Chapter 2961: Grand Return
As much as Ves wanted to continue to enjoy his break and do nothing productive for a couple more days, he really had to get back to his duties.
Since Gloriana hadn't formally started any of the next design projects as of yet, Ves mostly spent his time on sorting out clan matters.
After enjoying breakfast with his wife, he entered his private office inside his stateroom and encountered a familiar face.
"You're back, boss!"
"Heh. I missed you too, Benny." Ves grinned as he sat down while putting a sleeping Lucky on his desk. "I guess I have a lot of updates to catch up to. Let's start with the most important issue. How many people did we recruit in total?"
Gavin Neumann briefly references his data pad. "We've managed to pick up tens of thousands of professionals and family members during the time we stayed in the Prosperous Hill System. We currently host over 80,000 clansmen in our fleet. A little over 10,000 of them are mech pilots."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Exlor
Exlor ANNOUNCEMENT: DESIGN SPIRIT CONTEST!
The Mech Touch has reached 3000 chapters, and that means another CONTEST! This event centers around creating new design spirits that can exert a profound influence on mechs and mech pilots.
Contest Rules
Suggest any ORIGINAL design spirit that partners with Ves and empowers his future mech designs in interesting ways. Backstory is important. Make sure that it explains and provides context to the special abilities that a design spirit can bestow to mechs under its care.
You can suggest both natural design spirits (dead humans and aliens) or artificial design spirits (created by Ves by mixing spiritual ingredients).
You must allocate the strengths of your design spirit according to a point system. You have 10 POINTS in total which you can allocate to the following categories:
-Intelligence (?/10)
-Adaptability (?/10)
-Ability Diversity (?/10)
-Ability Power (?/10)
5 points in any category is already strong. Make sure the description of your design spirit matches your point allocation or it will be disqualified.
IMPORTANT!
-Design spirits must be one of the following: human, alien, exobeast or spiritual product created by Ves based on distinct ingredients. If you choose the latter, then briefly explain the key ingredients.
-You can edit, remove and resubmit your design spirit submissions AT ANY POINT in the places below. I will provide a brief opinion of every submission every couple of days so you know how to improve your design spirit. I will only fully evaluate every submission after the deadline has passed.
-I will do my best to implement any winning submissions in The Mech Touch within 1000 chapters after selection.
-DO NOT PLAGIARIZE OTHER ANIMES, BOOKS, TV SHOWS OR MOVIES! IF YOU CANNOT COME UP WITH SOMETHING ORIGINAL, DON'T BOTHER PARTICIPATING!
SUBMISSION DETAILS
This contest will run for 3 weeks from 18:00 CET, September 16 2021 to 18:00 CET October 7 2021.
You can submit 4 unique design spirits in total, 1 in each of the following 4 places:
-The comments of Chapter 2958 on Webnovel.com
-The comments of Chapter 3000 on Webnovel.com
-The #event-submissions channel on The Mech Touch's Unofficial Discord server
-The Instagram post for this contest at my personal account account: @mlduong
SELECTION
On October 10 21:00 CET I will determine the results of this contest live on TMT's Unofficial Discord Server.
-I will select 1 to 3 submissions by quality
-I will select 1 submission by lottery
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone