Chapter 6632 Sudden Advancements When Ves and Ketis emerged from the System Space again, they had come out for real. Both mech designers had spent a lot of time away from reality and felt disconnected from the rest of the universe. Neither of them let that bother them. They had plenty of time to anticipate their situations upon their return to the main universe. Rather than feeling all dramatic over their lack of integration into the current timeline, they decided to make more productive use of their time by converting much of their gains during the marathon into real contributions to society. Ketis had brought out the Bitter Scimitar and planned to introduce it to her husband, However, she first had to handle the recall of the 'recently' released Stormblade Samurai Mark II. She needed to act as quickly as possible and replace existing mechs with copies of an updated version of the commercial design that reflected her latest swordsmanship attainments! Her next priority was to use her close relationship with the Red Swordsmanship Federation to quickly recognize the enormous value of her Manual of Reformed Swordsmanship. The sooner other sword practitioners became convinced of her new theories, the sooner they would begin to unlock their greater potential. Existing swordmasters should be especially keen on adopting her new teachings! As long as they agreed that her new teachings could potentially lead them onto the path of becoming a sword saint, her new School of Reformed Swordsmanship would definitely become the main orthodoxy of the swordsmanship community! Ketis believed that real changes could take place within a week. What was even more important was to convince people outside of the swordsmanship community that her theories were relevant in other cases as well. The obvious similarities between sword practitioners and mech pilots meant that the latter could also use the theories as a guide to promote their breakthroughs! Ves offered to intercede on her behalf by using his contacts within the Red Association and the Red Collective to bring the Manual of Reformed Swordsmanship to their attention, but she declined. "My influence is not small these days. I can definitely make these organizations take my teachings seriously." "What if they don't?" "Then they will find themselves left behind when their more open-minded rivals and competitors make more progress." Ketis smirked. That was a good argument. As long as her theories were accurate enough, those who took them seriously would definitely be able to produce more breakthroughs! Ves meanwhile became busy with his own affairs. He had several main concerns. First, he had to add the completed Null Project to the database of the Design Department and urge the Living Mech Corporation to quickly start production of both the commercial version and the Larkinson-exclusive version. Many production lines were already busy with mass producing the Yellow Jacket mechs, but so many third-party producers had already licenced the design that it was better if the LMC shifted its focus back to more premium mech models. A lot of people including his own wife became surprised that Ves seemingly whipped out a solo mech design out of his butt from nowhere. He had not talked about the Null Project nor shown any sign of working on it in the past. few months! This was strange as the design most definitely incorporated much of the latest developments in hyper technology and so on. Ves even classified the Null Project as a previously unheard of seventh generation of living mechs! "How did you find the time to design this mech?" Gloriana asked with a mixture of perplexment and suspicion in her voice. "Did you secretly slack off while you were supposed to be working on the Swarm Project and the Amaranto Mark III Project to work on a solo mech design project by yourself?" "Not exactly." Ves defended himself. "You underestimate my power. I have more incarnations out there than Blinky and Vulcan. As the inventor of companion spirits, it is not unreasonable to think that I can create more off-shoots of myself, I might not be able to integrate a fancy cranial implant suite that is augmented by the fragments of a Mentalist Crystal like you, but I have my own ways to increase my productivity." That was all technically true, but his argument was not necessarily related to how he was able to complete the Null Project in recent times. His wife did not bother to inquire further. She instead devoted her attention to the Null Project and wondered what made it special. "Please explain the details of your seventh generation living mech technology to me. I have yet to notice any difference." "I am not surprised. It is mostly E-technology, after all. Let me begin with the integration of teaching services..." Once Ves got his own Design Department and mech company to accept the Null Project that seemingly dropped out of nowhere, he then proceeded to lay the groundwork to upgrading the MSTS to the Elemental Universe. Ves and Ketis had already completed a lot of work on the redesign of the Mental Simulation Training System inside the System Space. Alas, the two could not reinvent the MSTS and expand its scope by themselves. This was why Ves waited until he came out of the System Space to quickly set up a working group in order to hire, commission and coordinate all of the additional workers responsible for fleshing out the plans and blueprints of the ambitious Elemental Universe. If the work proceeded smoothly enough, the initial version of the Elemental Universe should be ready for testing within a couple of months. Ves felt a little disappointed that it would take so long to redesign the MSTS, but the process should not be rushed. A mistake could easily threaten the mental health of mech pilots and could also leave a permanent bad impression behind. He and his clan needed to do this correctly in order to maintain a high degree of trust towards his solutions. His third concern was to handle the remaining gu containers of the first batch. Demon Mixer 2 and Demon Mixer 5 had already produced results. Demon Mixer 3 spent the same amount of time in the System Space as the previous two demimechs, yet its ritual was still ongoing. It appeared that stuffing 80 Minor Demons inside the rudimentary gu container significantly extended the completion time. Unless the resulting Middle Demon acquired a lot more power or gained interesting new abilities, it did not sound worthwhile to engage in gu cultivation with so many specimens! If the results produced by Demon Mixer 5 could be replicated by following the exact same formula, then the most optimal recipe that Ves could follow was to mix 40 Minor Demons with 100,000 regular souls! The amounts were still considerably high, but as long as Helena continued to deliver her harvests, it shouldn't be a problem to scale up production. The biggest problem was time. Unless Ves went on another lengthy marathon, it would probably take 6 to 9 months for the new Demon Mixers to produce their Middle Demons! "Ugh. There has to be another way to speed up this ritual." Ves grumbled. He already entertained the idea of improving and upgrading the design of the Demon Mixer. If the gu container became better, it should theoretically be able to produce better and faster demon gu cultivation results. Ves could think about that later. For now, he needed to check on the state of the current experimental gu containers. Alas, neither Demon Mixer 1 nor Demon Mixer 4 appeared to be ready to present their results anytime soon. That was not a surprise since almost no time had passed in the main universe since he last stowed them away. Demon Mixer 1 only contained 20 Minor Demons, so it shouldn't take too long for the ritualistic culling to reach its end. Demon Mixer 4 contained 20 Minor Demons as well as 10,000 uncorrupted souls. This added a nice contrast to Demon Mixer 1 and allowed Ves to make direct comparison between their results. By looking at the differences in their performance, Ves would be able to gain a much better idea on how the addition of extra souls would affect the demon gu cultivation process. Based on the previous results, Ves no longer expected Demon Mixer 1 and Demon Mixer 4 to produce a Middle Demon. The most likely result would be a variation of what came out of the jar of Demon Mixer 2, a strengthened Minor Demon. Ves still predicted that Demon Mixer 3 would produce another Middle Demon, but the lengthy wait made it too time-consuming to rely on this formula. His preliminary conclusion so far was that using Minor Demons likely promoted the strength of the surviving demon by a large extent, but also increased the time it took for the demon gu cultivation process to complete. Mixing in a lot of regular souls provided a weaker boost to the strength of the surviving demon, but did not. out the ritual to a large extent. Therefore, the best formula should mix both demons and regular souls to achieve an optimal balance between duration, strength and resource burden. His ultimate goal was to create the most efficient possible approach to mass produce Middle Demons! In order to prepare for this ambitious goal, Ves had already taken the initiative to contact the T Institute in order to explore the potential sites where he wanted to set up this strategically important facility. It was important to set up this special facility as soon as possible in order to begin the production of Middle Demons as soon as possible. While Ves remained relatively optimistic about the future output of his upcoming 'D Facility, all of this hinged on the assumption that the output of the demon gu cultivation process remained relatively consistent. What if this was not the case? What if Demon Mixer 2 had a large chance of producing a Minor Demon as opposed to Middle Demon under similar conditions? If this was the case, then Ves would probably end up with fewer Middle Demons than he wished! 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖 "Should I add a safety margin?" He could make a decision after obtaining the results of the other Demon Mixers. Once Ves placed the currently active Demon Mixers back into their cages, he went over his list of tasks and confirmed that he had completed the most urgent tasks in the new frontier. He could finally take a break and catch his breath, Even though he didn't look like it, he truly missed the times he spent with his family and his clan. So many days had passed by that Ves truly felt as if he had gotten out of sync with the rest of human society. Aside from Ketis, Ves felt alienated from everyone else! It was as if he was a time traveler surrounded by people from a past timeline! It would take a considerable amount of time and effort for Ves to shake off this sense of disconnect and reintegrate himself into the present. At this point, Gloriana was getting closer to uncovering the truth. Ves could practically feel her mind spinning as she connected a lot of dots together. The fact that Ketis exhibited similar anomalous behavior back in the expeditionary fleet did not escape her attention either. Ves frequently casted doubt on Gloriana's opinions and judgment, but he never thought she was stupid. The clues were a bit too big this time, so it was only a matter of time before she pieced together the existence of a hidden trump card! Once Gloriana deduced this much, she would begin to question why Ves shared his mysterious trump card with Ketis before he ever thought about introducing it to his own wife! While Ves dreaded this conversation, he knew he had to get over it sooner or later. He seriously needed to think about whether he should allow Gloriana to enter the System in the near future.