Chapter 6599 The Start of a new Marathon Veronica was not entirely reassured with keeping the Demon Mixers out of her sight. The importance of the initial 5 demon gu containers could not be overstated. They were his first attempt at exploring a potential path that could lead him to creating his own Major Demons. These were powerful malevolent beings that already grew strong enough to form their own domains! Even if their comprehensive power was inferior that of a battle-hardened ace pilot, just one of these Major Demons could easily depopulate an entire capital ship if it was able to roam freely! The biggest reason why such a massacre had not occurred was because Major Demons were still unable to maintain their existence in the material realm. Even so, their overall power was already enough to turn any object into a powerful D-arm! How could Veronica not be greedy for their power? Major Demons only existed to serve as input materials for all of the wonderful D-mechs and D-arms in her imagination! The first step to mass producing Major Demons was to ensure that the Demon Mixers withstood the violence between all of the Minor Demons contained within their mech frames. The first, second and third Demon Mixers produced non-stop activity as the Minor Demons inside of them fought like no abandon! The fourth and fifth Demon Mixers had yet to show much activity, but it was only a matter of time before the Minor Demons devoured all of the uncorrupted souls. Seeing that the Demon Mixers remained functional and intact for the time being, Veronica began to transfer them into the Vault of Eternity. This was a rather costly move. Ves over in the Red Ocean had already emptied the Vault of as much unnecessary goods as possible. This included a large stash of diluted and undiluted phasewater. Even so, Veronica still had to buy additional storage capacity, causing her to rapidly expend all of the AP that she managed to scrounge by completing a few Missions in the past year. It was not until she was left with just 9 Ascension Points that she managed to reluctantly squeeze all of the demimechs inside the Vault! Veronica had deliberately designed the Demon Mixers to be as compact as possible. The lower their volume, the cheaper it was to put them away. This was why she did not make the jar that formed most of the torso too tall and wide. The Demon Mixers were also cleverly able to fold in their four legs so that they hardly remained visible as the demimechs completely settled on a flat surface. "Alright, that's done. Hopefully we will be able to yield a result very soon," "I hope so too." With this business taken care of, Veronica finally returned to the design lab in order to apply a few last-minute changes to the Rule Breaker Project. The Cyborg Cat had not forgotten about the mandatory assignment imposed by her mother. While Veronica had yet to find out whether it was possible to produce Major Demons through her own efforts, she and Helena had just proved that it was actually quite easy to convert the souls of fairly strong individuals into Minor Demons. That was already enough justification for Veronica to modify the three versions of the Rule Breaker Project so that they gained Helena as a design spirit. Just as Master Willix warned, the changes made by Veronica caused the Rule Breaker Project to become less pure and focused on accelerating the evolution of Carmine mech pilots. Under the careful changes made by Veronica, the Rule Breaker mechs turned into secret soul harvesting tools. Not only would these Carmine mechs become hungry for the souls of the opposition, they would also be on the lookout to harvest souls from their allies, their own battle partners and eventually even themselves if their use had come to an end! Of course, the Carmine mechs wouldn't do so unscrupulously. Veronica at least made sure that the machines would not harvest the souls of protected groups such as the citizens of the Hex Federation and the Oblivion Empire. Almost anyone else was fair game. Veronica already looked forward to the huge amount of souls that Helena stood to gain. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞 In fact, the amount may be so astronomically high that it was impractical to use them to produce a lot of demons! Helena could not hold onto too many souls at once. From what Ves could tell, the Daughter of Death was in a strange place as far as her strength was concerned. There were some parts about her that made him think she was still a Domain Shaper, but she already exhibited traits that approached the level of a True God. Even so, unless she became a True God in full, it was unlikely for her to hold a billion or a trillion souls. Fortunately for the pair of siblings, the Nyxian Gap already provided her with a readily available alternative. "The Nyxian Gap urgently needs to be replenished." Helena said as she observed Veronica at work. "Don't worry about how much it can hold. If there is not enough capacity, then we will find a way to expand it. The more souls in captivity, the better. We do not have the luxury of E energy radiation in the Milky Way Galaxy." "Mhmm. This is a win-win-win solution for all of us. Our mother will likely be very pleased when she sees how quickly we can fill up the Nyxian Gap with our collaborative efforts." Now that Veronica gained a better understanding about the Nyxian Gap and where it gained its energy, she was eager to accelerate its recovery and make it even stronger than before. The Nyxian Gap was the stronghold of the Oblivion Empire! Without the protection of this anomalous region, it would be too difficult for Veronica and her relatives on this side of the Oblivion Gate to stay safe against the many known and less-well-known threats of the Milky Way Galaxy. Even if the Oblivion Empress persisted in her attempt to reconcile with the Five Scrolls Compact and become one of its highest leaders, it was still useful to maintain a strong and well-defended fief! Although it did not take a lot of time for Veronica to complete the changes to the mech designs of the Rule Breaker Project, she still refrained from finishing her work. "It's time." Veronica did not finalize the Rule Breaker Project because she wanted Ves to mull over the design over the course of a few months and make small tweaks and improvements whenever it was convenient! The additional design time gave Ves a lot of opportunities to make subtle improvements and fixes. If everything went well, once Ves completed his Mission-clearing marathon, the Rule Breaker Project should hopefully become a bit more optimized and harmonious than before! "Here we are again." Ves spoke. He and Ketis finally reunited with each other again in the System Space. As far as the pair were concerned, time in the main university had effectively paused. Four days had passed since the latest System upgrade. Both Ves and Ketis knew that they were on the clock now. It cost 1 AP to extend their stay in the System, so neither of them were in the mood to stand still and waste their time on idle chatter. "Let's head to the Vault of Eternity." Ves proposed. "I need to pick up a batch of special demimechs. They are my greatest hope of producing Major Demons." Ketis curiously watched on as Ves began to withdraw one Demon Mixer after another. She winced as she observed their minimalistic and stripped-down designs. "I cannot imagine how badly a mech pilot wants to kill himself if he attempts to pilot this machine." The swordmaster said. "Each of them is giving me a bad feeling. Even the Heavensword is growing a little upset at their proximity." Ves briefly grimaced when he heard that. He did not want to wake up one day to see the Heavensword chopping up his precious demon gu containers! This was especially the case when they had yet to produce a single Major Demon! "I will make sure to place them in one of the large storage spaces of the Workshop of Creation." He said in a clear tone of compromise. "I do not want to place them far away. I need to keep them under constant observation in case I need to intervene. This experiment is too important to me and my future ambitions." Ketis let out a sigh. "I won't do anything to them unless it is an emergency or if I brought it up to you beforehand." The two mech designers slowly accompanied the five Demon Mixers as they slowly ascended the mountaintop with their four slow but stable legs. Their speed was truly abysmal, and they weren't exactly the best at climbing mountains. Ves constantly monitoring their movements and their balance. He regularly transmitted instructions when he felt they could navigate an easier path upwards. Once they finally settled onto the large clearing that hosted the Workshop of Creation as well as the recently added Demoncasting Forge, the two mech designers began to face each other. "You know the plan, Ketis. Both of us have already accepted the missions that we can reasonably complete without spending too much of our time. We should get to work straight away. Let's see whether there are any ones that require our combined expertise to solve." There were numerous Missions that could go a lot smoothly with qualified help by their side. The only problem was that the Missions were only bound to a single user as far as they could determine. This meant that Ves could invest days or weeks of his time on Ketis' mech design project, only to end up earning 0 AP in the process. His only harvest would be the experience of working on a special swordsman mech. The two were determined to avoid this. The marathon should be purely focused on productive activities. Anything that could interrupt or pull them away from this strengthening process had to be avoided whenever possible! While the Missions had to be completed by a specific user who accepted them, that did not mean that socialization was worthless. They could still bounce ideas off each other and prevent themselves from getting affected by the psychological burden of long-time isolation. Once the pair of mech designers set up their workplaces, they formally kicked off the marathon! Ves decided to warm up to the work by completing a bunch of easy D-grade Missions. None of the ones that he accepted a few days ago posed any serious challenge to him. He just had to design a handful of cheap mechs that technically met the requirements. He knew that the System often awarded him with a bonus reward if he ever overcompleted his objectives. However, for the sake of efficiency, Ves declined to waste too much time in raising the quality of a product. "It is better to strife for quantity rather than quality." At least the rewards should be consistent. Trying to work hard to impress the System may not pay off. Even if it did, the actual rewards would not be able to compensate for all of the time he had lost! Besides, Ves still felt he could polish and improve his design capabilities by trying to raise the quality of his works even when he was in a hurry! Ketis had apparently made a similar decision. She was overly adventurous, and inspiration did not come easily for her. She believed it was best to strictly abide by the parameters of her Missions and avoid any undesirable deviations. Soon enough, the pair cleaned up one Mission after another. They were already off to a good start as they saw their AP accounts grow! Ves no longer worried about whether he would still be able to afford extensions inside the System Space. His former student saved up a sizable sum of AP already. Ketis was effectively able to pay the daily rent. The two did not rest on their laurels. They quickly went through the D-rank Missions until they could only begin to tackle the C-rank Missions.