The emergence of fifteen expert candidates came as a very welcome surprise to Ves. Some of the figures he had long marked out as promising had finally taken the critical and most difficult step of realizing some of their spiritual potential!
For a long time, Ves was completely clueless about what allowed regular mech pilots to become expert candidates.
Mech pilots with spiritual potential were fairly rare, but there were plenty of them in the Larkinson Clan. Part of this is due to the high recruitment standards.
After all, those with spiritual potential usually enjoyed some modest advantages in piloting mechs. Many people interpreted this as an aspect of talent. Those with talent enjoyed greater resources and attention, which also prompted them to put more effort in their training in order to meet the expectations of their peers and teachers.