After hearing Yun Ming's words, Guan Yue nodded.
"Senior Brother has a point. But it really doesn't seem right to let the child wander around outside all by himself, does it?"
Yun Ming said,
"You don't need to tell me that. I know my own child."
"There won't be any trouble on your end. Once he leaves your place, I'll naturally have someone keep an eye on him. I also gave him a Level 9 Soul Tool that can defend itself."
Guan Yue asked, puzzled,
"Aren't you afraid that brat will take the Level 9 Soul Tool out to court disaster, then find he can't maintain it with his Soul Power?"
Yun Ming replied smugly,
"Of course I'm afraid. Don't I know what my son is like? That's why I never told him the Soul Tool could defend him. I only said it could track his location."
Guan Yue shrugged, then said to Yun Ming,
"No wonder you're Senior Brother. You're full of tricks."
"Otherwise, how could I be Senior Brother while you're stuck being Junior Brother?"
Meanwhile, Yun Ze had already gone to the Ning Capital Manufacturing Center. With Guan Yue's recommendation, he soon got his mecha pass. Now all that remained was to look for a mecha he liked.
At the Mecha Manufacturer Association, as soon as Yun Ze entered the lobby, a receptionist came over to assist him.
The Mecha Manufacturer Association didn't look down on Yun Ze just because he was young.
In fact, the children of many local noble families in Ming Capital often liked to visit the Mecha Manufacturer Association to study mechas.
"Hello, young sir. Is there anything I can help you with?"
The receptionist politely showed Yun Ze to the waiting area off to one side. She poured him a cup of warm water as she spoke.
Yun Ze didn't drink. He simply instructed her,
"I'm planning to buy a mecha. Show me the catalog of the mechas you have in stock."
The receptionist wasn't surprised by his request. She nodded and placed a catalog in front of him.
As the Federation's capital, Ming Capital wasn't far behind Shrek City in terms of what it had to offer. Rather than saying one was better than the other, it was more accurate to say that they each had different strengths.
Most of the mechas offered by the Mecha Manufacturer Association in Shrek City were specialized models designed for combat.
By contrast, most of the mechas offered by the Mecha Designer Association in Ming Capital were better suited for civilian use. Their biggest selling point was that they could be modified later.
In other words, they were easy to customize, as people would have said in his previous life. Their main selling point was the rarity of the materials they were made from.
Yun Ze flipped straight to the section with black pages, the one for Black-Grade Mechas.
They were the most luxurious and top-of-the-line mechas available for purchase.
By then, the receptionist had left, replaced by a saleswoman who specialized in mechas.
She was also a woman, but her clothes were much more conservative than the receptionist's. It seemed that entering a professional field came with a little more dignity than working as an ordinary greeter.
The saleswoman stepped forward and said to Yun Ze,
"Hello, sir. Would you like me to tell you about these mechas?"
Yun Ze had already reached the last page of the black section. He closed the catalog and asked,
"Are there any mechas that aren't in the catalog?"
As Yun Ming's son, Yun Ze had a far broader perspective on the world than most people. He naturally knew about certain special circumstances at the Mecha Designer and Manufacturer Associations.
The mechas illustrated in the Mecha Manufacturer Association's catalog were only a small fraction of what the Association could offer. Being included in the catalog meant that a mecha had passed every safety test.
It also had to come with sufficiently complete—and often complicated—paperwork before it could be listed. But that didn't mean the mechas in the catalog were the Association's best.
In truth, the Mecha Manufacturer Association had a pretty rough time of it. Unless it took on custom orders, making standard mechas was a losing proposition. For every unit it wanted to list in the catalog, it had to pay people off.
Custom mechas, however, came with another problem: clients skipping out on their bills. A Soul Master's life was full of ups and downs. Even though times were far more peaceful now, those ups and downs still happened.
A Soul Master could be wealthy when they placed an order, then offend someone powerful just a few days later. Between paying people off and begging for mercy, they could exhaust their assets and be unable to pay the balance.
In that situation, the custom mecha they'd ordered would be left sitting in the Association's hands.
Custom mechas were basically never up to standard, because the Soul Master would inevitably have special requirements for some of their parameters. Otherwise, there'd be no point in ordering a custom one.
And in most cases, those special parameters couldn't possibly meet the Federation's standards for civilian mechas.
At Yun Ze's words, the saleswoman's expression grew a little more serious. She gave him a meaningful look and said,
"Of course. Please come with me."
They went to a more luxurious reception room, where the warm water had been replaced with fine tea. The saleswoman asked politely,
"May I ask what kind of mecha you're looking for?"
Yun Ze took a sip of tea and replied,
"A fast mecha that can adapt to cities and mountains, as well as both the ground and the sky. It needs to meet a variety of mobility requirements."
As she listened to Yun Ze's requirements, the saleswoman's eyes grew brighter and brighter. She said,
"If your budget isn't an issue, we happen to have the perfect option for you."
Yun Ze narrowed his eyes, then asked,
"Can I take a look?"
The saleswoman nodded, stood up, and said,
"Certainly. Please come with me."
Deep in the Mecha Manufacturer Association's storage vault, a purple mecha hovered above its foundation.
Yun Ze frowned and said,
"A Purple-Grade Mecha? Isn't that a little low-grade?"
The saleswoman pushed up her glasses and said,
"Take a closer look."
At her words, Yun Ze narrowed his eyes. With a flick of his hand, he took a testing hammer out of his Storage Soul Tool.
Seeing the hammer, the saleswoman became even more confident in Yun Ze. He stepped forward and lightly struck the mecha with it.
The hammer rang nine times with a single strike, its sound clear and ethereal, as though the sound itself were painting the stars. Yun Ze's eyes widened.
"What noble family does this young master belong to? They actually used Purple Star Cloud Crystal Gold to make a mecha? This stuff would be more than enough for the chest plate of Battle Armor."
A note of surprise crept into Yun Ze's voice. The saleswoman gave a wry smile and said,
"This mecha shouldn't have been left unclaimed, since it was made by the Xu Family back then—the same family as the last emperor."
"Although its maker was a collateral descendant of the Xu Family, things shouldn't have gotten bad enough for them to skip out on the bill..."
Before you continue