Life in the expeditionary fleet returned to a routine. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞 The aftermath of the Battle of the Boryan Belt had already passed. Many damaged mechs had been restored to satisfactory condition while replacement mechs already made up for the ones that got destroyed. The mech pilots that got killed by the alien pirates were much more painful to replace, but life had to go on. The Larkinson Army maintained an ample reserve of replacements. Enough of them seamlessly slotted into the understrength mech units. It would probably take months for the different mech squads and mech companies to regain their high degree of coordination and synergy. No one was sure whether another battle would erupt before the mech pilots could reach that level again, but no one was willing to bet that they would be left alone. Either an enemy would bump into them and force them into a fight, or their clan patriarch would proactively lead them into a preventable battle. That was how it always went, and everyone was pretty much used to it. Even their alliance partners pretty much took this for granted. Everything was okay so long as the Golden Skull Alliance kept winning! Ves could literally lead them all into the jaws of a phase whale and still maintain everyone's loyalty! As the fleet slowly moved towards the direction where Lord Pearian Yorul-Tavik might be found, the different clansmen were doing their best to prepare for what the future might bring. The mech pilots all focused on training while the mech designers attended to their various duties. Ves reviewed the ongoing design projects at this time. He quietly scanned through the design logs and status reports in order to get up to speed with the latest developments. "Hm, we are catching up to our original schedule again. That's good. The previous operation has delayed us by several weeks, but I am glad that the rewards we have obtained from the previous battle isn't slowing us down." His wife nodded. She sat next to him as she held Marvaine in her arms. "We have a lot more manpower than before. As much as we wish to spend our time on studying all of the alien technology that we have salvaged from the previous battle, there are not enough mech designers who can perform our design work in our stead. It is much better to leave the technical analyses to other scientists and engineers and wait for them to draw their conclusions." This was the approach that the Larkinsons had chosen, and it was working out to an extent. Ves actually preferred to study all of the fascinating alien tech himself. He had gone on a day-long tour in fact so that he could see all of the fascinating warship and starfighter remnants up close. He was hoping that there might be tech or material among the wreckage that were spiritually reactive. He hadn't found anything significant, much to his disappointment. The natives of the Red Ocean did not have any interest in pursuing a purely spiritual path of goodhood, unlike the races back in the Milky Way. It was all about phasewater to them. This worked out well enough for the indigenous alien races, but it was not that great to Ves. Although Ves had become initiated into the ways of phasewater after his recent sublimation, he was still a spiritual engineer. If he wanted to create more permanent works that combined the power of spirituality with more material products, then he needed to get his hands on more spiritually reactive materials. The good news was that everything he had learned as of late introduced him to numerous different ways he could solve this problem. From hunting down different whale species to growing organic metals that were baptized with enriched blood, Ves came up with all manner of potential solutions. He had already tasked the Larkinson Biotech Institute and T Institute in exploring the more viable ones. Hopefully they would soon start their efforts to see whether his ideas had any merit. For now, Ves needed to focus most of his attention on his design projects. His massive upgrade to his cognitive functions had drastically accelerated his progress. So much so that he was making at least three times as much progress on a slower day and five times as much progress on a better day! The drastic improvement in productivity made life much more convenient for Ves, but it also drew the ire of a certain jealous wife. Though Gloriana did her best to remain composed, Ves could easily sense her growing feelings of jealousy and envy. It was in her nature to be superior and as perfect as possible. She might tolerate losing to Ves on matters that were secondary to her interests, but she absolutely couldn't stomach any instance where she was losing to Ves in designing mechs! During the past week, Ves not only got a lot more work done than her, but the depth and sophistication of design solutions had also experienced a noticeable jump! This was a change that astonished Gloriana the most. Many of the elements that Ves designed as of late not only displayed a greater understanding of highly complicated scientific theories, but also showed a better mastery of all of the different tech. These were all signs that Ves had not only acquired a lot of new and foreign scientific knowledge, but also become a lot more adept at utilizing what he had already learned. The rapid progress of the Dullahan Project was proof of that. He managed to advance beyond the original schedule, all the while squeezing a rudimentary Empowered Blood Sharing System into the incomplete design. "You have moved so far ahead with the Dullahan Project that your work has gone out of sync with the rest of us." Gloriana complained. "We are all aware that you are in a hurry, but this is still a collaborative design project. Sara Voiken, Tifi Coslone and I still have to complete our own design tasks before we can catch up to you. Why don't you spend more time on your other projects instead?" "I'm already doing that." Ves sighed. "I can work on multiple different projects at the same time. I can even spare a thread of concentration to read through an advanced textbook as well while I'm at it. It's just that I will encounter the same problems all over again. The only project where I can work at my own pace is the Eye Project, and that is only because Cormaunt Hempkamp is only responsible for designing a custom neural interface and tweaking the control systems to better convey precise and rapid aim adjustments." His wife pulled up the current iteration of the Eye Project. She soon became shocked as she saw how much progress he made in a short amount of time! "Wow!" Marvaine clapped his tiny hands as he bounced on his mother's lap. "It's papa's rifleman mech!" "That it is, my dear." Gloriana absently spoke as she scrutinized the work that Ves had done to the machine. "This mech design... is halfway done!" "That's right." "We initially expected that it would take you half a year or a little less to complete a relatively simple, budget-conscious commercial rifleman mech, but this is ridiculous!" Ves grinned. "Simple mech design projects don't slow me down as much as before. I can easily design them in my sleep. They're not so challenging to you either. The main reason why it takes so long to complete them is that there is a lot of tedious design work that is not particularly complex but takes a lot of mental processes to figure out the right solutions. My recent upgrades happen to accelerate this quality of mine." She understood what he was talking about. She managed to get a closer glimpse of his new and vastly improved consciousness during the most recent times they connected their minds with each other. If the previous Ves could be likened to an overactive teenager that suffered from a particularly bad case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, then the new and improved Ves could be compared to a demigod that was just coming into his powers! The changes in competence was great, though much to Gloriana's disappointment his temperament hadn't shifted as much. She wanted his strength. She wanted to experience the same evolution that Ves had enjoyed for reasons that he refused to share. She wanted to stop getting outshined by her husband and rival. Gloriana had no idea how she could experience the same kind of improvement as Ves, but she vowed to keep working on this matter until she finally regained parity with her life partner! "When will you be done with the Eye Project?" She asked. "It shouldn't take more than a month or a month-and-a-half." He replied. "It's a relatively conventional marksman mech all considered. There is no requirement to stuff any expensive or technologically advanced gizmos into the design. The only gimmick that allows it to become a lot more effective in battle is Vulcan's glow, and that doesn't require much time and effort on my part." "Will you release it onto the market right away?" "I'm not sure, Gloriana. I'm even thinking about adding a few more elements to what should otherwise be a plain mech design." "Don't tell me you want to add blood to Eye Project." "Absolutely not!" Ves shook his head. "It doesn't make much sense to do so. The Eye Project is too cheap and lacking in performance to serve as any mech pilot's lifelong battle partner. Any individual who has outgrown the Eye Project should move on to better and more powerful ranged mechs. I don't want to shackle those pilots to an affordable frame. By that time, any pilot who is able to promote to a better machine will have built up the skills to recognize the weak points of an enemy machine without needing to rely on Vulcan's expert guidance." The Eye Project may be boring to Ves, but it had the qualifications to become a bestseller on the open market! Adding it to the LMC's mech catalog would help expand his mech company's business reach. It was bound to open new doors and help with paving the way for further expansions. It also had the added bonus of providing a lot of spiritual feedback to Vulcan. Once Gloriana got up to date on the Eye Project, she turned her attention to the Ghost Project. "We haven't made as much progress on the expert stealth mech that is reserved for Venerable Zimro Belson." She said. "Not only are you taking your time with retooling the primary stealth system, you are also doing something weird with Master Benedict Cortez." "That's correct. I apologize for the diversion, but I am doing my best to keep the delays to a minimum." "...Well?" "Well what?" Ves looked confused. "Are you going to explain what you are plotting with Master Benedict?!" Gloriana demanded. "It's too early to tell. I still need to wait for Professor Benedict's answer before I know that we can proceed with this new idea." He replied. "All I can say is that I have a new idea on how I can utilize my expertise to improve the performance of his Original Energy Bridge System." Gloriana reacted with disgust. "Are you still set on using the skull of an actual expert pilot to form an energy bridge inside the Ghost Project?" "Those stealth systems demand a lot of energy to function to a degree where it can hide itself from the high-quality sensor systems of other expert mechs. The Endex System that is made out of substitute materials won't cut it. Besides, we happen to have the head of a Fridayman expert pilot on hand. It's doing nothing while it is in its current space. I might as well make good use of this resource to empower one of our more important expert mechs." Ves grinned. If he had his way, then the Ghost Project would embody its code name in more ways than one!