Merrill O'Brian's breakthrough and rise to prominence within the Design Department certainly made a lot of assistant mech designers prouder and more hopeful.
If someone like her was able to make the transition from assistant designer to lead designer, then the members of the design teams could make the same leap!
Unfortunately, not a single mech designer among the thousand or so assistants that remained had made any breakthroughs after Merrill.
The timid Apprentices did not display any exceptional moments of brilliance nor developed any fantastic solo mech designs for the Emergent Boutique.
Though the new sub-brand of the LMC definitely proved its worth by motivating the assistants and helping both Miles Tovar and Merrill O'Brian seize their opportunities, Ves had a feeling that this measure had already reaped the low-hanging fruit.
In other words, even without the Emergent Boutique, Miles and Merrill were already close to breaking through.
