It was times like these that Ves regretted that he neglected the importance of alchemy and elixirs.
He could not do anything about it due to his lack of background in these new and exciting fields.
Due to the existence of Vulcan, Ves happened to be extremely good at crafting artifacts.
This was a pretty deep and profound discipline that required a lot of study, practice and dedication in order to achieve any major successes.
Traditional blacksmithing and related fields happened to synergize well with mech design.
It made sense to match his side profession with his main profession. Both of them were intrinsically related to the metal element. It was easy for Ves to transfer skills in one profession to the other profession and vice versa.
The same could not be said for alchemy. This was an entirely different field of expertise that had a much weaker relation to the metal element.