Chapter 6915 Intellectual Phase Lords Who were the 'Elder Gods'? For what reason did they create the phase whale race? Why could other races embark on the same self-evolution path as the phase whales? Many aliens including the phase whales themselves sought answers to these questions. So far, it did not appear that anyone had the answers to all of these questions. Perhaps only the highest leaders of the Red Cabal might know a few secrets, but it was doubtful that they could solve the mystery of phasewater and the existence of their own race. All of this uncertainty presented unknown risks and dangers to any human that sought to follow the footsteps of these aliens. Phase lords were undeniably powerful, but humans understood far too little about how they worked. That presented plenty of hidden dangers that could put human phase lords such as Ves at risk in the future. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖 Despite these considerations, Ves did not think of ignoring this aspect of himself. The more threatened he felt, the more he wanted to stack up on his protection. Implanting phasewater organs into his body was an important step to the growth of any phase lord. "I have been wondering about a circumstance that I find strange." He brought up another topic. "Why do phase whales have to develop their own phasewater organs? Why don't they spawn them automatically at birth or when they progress their body cultivation?" Vice Director Maria Abselon smiled. "The scientific community has pondered over this question. It is not that great of a mystery. For the phase whale race, it is an attempt to preserve its reproduction rate. The more homogenous they are, the easier it is for them to reproduce. Those that have made little progress may be weak, but they can still play a role by creating the next generation of phase whales." "Can't they make their own designer babies and such?" "Any race that has 'evolved' past the point of eliminating their natural reproduction capabilities has eventually gone extinct." She told Ves. "The Elder Gods clearly understand this rule, so they made sure that their initial organic forms still retain the ability to reproduce. It is only when they raise their phasewater concentration and implant increasingly more unfathomable phasewater organs that they become unique and indescribable existences. Strictly speaking, greater phase whales have already diverged so much from each other that they constitute different races that are reproductively isolated from each other. Sounds familiar?" Ves nodded. A similar dynamic applied to humans. Even Ves and Gloriana had to resort to using the services of biotechs in order to 'create' their children. "Why do phase whales all insist on developing their own phasewater organs when they can just pool their efforts and rely on industrialization to meet their needs?" He asked next. "Phase whales do not think as humans or any other sentient race in the Red Ocean for that matter. Compared to humans and orvens, the phase whales possess completely different thinking patterns. Their bodies are much bigger. Their race is aquatic in nature. They grow up inside gas giants. Their population is much lower. All of these factors cause them to be more individualistic. Aside from the Red Cabal, the phase whales have not made any concerted attempts at creating their own civilization. Without civilization, they must do everything themselves, and this includes the development and creation of their own phasewater organs." That made sense. "I take it that there are other reasons why these phase whales develop their own organs." "Correct. The phase whales highly prize mastery over their own bodies. They have the intelligence and the lifespan to study many biosciences. They also understand the dangers of relying on third parties to upgrade their bodies. As individualists, they are not above exploiting the vulnerabilities of their fellow phase whales. Only by doing all of the research and development by themselves will they gain the greatest mastery over their own physiques. THey also believe that extensive understanding is necessary to progress in the later stages. A strong body is not enough to ascend to godhood. The phase whales believe, correctly in his case, that their mental development must keep up to an extent in order to control their increasingly larger and more massive true bodies." Ves could easily believe this. The true bodies of ancient phase whales were as large as the moons of many planets. Their mass was so high that they could already form their own gravity wells. A mortal mind and spirit could never maintain effective control over so many biological processes! Developing a stronger mind and spirit was much more important for other cultivation paths. This was an essential demand for anyone who wanted to ascend to an energy-based life form. "Phase lords don't tend to progress the same way." Ves noted. "They almost never become biotech scientists and they always rely on their organizations and civilizations to develop the phasewater organs reserves for their use. Now that I think about it, we are no different in this regard." Maria nodded. "That is because our lifespans are much shorter. We are too impatient to dedicate hundreds if not thousands of years on mastering biotechnology to the point where we can independently develop our own phasewater organs. We also put greater trust in our own organizations and institutions. There is no need for us to follow the habits of the phase whales. However, alien phase lords are substantially less effective at progressing their own body cultivation." "I thought that was due to the restrictions on the availability of Phasewater Production Systems." The vice director smirked. "Exactly. It is exactly because the other alien races have yet to understand and reproduce the PPS that they are falling behind in this area. Our studies of the PPS harvested from the Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa have presented us with many confounding observations. This is simply not an organ that we can casually grow in a lab. This is also why you cannot expect us to convert it for your use in the short term. Several exobiologists have developed a theory that only phase lords can develop the spatial cognition and abilities needed to develop this advanced phasewater organ and produce it through their own means. 'Mortal' scientists such as us may lack the qualifications to progress in this area." That caused Ves to frown. "If this theory is correct, then the Larkinson Biotech Institute needs to employ an actual phase lord in order to convert the PPS into a useful organ. That is… not realistic." Ves could probably do it, but that would come at the cost of losing focus of his own profession as a mech designer. He would never make such a stupid move. There were more ways for him to increase his chances of survival than implanting an adapted PPS and other advanced phasewater organs into his body. So what if the LBI's research on phasewater organs stalled? It was not the end for Ves. He could focus his time and energy on designing stronger mechs that could eliminate his enemies on his behalf. This was the right way for mech designers to protect themselves. Becoming a stronger phase lord was just a backup plan in his opinion. "We believe that the Phase Lord Department of the Red Collective has secretly begun to develop in this direction." Maria Abselon shared. "At the very least, the larger brain mass will enable the researcher phase lord to surpass their original cognitive limitations. If they engage in qi cultivation that focuses on developing their analytical, memory and processing capabilities, their thinking may be able to outperform RF supercomputers. Combined with a companion spirit that can develop a complementary specialization, these phase lords have the potential to become heavyweights in the scientific community. This may be one of the reasons why the Phase Lord Department has made more achievements and become increasingly more prominent within the Collective." This was the first time that Ves heard about this! Even if it was just a rumor, he already believed it because he knew it was right. Even if a lot of brain matter was occupied with managing all of the extra mass and organs, there was still enough brain matter left over for other purposes! No phase lord was truly stupid. Even if they were focused on martial pursuits, they were able to fight better than mortals! It was one of the reasons why they could still compete against ace pilots. Ves felt the need to return to the Astral Octagon and check up on the true situation of the RC. There was only so much he could learn from receiving remote reports from his chief of staff. He had failed to establish relationships with the other leaders of the RC and therefore found himself out of the loop of many internal developments. He knew that Eliza Mo Ragadan was doing the best to represent his office, but she lacked his reputation and prestige. The Collies also knew that Ves was not that fully committed to their superorganization. They honored him as the founder, but they probably thought that his high position mostly served a ceremonial function. After all, it was the Lower Council that actually drafted, debated upon and passed the bills. The Upper Council only served to represent the interests of the major and the minor powers of human civilization in the Red Ocean. Ves did not have much influence on their voting patterns. If the Terran Alliance thought that a bill was detrimental to its interests, it would vote no regardless of what he thought. "Since the Phase Lord Department is doing so well, do you think that its researchers will be able to develop new and original phasewater organs that are highly suited to humans from the start?" "We already have that capacity ourselves." The vice director responded. "We have already advanced our understanding of phase lords to the point where we have learned the basic framework of phasewater organs. If ordered, we can begin the development of a new phasewater organ that is completely adapted for your physique. We can even combine it with hyper technology to produce outcomes that are unlike anything the native aliens have developed in the past." "What is stopping you from doing this, then?" "Two reasons, sir. First, it is prohibitively expensive. We not only require access to much greater processing power, it also takes a large amount of phasewater and other precious materials to grow the mech-sized organs. Second, why reinvent the wheel when we can steal them from the aliens instead? They have invested thousands, tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years into iterating many types of phasewater organs. Their degree of optimization, sophistication and peak performance has reached an extremely high level." "Yet those are old and outdated products now that we have entered the Age of Dawn." Ves pointed out. "Not only have we gained access to hyper technology, but now there is also superdimensional technology. We can't wait for alien researchers to develop new solutions that make use of hyper materials and superdimensional materials. That is way too slow and turns your scientists into lazy bums. We need to invest in this capacity and develop a degree of self-sufficiency. If you are so worried about funding, then just focus on a single specialization. Our clan excels at hyper technology and E-technology, so we should develop new phasewater organs that are closely related to those fields." Ves and Vice Director Abselon spent the rest of the call discussing the details of this expansion. This would have been easier a year ago, but now that the Red War was weakening the foundation of human civilization, it was a lot harder to get stuff done. If red humanity continued to suffer loss after loss, then the LBI would no longer be able to obtain the resources and third-party support that were necessary to complete many of its research projects! Therefore, both of them hoped that red humanity would persevere. There was no need to think about expanding the research activities of the LBI if red humanity had collapsed!