Chapter 6573 Maximum Resource Utilization As the two mech designers expressed their opinions towards each other, it became clear that one of them was way more committed to an upgrade track than the other. Ves sounded more and more determined to select Demoncasting as the next evolution of the Mech Designer System! Ketis let out an exasperated breath. She saw less and less hope of being able to convince him to settle for Five Elements Mastery instead. "While your arguments sound logical and rational, I feel as if they don't weigh as much as your emotional preference towards Demoncasting." The female mech designer expressed. "You have completely surrendered to your shiny toy syndrome" "Is that even a thing?" "It is. I specifically looked it up, you know. It describes your behavior surprisingly well. To put it simply, if you are given a choice to play with a superior toy that you are already familiar with, or an inferior toy that you have never encountered before, you will choose to play with the latter 10 out of 10 times because it is 'shinier' in your eyes!" ...That sounds about right." Ves admitted. "That is not supposed to be a compliment, Ves! It is a description of a fault! It might sound trivial as long as we are talking about toys, but when it comes to a subject as important as preparing red humanity against the terrible enemies on the horizon, the consequences of making the wrong decision are much more severe! Why are you not taking this more seriously?!" Ves raised his palm. "Calm down, Ketis! I am not taking this lightly. Look, I thought we already ascertained that none of the three upgrade tracks are obviously good or bad. The System wouldn't scam us that way. The stakes are high, but even if we choose Superdimensional Transformation, we won't be sabotaging ourselves. We can still make ourselves stronger and achieve better results. Since this is the case, I don't think it is a mistake if we go for Five Element Mastery or Demoncasting. They both have very different pros and cons, but their overall value is so close to each other that what advantages the former has is not decisive enough to commit to it right away. Once we have exhausted the avenues for logic, we can let our feelings and intuition lead the way. Right now, both of them are screaming for me to accept Demoncasting." Ketis looked at Ves as if he was a stimulant addict who had gone too far. He was completely hopeless. "Let me ask you a question, Ketis. Do you truly object so much to Demoncasting?" "Just as you are letting your judgment get swayed by your own feelings, I am also affected by my distate for it. I know it doesn't entirely make sense when I explain it, but I do not think that we should cross certain lines no matter the circumstance. I know that the survival of red humanity is at stake, but if we allow these 'demon arms' to corrupt us to the point where we are no different from the evil beings we professed to control, then I would rather die like a human than live like a demon." Ves looked completely unimpressed. "You don't really mean that." "Are you questioning my honor?" Ketis indignantly shot back. "No. I merely don't believe that you or anyone but the most delusional people is truly willing to refrain from resorting to dirty methods if that is what they need to rely upon to save everyone's hives. Even if you don't care too much about your own life, think about your loved ones. Think about your husband Joshua. Does he deserve to suffer and die just because you refuse to cast him the best possible demon sword that you can cast?" "Do not Devil Tongue me, Ves." Ketis hissed. "Using my family against me is a low blow." "I don't think what I am saying is wrong, and I wasn't finished yet. Joshua is hardly the ony person affected by your reticence. Think about your children. Kirian appears determined to follow his parents and become a swordsman and mech pilot. Will you allow him to risk his life in battle with weaker equipment? What if he ends up getting killed because his arms did not give him the edge he needed to win a bout against the enemy? Then there is Mayra, who looks like she is shaping up to become a mech designer. While that will keep her far from the fighting, there is no way to run when the aliens have destroyed everything and are determined to hunt down the remnants of a defeated race." Perhaps the reason why Ketis accused Ves of pulling off a low blow was because this line of attack was difficult to resolve. "If we go for Five Elements Mastery, then we won't have to grapple with this problem." Ketis finally retorted. "Besides, Five Elements Mastery is much easier to spread to the masses. This is what we should care about as mech designers." "I don't think so." Ves shook his head. "You are not wrong about how many people we can affect, but I can turn this argument around. Do you think that everything related to the five elements is fine and dandy? Each of them can be used to create horrendous travesties. From concentrating lots of fire energy to reproduce the explosion of a nuclear bomb, to using earth energy to generate an earthquake that can collapse an entire city, there are many ways to misuse this knowledge. The potential for abuse is great. The Red Collective cannot completely prevent such incidents from happening. While the ripple effects of Demoncasting are also rather serious, what is different is that we can control the scale as long as we are the only providers of demon arms." "Doesn't the limitation on replicability restrict the usefulness of Demoncasting? There is also the source of demons to consider. We cannot possibly save an entire civilization if we are only able to create a few dozen demon arms." Ves grinned. "Wrong again. We can go for quality instead of quantity. Five Elements Mastery is much more beneficial to the masses, but even if we can make standard mechs three or four times stronger than today, will that make a difference against an alien enemy that is more powerful than a god pilot? They will still be ants in front of such an unimaginably powerful opponent. We need to focus on strengthening our strongest champions instead. If Demoncasting is effective for god mechs, we can elevate their attack power so that they can inflict actual harm onto an enemy that they cannot possibly defeat on their own. As long as there are enough god pilots with weapons that break the boundary, we may be able to drive away the invaders from Messier 87." "That... sounds somewhat plausible, but I believe that can only be accomplish if we obtain the strongest possible demons. After all, the System itself has stated that the product of Demoncasting is far more dependent on the nature of the demon than the material properties of the vessel. Do you think it is easy to gather so many powerful demons?" "It is possible. We either have to earn a huge amount of AP, which gets easier if we invite a lot more mech designers to join the System, or kill a lot of aliens and harvest. their souls. Wait." "What is it, Ves?" "Give me a minute. I just realized that this isn't as big of a problem as I thought." "Huh?" While Ketis looked flabbergasted, Ves suddenly started to grin when he thought about a location that contained a lot of life! How did he not realize this before?! Well, he did register this piece of information on a factual level, but it was only now that he recognized its potential as a huge deposit of raw materials! The Milky Way was filled with life! The entire galaxy was teeming with human and alien individuals! Although wars were rather frequent in the old galaxy, their scale were so much smaller that four centuries of relative calm and stability had caused a lot of species to multiply their numbers. Humanity had completely recovered from the ravages of the Age of Conquest and had become more prosperous than ever. As for the aliens living on the other side of the Milky Way, they had suffered devastating losses in the earlier periods of the Age of Conquest, but enough time had passed for them to rebuild their empires and replenish their population in most cases. All of this meant that the galaxy was teeming with souls, each of which represented a valuable resource! The problem was that it took a bit of effort to harvest these souls. Yet hadn't Veronica and Master Willix worked day and night to rush the Rule Breaker Project to completion? At this stage, the first Carmine mech to be introduced to the completely unprepared masses of original humanity was only a few weeks away from mass proliferation. The Rule Breaker Project was originally meant to serve as a catalyst for mass wars and growing instability, so it neatly fell in line with his new intentions! What was also great about this upcoming Carmine mass production mech design that he could use it as a vehicle to harvest a lot of souls! He just had to add Helena as a secondary design spirit to the mech design! She would only have one job as the second design spirit of the Rule Breaker Project. She just needed to harvest the souls of anyone who died in the vicinity of the machine, up to and including the Carmine mech pilot himself if he ever croaked! In fact, Helena shouldn't let the spiritual foundation of the Carmine mech go either! In any case, if the pilot had died, the Carmine mech would become useless, so Helena might as well put the living mech out of its misery and reap its life! This was maximum resource utilization on a scale that was unthinkable in the new frontier! The Milky Way was around 64 times bigger than the Red Ocean, so Ves could loosely estimate that it was 64 times more populous! Ves didn't even have to bother to harvest souls in the Red Ocean because so many more would soon be ripe for the taking in the Milky Way! It was only now that his goals almost became completely aligned with the Oblivion Gate Consortium. His mother and the other conspirators wanted to engulf the Milky Way into war and strife in order to topple the Big Two and erect a new order, preferably with them in charge. Ves just wanted to cause war for war's sake! The greater the killing, the greater the profit! No matter whether they were human, alien or machine, Ves wanted to claim them all! mech or arms! Though Ves felt sorry for the people of the old galaxy, his sympathy for them was not as great as his sympathy for the people of red humanity. He could only save one group of people. If he was forced to make a choice, then he would always choose the group that encompassed most of his friends and family! Ves did not hesitate any longer. He suddenly burst out into laughter! "Hahahahaha, I get it now! This option is tailor-made for my circumstances! I can get much more out of it than the other ones! There's no need to think about it any further! System, I choose Upgrade Track #2: Demoncasting!" "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, VES?!" Ketis reacted with great alarm as Ves locked in his favored choice without explaning himself any further! Even if his mind had already been set on this choice, Ketis still believed she could make him reconsider if she was persuasive enough. She even thought about betraying his trust and selecting Five Element Mastery before Ves could lock in the final decision. Unfortunately, Ves had moved too quickly for her to succeed! "The salvation of red humanity is in my grasp! Now that I can tap into a nearly endless supply of souls, I can Demoncast all of the mechs and equipment that I want! The Age of Demons shall record the rise of red humanity! Hahahahahaha! Hahahahahaha! HAHAHAHAHA!"