Chapter 7393: The Red Fleet’s Pivoting Aurelia looked adorable once she changed out of her cadet uniform and became surrounded by the cats and her younger siblings. Andraste and Marvaine could never have enough of their eldest sister. Even though they hadn’t been separated for too long, remote communications could never substitute for real personal contact. It was not just their human forms that were nuzzling up against each other. Their companion spirits were doing the same in a different realm! Mana, Yaika and Denny had all cuddled up together in a pile of intangible fur. They looked so cute together! Ves and Gloriana gave their eldest daughter time to catch up with her siblings. Meanwhile, the pair quietly interrogated Aurelia’s companion. Though ’Marigold Larkinson’ looked like a girl of the same age as her principal, she was actually a high-level artifact. Ves had upgraded the Flower Parasol himself, yet he had little idea how it was able to transform into a humanoid form. He knew it probably gained this capability after absorbing a special ingredient, but that did not grant him any insights on the actual theory behind the transformation. It was a complete black box as far as he was concerned. This was a shame, because if he could figure out the mechanisms behind this miraculous transformation, he could apply to other artifacts! Oh well. At least Aurelia would never feel lonely. "Has Aurelia become friendly with any boys at the academy?" Gloriana keenly asked. "Aurelia is one of the most popular girls in her class." Marigold dutifully reported. "She tries to maintain cordial relations with everyone. She has certainly been approached by boys, but she has deftly converted them into friends. They have just begun their study programs. There is not much time for leisure activities. All cadets have been told that they must work hard as their results in their first years determine the ceiling of their later years." Gloriana looked somewhat satisfied after hearing this. "Boys are indeed a distraction at her age. It would be better if she could wrap them around her finger, but I am glad to hear that she is prioritizing her studies. Knowledge is the root of power." They inquired about the subjects that she was studying, but nothing stood out, which was to be expected as Aurelia was still in her first year. The Red Fleet mastered a lot of high-end knowledge, especially in the fields of materials science, energy technology, FTL drive technology and more. However, Aurelia probably wouldn’t be able to touch any of these subjects in-depth until much later. She first needed to build up her fundamentals before she could go deeper in a specialized field. "Have you noticed anything interesting or unusual while you resided in the naval academy?" Ves curiously asked. Marigold hummed for a moment. "Perhaps. I have detected the presence of an increasing amount of artifacts. I cannot give you any solid descriptions of them as I have never caught sight of them. I can only feel that they are quite different from myself." "Different in what way?" "I can tell that they are sapient and intelligent." The living artifact said with certainty. "However, there is... a much greater degree of artificiality to them. It feels as if they are logic turned to life." Both Ves and Gloriana briefly exchanged glances. "Those are probably the smart AIs that the Red Fleet have been experimenting on in the past few years." Gloriana stated. "We have obtained a batch of them as well. They are still installed on the Tortuous Scream. I have heard that the Saint Commander is becoming increasingly more proficient in utilizing their smart processing capabilities, especially when she is interfacing with them with her Command Field." "I am not unfamiliar with regular smart AIs." Marigold said. "This feels different. The best way I can describe it is that the fleeters may have possibly grafted their smart AIs onto traditional artifacts." That sounded interesting. And disturbing. "You are the expert on this subject, Ves. What do you think?" "Marigold may have detected the Red Fleet’s experimentation on artifact warships." Ves speculated. "The naval academies are not just centers of learning. They gather a notable amount of academics together. Teaching and research often go hand-in-hand. I can definitely believe that the fleeters are conducting at least some of their research over there. This also makes it convenient for our daughter to gain access later on. Artifact warships will continue to grow in importance." Through Marigold’s descriptions, Ves gained a better understanding of how far the fleeters had progressed their development of artifact warships. It was already impressive enough for the fleeters to create artifacts in the form of warships. To be able to convert their smart AIs into ’artifact spirits’ was another important advancement! "I do not think the unknown artifacts are enormous in size." Marigold said as she analyzed her impressions further. "Certainly not as large as capital ships. If they are artifact warships, then they should be fairly small." "As small as a destroyer?" "Smaller." "A frigate?" "...Maybe a large corvette." That... did not sound large at all! Sure, a corvette was larger and bulkier than a mech, but that was not that big of a deal! Gloriana did not look too surprised. "It makes sense. These are probably prototypes that are not expected to be deployed into active service. It is much more difficult and costly to build larger artifact warships. As long as you are only interested in gathering empirical data, then smaller hulls will suffice for the most part." The notion of creating artifacts controlled by smart AIs certainly sounded interesting. It could solve many problems, especially if the fleeters programmed them well enough in advance. However, Ves also suspected that there were disadvantages to this approach. From his understanding, traditional craftsmanship entailed the creation of an artifact before imbuing it with the soul of a powerful life form. The greater the power of the latter, the greater the enhancement to the former! Nothing encapsulated this formula better than the Riot Mark III! A mech that already started off as a powerful machine became even stronger after undergoing Demoncasting! 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖 Smart AIs may be a lot more intelligent and programmed to perfection, but they were probably not too powerful in a spiritual sense. Therefore, they probably did not provide a significant raw power boost to any artifact warship they got attached to. That sounded like a waste of potential. His wife did not necessarily agree with his stance. "Power without control is useless. Not everything has to reach record-breaking numbers. Warships are highly complex collections of different systems. They need to be controlled with great precision and coordination in order to correctly utilize their formidable capabilities." She made a good point. The power of warships primarily came from their impressive scale. The simplest way to create more powerful warships was to build bigger ones, but that was a wasteful approach. The Red Fleet could not afford to construct battleships en masse anymore. The Red Ocean Union was too small and poor in resources to be able to supply all of the bulk materials necessary to construct fully-fledged capital ships in great numbers. For better or worse, the RF had to spend its limited amount of resources a lot more efficiently than its parent organization! This was why the fleeters increasingly sought to cram more power into smaller hulls. "Early versions of artifact warships feature rough performance, but they already perform significantly better than modern hyper warships." Gloriana commented. "If the Red Fleet is able to perfect this technology further by integrating the intelligent processing capabilities of smart AIs, the mature versions will no longer be a joke. What they may lack in raw power, they make up for it with control and precision." There was a clear hint of bias and approval in her tone. She clearly preferred this development route over that of stuffing extremely powerful but highly unstable demons into artifacts! "The Red Fleet prioritizes consistency, uniformity and reproducibility." Ves voiced his own thoughts. "There is room for individual growth and evolution, but the fleeters clearly prefer to place tight guard rails along the trajectory. There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach. They are not mech pilots who have an obsessive need to develop their eccentricities and strengthen their unique flavors. A warship is a warship." It sounded like the Red Fleet was on the right track to regain its confidence, if not its dominance. The humanoid artifact continued to share more observations when she stayed by Aurelia’s side. She could tell much about fleeter culture and developments based on what she witnessed at one of the RF’s premier naval academies. "The curriculum for most study programs are undergoing rapid changes." Marigold Larkinson said. "Certain subjects deemed redundant have either been shifted out of the list of compulsory subjects or removed from the catalog entirely. In their place, the fleeters have added dozens of subjects related to E-technology, superdimensional technology as well as astrogeology, colony engineering, resource processing and so on. According to the discussions from the older cadets, it is unusual for the Red Fleet to place a greater emphasis on resource extraction." Ves couldn’t help but smirk at that. "The Red Fleet can no longer sit back and rely on levying taxes on the states that it is still able to keep under its thumb. The withdrawal of the Terran Alliance and the Rubarthan Pact has hurt the RF’s bottom line a lot. The fleeters have to get off their lazy butts and put more effort into harvesting the resources necessary to build all of their precious warships." There were probably not a lot of high-grade resources left unexploited in the existing territories of the Red Ocean Union. If the Red Fleet wanted to grow its pool of strategic materials, then the only choices available were to salvage a large amount of battlefield debris or conquer and exploit enemy territory. Ves had a feeling that the fleeters planned ahead for the latter scenario. They must be really optimistic of the future. The alternative was that the fleeters formulated a contingency plan that revolved around operating multiple self-sustaining vulture fleets. If the dual alien threats truly managed to break the frontlines and overrun human-occupied space, then going nomadic was the only way for a semblance of their civilization to survive in a hostile dwarf galaxy. The thought was depressing, so Ves quickly shifted his attention. "Have you made any other unusual discoveries and observations?" Gloriana asked. Marigold hummed for a few seconds. "Aurelia has only just begun her studies at Erwin Klobucar, but she has already demonstrated enough talent and capabilities to attract the interest of multiple potential mentors. These teachers are highly respected and possess their own specializations." "Has our daughter voiced any inclination for a mentor?" "Not yet." The living artifact said with a reasonable degree of certainty. "She has only just begun her studies as a naval cadet. The choice of mentor is almost just as important in the naval community as it is in the mech community. Aurelia probably wants to build up a basic foundation and explore what she needs the most before she settles on her choice. For example, if she wishes to learn fleet command, then she can approach a mentor who used to command squadrons or larger units. If she wishes to expand her engineering competences, then she can seek a mentor who used to work at one of the Red Fleet’s many R&D institutions." If Ves had a choice, he preferred it if Aurelia chose a command track. This would not only allow her career to enter a fast-track, but also make her more useful in commanding the Larkinson Clan’s own expanding naval assets. While Ves valued the Red Fleet’s unique technological contributions, they were not indispensable. As a mech designer, Ves had many ways to acquire or develop the technologies he needed. Naval command was not a skill that you could learn from a textbook alone.