Though Yelkin was young, he was remarkably bright as far as Ves could tell. Even he felt tempted to take the teenager under his wing.
In the past, he might have considered someone like Yelkin to be his younger brother of sorts. Ves briefly thought back of his brief interactions with Oleg.
It was different now. He had grown older and advanced to Journeyman. No matter how young he was when he reached this state, no one ever considered a Journeyman to be a youngster anymore.
At his age and rank, he was catapulted to the ranks of mid-level mech designers. He had reached the phase in his career where it no longer made sense for him to be buddies with other beginning mech designers and mech design students.
Instead, an invisible gulf had formed between him and the aforementioned people. As an older, wiser and vastly more successful mech designer, he had to think about starting to take on his own students.
