Chapter 5654 The First Big Step Forward 5654 The First Big Step Forward Sword forests held way more significance than commemorating the dead, but Cynthia did not bother to explain them all. Ves received enough clarification to do a better job at interpreting one of his prophetic visions. When he shared the findings that Veronica had made, Gloriana looked thoughtful. "If a sword forest is truly a graveyard to commemorate their fallen wielders, then the act of cutting all of those planted swords in half is a great sign of disrespect. The consequences are undeniably grave. Either the sword forest belongs to an enemy force, or the individual doing the culling has developed a strong frustration towards the group that owns the site." Ves grimaced. "We can't narrow the answer any further. The image is too abstract. There are too few details to give us any further context. The biggest mystery is who the sword forest belongs to. Figuring this out will give us much greater clarification why this prophecy is meaningful." "What are your guesses?" "Well, there are three main possibilities that I can think of. The most obvious candidates are the Swordmaidens and Heavensworders who hail from our own clan. I am pretty sure that they must have already created a small sword forest of their own, though I need to look this up to be sure. Another possibility is the original Heavensworders back in the Milky Way. If passage back to the Milky Way has been restored, then the many years of separation may have produced a lot of ideological differences between the two groups of traditional swordsmen." If Ves took a couple of the prophetic visions seriously, then there was a distinct possibility that red humanity gained the possibility of returning home to the Milky Way. However, why would people in the Red Ocean want to go back to that boring place? Ves saw no reason why red humanity should return to this barren place and lose all of the advantages of exotic radiation. It also made no sense why original humanity was willing to allow their red cousins to come back home. If the Red Ocean was about to become engulfed in a disaster, then the last thing the natives of the Milky Way wanted was to draw the attention of powerful alien forces from Messier 87! Ves liked it here. There was so much more he could do now that he had E energy radiation and hyper materials at his disposal. All of his mechs had become so much more powerful and capable of further growth with the help of these new variables. Even if human-occupied space in the Red Ocean was about to get taken back by the native aliens, Ves would rather take his chances with the Whale Ark and journey directly to Messier 87 than to come crawling back home! Besides, unlike everyone else in the Red Ocean, Ves happened to retain an incarnation back in the Milky Way! He did not suffer from any homesickness because his cyborg cat incarnation was already living the good life with his father and mother. The only shortcoming was that there was little for Veronica to do aside from helping Ves design his mechs or keeping up with his extensive studies. Ves no longer bothered to think about a possible return to the Milky Way. Red humanity needed to construct a much better version than the original greater beyonder gate in the Red Ocean in order to cross 50 million light-years of distance. That was clearly impossible in the short-term! The only reasonable explanation was that the reunion between red humanity and original humanity took place in a much more distant future. It was pointless for Ves to formulate extensive plans for a possible event that would only unfold hundreds if not thousands of years later! Ves focused on what he could do to put himself and his clan in a more favorable position. He already added building a relationship with the Red Fleet to his agenda. "One thing is for sure. If Ketis is important enough that she is able to induce a prophetic vision, then it should do no harm to grant her additional support. The stronger she becomes, the more she is able to protect our clan and contribute to our coffers. Who knows whether she is able to save us one day." "The opposite can happen as well. Ketis may doom us if you feed her ego and let her run around unchecked." Gloriana retorted. "For example, I doubt that the owners of that sword forest will be pleased with us if Ketis recklessly culls what passes for their ancestral burial ground." "Ketis isn't that stupid. She is a true Larkinson now. I am sure she had a good reason to cut all of those old swords in half." "If I were you, I would place a minder at her side so that you will always be apprised of what she is doing. Your minion will also be able to stop her before she provokes a dangerous diplomatic incident. It would be best if Calabast was still around." Calabast along with a lot of other leaders of the Larkinson Clan had gone off to undergo EdNet training. Ves actually thought that his first strategic partner would be too paranoid to entrust her brain as well as her consciousness to the Red Association, but she somehow decided to go through with it anyway. Knowing her, Calabast probably had her own ways to ensure she would remain herself once she completed her accelerated training. Ves continued to discuss the other implications of the prophetic visions with his wife. There was an endless amount of topics they could speculate on, but without any further clues, it was far too difficult to draw any definite conclusions. "The only prophesied event that we know will unfold in the near future with great certainty is the breaking of our greater beyonder gate." Gloriana conveyed. "Shattered Expectations has made it clear that our race will suffer its first major setback in a handful of years at most." "That is true, but it is not our business to address this possible outcome. The mechers are undoubtedly in the process of planning their own response against this potential disaster." Gloriana grew upset. "Do not be like that, Ves. You are a tier 3 galactic citizen. Start acting like one. Do not let the mechers push you away. There should be numerous ways for you to contribute to the defense of Bridgehead One. Whether it is your kinship networks or Ylvaine's divinations, you should make proactive use of your tools to help the mechers defend our crucial gate. The greater your contributions, the greater the rewards. You will also be able to improve your relationship with the Red Two and integrate into their highest circles. You need to do your best to build up your connections and secure greater advantages for our clan." That was an unusually ambitious proposal. Ves did not expect his wife to be so forward. "Are you saying this because you want to increase our odds of securing a place aboard the Whale Ark?" 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺 She nodded. "It may be the case that high-tier galactic citizens have already earned a place on the ship, but who knows whether you can bring the rest of your family and your clan? The ark ship may be immense, but much of her internal space is likely devoted to holding organic ship systems, essential goods and materials, combat-ready mechs and warships and life support facilities. It is unclear how many people the ark can accommodate over the course of an entire intergalactic journey. The mechers and the fleeters will likely reserve many of the places for their own personnel and family." That made for a lot of people. If the Whale Ark was the only ship of her kind, then that meant that the vast majority of humans living in the Red Ocean would have to be left behind. A place on the ship was not guaranteed, especially if the Whale Ark was built in total secrecy. Ves shook his head. Knowing about the Whale Ark caused him to enter a mindset where he assumed that red humanity was already doomed. By thinking about securing an escape route far before there was any indication that humanity was losing its place in the Red Ocean, he was acting like a coward instead of a bold and ambitious leader. He did not want to be a coward. If he valued survival above everything, then he would have never taken the initiative to emigrate to the Red Ocean! "This is enough talk for the time being. The future is not set in stone." He told his wife. "This is especially the case now that we have received a lot of advance warning. All red humanity needs to do is to forestall the shattering of the greater beyonder gate, the last stand of the Fist of Defiance and the cultivation deviation of the First Flame. Once we are able to prevent these domino blocks from falling, the other cascade of disasters are much less likely to occur." Once these three major events unfolded in a much different manner than foreseen by Ylvaine, the ripple effects would be so big that the remaining prophetic visions may have become invalidated. Red humanity entered into a radically different timeline by that time! Ylvaine would have to make an entirely new set of predictions to replace the ones that have become out of date! Ves continued to wonder how he could prevent the first dominoes from falling as his main consciousness faded into slumber. The next day, Ves and his wife followed their usual morning routine before they entered the design lab once again. Gloriana spent a bit of time on instructing the new batch of Journeyman Mech Designers before she came back to her husband. She decided to announce her first big move. "About the Dark Zephyr Mark III…" "What about it, Gloriana?" His wife looked incredibly serious at the moment. She hesitated for a few seconds before she decided to share her latest idea. "It may be somewhat premature, but I believe this is the best way for us to go forward. I do not want to settle for the current draft design of the upcoming iteration of the Dark Zephyr. There is nothing inadequate about it, but there are not enough features that stand out in my opinion. Heavy applications of hyper technology and phasewater technology may give the expert light skirmisher a powerful edge, but other mech designers can design comparable machines if they have access to comparable funding and resources. We need to take an extra step to further differentiate our mech from the competition and serve as a testbed of a new generation of revolutionary tech. The Lionheart is already good, but I think we can do even better." Ves furrowed his brows. "What are you talking about? What do you want to introduce to our upcoming expert mech design?" His wife activated a projection that showed a revised draft design. Much of the high-tier expert light skirmisher's configuration remained the same. However, the new draft design looked radically different in Ves' eyes! This was because his wife had taken the bold decision to to integrate archemetal into the living expert mech's design! "This… certainly constitutes a radical step forward." Ves spoke. "How much of the mech is converted into archemetal?" "Over 90 percent. I want as much parts as possible to be based on archetech rather than conventional human technology." Gloriana replied. "The advantages of the former are abundantly clear to us. The arche may be an unusual race, but their exotic interpretation of technology is truly ingenious in many ways." Ves agreed with this assessment, but that did not mean it was a good idea to adopt archetech ahead of time. "Archetech is really difficult to understand. In fact, I doubt anyone has fully deciphered its technological principles from top to bottom. Even if there is enough available knowledge to get started with reproducing archetech, we'll have to study a lot of difficult treatises before we can responsibly apply it to our own work outside of a purely experimental mech. It is several years too soon for us to start working with tech that we do not fully understand!"