Ves quickly handled the remaining fruits after he upgraded two of his expert pilots. He handed over the weird Olthori Sacred Cleansing Ritual Manual Fruit to Lufa in the hopes that his design spirit was able to strengthen his specialty. He wasn't certain on how to handle Imperial Thornix Salamander Breeding Manual Fruit, though. The two most prominent names on his list was Director Ranya Wodin of the Larkinson Biotech Institute and Director Pesca Aduc of the T Institute. The former was much more involved in biotechnology, which also included the rearing of mutated beasts. However, her personal specialty lay in researching and designing plant life. Her expertise in exobeasts wasn't all that great. The latter also possessed a biotechnology background, but became increasingly more proficient in spiritual engineering. Pesca Aduc also possessed a lot more knowledge about exobeasts, though she had mostly worked in the context of ecology. Neither of them were perfect candidates for him, but if he had to make a choice, he would have to lean towards Director Ranya. "She's a Larkinson and she's also family in a way." Though Ranya used to be a member of the Wodin Dynasty, she had fully assimilated into the Larkinson Clan. She also had kids with Tusa which cemented her place among the Larkinsons. Ves called the director over and gave her a thorough explanation before feeding her the fruit. "What do you think?" He asked after Ranya absorbed all of the new and specialized knowledge. "Everything… makes a lot more sense now." She said. "I have learned more about qi and what this mysterious energy can do than I have in the years I've served in your clan. I understand a lot more about mutated beasts and I think I can do a much better job at breeding them and nurturing them into stronger specimens." "You can do that even if you don't have a talent in this aspect?" Ranya grinned. "Your suspicion that the manual possesses a lot of general knowledge is correct. Even though I don't have any Imperial Thornix Salambers to work with, much of the theory is general enough that I can apply to any exobeast. I can even apply some of what I learned on exoplants!" "So can I expect better results from the LBI after today?" Ranya's expression lowered a bit. "It will take time for me to adapt what I have learned to our current situation. It doesn't help that I don't have talent in this area." As the Larkinson Clan started up the T Institute and became more involved in spiritual research, Director Ranya found that it was becoming increasingly more important to keep up with these developments. Unfortunately for her, Ranya did not possess spiritual potential and was therefore incapable of getting started in this field! Though the T Institute had already conducted several research projects on how to remedy this shortcoming, for now the results were either lacking or too risky to attempt on a key member of the clan. As such, Ves was unable to help Ranya get started because her spirituality was too small and weak for him to implant her with a companion spirit. Theoretically, it should be possible for him to implant her with a smaller and less intrusive companion spirit seed, but she was not as young and malleable as an unborn fetus. Trying to change her spirituality to a large degree when she was already a grown adult was a recipe for disaster! Ves still remembered the awful outcome of a relevant experiment at the T Intitute. When Ves attempted to implant a companion spirit seed into the tiny spirituality of a talentless pakklaton test subject, the cleaner bots had to do a lot of work to clean up the operating theater! "We're still working on the issue." Ves told her. "Talent should never be a hindrance for people to pursue their dreams. Everyone should have a way to achieve success in any field they prefer. I strongly believe in this, or else I wouldn't have worked so much on projects that have succeeded in leveling the playing field. With the help of specialized knowledge that you have just obtained, I hope we can find a way for you to overcome your current limitations." His words caused Ranya's eyes to light up. "You've just given me an interesting idea, Ves. We exobiologists usually work on animals, but who says we can't use the same methods on humans? This Imperial Thornix Salamander Breeding Manual of yours is all about stimulating the potential of a specific kind of powerful lizard species, but maybe I can find a way to adapt some of its universal methods onto humans!" "Really? How high are your chances of success?" "Not high, but I think this is truly worth the attempt. Let me go back to my lab so that I can organize what I have learned and formulate a plan. I will probably need to work together with the T Institute to conduct an experiment." Ves was glad to see Ranya becoming excited about this new research project. Even if it didn't yield any positive results in the end, they would at least be able to learn a lot throughout the process. They exchanged a lot of ideas before Ranya finally departed in order to get started straight away. This left Ves with no more fruits to hand out. He had used and gifted so many of them that he felt remorseful that he had run out of them so quickly. It took quite a bit of effort for him to readjust his mood. "I have lived many years without relying on these advantages. I can't let it all go through my head and become addicted to these powerups." Ves and his clan would still have been fine if the System did not wake up during this period. The enlightenment fruits were all icing on the cake as far as he was concerned. All of the work that he and his fellow Larkinsons had done in the last decade had built up a clan that was powerful enough to compete with the big boys. Ves was most proud of being able to affect major changes in society by virtue of his innovations and daring decisions rather than relying on the handouts from the System. That did not mean that Ves would stop making use of enlightenment fruits and other attractive goodies. He just wanted to make sure that they supplemented his existing activities as opposed to replacing them entirely. The remaining object that Ves needed to handle was the Makian Tree Bark that he had wasted one of his radiant lottery tickets on. To say that he was dissatisfied with this prize was an understatement. He spent a few hours in his lab in order to study and experiment on the bark. He even chiseled away tiny samples of the hard bark in order to conduct more destructive examinations and experiments on the unknown material. Ves didn't really obtain any useful results. The material was organic, extremely hard and gave a weird feeling to people. Other than that, Ves hadn't been able to make it do anything special. He even called out Blinky in an attempt to probe its spiritual properties, only for the spiritual cat to return in defeat. "Damn." With no other viable options left, Ves retrieved a totem of Gaia and requested her assistance in figuring out the Makian Tree Bark. Usually, the 'design spirit' acted rather aloof and rarely responded to his inquiries. This time was an exception, though. The totem that Ves had placed in front of his work table began to glow with power as a powerful presence channeled a small part of her attention to the private laboratory! "VES LARKINSON." The air vibrated with the ethereal voice of the most powerful creation that Ves had made up to this date! "BRING THE TREE BARK CLOSER." "Uh, okay." Ves obediently did as directed. He could feel that Gaia grew more curious about the properties of the strange organic object. Her powerful senses studied it carefully for a few seconds before she had learned what she needed to know. "PLEASE TRANSFER THE TREE BARK THE GREEN DREAM. THE ADUC FAMILY WILL TAKE IT FROM THERE." "The Green Dream is not in the Davute System as far as I recall." Ves spoke. "I will have to entrust the bark to a courier service in order to ship it over. Although they have grown a lot more reliable in the past couple of years, plenty of shipments still go missing from time to time." The terraforming ship was often on assignment as stationing it in Davute meant that she wasn't earning money on behalf of the Aduc Family! "SEND IT ANYWAY. MAKE CERTAIN TO INCLUDE A TOTEM OF MY LIKENESS IN THE SAME PACKAGE." "Okiedoki. Can I ask why you want it sent to the Green Dream? Are you… trying to integrate it into your physical body?" "THAT REMAINS TO BE SEEN." "Can you keep me appraised of what you are able to learn from it and how you will eventually put it to use? It's value is probably extremely high, so this is a massive gift." "I WILL OWE YOU A FAVOR. I SHALL RECIPROCATE WITH ASSISTANCE THAT IS COMMENSURATE TO YOUR GIFT." "That is all I wanted to hear. Thank you for giving me this commitment, Gaia." "DO NOT BOTHER ME WITH IRRELEVANT QUESTIONS." "I'm your creator, Gaia! Can't you give me more respect considering that I've brought you to life in the first place!?" "..." Gaia had already retracted her presence from the totem. God or not, it was not easy for her to manifest in this way. It was even more strenuous for her to transmit her voice through the air. Ves just rolled her eyes. This kind of behavior was already typical for the powerful design spirit. He already figured out that much of the reason why Gaia had little patience for him was because she was still preoccupied with her ongoing evolution and transformation. With the understanding that he possessed today, Ves did not blame Gaia all that much anymore. Becoming a True God was an immense challenge to any individual, let alone a design spirit that was only five years old! "I hope she'll remember everything that I've done to her once she has become more powerful than ever." Ves sighed. He spent a bit of time arranging the Makian Tree Bark to be transported to the Green Dream. Normally, he would have felt inclined to assign a couple of Larkinson ships to escort the precious cargo over to where the Aduc Family was terraforming its latest planet, but right now was a sensitive time. "It won't be long before we can finally kick off the Trailblazer Expedition!" The Golden Skull Alliance had prepared for this massive endeavor for many years. This was plenty of time to get everything ready and prepare everything the three alliance partners intended to bring on this expedition. There was no case of missing essential materials or running short on supplies. If Ves wanted to, he could order the combined fleet to start off the expedition early and depart within a matter of days! "Have I truly taken care of everything? What did I still miss?" As Ves spent his time on preparing for the approaching start of his much-anticipated journey to the deeper parts of the new frontier, Calabast dropped by his office to inform him of a surprising development. "An old friend of yours has arrived in Davute." Ves looked up from his desk with a questioning glance. "I have a lot of so-called old friends. Some of them even traveled to Davute over the years in order to freeload off my clan. Which one are you talking about?" 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶 The spymaster smirked as she leaned on the side of his desk. She reached out her hand to stroke Lucky's back. "Meow…" "This friend is a little different, Ves. He's a Fridayman that you know personally. Does that narrow it down enough for you, or do you need more hints?" Ves fell silent as he quickly went through a list of names. There weren't many male Fridaymen that he knew in person, and many of them had turned into his enemies. "Given your words and given how few of them I considered as my friends, I can only come up with two possible names. It's either Oleg Vorn of Tristan Wesseling." "It's the latter." "Oh."