The personal Mecha of qualified Mech Pilots were generally Modified Mecha.
These Mecha could be put into service immediately after a few components on a standard-issue Mecha were slightly modified, making both their manufacturing difficulty and cost easier to accept.
The other category, Independent Mecha, was an entirely different matter.
These Mecha not only required a new set of design blueprints, but also came with frightening manufacturing costs, typically several times those of Modified Mecha of the same tier, or even more.
The very reason Independent Mecha could not be mass-produced was the scarcity of their construction materials. A single base might be unable to supply certain special materials at all, forcing Mech Pilots to spend additional merit points to obtain them from other bases, or find some other channel themselves.
Moreover, even once an Independent Mecha had been built, it still had to be tested in actual combat and returned to the factory repeatedly for adjustments. Some components even needed to be manufactured anew over and over again. The enormous expense was easy to imagine.
The Great Angel Mecha Wang Yu had once seen on the big screen at the Star River Café was one such special Independent Mecha. As a Star-Rank Mecha, it had supposedly cost almost as much to manufacture as building a small base.
Only by relying on his special status and throwing around vast sums of money in the real world had Prince Aisa persuaded so many players to willingly work for him, exchanging for and collecting the rare materials needed for that Mecha. Otherwise, how could it possibly have been built so easily?
Wang Yu had only just become a qualified Mech Pilot and had practically no merit points to his name. Naturally, he could not immediately purchase a personal Mecha.
If he had