Chapter 6739: A Gift to Red Humanity

เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 มี.ค. 2569 17:22

The spontaneous exploration of the 365th dimension completely disrupted the schedules of many people in the Davute System and beyond. Ever since the bigshots found out that the tear in space led to a dimension that was potentially filled with the same matter that made Saint Piercer arms so incredibly deadly, a huge effort went underway to exploit this temporary miracle as much as possible! The first shuttles that passed through were ordinary scout shuttles, troop shuttles and mining shuttles that the Larkinson Clan and other nearby forces had on hand. That changed soon enough. The Colonial Federation of Davute and the Red Three had been caught off guard, but that did not stump them for long. The best designers they had available quickly designed a very specific mining vessel and fabricated it with all of the materializers and superfabs they had available in the Davute System. Soon enough, purpose-built vessels that looked like extremely long passenger vehicles started to approach the tear in space and pass right through. Each of them possessed a cross-section that was almost 20 meters tall and 5 meters wide. Their length varied, with the longest one measuring well up to 150 meters! The RF probably would have preferred to make them even longer than that if there weren’t any concerns about unknown threats and environmental hazards. The newly fabricated ’shuttles’ consisted almost entirely of harvesting and mining vehicles. Their considerable volumes granted them more than enough capacity to efficiently harvest a huge amount of matter that could only be found in the Blue Dimension. Ketis was rather perplexed as she witnessed all of this activity taking place. Hours had passed by since she initially entered the Blue Dimension. Her sword aura kept herself and whoever was close at hand protected from the pervasive pressure exerted by the environment. In fact, it was not just Ketis that was able to resist the unknown effect. Particularly good swordsmen and sword initiates were able to more effectively resist the pressure of the mysterious energy field as well. The Larkinson Clan happened to have a lot of them, so many of them had been drafted to act as temporary mining workers and security guards. Ketis had not bothered to explore the mysterious dimension any further. She continued to stand on top of a shuttle as she witnessed the huge man-made effort to steal away as much of the floating blue island as possible within the 24-hour timeframe. The dedicated mining shuttles possessed all manner of devices and mechanisms that allowed them to break off pieces of soil and shove them into their sizable cargo bays. All of it happened to be transphasic. The initial attempt to dig through the island ended in abject failure. All of the drills and blades wore down and broke far too easily when digging through the superdimensional rock and dirt. People quickly discovered that only transphasic tools could resist the accelerated erosion effect, and even that was limited depending on how much phasewater saturated the mining equipment. This effectively locked out the poorer and more grassroots entrepreneurs and organizations from taking advantage of this bounty. Only the bigger players such as the state and the Red Three were able to harvest a huge amount of superdimensional matter from the Blue Dimension. That did not mean that the smaller groups and outfits gave up, though. Some of them had taken to harvesting the blue gasses as they became convinced they could develop a useful purpose for it somehow. Others chose to venture deeper into Dimension #365. They either sought new treasures, encountered native beasts or found other superdimensional islands before coming back to sell the coordinates to an interested party. Out of respect for ’the Heavensword’ for creating this unimaginably valuable portal through dimensions, everyone deferred to Ketis when deciding on who was permitted to enter the dimension and how their spoils should be divided. "Anyone can try their luck if they have a shuttle and are willing to brave the hazards of this dimension." She declared at the time. "This dimension breach is our gift to red humanity, not to the Larkinson Clan alone. I only hope that my clan and the Red Three can set up a form of traffic control so that everyone who is interested has a fair share of profiting from their own discoveries in this dimension. The Red Three should not monopolize everything. Everyone should have the chance to become stronger and fight for a better future." Whether the bigshots respected Ketis or not, they took her words seriously and did not allow anyone to take ownership or abuse their control over the dimension breach. Ketis felt satisfied with how everything unfolded so far. She knew extremely well that humans had always engaged in one form of infighting or another. They couldn’t help but tear their rivals down in order to climb their way up. She half-expected for an idiot or three to come along and test her patience. A pity. She could have used an exercise. She looked forward to being the first human to execute another in this new dimension. As dozens of mining shuttles and other small vessels continued to break down the superdimensional island, a handful of smaller demimechs flew in to assist in the effort. Their transphasic shovels, pickaxes and drills were remarkably effective at breaking down the harder and more valuable superdimensional matter. Few groups had any demimechs on hand that were small enough to fit through the dimension breach. Not even the Larkinson Clan had any on hand. Most ordinary mechs were too big to safely squeeze their way through. Only the big players were able to materialize or cobble them together in a short amount of time. The demimechs fulfilled several different functions. Dozens of them had been sent on scouting trips. Others assisted in the mining effort. The remainder were armed as heavily as their limited frames could fit and guarded the vulnerable shuttles. Ketis reminded to herself that she should really purchase the System upgrade that would allow her to increase the size of the dimension breach. One of the demimechs fabricated by the Larkinson Clan approached Ketis’ position. The machine lacked any form of coating and its design was very crude and basic. The mech technicians who put it together in a hurry had only bothered to apply the crest of the Larkinson Clan on its chest to denote its allegiance. The demimech was a little more special than the others because it radiated an aura of courage. This was because its pilot happened be Venerable Vincent! Despite the unknown dangers of the Blue Dimension, Vincent did not hesitate to be the first Larkinson expert pilot to pass through the breach. Even though he had been reduced to using the weakest demimech that he ever had the pleasure to pilot, Vincent was not a stranger to controlling bad machines. He offered to stick in her vicinity and guard her from threats, but she didn’t need the protection. She instead sent him on a scouting trip and saw what everyone was doing. "How was your journey?" "Boring." Vincent replied over the communication channel. "Nobody has encountered any blue beasts or intelligent aliens so far. They haven’t found any signs that these creatures existed in the area. So far, it looks like there is nothing alive in this part of the Blue Dimension. All people have found are half-a-dozen more islands, though a few of them are much smaller than the one before us. It remains to be seen whether there is anything truly worthwhile to mine." "I see. I hope the prospectors are not letting down their guard too much in their greed." "That’s a tall order, Ketis. Everyone has developed a fevor for these fancy new superdimensional matter. The Red Three has been scooping up dirt after dirt as if it has become the new phasewater." "Does this dirt truly match the value of phasewater?" Ketis asked. Vincent scoffed. "Well, the eggheads tried to explain it to me, but I didn’t understand much of the science talk. All I managed to figure out is that just because something is superdimensional doesn’t mean it is worth lots of MTA credits. There is nothing special about this dirt. It is made up of roughly the same kind of stone and other matter that make up asteroids and such. The stuff is only a bit more special because it is somehow superdimensional. Have you heard of the new way that the Red Three has classified superdimensional stuff?" "No." Ketis said. "Communication is difficult in this dimension. All of this blue gas is inhibiting the transmissions of signals." "Well, according to the people I have talked to, there are 5 grades in total, based on how valuable they are to first-raters. The dirt and most of the rock is labeled as structure-grade superdimensional matter. No superdimensional material is useless. Their density and toughness is higher because they exist in a lot of dimensions at the same time. That makes them useful to build strong buildings or other stuff that needs a lot of relatively affordable materials that can do the job." "I see." Ketis looked thoughtful. "So that is why the Red Three is so eager to devour this entire island." "That’s not the only reason why they are trying to dismantle this cone-shaped island. They want to get the bad stuff out of the way so that they can get at the good stuff… if it exists." "What are the next grades, then?" "Next up is hull-grade superdimensional matter." Venerable Vincent answered. "These are ores and metals that are not particularly strong, but still better than dirt. They are hard and tough enough that they can withstand a lot of punishment, but only if they are stacked up in thick plating. This makes them a good choice to turn into hull plating and internal structural support for big warships. People have already found them in moderate quantities inside several islands." "I hope our clan is not neglecting this grade of superdimensional matter, then." "Oh, definitely not. There is already talk about upgrading the cat head prow of the Spirit of Bentheim with this kind of matter." "That is a good choice. Ves would love that." Ketis smiled. "What is next?" "The next two grades are armor-grade and weapon-grade superdimensional matter. The expectations for armor-grade matter is high, as it is tough enough that even lighter armor plating can be used to make tough defenses that is better than transphasic armor plating of the same thickness. Everyone with a first-class mech dreams of using armor-grade matter to cover their machines." "And weapons-grade?" "It is one of the highest and rarest grades that we will probably be able to find in this dimension." Vincent answered. "This stuff is the best we found so far. The eggheads of the Red Association has already confirmed that the hardness, density and so on of weapons-grade superdimensional matter is the same kind of material used to create Saint Piercer arms. In other words, as long as we have enough weapons-grade superdimensional matter, we can build our own Saint Piercers!" That was a huge development! Many red humans had sought to imitate or develop a substitute for Saint Piercer arms, but no one knew how to obtain the materials used to make these confoundingly deadly weapons. Now they found a source for the building blocks that could be used to make Saint Piercer arms! "Do you think the reason why the Red Cabal can make Saint Piercer arms is because they have a way of entering the Blue Dimension themselves?" Ketis speculatively asked. "Or do you think the ancient phase whales can outright produce weapons-grade superdimensional matter with their own spatial abilities?" "Why are you asking me, Ketis? I’m just an expert pilot. I have no idea how the aliens are able to make their fancy Saint Piercers. All I know is that we don’t have to fear their Saint Piercers as much anymore. Once our mechs are upgraded with this stuff, we can fight the phase lords without having to worry about getting killed with a single hit like what happened with Imon Ingvar."

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