Whatever Ves expected to encounter during his first personal meeting with the Web Mistress, he never imagined it would start off in this manner. The subtle Star Designer threw him off-guard and did not follow any of the scripts that he had envisioned in the past few days. Ves prided himself on his steadily improving ability to predict how people behaved and how events might unfold, but incidents like this brutally reminded him that reality had no obligation to follow his arrangements. The fact that the Web Mistress acted completely different from his mental models of her caused him to remain mentally unbalanced. He had a hard time calming down and faced the Web Mistress with a less emotionally charged mindset. This was detrimental to his goals. If he wanted to gain the greatest amount of help from the woman, then he needed to get his act together and regain his old poise. As he struggled to rebuild his composure, the Web Mistress continued onwards, expecting Ves to follow her words without question. "Do you still seek my aid in fortifying your kinship networks?" That was an important question. Her second lesson had given him a reason to value the Larkinson Network less, but he was not so eager to let it go. Even if his clan would be able to survive without the first kinship network, it would add a lot of inconvenience to everyone's lives. "What can you do?" He asked back. "Everything." The Web Mistress dramatically replied. "My ability to understand and manipulate networks of any kind is unparalleled in the new frontier as well as the old galaxy. You do not understand, but I will demonstrate what I mean." She symbolically raised her arm while concentrating a measure of her power. It was hard to detect what she was doing or how much energy she was gathering. Ves had not forgotten about the illusion she weaved. He believed she was fully capable of fooling all of his senses by tying them into a false representation of reality that she had constructed in her mind. What was real? What was false? Ves never expected to deal with such ambiguity in his meeting with the foremost experts on networks of all people! As it was, Ves had no choice but to place a limited amount of trust in the Web Mistress that she had not lured him into a completely imaginary dream sequence or whatever. The Web Mistress held out her hand for a few more seconds before she reached out into a dimension other than the material one! Ves felt profoundly dizzy and confused as he observed the Star Designer in motion. For a second, he felt as if a literal star had moved across space! The amount of momentum that had briefly bled out from the Web Mistress' corporeal form was so disorienting that Ves did not notice that the Star Designer held a glowing cat in her hand. "Nyaaaaa? Nyaaaaaa! Nya nya nya!" "Goldie?! What are you doing here?!" "Nyaaa nyaaaa nyaaaa!" The Golden Cat glowed brighter and cutely flailed her limbs in an attempt to wrench herself loose. However, the grip of one of the most powerful mech designers in the Red Ocean held the spiritual feline in an iron grip. It should not be a surprise that the Web Mistress was able to 'hold' the Golden Cat. Both of them actually shared more in common than was apparent on the surface. The Web Mistress was an energy-based life form that just happened to possess a permanent vestigial physical container. The Golden Cat might not possess a permanent physical form, but she was also an energy-based life form, which meant that the Web Mistress could theoretically hold the ancestral spirit in her hand. What Ves could not figure out how she was able to reach so far in the distance and accurately pinpoint Goldie's coordinates and bring her back across many light-years! The Golden Cat permanently resided inside the Larkinson Mandate, which should be within reach of the matriarch of the Larkinson Clan! The Saint Commander still presided over the Premier Fleet somewhere within the Terran Alliance. Although Ves understood that distances were a lot fuzzier and easier to traverse in the imaginary realm, what the Web Mistress had done was ridiculous! She directly captured the nexus of the Larkinson Network! Even now, Ves could sense over a million different spiritual connections, each of which represented a covenant between a Larkinson and the clan that he or she had pledged to serve and treat as family. "Nyaaa…" The Golden Cat was not weak these days. She was among the oldest spiritual products created by Ves, and she had siphoned a huge amount of spiritual feedback from all Larkinsons since the founding of the clan. What was even more important was that she also received modest amounts of potent spiritual feedback from all of the expert pilots and ace pilots of the Larkinson Clan! This provided her with rich spiritual nutrients which she used to evolve into stronger forms and do her part in trying to strengthen and harden her existing bonds. Even if she was not among the most martial of spiritual entities, she was hardly defenseless! Yet after getting caught in the palm of the Web Mistress, the Golden Cat might as well be reduced to a harmless kitten. The gap in power between the two was so vast that the weaker party could not even muster any form of resistance. How frightening! "Y-You…" The centuries-old woman who adopted the guise of an ageless matron began to press Goldie against her chest. The Star Designer started to scratch the captive ancestral spirit as if she was an ordinary cat! The way the Web Mistress stroked Goldie's fur was anything but normal. Each time her human fingers went into motion, Ves had the faint impression that the Star Designer was touching thousands if not tens of thousands of active connections at the same time! It was as if Goldie had turned into a musical instrument while her connections with the Larkinsons served as the strings! When Zemana Ilcef plucked a certain string, Ves froze as he felt his own connection with Goldie growing dangerously unstable for a second! Ves almost felt despair when he realized how easy it would be for the Web Mistress to pluck out this connection entirely! He already suspected that Goldie and the Larkinson Network were vulnerable to external threats, but he did not realize that the Web Mistress possessed the power to unravel them at any time! It was ridiculous how easy it was for her to put one of the most important assets of the Larkinson Clan at her mercy. "Nyaaaa… nyaaa…." At this point, Goldie saw no point in resisting any further. She had reduced herself to acting like a normal cat. Perhaps she hoped that her cuteness would save her from potential doom. As Ves recovered from this latest shock with difficulty, he tried really hard to formulate a sentence that would not cause the unpredictable Star Designer to snuff out the heart and soul of the Larkinson Clan. "What lesson… are you attempting to teach by snatching the Golden Cat?" "My intention is to show you how right you are to be concerned about your kinship network's vulnerability. It has no defense against one who understands the nature of such creations. I can destroy it utterly by exerting a slight amount of effort. I can even alter it while leaving the rest of the network untouched if I am willing to spend the time and effort." Ves already guessed as much, but it still chilled his mind to receive confirmation that the Larkinson Network was utterly at her mercy. Fortunately, he and his clan did not break their relationship with the Red Association. The Larkinsons were still on good terms with the Red Association, so the Web Mistress should have no reason to kill the Golden Cat and destroy the Larkinson Network. At least that was supposed to be the case. Ves did not dare to consider the Star Designer as an outright enemy at this point. If she possessed the ability to destroy the Larkinson Network from the first time it came to her attention, then she had been holding this back for a long time. Since that was the case, there was no reason for her to change her mind and behave completely differently for no good reason. Ves therefore made the risky assumption that the Web Mistress was not hostile and meant no harm. It was a dangerous assumption to make, but Ves had no other choice by virtue of being too weak to resist anything Her Excellency had in mind. He instead diverted his mind to other potential threats. "Who else can eliminate the Larkinson Network as easily as you have done?" "Not many, Ves. I am the exception rather than the rule. Others in the Red Ocean will only be able to do worse. That is not a reason for you to relax your guard. There are still many possible means to sabotage or destroy the Larkinson Network of yours. Most god pilots are able to destroy the Larkinson Network as long as they are physically close enough to the anchor where this Golden Cat resides. As for Star Designers, they are subject to the same restrictions, but it is possible that they can develop solutions to impair the Larkinson Network from a distance." That was not many people, but they predominantly comprised some of the most powerful humans in the Red Ocean! "What about the aliens?" The Web Mistress adopted a mysterious expression. "Ah yes, the indigenous alien civilizations of the Red Ocean are struggling to unite. As much as the Red Cabal tries, it fails to bring enough unity to their alien territories that no one is pulling their fair share of the financial and troop burdens. The native aliens are either old, ancient but surprisingly tight-knit, or they are young, inexperienced and guarded against different races. It is an interesting dichotomy. As for whether they have the ability to threaten your Kinship Network, I cannot give you any absolute answers. I can only tell you that to the best of my clarity, it is unlikely for the Red Cabal and the native aliens to possess the means to threaten your Larkinson Network." Ves almost wanted to let out a big sigh in relief. "What about… the Cosmopolitan Movement? I have come across… intell… that the cosmopolitans are secretly attempting to construct a shadow network that is meant to exist without anyone else noticing the covert movements. Preparing to eliminate." The Web Mistress' eyes sparkled with unusual interest. "That is odd. My intelligence network has not reported such an attempt. How have you obtained your intelligence?" "During a recent raid against the native aliens. While my forces were fighting against their mechs, warships and phase lords up front, a secret agent of mine slipped into one of their bases and sniffed around for secrets. The discovery that at least one Cosmopolitan cell is working on developing their own kinship network is of great concern." The Star Designer did not find this to be an acceptable outcome. "It is not outside the realm of possibility for them to be able to devise their own kinship network. It may even receive superior protection compared to your initial defenses." "I do not want to put too much faith in the inability for the cosmopolitans to catch up on us in terms of technology. Is there… a safer way for us to strengthen our kinship network?" "There is." The Web Mistress said before activating a projection of a generic first-class multipurpose mech. "However, the most accessible means of strengthening your kinship network may require you to make choices that will test your tolerance." "Tolerance on what, exactly?" The Web Mistress kept stroking Goldie's head. The ancestral spirit had fully regressed into a cuddly kitten at this point. "Your tolerance towards faith."