Ves did not know whether he had made the right decision, but he was willing to give his mother''s proposal a chance.


    Still, just as Cynthia had warned, the difficulty of developing a hybrid cultivation method that needed to meet so many specific requirements could not be done in a single day!


    Even a True God wasn''t able to solve this difficult puzzle in a matter of minutes or hours!


    Ves had no choice but to remain patient and wait for his mother toplete a working cultivation method.


    In the meantime, Ves needed to ept the fact that he would have to live his life with a nefarious crown sticking to his Divine Core like a leech.


    There was no way he could feel at ease under these circumstances!


    The greatest challenge to going about his day without resolving his problem was that he constantly had to stay on guard.


    He was beginning to second-guess all kinds of decisions that he never paid any mind towards during normal times.


    Ves was a rather impulsive and intuitive mech designer and decision maker by nature. He had to slow down considerably in order to properly examine the pros and cons of all noteworthy actions and decisions.


    It was extremely annoying!


    "Goddammit! 1 can''t keep this up forever!"


    His mood had dropped considerably, so much so that others had begun to pick up on the weirdness.


    It had gotten so bad that the Golden Cat felt the need to make a personal appearance at this time!


    "Nyaa nyaaa nyaaaa."


    "I''m okay, Goldie." Ves tried to reassure the ancestral spirit. "I am working on it. This is only a temporary condition. In the meantime, it would be great if you can keep an eye on me. If I do anything that is way too abnormalpared to my usual self, just show up and give me a good whack on the head, alright?"


    "Nyaaa nyaa nyaa!"


    "Hehe, I will be counting on you! Tell me if you detect any form of tampering by an external source. I am doing my best to watch out for this kind of stuff, but this should be easier to detect for an outside observer."


    That said, Ves did not have much confidence that Goldie would be able to detect more subtle maniption.


    The crown was way too sneaky for its own good. It was clear that it excelled at making people bend to its will without giving them any clue that they were doing anything different from normal!


    Still, some help was better than no help. Goldie should at least be able to give him a warning if he ever crossed a line.


    With that taken care of, Ves tried his best to go back to his normal schedule.


    He was finally able to preside over a critically important meeting with the most important leaders of the Larkinson Army.


    The Larkinson n had entered a delicate junction due to his recent promotion and rise in status. Ves had gained a lot of new opportunities, but it was not easy to figure out how he could share his bounty with his nsmen.


    It had been a long time since he had seen all of these figures. Venerable joshua, Venerable Jannzi, Commander Melkor and of course General Verle all greeted him with familiar respect.


    "Sorry for the dy, everyone. An unexpected development has urred that urgently needed to be dealt with." Ves spoke as he moved to sit at his designated spot at the conference table. "Anyway, let usmence this overdue meeting. As I am sure you know, much has changed since my return. My promotion to a tier 3 gctic citizen has bestowed me with a lot of new rights and responsibilities. I will be honest to you all. I can no longer participate in any expeditions. The mechers want me to be a first-ss mech designer as soon as possible, and I intend to oblige their request."


    None of this was a surprise to gathered mech officers and expert pilots. They all heard enough stories already.


    "I will be studying hard to learn all of the knowledge required to be a first-ss mech designer. I won''t be able to design as many mechs as before as the amount of textbooks that I need to go through is frankly enormous. However, this isn''t just about me. While I was over at the conference, I have done my best to win opportunities to put you ahead as well. 1 don''t want to move to the upper zones by myself. I still need the protection andpanion of fellow Larkinsons like yourself. 1 am happy to announce that there is a way to allow a select number of nsmen to promote to first-raters as well."


    He began to introduce the EdNet to his mech officers and mech pilots. Few of them were aware of the existence of this powerful learning solution. They all reacted with varying degrees of amazement at the power of the Association.


    Ves soon announced the most critical fact.


    "EdNet quotas are extremely valuable and expensive, even to the first-raters themselves." He said. "This is especially the case when a quota also includes a fairly extensive first-ss augmentation package, which will remain useful for a long time after you havepleted this form of deep long-term simtion training. Once you emerge from the simtor pods, each of you shall emerge as true first-ss citizens so long as you are notpletely ipetent at studying."


    There were cases where people failed to meet the standard after spending up to 20 years of elerated simtion training. Ves hoped that none of his own nsmen wasted his precious quotas in this way.


    General Verle asked a question.


    "How many quotas have you obtained?"


    "5000 single-use quotas and 10 permanent quotas." Ves truthfully replied. "I think you can figure out the implications of these two types of quotas. Once the former are used up, we are only left with thetter. We can reward the most meritorious second-ss Larkinsons with an opportunity to use one of the 10 EdNet quotas. This should help a lot with raising the enthusiasm of the majority of nsmen that are left behind in our current branches."


    "I think you are getting ahead of yourself, sir." Verle frowned. "What do you intend to do with the nsmen who have sessfullypleted the EdNet training?"


    "Ah, you are right. Let me reassure you that I have no intention of breaking away from my n. We are still family, and I will try my best to treat you all with the same care and affection as any other Larkinson. That said, reality stands in my way of fulfilling this goal. The fact of the matter is that 5000 quotas are far from enough to turn everyone into a first-rater. Only a fraction of you will be able to apany me to the upper zones in a few years. Right now, my n is to establish a new ''premier branch'' of sorts that will serve as our n''s foothold in first-ss space."


    He expanded upon his idea for the next few minutes. There wasn''t anything particrly different or exciting about it. The premier branch or whatever he decided to call it would remain fairly small in the beginning, but he hoped to expand itter on once more Larkinsons were promoted to first-raters.


    "The initial source of members of the premier branch will be Larkinsons who have sessfullypleted their tours with the EdNet." Ves exined. "Aside from that, I intend to open up limited recruitment to young and talented first-raters. There are many necessary jobs and positions that cannot be fulfilled by second-raters who have gone through a lot of learning. There are highly demanding jobs that can only be done by true first-raters."


    That sparked a considerable amount of discussion among the other Larkinsons.


    "Does that mean that our n will begin to get flooded with Terrans and Rubarthans?" Commander Case Ingvar asked in concern.


    Her worries were valid. First-raters were much stronger and more capable than anyone else. The best of them could easily take over many of the critical leadership positions if the selection was decided by ability alone!


    "Not per se." Ves tried to reassure his nsmen. "As I have said before, I will try to keep the recruitment as limited as possible. The premier branch is never meant to berger than the current branches of our n. It is supposed to be small and elite. It will concentrate the best and strongest of us, but must also remain Larkinson in essence. I think I will only recruit a couple of hundred first-raters at first, and slowly add more when the premier branch gradually expands its operations."


    Many nsmen grew a little more reassured when Ves clearlymunicated his desire to do right by his current nsmen. He was not about to forget about them and leave them all behind!


    "How much of the quota will you reserve for our troops?" General Verle asked another important question.


    Ves shrugged. "That depends. I haven''t made any decisions because I don''t know what the premier branch is supposed to look like. I need to reserve a fair amount of EdNet quotas to civilians who are experts inw, science, engineering, starship operation, intelligence, diplomacy and so on. I also need a bunch of mech pilots as well as an appropriate number of staff and support personnel to support their operations. Let me be clear. The premier branch cannot make use of second-ss mechs. They just can''t keep up at this level. Every mech pilot who follows me to first-ss space must acquire the skills to proficiently wield the more basic first-ss mechs at the very least."


    Commander Case Ingvar picked up the specific phrasing used by Ves.


    "First-ss mechs or first-ss multipurpose mechs, sir?"


    "The former. First-ss multipurpose mechs exist in a category of their own. Any genuine first-ss mech pilot should be able to pilot them, but I do not expect any Larkinsons who have undergone years of training in the EdNet to master all of the theory and piloting skills needed to make full use of theseplicated machines. Perhaps they will never be able to because they are being held back by their inferior qualifications and advanced age. This is why we must prioritize younger and more malleable nsmen in our selection."


    Even if Ves was able to get his hands on mech pilots who were skilled enough to pilot multipurpose mechs, he wouldn''t be able to supply the sophisticated machines.


    They cost hundreds of millions of MTA credits a copy! Ves didn''t have that much liquid assets at his disposal, and he didn''t think he would be able to increase his ie anytime soon.


    Ves needed to take this step-by-step and start with supplying his n with ''entry-level'' first-ss mechs first.


    While it was unlikely that they could beat a genuine multipurpose mech in a direct fight, he should at least be able to rely on a numbers advantage to fend off smaller threats.


    This was just the start. Ves had no doubt that his premier branch would be able to field a lot of first-ss multipurpose mechs of his design a decade or twoter, but that was too far away.


    For now, Ves needed to prepare his n as best as possible for the initial waves of deep strike operations. The Survivalists estimated that it would take around five years or so toplete the transformation of the greater beyonder gate.


    His nsmen needed to be ready to pounce in order to gain the coveted status of a warfighter!


    The discussion about the EdNet quotas and the premier branch continued after that. Many people shared various opinions about the limited opportunities avable to the n.


    It was not easy to pick a few thousand nsmen to apany Ves to first-ss space when they had to leave hundreds of thousands other Larkinson behind in second-ss space!