Though Ketis expressed great reluctance to provide the First Sword with a new blessed weapon that derived much of its power from the Phase King, everything else proceeded smoothly. Ves gathered a sufficient amount of empirical data to gain confidence in his ability to scale up this tech to a state where it was applicable to mechs. The Gray Lotus already proved that this tech was viable at this level. Ves just had to make sure that he figured out the right quantities of phasewater needed to plant a strong enough anchor. The larger the object, the more sympathetic material needed to allow the design spirit to exert power through a medium. Ves also suspected that certain sympathetic materials were more effective at this job than others. Black Demon Steel was probably highly effective in this role due to its special spiritual qualities, but because Helena's death attribute did not completely align with it, the overall efficiency dropped to an extent. In contrast, the fit between phasewater and the Phase King was practically perfect! The more Ves experimented with creating different pieces of blessed equipment, the more he became astounded by how fortunate it was that he had the perfect design spirit at his disposal! Perhaps it was not an exaggeration to say that the spirituality of the Phase King was his most valuable prize from the Purgatory Campaign! As Ves made more use of this ascended exobeast, his estimation of the fish-whale king's value rose by the day. In fact, with the awareness that he possessed at this time, he would have been willing to give up on gaining more than a hundred kilograms of phasewater to secure the Phase King. Ves would have also been willing to trade away all of the expert pilot breakthroughs if that was what it took to get back the Phase King! It didn't matter that he possessed the ability to create his own design spirits from scratch. The only way to create a spiritual product with the relevant domain was to harvest a spiritual fragment from a phase whale, and that was a suicidal act. Even if he managed to obtain the right spiritual ingredients through certain means, the resulting design spirit would start off young, inexperienced and completely devoid of any mastery in phasewater manipulation. There was no way that such a juvenile form of life would be able to equal the understanding and accumulation of an entity as ancient as the Phase King! Ves also found it fortunate that it had been rather easy to gain the cooperation of the Phase King. Despite his immense age and wisdom, the Phase King's personality and desires were rather simple. His background was exceptionally poor considering he spent the vast majority of his years locked in a barren pocket space that only featured a rudimentary form of civilization. With only a bunch of lesser fish-whales to keep him company, it was not surprising that the Phase King lacked sophistication. Another favorable circumstance was that Ves was confident in his ability to keep the Phase King loyal and under his control. The Phase King wanted to recreate his former kingdom in the imaginary realm, but the only way to do that was to gather a large following of subordinate spiritual entities. Ves was the only individual who was capable of providing the Phase King with new spiritual fish-whales. If the Phase King didn't want to cut off the supply of additional spiritual fish-whales, then he would have to make sure to abide by his end of the deal! Naturally, Ves wasn't stupid enough to include the ability to procreate to the spiritual fish-whales he provided to the Phase King. The original fish-whales did not exhibit sexual reproduction so the spiritual variants derived from the spiritual fragments of the Phase King were no different. This was the biggest shortcoming of the artificial origin of the fish-whale race. In the past, it was Oooruganioaus, the Flesh Conqueror and the creator of the Purgatory pocket space, that controlled the fate of the fish-whale. Nowadays, control over this group of fish-whales passed over to Ves. His leverage over the Phase King allowed him to exploit the design spirit's powers to an extensive degree. The very idea gave Ves an enormous rush of power! It was hard for him to rein in his hubris and develop an overreliance on the Phase King's services. "Life always finds a way. This applies to both organic and intangible life forms." Ves reminded himself. Just because the Phase King and the spiritual fish-whales lacked the ability to procreate and expand their numbers by themselves did not mean this would always remain the case. Given how much the powerful design spirit cared about this issue, it was practically a guarantee that the fish-whale king was cooking up a way to solve the procreation issue. The spiritual fish-whale race would never be able to obtain autonomy if it wasn't capable of replenishing its numbers by itself! Once the Phase King solved this difficult problem, his relationship with Ves and the Larkinson Clan would undergo an instant change. If Ves no longer possessed as much leverage of the fish-whale king than before, then the blessed equipment tied to a more assertive design spirit might lose the power that made them so effective. This would set Ves back to an enormous degree, but he did not consider it a nightmare scenario. Just as the Phase King was likely preparing for a way out, Ves also came up with a plan to deal with this potential outcome. "I'll just create a replacement." Since the Phase King regularly needed to donate his spiritual energy so that Ves could create new spiritual fish-whales, it was not difficult to embezzle a few spiritual fragments every once in a while. As long as Ves collected enough spiritual fragments, he could quickly bring life to a new phasewater-oriented design spirit! If Ves happened to collect a lot of spiritual fragments, then it might even be possible for the new spiritual product to replicate a fraction of the Phase King's impressive skills and abilities! Ves actually made similar preparations for most of his other design spirits. The abrupt removal of Nyxie in his design spirit collection created a momentary crisis for the Living Mech Corporation. Ves hastily had to alter the design spirit makeup of the Doom Guard line in order to preserve its value. This event taught him a lesson about the impermanence of design spirits. "Each of them are alive, and that means that each of them can change over time. None of them are static existences that will remain exactly the same. It is foolish to assume that I can keep using them in the exact same manner a decade or a century later." This was why Ves gradually harvested a few spiritual fragments here and there without using them up in his projects. Instead, he piled them all up in a hidden stash that he prepared in case one of his design spirits became unavailable for whatever reason. "I can never be too careful." Ves quietly affirmed. His preparations along with his constant growth and progression gave him the confidence to be able to deal with any crisis related to design spirits. Perhaps his dependence on the Phase King may be high in the early stages of the product life cycle of blessed weapons, but Ves was certain his dependence on this single entity would drop as he continued to develop this new tech further. "No design spirit should be indispensable to my work." Ves was well aware that his core design philosophy did not revolve around design spirits. The invention of blessed weapons may have excited him, but it did not stimulate his design philosophy. This told him that working on the Dullahan Project was much more important to the progression of his design philosophy. He wasn't in a hurry to develop Venerable Jannzi's new expert mech, though. Ves still needed to generate more ideas on how to tackle the many new problems associated with this experimental project. In the meantime, working on the new blessed weapon concept not only allowed him to exercise his creativity, but also allowed him to give his clan a power boost in the immediate future! "According to Calabast's intelligence reports, the border region between Krakatoa and Zelmar has seen a massive increase in conflicts. Most of them amount to scuffles between different pioneering fleets. I need to strengthen my clan's ability to fight against hostile mech forces as much as possible." The presence of an ace pilot in the form of Patriarch Reginald Cross should be enough to deter many potential enemies from taking action, but those that decided to proceed anyway would most definitely have the ability to fight back! If this was the case, then the Larkinson Clan urgently needed to bolster its combat power to guard against these situations. As the expeditionary fleet was just about to enter the chaotic border region, it became more urgent than ever for Ves to upgrade the weapon loadouts of his expert mechs. "I should normally start small and work my way up to bigger and more important weapon projects, but that's too slow for me. I need to make the biggest impact in a short amount of time." Ves settled for developing a new weapon for the Amaranto. In order to make sure that Venerable Stark was onboard his plans, he needed to meet with her to discuss her wishes. As soon as the expeditionary fleet transitioned out of FTL, Ves boarded a shuttle that brought him over to the Wild Torch. Ves had not visited the fleet carrier often enough for his liking, and that was a shame because it was the most modern capital ship in his fleet. Originally built for the Wild Fighter Association, the Wild Torch inherited the rambunctious organization's flair. The aggressive lines, the bold colors and the tribal vibe went a long way into turning her into a vessel that constantly kept up the fighting spirit of her crew. Most of the mech pilots assigned to the Wild Torch hailed from the Flagrant Vandals, the Swordmaidens and the Penitent Sisters. This led to strange sights that Ves never encountered when he walked the halls of his flagship such as fistfights taking place in random compartments. It wasn't just the personnel that exhibited less restrained behavior. Even the pets that were present aboard every Larkinson vessel engaged in playful wrestling and sparring! "Miaaaaaaaaw! Miaaw miaaw!" 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶 "Hisss!" "Woof-woof-woof!" "What a madhouse." Ves quietly shook his head in mild disapproval. Ves walked past all of this rowdy behavior without pause and continued to head towards the upper decks until he reached a large and expansive park. Even the roughest warriors possessed a need to immerse themselves in a peaceful environment at times. The general noise levels in the park were much lower and those that met each other tended to keep their voices down. The animals that roamed around the massive compartment also abided by the rules. Ves eventually found the middle-aged expert pilot sitting on a bench that was placed in front of an artificial lake. Venerable Stark looked a lot tamer as she had opted to change her sharp and dashing uniform for a more casual outfit. Much to his surprise, Stark was currently holding an old-fashioned fishing pole. Given the empty bucket besides her feet, it didn't look like the fish were biting today. "Hey, Davia." The woman nodded beside her. "Take a seat if you want." He approached and sat down on the bench and stared out at the calm and peaceful lake. The zen-like view strangely calmed him down, causing him to remain silent so that he could enjoy a rare moment of peace in his life. Sometimes, he wondered what he would have been like if he lived in a peaceful and idyllic environment. He probably wouldn't have been able to build up so many impressive accomplishments as he did in his current life, but that didn't sound like a bad thing. Ves only stepped up by necessity. He would have been more than content with living out a mediocre life if his life and the lives of his family weren't under threat. He imagined that the same applied to Venerable Stark. If not for the great tragedy that had befallen many states of the Komodo Star Sector, she would have continued to live on her life as an obscure mech pilot from an unremarkable third-rate state. It was unfortunate that the outbreak of the sandmen changed her life forever. Venerable Stark became forever scarred by the Sand War, and even now she continued to carry a heavy burden in her mind, as evidenced by the heavy weight of her presence.