Rough-and-Ready

As for the Bailin Country Mecha Factory Feng Xue had mentioned, Mang Ke had given up complaining about it. But if she really had to be picky, the kid's mech piloting skills did indeed have a bit of Bailin Country about them.

She only said "a bit" because Bailin Country's mechs used Master-Slave Follower Cockpits. They were less like machines and more like powered armor. This kid, on the other hand, was using the standard Ideal Country control system. That wasn't to say he was especially good; it was just that this whole setup was pointless overkill.

It was like someone who had perfectly functional arms and legs insisting on attaching command electrodes and using a remote to control their own body. Ridiculous.

Thinking it over, neither the Four Extremes nor their vassal states could come up with this kind of mind-boggling control system. Given everything Mang Ke knew as a professional mech designer, the only explanation that made sense was what the other side had said: some old hand at a technology factory had been "bored and decided to mess around with it."

As old workers, they generally weren't Rich People, and they wouldn't dare touch a cockpit packed with cutting-edge equipment. They could only use a keyboard to imitate a Joystick, muscle array, or motion-capture cabin.

In fact, if Feng Xue hadn't given her a more reasonable explanation beforehand, she would have thought the most likely place for this technology to have come from was a Garbage Dump.

Then again, cobbling together a mech from parts in a Garbage Dump and taking it for a spin sounded even more ridiculous.

While Mang Ke's mind busily imagined the kid's upbringing, Feng Xue had already focused all his attention on the fight.

It wasn't that Kormir was especially strong. It