While the Phobos was trying to catch up to the fleeing archeship, Lucky was not having a good time at the moment. "Meow...!" The cat still felt pissed about getting thrown onto a completely new alien vessel without any adequate preparations. Out of the many possible alien vessels that he could infiltrate, an archeship was one of the least ideal ones for him to run amuck! Despite looking remarkably like evolved turtles, their arche warriors and arche lords possessed all kinds of effective means to threaten him and restrain his movements! Ultimately, it was the archeship herself that finally caused him to end up in a cage surrounded by transphasic energy shields. In order to prevent Lucky from giving him any chance to overcome one of these energy shields, the arche lord had taken the time to morph the interior of the ship. The amount of layers of transphasic energy shields that surrounded the captive gem cat had tripled! This way, even if Lucky was able to blow up or bypass one or two layers, he still had to go through at least a dozen more if he wanted to obtain his freedom! "Meow..." There was no way he could get out by relying on his power at the moment. His best hope of regaining his freedom was to rely on the Phobos to sabotage the archeship and break him out of this excessive energy cage. Fortunately for Lucky, the arche might be powerful enough to restrict his movements, but they were unable to cut off his connection to the Larkinson Network! He was able to secretly remain in contact with the Golden Cat at all times. This not only helped him retain his composure, but also gave the Larkinson Clan an effective beacon to track the movements of the archeship! Perhaps the arche thought that they were being clever by quietly moving their stealthy archeship away from the action zone while the Phobos was busy with trying to sabotage a puelmer heavy cruiser, but the aliens never thought that all of their efforts to cut off any signals were completely ineffective against this odd mechanical creature! Lucky already learned from Goldie that he had to sit tight and wait for the Phobos to finally catch up to the archeship. He would have felt more comfortable if the arche temporarily forgot about him and directed all of their manpower to fix all of the damage he inflicted on the archeship. While the turtle-like aliens did allocate a portion of their limited crew to repair or replace the damaged archemetal components, the arche lord along with his arche warrior escort continued to keep Lucky company! The arche lord remained close to the gem cat for multiple reasons. He primarily remained on guard in case the small but absurdly tricky cat somehow succeeded in breaking through all of the barriers. However, that was not enough for the arche lord. As an older and respected leader among his race, his understanding and mastery of archemetal as well as technology in general had reached an impressive height! He couldn't hold in his curiosity towards how Lucky worked and how he was able to bite through so much archemetal with so much ease. What was even more perplexing was how Lucky was able to phase through the hull and bulkheads without limit! Archemetal was designed to block and interfere with all forms of teleportation and other forms of unauthorized intrusions. In a dwarf galaxy that was enriched with phasewater, it had been essential for the arche to develop countermeasures in this area, or else their precious archeships would have become a lot more vulnerable against their many alien rivals! Despite all of these measures, a single cat that was presumably dispatched by the evil humans easily overcame the efforts of the arche! This intensified the arche lord's curiosity towards Lucky even further. The only known adversaries that could do everything Lucky had done was a phase lord. Only phase lords were able to ingest tons of archemetal far in excess of their apparent mass. Only phase lords were able to utilize spatial blades or spatial tearing to bite through the toughest archemetal alloys without any apparent difficulty. Only phase lords possessed the sheer amount of phasewater to phase through thick layers of activated archemetal! The arche lord had lived for enough centuries to meet a phase lord and even a phase whale in person. He knew what these alien gods were like. Lucky completely lacked the demeanor and the spatial activity that characterized organisms that had bonded with phasewater. Aside from that, the arche lord also never heard of anyone who succeeded in creating a completely mechanical phase lord! For all of their comprehensive understanding of powerful high technologies, not even the humans should have been able to realize such a creation. Even if they defied the arche lord's expectations and did manage to create such a priceless construct, the humans would never randomly deploy such a groundbreaking creation in this random star system! The only explanation that made sense to the old arche lord was that Lucky contained novel human technologies that utilized phasewater in new and interesting ways. This realization multiplied the arche lord's curiosity and increased his urge to pick Lucky apart in order to see what was inside! The powerful alien leader slowly stepped forward with his four alien limbs. "Huuwhaakaak." The arche lord spoke. Lucky did not like being addressed by the alien that was chiefly responsible for his capture. He also did not like the look that the alien directed towards his trapped form. The cat already began to dread what the arche lord had in store. He hissed and started to bang his paws against the closest transphasic energy shield! "Meow meow meow!" Unfortunately for Lucky, the arche lord remained undeterred. The alien continued to direct greedy glances at Lucky's bronzed and striped metallic body. Cats were alien to the Red Ocean, so the arche lord was not too familiar with their kind. He only learned about this varied species of pets when he studied the intelligence supplied by the Red Cabal. "Meow." Lucky hissed at the alien leader. The arche lord remained completely unimpressed by the gem cat's feeble warning behavior. Lucky may have done a lot of damage to the ship, but there was little he could do now that he was surrounded by so many barriers. The alien could no longer hold himself back any longer. He began to use his powerful archeshell to control the functions of this secure compartment and commence a more extensive examination on the trapped intruder! "Meeeowww!" Lucky suddenly felt a lot more discomfort as invisible force fields robbed him of what little movement space he had left. These fields spun Lucky's body around so that the arche lord could get a good look at the gem cat from multiple angles. Once the powerful alien completed this initial examination, he proceeded to make use of tools. He first called up an archemetal rod that seamlessly passed through all of the energy shields. Once this object entered the center cage, the arche lord used it to tap against Lucky's body. Ting! Ting! Ting! The taps continued to produce slightly different sounds. The cat that was being subjected to this treatment did not like what was happening at all, but he was completely helpless at this time. After a few minutes of random tapping, the archemetal rod hovered close to his head and began to get within biting range. Even though Lucky knew that the rod was currently being used as bait, his yearning for delicious archemetal couldn't be suppressed. The cat took a huge bite out of the rod, causing it to lose a third of length! The arche lord quickly pulled back the shortened rod and brought it all the way in front of his alien face so that he could examine it in person. Powerful sensors and scanners had recorded a lot of data on both the archemetal rod and Lucky's teeth. The latter did not show any sign of transphasic enhancement or spatial reinforcement, yet it managed to bite off a piece of solid archemetal! Though the arche lord already expected this outcome, seeing it happen caused him to question whether archemetal was still as superior as he thought. What was Lucky made off? Why were his teeth so absurdly sharp and strong? Where had all of the archemetal gone? The alien leader refused to believe that Lucky was an artificial phase lord. He would rather believe that the humans came up with original new tech that interpreted phasewater from a different angle than the natives of the Red Ocean. If this assumption was true, then deciphering the gem cat's secrets could potentially produce serious breakthroughs in the application of transphasic archemetal! The arche had always maintained tense and hostile relations with the other dominant races of the Red Ocean. The disparity in power and technology was a major reason why the arche had to remain in hiding all of the time. If the arche could build a new generation of archeships that incorporated many advancements based on reverse engineering Lucky's advanced technologies, then that would give all of them a much better chance to survive these turbulent times! A sense of purpose overcame the arche lord. He gained the feeling that he had obtained an opportunity to change the destiny of his oppressed race. His naked desire towards Lucky grew. The trapped gem cat was no longer just an odd intruder anymore. He had turned into a gateway of fantastic new human tech! The arche lord enthusiastically resumed his examinations. He sent back the shortened archemetal rod to the center cage, but did not position it in front of Lucky anymore. Instead, the arche lord carefully positioned the rod to the rear of the gem cat. Lucky grew a lot more nervous for some reason. "Meow...?" The arche lord briefly fell into thought. The metallic construct possessed another orifice on the opposite side of his body. The alien grew curious whether it functioned similar to the cat's front orifice or whether it served a different purpose. "Meoooow..." Lucky was still able to exert limited control over his tail. He purposely curled it up so that it covered his backside as extensively as possible. The arche lord made a sound of irritation and commanded the forcefield to pull the metallic tail back! "Meow!" The cat fully understood what sort of a predicament he was in right now. That crazy turtle alien was about to commit one of his greatest taboos! There was no way that Lucky wanted to let this dangerous situation proceed any further! "ME000W! MEEEEOW! MEEEEEOW!" Where was the Phobos?! Where was the Larkinson Clan?! Why hadn't Goldie manifested besides him and helped him escape from this cage?! He was her daddy cat! Would she really stand by and allow this alien lord to conduct an invasive examination of his body? Seeing that the rod was hovering closer and closer to one of his most sensitive areas, Lucky could no longer hold himself back any longer. He began to activate many different parts of his intricate body and abruptly entered into a supercharged mode! Heat began to escape from his feline shape as his overloaded systems processed all of the archemetal in his bottomless stomach in rapid tempo. Together with all of the other powerful exotics that Lucky digested in the past, he made use of the extracted essence of all of his meals and rapidly used it to upgrade his mechanical body! The arche lord paused and made a noise of surprise as he saw that his small captive was morphing before his eyes. "Yeyayahaw!" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶 The alien and his attendants expressed considerable shock when they noticed that Lucky's metallic composition grew more complex. His appearance underwent subtle changes as the fairly normal-looking alloys of before steadily transformed into highly accurate imitations of archemetal! The sight of the entire gem cat autonomously upgrading his entire exterior into an archemetal shell exceeded the expectations of the observing aliens! As power continued to exude from Lucky's overheated body, the furious cat forcefully exerted his strengthened might against the invisible force fields and managed to regain his ability to move. The cat sent a hateful stare at the arche lord before turning around to present his transformed backside. "MEEEE000W!" A hot and glowing multicolored gem suddenly appeared and collided against the transphasic energy shield! The arche lord immediately examined this strange new object. He noticed that the gem actually exhibited a complicated internal structure that shared a great resemblance towards archemetal! It was at this time that the ship sounded an alarm. The arche lord barely had time to realize what was happening before the unstable gem exploded with great power! B00000000000M!