?Chapter 6462 The Attempt The Evolution Witch powered, protected and controlled the key operations of the Red Oblivion Gate. The Dimensional Architect monitored the technical parameters of the glowing construct and continued to make minor corrections when necessary. The Oblivion Empress continued to leverage the Nyxian Gap, but also controlled the most important triggers of the Black Oblivion Gate. The Beast of Fear kept the remnant souls in check while also remaining on guard against attacks. Master Willix precisely timed and configured the two Oblivion Gates to make sure they could connect with each other. Each of them held important responsibilities. None of them could afford to make any egregious mistakes. The messy and suboptimal combination of mysticism and cutting-edge high technologies had the potential to do the impossible, but only if every component did their jobs without complications. It was impossible for faults and errors from occurring. The developers of the Oblivion Gates could only do so much when they were short on a lot of helpful resources and lacking empirical data. Without conducting a live test, the veracity of their theories would always remain in doubt! The Evolution Witch had invested much of her knowledge on how to create spatial portals with the power of heaven into the Oblivion Gate Project. If she needed to create a pair of gates that enabled quick passage from one star sector to a neighboring star sector, then she did not need to rely on technological assistance at all. It was completely within her power to physically bridge such a distance by relying on her own profound techniques and self-made artifacts. Trying to do the same across a distance of more than 50 million light-years was a completely different challenge. This was where Master Moira Willix came into the picture. Her original research had nothing to do with transporting goods across intergalactic distances, but her deep and profound attainments in gravitic systems and other sciences just happened to put her in a position to help with bridging the divide. It was due to Cynthia's passing friendship and familiarity with the persistent Master Mech Designer that she saw the possibility of creating the Oblivion Gates! With a powerful collaborator and helper in the Red Ocean in the form of the Evolution Witch, what appeared to be impossible suddenly became a little less unthinkable! When Master Willix deeply conferred with the Oblivion Empress and calculated that there was a modest chance that the groundbreaking project might succeed, she dropped all of her previous research and commitments and devoted all of her effort into developing the Oblivion Gates! What was amazing was that the Survivalist did so without informing or asking for permission from the MTA. As an old insider, Willix knew that the huge political implications of reopening trade with red humanity would cause the Oblivion Gate Project to become mired in controversy. The forces acting against it were far too strong, making it unlikely to succeed. This was why Master Willix resolutely kept her contacts and colleagues in the dark. It was also the reason why the Evolution Witch carefully chose to collaborate with the Beast of Fear, whose goals greatly diverged from the current policies of the Mech Trade Association. The rest of the mechers would find out eventually what they had done. The Oblivion Gate Consortium only hoped that it would be better to ask for forgiveness than permission. It would be much easier to negotiate a settlement with a large batch of trade goods unique to the Red Ocean. As Master Willix carefully monitored and adjusted the settings of both Oblivion Gates, she patiently waited until the time was right to trigger the activation of both portals. greatest as there were too many ways for her to fail and botch the attempt! Despite her enormous burdens, Master Willix maintained her composure despite her proximity to the Black Oblivion Gate. It was not good for the gates to remain at their full charge for too long. Master Willix needed to pull the trigger in a short amount of time, or else important components would begin to break, making it impossible for the experiment to proceed! Even as everyone grew impatient due to her inaction, neither the Oblivion Empress nor the Beast of Fear urged her into action. Both of them were True Gods and existed on a higher level compared to the Master Mech Designer, but Master Moira Willix was the main contributor to the tech that enabled the gates to span such an enormous distance. Everyone grew tense. The people of the Red Ocean had little idea that so much hinged on the judgment and timing of a Master Mech Designer. Veronica made sure to remain completely still. She still harbored a lot of goodwill towards Master Willix and regretted the fact that she had cut ties with her. When her main self entered the Red Ocean, she had neglected many of the old friendships that she once had with the people that she left behind. Not everyone in the Milky Way was useless to Ves. Master Willix's involvement in this massive project was proof that the old galaxy could still affect the new frontier! As people from both galaxies waited for the big moment to arrive, Master Willix finally took action! "NOW!" Even before she uttered a word, she already transmitted a signal through her cranial implant. The Evolution Witch and the Oblivion Empress took action at the same time. The two gates were substantially different from each other, so they did not complete the exact same steps. Nonetheless, by the time the Oblivion Gates became fully active, both of them formed wormholes at almost the exact same time! It was fortunate that completely perfect timing was not an essential requirement. The real concern was that the more the timing was off, the harder it was to establish a connection between the two wormholes! Right now, the two portals both depicted a completely dark void where no light passed through. Veronica immediately felt a huge threat from the Black Oblivion Gate. She actually wanted to move as far away as possible, but her mother kept such a tight hold over her body that she couldn't move from her grasp! Shortly after the dark portals formed, they began to wobble and grow unstable. No sign of a connection had formed as of yet, but this was an expected outcome. It took a lot more effort to connect two extremely distant portals together. While the Evolution Witch and the Oblivion Empress kept the portals on their respective gates active, Master Willix continued to change the settings and manipulate the controls. Several agonizing seconds went by until the portals finally started to change! 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢 The black briefly got replaced by light, until a bright flash suddenly erupted from the nearby sphere-shaped cargo container! The Oblivion Gates abruptly shut down! Large amounts of coolant hissed from the various openings of the Oblivion Gates as the internals rapidly tried to vent the excess heat buildup. Master Willix continued to operate the two gates in order to ensure that they remained stable and intact after pulling off an attempt that briefly exerted a huge amount of stress to their systems. When Veronica recovered from the flash, she eagerly tried to observe whether the swap took place. Her electronic eyes glowed brighter as she gazed upon a nearly identical spherical container. She had taken a very good look at the big metal ball that was originally parked before the Black Oblivion Gate. The Cyborg Cat did not recognize the sturdy alloy, but she was able to deduce that it was entirely made out of thick and sturdy first-class exotic materials. The key was that the sphere was not built with phasewater at all. This resource which was not that difficult to obtain in the Red Ocean was countless times more scarce in the Milky Way! The Beast of Fear was secretly able to smuggle a modest quantity of phasewater to the Nyxian Gap, but all of it had been used to construct the Black Oblivion Gate. What was even more important was that the original cargo sphere did not incorporate any hyper materials either. Veronica knew that Unending alloy and a number of other interesting resources native to the Nyxian Gap actually turned out to be hyper materials. However, the Nyxian Gap was not that energy-rich, and much of it actually consisted of the spiritual detritus of a lot of dead ancient life forms. It was impossible for the Nyxian Gap to produce a lot of hyper materials. His mother actually monopolized much of it to use in her own personal projects. The cargo sphere may be important enough to employ some of those rare hyper materials, but there was no good reason to do so. The hyper materials native to the Nyxian Gap were very mediocre and did not possess any attributes that could help in this experiment. That was why Veronica could clearly tell that the cargo sphere that appeared before the Black Obsidian Gate was not the original one. The color was off. The density had changed. The production process was different. The sphere was made out of an alloy that was both transphasic and hyper! The most important part was that Veronica clearly recognized that this was the exact same cargo sphere that Ves observed on the live feed back in the Red Ocean! "This..." Veronica uttered but could not finish. His mother looked as if everything was under her control. A smug and supremely satisfied expression appeared on her face as she gently petted the Cyborg Cat's head. "Do you see, my child? You are not the only person in the family that can produce a successful invention." "This... changes everything..." "The first attempt is the most difficult one by far because both Oblivion Gates are admittedly incomplete. It is only by incorporating the phasewater and hyper materials shipped from the Red Ocean that this Black Oblivion Gate will become much more reliable and affordable to operate." Back in the Red Ocean, every red human remained silent for a few seconds until they began to cheer en masse! Even though the cargo sphere from the Milky Way most definitely contained goods that would never end up in their hands, they still cheered because they understood what this meant! The Evolution Witch as she hovered before the Red Oblivion Gate and the distinctly different spherical container. "The first experiment of the Oblivion Gate Project is a success. Now that we are not only armed with valuable data, but also exchanged rare materials that we sorely need to perfect the two Oblivion Gates, there is a much higher chance that the next activation will succeed as well. The cost of conducting a swap shall still remain high, but it will not be as ruinous as before. If the upgrades to the Oblivion Gates proceed as planned, then our intergalactic consortium plans to conduct biannual cargo swaps every half year. Make no mistake. In exchange for phasewater and high-grade hyper materials that are not too challenging for us to obtain, we can trade them for generous quantities of super-class materials, unique technological products and priceless cultivation relics." The possibilities were endless! Red humanity may not be in a good shape when it comes to resources, but the scarcity of phasewater and hyper materials in the Milky Way was so high that they were the equivalent of super-class materials to original humanity! It was definitely possible to conduct trades that were insanely profitable to both sides! That was even after taking into account the large amount of phasewater that the Red Oblivion Gate needed to burn just to complete a single swap! Red humanity celebrated yet again in a short span of time! "We finally have hope!" "What is in those containers?" "Please let us know what we have obtained from the Milky Way!" As more and more people clamored to take a look at the trade goods sent from the old galaxy, a sudden mutation occurred. The cargo sphere transported to the Red Ocean suddenly began to exhibit a breach! The Evolution Witch frowned when a 'small' human-sized blade somehow thrust out from the alloy plating from the inside!