a slight smile curled on her lips.

Justing moved on a short while afterwards. "Next week have the twins who changed the way we worked mechs by bringing on the theory of fluid machinery throught the discovery of liquid metal. This discovery helped optimise mechs further while reducing their cost and weight. Their discovery further helped improve a mech’s cooling system, as we know they have chosen to keep their identities hidden for a very long time but are known by their titles, Silver Three and Silver Five."

The image of two people dressed in black with masks signifying their number over their faces.

Alto was perplexed as to why their numbers had a gap between them, surely if they both discovered something that shifted the world of mech designing they should be assigned numbers next to each other.

"As we know when it comes to the brightest of minds we can not do so without mentioning the woman that is known as the youngest person in the silver seats. She is the world’s leading scientist in AI optimization and her coding skills are unmatched within the silver seat, I give you silver seat Maria Alberta Einstein."

Alto’s face beamed as he looked to the professor with her long red hair, her beautiful face looking as saucy as ever. Seeing her in a corporate dress almost made him laugh. She simply gave a lazy wave to the screen.

"So she’ll be watching over me, it’s good to see her again." He thought to himself.

"Now the final seat is occupied by the man who has refined interstellar travel, managed engines of various machinery including mechs and spaceships. His understanding of space travel has greatly helped our forces to spread and eliminate our various threats. Silver Seat, Pedro Mappa."

The image of a man looking to be in his fifties appeared on the screen, he gave a bright smile and waved heartily.

Justin McClaire turned the attention of the audience away from them. "Aside from the silver seats we have many more notable figures attending the even today, from popular busines owners to great military men..." He went ahead to name a few.

Alto grew very bored that he yawned. After what felt like an hour the fourth round started but not before he realised that the one hour given to them was intentional. If they were wise they would use it to recollect themselves and what they had learned, they would also use it to get to know their team better.

As the contest started Alto had analysed his team to see that he had gotten the short straw. Aside from him and Priscilla, two others seemed to be from the zen Utopia academy, this gave them the ego to think they were the star of the show, and caused them not to listen to the others except Priscilla that is. The last member was in a way similar to Alto, it was a young girl who said nothing and quietly kept to herself. She did not look like she was from a big planet organisation but from a more simple background. She only spoke when she felt she needed to make an input but was not taken seriously.

Since Priscilla had more of a recognition than any of them she automatically became their ring leader. Alto was greatful that she had some fairness in her, she made sure to ask them what their specialties were and when two people had the same specialty they would come to a compromise somehow. Alto immediately saw her as a capable leader.

The round started by the sound of a trumpet and they were free to take mech parts from the pile next to them. Alto could not help but notice that the enthusiasm of the audience had died down, apparently they were more interested by the mech battles than that actual building of mechs.

The group had to decide what mech design they were going to make, whether a light or a medium mech and then came the dilemma. They had to know what mech their opponent was making to counter it, if they rushed to make one first their opponent would have enough time to study theirs and make a more capable one.

To Alto the real challenge was not creating a mech to fight your opponent team’s mech but to actually decided how the information you gave could potentially be used against you. And in a team where working as a group could creat struggled things were not going to be easy. Alto had enough trouble working with one person, at least she was understandable. But with a group with two egoists and one wimpy kid things would undoubtedly get more serious.

Their group had chosen to build a medium mech that focused on mobility and firepower. Alto by chance had been given the role to work on the internals, and there posed another problem. Their opponent team started with a light mech which they guessed wanted to be used for speed but only a few minutes in and they had changed it into a medium mech but it was impossible to tell what type of medium mech it would be. While this was imperceptible to the non designer audience it was perceptible to those that knew the field.

That little change could cause the opponent team to either come up with another design or rethink their design. The round had quickly become a battle of psychological warfare. And the load of the problem would fall into the person who was responsible for the internals.

Without a set blueprint, the teams would have to keep improvising on the fly. This meant that the young mech designer in charge of the internals would need to be ready to rework many components and rewrite pathways and codes repeatedly, which could cause some serious delays and mix ups.

The number one candidate for first place Calvin worked without any distraction on his model, because of his title and the image he portrayed he worked on the mech all by himself without the help of his team. He did not even take a glance at his opponents work, choosing to rely on whatever he made to bring him the win. It was clear that he did not care about the prospects of team play.

Alto’s team it seemed was different, Priscilla and the world egoists would work on the externals and putting everything together while the quiet girl would work on weapons, and Alto on the internals. But of course they would supervise the other member’s work if they had the time to.

Their opponents were a group of five who rallied behind three who assumed the role as the most capable mech designer in the group. They were currently building what seemed like a knight mech which was Alto’s group original idea, now they were forced to change it.

Alto did not argue and followed in this unanimous decision, even if their time to finish would be less than it initially was. It would be better to fight a mech they were originally planning to make this to face a totally new mech.

The idea the silent girl brought was one that hit Alto deeply, a totally new species of mech he had never touched before.