Ves did not pay too much attention to the follow-up operations after the battle. His clan and his subordinates took care of all of the chores. They interrogated the surviving aliens, extracted relevant intelligence from the captured data banks, salvaged any materials that were of high value or immediate use and prepared the remaining salvaged warships and wreckage for sale. The matter of processing and selling the captured alien warships was a matter of great importance. The value of any reasonably intact vessel had shot up remarkably. Even a fairly awful wheednar cruiser could easily be sold for hundreds of thousands of MTA credits as long as the vessel did not have too many holes and retained the ability to traverse across the stars. Broken wreckage was much less valuable but could still be sold for tens of thousands of MTA credits with ease. However, it was not so easy to arrange shipping and delivery. It cost a lot to transport high-value salvage from the riskier side of the Torald Middle Zone. Many salvage and transportation companies outright refused to send any of their fleets this deep into a dangerous region! As the Golden Skull Alliance tried to figure out whether it was better to digest all of the salvage internally or sell them to a third party at an enormous discount, the Glory Seekers suddenly offered an alternate solution. Marshal Ariadne Wodin stood up at the virtual conference table. "The Hex Federation is willing to purchase the hulls and wreckage at 5 percent above the highest offer that we have received so far. The colonial state is willing to pay more to obtain the orven battleship in a state that is as complete and undamaged as possible. The Hexers will take full responsibility over the salvage that we are leaving behind. They will dispatch their salvage and recovery fleets to bring the hulls back to their colonial state in the Magair Middle Zone." That was a surprising offer. Although 5 percent did not sound so much, it meant that the Larkinson Clan would be able to gain that much more money to fund the construction of future quasi-first-class mechs! None of the other leaders had any objection to the Hex Federation's generous offer. They just wanted to get rid of the spoils that would only slow them down and continue on their expedition. "Why is the Hex Federation willing to spend so much money and invest so many ships and mechs to obtain our prizes?" Ves skeptically asked. "There are multiple reasons for that." The leader of the Glory Seekers openly responded with a grin. "We need starships, just like everyone else. The Hex Federation has many shipyards at its disposal, and it is faster to hollow out an existing hull and convert the interior into a carrier configuration than to construct a starship from scratch. It also saved the colonial state from trying to obtain a large amount of scarce and pricy alloys and materials. With the Fridaymen, the aliens of the Red Ocean and even greater threats on the horizon, the Hex Army must undergo an enormous expansion in order to keep up. Civilian needs must take a backseat in order to increase the militarization of our colonial state." That made sense. The council of matriarchs decided to pull out all of the stops to ensure the continuation of their people and culture. Ves thought there was more behind this demand, though. The alien hulls all consisted of warships. While it was not impossible to convert them into carriers, the amount of time and labor needed to do so were not small! "Let me guess. The Hexers want to study actual alien warships in order to learn how to build their own, is that correct?" Marshal Ariadne smirked. "Every serious colonial state is doing the same. We foresee that the Red CFA's latest initiative may be just the prelude. As the war against the native aliens continues to intensify, our society may develop in a direction that will lower the thresholds and requirements to owning warships. Mechs have great potential, but it will likely take a large amount of time before they can become strong enough to crush the aliens. Competitive warships can be constructed with greater ease, but the Hex Federation and many other states have never designed and built them in reality. The shipwrights and naval engineers all need existing examples of functional warships to quickly get up to speed and design effective warships" "I see." While it was interesting to know what the Hexers had in mind for the captured alien warships, it didn't really matter to the alliance partners. They just wanted to get their money! Everyone voted in favor of accepting the Hex Federation's offer. The expeditionary fleet only needed to stick around long enough for a third-party mercenary outfit contracted by the Hexers to arrive and babysit the valuable hulls. After presiding over a bunch of meetings in order to arrange various affairs, Ves finally had an opportunity to return to the Design Department and call for a general meeting. Every lead designer of the Larkinson Clan entered the meeting room and waited for their leader to tell them what he had in mind this time. "Hello again, everyone." Ves greeted his Journeymen. "I am sure that many of you are still working on completing the projects that you have been working on for a couple of months, but all of you should have plenty of room to accommodate new design projects. Before you propose your own ideas, let me tell you what I want our department to prioritize in the following years." He began to explain the new standard that Ves wanted to apply to the Larkinson Army. Every elite mech designed in the future had to be a quasi-first-class transphasic mech with much more superior performance in every parameter. "That will cost a lot of phasewater, Ves." Ketis stated the obvious. "I am talking about thousands of kilograms of phasewater." "We can afford it. I am confident in that. We just have to keep doing what we have always done and steal the resources we need from the aliens." "Our ability to utilize phasewater is still too low." Juliet Stameros mentioned. "We are spending as much of our spare time on studying phasewater theory and other related subjects, but it will take years for us to obtain the basic proficiencies needed to develop and implement transphasic parts and systems in an efficient manner. Until then, we will have to rely heavily on consultants and external development companies to make up for our lack of competency." The latter was convenient but not ideal in terms of information security. Still, Ves would rather have a strong and exposed mech at hand than the opposite! Secrecy meant nothing once the stronger aliens of the Red Ocean as well as M87 started to confront the Larkinson Clan! "Times have changed." He said to everyone. "We are about to enter into a period of unprecedented danger. We need to build up our strength no matter the cost, and if we have to increase our reliance on external developers, then so be it. Besides, we are not as helpless as you think. As long as we all specialize in one transphasic system, we can work together to meet our needs in-house as much as possible. I have a pretty good talent in working with phasewater and transphasic systems myself." Ves elaborated a bit more about what he wanted to see in the Larkinson mechs of the next generation. He briefly touched upon his goal of expanding on their spiritual design so that they would make much better use of E energy radiation than any of his current mechs. Beatrice Hendrix, the latest Journeyman Mech Designer to sign up with the Larkinson Clan, looked increasingly more thoughtful. "You are describing a new mech ecosystem, one that places a strong emphasis on both phasewater technology and living mechs. None of us can design any of the mechs that you demand without your cooperation. Your design philosophy must play a central role in each of the Larkinson mechs of this standard." Ves actually never thought about it in this way, but now that he thought about it, Beatrice had a good point. While a complete mech ecosystem also imposed additional requirements such as trying to make their parts and materials as common and universal as possible, the rest matched up with the classical definition. He smiled. "I guess you are right, Beatrice. I think we can proceed with this premise. The mech ecosystem that I am proposing is not just a simple upgrade wave. It is an ambitious attempt to harness the two most important resources of the Red Ocean and M87 into a series of mech designs that can derive untold power from both." "It is a good idea." Gloriana said as she backed her husband up. "Human technology will still serve as our base, but that will not allow us to develop the mechs we need. If we want to gain more strength, we must study the basis of the power of alien gods. Phase whales and phase lords reign over the Red Ocean for good reasons. Messier 87 will undoubtedly have their own variety of gods. Both varieties of alien divinities can crush us with ease because our mechs are too weak and mundane. If we want to become strong enough to resist them openly, we must elevate our own mechs into gods!" "..." "..." Although everyone found it difficult to embrace Gloriana's argument, her logic was sound, more or less. Even if Ves and the others scoffed at the notion of creating artificial gods that could compete against any actual alien gods, it was undoubtedly essential to make sure their next mech designs were a lot stronger than their existing ones! Ves clapped his hand. "Anyway, now that I have explained my vision for our new mech ecosystem, I would like to hear proposals. What ideas do you have?" "You need to name your new ecosystem." Gloriana mentioned. "It will make it easier for us and our end users to distinguish between our older generation and newer generation mechs." "Hmmm... let me think about it further. I haven't thought about it yet." He said. The only mech ecosystem he had been involved in was the LaVoi System that he created in cooperation with Professor Taigen Herman Voiken. However, Ves had minimal involvement with it after he completed the Pacifier design. The Senior Mech Designer from the Voiken Family took over the rest of the work and largely turned the ecosystem into his own playground. This was different. Ves wanted to create a serious mech ecosystem that not only exclusively served the Larkinsons, but fully belonged to them as well! He already had a few bold ideas on how he could empower and add more distinctive traits to his mech ecosystem. He just needed to consult with his mother and maybe check out a few enlightenment fruits dangling from the Tree of Possibilities to figure out whether he could realize his latest creative ideas. "Alright, let's not get too distracted." Ves said as he tried to get this meeting back on track. "I want to hear actual mech proposals this time. Please take the context of our future situation as well as the latest battle in mind. We urgently need a series of strong mechs that can help us defeat alien warships with greater ease and with much less casualties. I don't mind upgrading our existing mech models to the standards of our new mech ecosystem, but we need to add more to them in order to maximize our utilization of expensive materials. Our skills have improved and we have greater access to high-end resources. Many second-class mech designers would kill to have the opportunity to design such powerful mechs." This was an opportunity for every mech designer to work on mechs they could only dream about. Mechs as strong as the current iteration of the Bright Warrior and Valkyrie Redeemer did not cut it anymore. Not even the powerful Nullifier model satisfied Ves anymore! The ideal mechs of the Larkinson Clan had to use up a lot more phasewater and possess a lot more spiritual features in order to be ready to overcome any future threats!