Ves became filled with conflicted feelings as he ended the confidential call. He did not expect the Evolution Witch to rob him of his freedom and assign him a task that he could not realistically refuse. He managed to gather a lot of clues from this conversation. Whether she intended to or not, the god pilot had been quite candid about her own situation. She took the time to explain her demands and spent precious minutes explaining a bit of the context on why she placed her hopes on his shoulders. "Even tier 1 galactic citizens can't do everything themselves..." The Evolution Witch was a god pilot, a living human machine capable of great feats of destruction. Her attainments in biotechnology combined with her incredibly versatile god biomech allowed her to manipulate and leverage the power of life in ways that others could not replicate. She was not called a witch because she was benevolent. Divine Lucie Miyazaki had earned her fame by pushing boundaries and breaking taboos. While she managed to succeed where countless other mech pilots had failed, becoming a god pilot did not necessarily mean she had become omnipotent. She was fighting in a different arena than she was comfortable with. Personal power did not necessarily mean she could make others fulfill her demands. From what Ves gathered from her explanations, she cooked up an ambitious but dangerous plan involving the mutated voribugs. His imagination already produced several outrageous scenarios that might take place once the Evolution Witch got her hands on a Hive Princess. Ves had no interest in delving in too deep in these possibilities. He knew that he was not qualified to interfere with such high-level schemes. It was best if he focused on his own duties. Still, even without deducing the Evolution Witch's intentions, Ves could easily guess that her plan must have spooked a lot of other tier 1 galactic citizens. This was the only explanation why she faced so much opposition even from within the Red Association. The problem became so bad that she was not even able to trust her own subordinates to do their jobs. Ves knew that if he performed this mission, then he would be making a clear signal that he sided with the Evolution Witch. This was a problem because it also meant that he was siding against her detractors, whoever they may be. There could be any number of god pilots and Star Designers who vehemently objected to her plans. That made it dangerous to take the Evolution Witch's side on this matter. Ves did not want to burn all of the goodwill that he accrued with other major players. The most prudent choice would be to pretend to fulfill the mission but secretly slack off until he eventually ran out the clock. Somehow, he did not think that was a good idea. With Vector Loban watching over his shoulders, there was no way that Ves could keep up this deception. Besides, the consequences of deceiving and disappointing a god pilot was serious. The Evolution Witch would never be able to trust him again. He could no longer count on her backing and may even face obstacles in the future due to her displeasure. In the end, Ves felt it was better to please his current benefactor rather than satisfy the morality of a bunch of strangers. He also knew that the Evolution Witch was probably the god pilot who tolerated him the most. Their ideologies were very similar, and they both possessed the willingness to disregard rules in order to achieve their goals. The Evolution Witch was not his enemy. While Ves found it difficult to call her a friend, he could at least trust her willingness to help him based on mutual understanding and benefits. A time would come where he no longer needed to rely on her protection to maintain a solid foothold in the Red Ocean. Even then, it would still be useful to have a powerful ally on his side. The value of a major favor was great. Though the Evolution Witch did not go in depth in this regard, she was a god pilot who could always be expected to be sincere in her transactions. The value of a Hive Princess to her was big enough for her to promise him access to her strength or influence. Many people dreamed of owning a favor of a god pilot, but their desires only existed in their fantasies. Ves had a chance to turn this precious resource into reality. Although the difficulty of his mission was great, the reward compelled him to do his best. "This is going to be difficult." He grimaced when he thought about all of the restrictions. He was very aware that he needed to act behind everyone's backs. He needed to operate in a clandestine fashion while he was surrounded by people who had no clue about his secret mission. He could not blatantly tell his subordinates to figure out the location of the Goliath Princess or other Hive Princesses. It was also out of the question for him to send his stealth vessels into bug space. He could not employ any overt means of scouting for fear of revealing to the Evolution Witch's opponents that he was operating on her behalf. If he needed to rely on external assistance, then he had to obfuscate the real reasons for requesting help and pretend to be doing other stuff. "Urgh." He was not cut out for this spy stuff. His workload was already heavy. He not only had to collaborate with Gloriana to design the Promethea Mark III and the Lionheart Mark III, but he also had to spend time on developing his Polymetal mech and Mergewater mech. On top of that, he needed to get started on designing a bunch of proper first-class mechs for the Larkinson Clan. "The good news is that I don't have to do all of this work alone." He had much more help at his disposal than before. Gloriana had already told him that the EdNet graduates had begun to settle into the current period and were ready to tackle greater responsibilities. She had already taken the initiative to assign a number of projects to them. Their assistance provided a substantial boost to the effort to update the Larkinson Army's mech roster and bring all of the machines up to the standards of the Hyper Generation. However, Ves felt that this was a waste of their newfound capabilities. They had all become qualified first-class mech designers, so their time was better spent on designing genuine first-class mechs. "I don't have enough time." What annoyed him was that the Dark Apostle insisted on occupying a part of his schedule. Ves pretty much gave up sleeping, hoping that he could enjoy sufficient rest when the Dark Apostle came online and took over. How could he possibly spare enough time to fulfill the Evolution Witch's demands? "I need to be efficient with my time. I have to come up with a good solution." A good solution had to involve automation or effort that did not require his personal time and energy. For example, he could design a bunch of stealthy surveillance bots and spread them into bug space. This was unlikely to work, though. The bots all needed to be ferried to different occupied star systems without getting intercepted along the way. A more direct solution was to ask a diviner of the Red Collective or Ylvaine to use their mysterious powers to predict where the Goliath Princess could be found at a certain point in time. However, Ves knew that it would not be easy to pinpoint the location of this Hive Princess by relying on this method. The mutated voribugs were definitely aware of the power of qi cultivation and had already implemented many adaptations that made them resistant against such methods. This prevented entities such as Ylvaine from spying on the Devourer Queen and other important voribugs. They had developed numerous safeguards in order to prevent god pilots such as the Evolution Witch from swooping in and decapitating their entire race. The entire reason why the Evolution Witch entrusted the responsibility of locating a Hive Princess to Ves was because she could not rely on the most common means of tracking down an important enemy. Ves needed to think way more outside the box than usual. Every word spoken by the Evolution Witch was consequential. She was not the sort of person who wasted her time and words. She placed a considerable emphasis on resorting to every possible means no matter how taboo it may be. She was hinting to him that he needed to go way beyond his comfort zone. The Evolution Witch made it clear that she did not care about the process. She only cared about results. His eyes narrowed in contemplation. What did she think he must do? Did she expect him to contact the cosmopolitans and secretly cooperate with the group that would be happy to claim his head in exchange for receiving a reward from the Red Cabal? Was he supposed to contact several groups of native aliens that were suffering badly from the voribug invasion and negotiate an unholy alliance? Or did he have to capture a Goliath and somehow domesticate this monstrous creature into a pet of the Phase Lord Department? "That last idea sounds interesting..." Once Ves let go of his psychological constraints, he found that he was able to come up with many outrageous ideas! Each of them were bound to generate a lot of controversy if the public found out about them, so he needed to make sure to keep his mouth shut! He became determined not to share his burden with anyone. He could not risk any leaks, so he did not intend to inform Gloriana, Ketis, Alexa or any other member of his inner circle. Perhaps he might think about disclosing his secret mission to Calabast, but it would be useless if she did not have a means to help him fulfill his goal. Updated first on lig‌ht‌no‌‌vel‌world‌.o‌rg As Ves considered all of the ideas that came up, he felt that capturing a Goliath and using it to trace back the coordinates of the Goliath Princess may be the most efficient way to complete his mission. Every voribug possessed a connection to a superior entity, whether it was an unidentified commander bug or a Hive Princess. Ves bet that every Goliath possessed a direct intangible link to the Goliath Princess. This way, the latter could directly monitor the performance of every Goliath strain and ascertain their strengths and weaknesses. The Goliath Princess would then be able to apply what she learned on the next batch of Goliaths to ensure they put up better fights than before. The lower of the barriers of transmission, the faster this cycle progressed. The Goliath Hive clearly wanted to make quick progress, and the Goliath Princess could make that happen so long as she was in direct control. Although Ves did not have proof that this was the case, he was willing to bet on this assumption. His eyes lit up. Perhaps completing this mission was not as difficult and time-consuming as he feared! "How the hell can we capture a Goliath alive?" Lord Richard Brownstone had already mentioned numerous different attempts to capture a Goliath. All of them ended in failure. As soon as a Goliath recognized that he was at risk of falling into adversary hands, a hidden killswitch would activate which would cause the powerful organic being to break down and leave very little useful traces behind. This told Ves that the Goliath Hive took the possibility of capture seriously. If Ves wanted to succeed where many others had failed, then he needed to employ a method that others had not tried before. Surprisingly enough, it did not take much time for him to come up with an idea. "What if... I can corrupt a Goliath?"