Nothing more exciting happened during the return trip. Testing the new Scarlet Ember for the Everchanger was the most visible gain the Larkinson Clan had made from its participation in Operation Saturday Market. Of course, the Larkinsons also gained in many other ways. They just weren't as obvious and impactful. A good example would be phasewater. Aside from extracting varying amounts of phasewater from the broken wrecks salvaged from the battlefield, the Larkinsons also managed to plunder small quantities of pure phasewater from Pima Prime V. After several weeks of sorting out the loot and carefully processing the less usable salvage with advanced machinery, the clan finally obtained a tally of how much phasewater it had added to its vault. "37.2 kilograms." Gavin Neumann informed Ves during a morning briefing. "That is how much pure and readily usable phasewater our clan has collected from the previous battle. There are still numerous broken expert mechs with transphasic parts that we can still send to the Graveyard in order to recycle their materials, but don't expect too much change. It is much easier to put phasewater into a component than to take it out again. I've been told that the method of extraction mastered by our clan is not the most efficient, so there is a lot of waste." Ves knew enough about phasewater to understand that this was natural. Perhaps the Big Two and the first-rate superstates could increase the yield to 80, 90 or even 100 percent, but that tech was far out of his reach. "Hm, it's nice to earn a large chunk of phasewater from a single operation." He smiled in satisfaction. "I hope we can obtain many more kilograms of this stuff once we embark on our Trailblazer Expedition. The aliens should have accumulated a lot of phasewater throughout their long reign in their own territories." "There are also many opportunities to quickly harvest phasewater from untouched reserves." Gavin noted. "There are already stories about lucky pioneers finding undiscovered deposits that the local alien species haven't been able to detect due to their inferior tech." "The chances of that happening should be low, and we don't have the time to stay too long in any single star system. We might as well sell the information to other pioneers in order to earn a quick reward." "That is indeed a worthwhile trade." Phasewater was extremely precious and even information about any significant deposits of this rare substance was worth a fortune. "Do you have any other relevant news to report concerning the plunder that we have collected, Benny?" "There is nothing further that requires your attention. We have already sorted out the majority of the salvage and loot and have already found buyers for most of it. We expect to earn at least million MTA credits and likely more than that soon after we return to Davute and dump our excess cargo. If you want to buy something valuable from the port system, this would be the time to conclude a deal. It will be a lot more risky and expensive to order high-value goods from Davute after this. The cost of shipping is prohibitively expensive." There were plenty of cases in the frontier where an isolated pioneering fleet needed to order specialized mining machines or urgently needed high-quality parts to repair their damaged expert mechs. Strong shipping companies had already come into being as a result. They either formed a huge fleet that encompassed thousands of mechs or employed the fastest courier vessels available that were equipped with excellent superdrives. Regardless of their setup, their services were surprisingly reliable, but their prices had reached the level of extortion! Gavin thoughtfully reminded Ves to avoid hoarding money. Aside from giving the Larkinson Clan a large reserve of cash that could tide them over a crisis, it wasn't actually doing anything to strengthen the expeditionary fleet. Ves could earn money through many means, but he only had a single life, and so did the rest of his clansmen. He already started to think on how he should spend his windfall. "A million MTA credits is an astronomical sum." Ves mused. "Do you know that the mechers and fleeters only earn hundreds of MTA or CFA credits a month? Of course, they have access to countless free benefits and they also have easier ways to earn merits, but the money that we have earned already makes us superior to first-raters in a sense." Gavin shook his head. He didn't agree with this notion. "There is more to status than money, boss. You could be ten or even a hundred times richer and still be inferior to those first-raters. I still envy them a lot even though I am doing well in our clan." "There is no need to feel this way. The fact that we are able to earn so much money shows that we are slowly closing the gap. Our clan will become so strong in a century that it will be unrecognizable to ourselves. In fact, I could have never imagined we would have leapt so far when I initially founded our clan." Ves was becoming increasingly more hopeful that his clan would continue to grow rapidly in the coming decades. It might not even take a century for the Larkinson Clan to formally transition into a first-class organization! It was with great optimism that the Golden Skull Alliance finally completed its journey back to Davute. The busy port system hardly looked any different compared to when the Larkinsons and their allies left the place. Of course, a lot of locals and visitors showed a lot more respect towards the returning victors. Though the Golden Skull Alliance didn't actually make any strong commitments to the future state centered around this region, many people considered it to be a power that was rooted in Davute. As such, the clear and overwhelming victory attained by the alliance turned into an achievement that everyone in Davute took pride in! Even foreigners who came from other regions began to take the locals more seriously. This was a rather silly phenomenon to Ves. He paid no attention to all of the incoming messages and gifts that many different people and groups had sent to the Larkinson Clan since the main fleet's return. The only instances where he paid more attention was if the other parties offered material help to the clan. The Larkinson Clan engaged anyone who was willing to open new trade channels or opportunities to obtain more starships with much more enthusiasm. The willingness of the Larkinsons to engage with local businesses in this manner gave the powers rooted in the port system an even greater degree of confidence that the clan was firmly in their camp. Much to the disappointment of both the Larkinsons and their enthusiastic trading partners, Ves didn't intend to stick around for too long. He not only desired to set off on his Trailblazer Expedition before he entertained any second thoughts, he also wanted to maximize his chances of finding Lord Pearian Yoruk-Tavik. The good news was that no one publicized any indication that the missing pioneer had been found. The bad news was that the chances that the Golden Skull Alliance would find any trace of him were slim to none. Already, lots of different pioneers were combing through the border region between Krakatoa and Zelmar. "A lot more greedy and ambitious pioneers have ventured to the border region than I predicted." Calabast told Ves after he requested her to update him on the situation. "Though there are no solid numbers available, we can infer that over a thousand human fleets are roaming around in the border regions. The vast majority of them come from second-class powers, but there is also a small but extremely dangerous minority of fleets dispatched by first-class powers." Ves frowned. He did not have much to fear from second-raters, but first-raters were another story. Even if the Mars was strong enough to compete against regular first-class mechs in a head-on clash, it was anything but simple to make enemies out of groups that were older, wealthier and more connected than the Larkinson Clan. "Will it be risky for us to proceed to this place?" Ves inquired. "There are always risks, Ves. The dangers we may face are greater than before, but the opportunities are also great." "I'm not so sure about that, Calabast. I'm fine with paying a visit to this border region if it only attracted half as much traffic, but this is starting to turn into a spectacle. I'm sure that more and more pioneering fleets will come as time goes by, so the chances that we enter into hostilities with a third party will continue to increase. Meanwhile, our chances of earning a big reward will dwindle even further." The black-clad spymaster understood the situation just as well as Ves. In fact, she possessed an even greater comprehension of all of the chaos that had descended on the border region. Despite knowing how many pioneering fleets had already fallen or left in disgrace, Calabast still did not give up on this initiative. Her lips curled into a smirk. "Before you hesitate any further, let me remind you that our chances of success are far greater than anyone else's. While it is true that the risks are great, your assessment on how likely it is that we are able to find Lord Pearian Yorul-Tavik is seriously flawed. This is because we possess an advantage that just happens to be perfect for missing person cases." "Oh? What is this killer solution that you are talking about?" "The fact that you don't have a clue shows that you are still letting your biases override your good sense." Calabast snorted. "It's the Great Prophet! Have you forgotten all about your favorite robed friend Ylvaine?" "Ylvaine is not my friend. He's a design spirit. I think." Even though Ves said that, he already began to think about whether he could leverage Ylvaine's predictive capabilities to succeed where thousands of other pioneers have failed. He suddenly found out that this was a viable option as long as Lord Pearian didn't possess any weird or special protection against spiritual prediction abilities! Ves paused and concentrated his mind for a moment. He directly made contact with Ylvaine and silently inquired whether it was possible for the design spirit to find the individual in question. The response made him satisfied. "Well, Ves?" "We can do it." Ves grinned as he relaxed his mind and opened his eyes again. "There are too many light-years between Davute and the border region, so Ylvaine isn't powerful enough to lock onto our mission objective's coordinates. However, the design spirit told me that it should be possible for him to sense the vague direction of the missing lordling as long as we reach the approximate region. The closer we get to the fellow, the more precisely Ylvaine can determine the direction." "You see now, Ves? We can succeed where many others can only fail. The only factor that is working against us is time. The more we are delayed, the greater the chance that Lord Pearian will suffer a mishap, or worse, is found by one of our many rivals. We need to hurry up and depart as soon as possible." "You don't need to remind me. It shouldn't take more than a few days to conclude all of our outstanding trades and such." The only interesting transaction that Ves was interested in was how he planned to spend a huge portion of the windfall profits generated from selling so much loot. Though the Larkinson Clan already invested a lot of money on additional spare parts for its expert mechs and such, Ves could still splurge on other powerful goodies. Ves didn't know whether he should invest the money in high-grade exotics, powerful mech equipment or high-end ship modules. He could even use his money to buy stock in several important companies that the Larkinson Clan might want to develop a long-term partnership with. The benefits from these investments weren't much at first, but that would certainly change in the future.