A part of Ves felt guilty for leaving without bringing alongrades who supported him extensively in the past.


    However, people like Master Benedict Cortez had their own lives. They couldn''t abandon their own friends, family, supportwork and arrangements on a whim.


    They also had their own pride. It was one thing to ept an easy ride to first-ss society. It was another thing to do so when lhe New Elites Program allowed them to move up by relying on their own efforts.


    The members of the Golden skull Alliance were all proud and battle-tested. Their many victories had given them the confidence that they could attain anything they wanted as long as they fought hard enough for their goals.


    Though Ves had deliberately instilled this sentiment across the entire expeditionary fleet, a part of him wondered whether he had inadvertently created a monster. The Larkinsons and lheir allies all seemed a bit too eager lo go back into the fray. Il was as if they didn''t know any other way to sustain their current sess.


    Ves never minded this when he was able to take charge of his forces in person, but he felt considerably less assured when he left this job to other people.


    "They will be fine." Gloriana reassured him. "Even with lhe departure of Saintess Ulrika Vraken and other strong individuals, they still have enough manpower left lo take care of themselves."


    She was right, though Ves suspected that she mainly held this opinion because she no longer had to bear any of the risks of participating in a dangerous expedition.


    Gloriana hadined to Ves enough times about personally subjecting themselves and their children to all of the dangers of the deep frontier when they could safely stay behind.


    Now that her wish had finallye true, she no longer felt bothered about what might happen to the remainers.


    After all, if a powerful alien fleet happened to smash them apart, she and their children would remain safe hundreds if not thousands of light-years away!


    Ves took onest look at the hangar bay of the Spirit of Bentheim.


    A crowd of Larkinsons had gathered in order to bid him goodbye.


    This would hopefully not be thest time that Ves would ever be able to speak to these Larkinsons in person, bul no one was able to predict the future.


    It was not quite clear how many of these people would rejoin him at the Premier Branch. The selection process for the EdNet quotas was still ongoing. Many Larkinsons had spent a lot of time refreshing their knowledge so that they could prepare for the uing theoretical examinations.


    Others were putting in more effort into training in the hopes of earning lots of war merits as a New Elite.


    Though his wife was impatient to board the shuttle that would take them away, Ves lingered for a few more minutes in order to chat with a few people.


    "How is your body, Joshua?"


    "I feel a little more tired than before." The expert pilot said in a weary voice. "My condition wasn''t the best after... you know. I was doing fairly well after that, but now that 1 have donated a lot of blood and a bit of my own flesh, I feel I have returned right back to my previous low point."


    "Sorry about that, Joshua. I really needed to harvest as many genuine samples of your blood as possible. Your contribution will greatly assist in my research."


    "Can you tell me why you needed my blood, sir? Isn''t it easier to just clone it instead?"


    Ves shook his head. "I can''t tell you what 1 am using your blood for. 1 hope you understand. I will tell you how much of a difference you have made to me in the future, but right now 1 can''t say anything mote. 1 cannot rule out the need for additional blood samples. If this happens, be ready to donate a bit more. I will make sure thal your blood will get shipped to my location. Hopefully, 1 will figure out a way to clone your blood cells to the fullest extent so that I can produce them on an industrial scale. Until lhen, you should probably be prepared to provide samples several times a year. The fresher, the better, so It is best not to stockpile them ahead of time."


    It was best to coincide the delivery of blood samples with the periodic shipments of general cultivation elixirs. The Bluejay Fleet''s courier vessel was ideally suited for this job.


    Though Joshua did not exactly like the idea of his blood being experimented upon, he epted the reason provided by Ves. If his blood could truly be used to produce a breakthrough, then that was more than worth the minor inconvenience!


    Ves briefly chatted with the expert pilot a bit more before he patted Joshua on the shoulder.


    "Take care of the fleet and Kctis for mo, will you? You can roach out to mo if you ever need my help. You know what I can do with the Everchanger, so do not hesitate to ask for my personal intervention if there is an emergency."


    "I know. I will try my best nor to let our situation deteriorate to this point."


    "Good man. I hope I''ll see you again in person when you have be an ace pilot. We have ess to many different means to facilitate your breakthrough. The time for restraint has passed, so be sure to make liberal use of the transcendence glow if the situation is good enough."


    "I understand." foshua nodded.


    The Everchanger was by far the most effective mech that could channel the transcendence glow in the field. The capacity to radiate it across many kilometers of distance at a high intensity would serve as rhe most powerful advantage of rhe Larkinson n in theing years!


    ess to the transcendence glow was one of the secret bargaining chips that Ves had used to keep the Golden Skull Alliance together.


    While Ves was not too worried that the Adide Third Fleet and the Boojay Family would want to go their own way after his departure, it was best to give them additional incentives lo stick around.


    Even if Ves did not value the Adides and the Boojays in the long run, they at least provided additional mech and bodies to the expeditionary fleet. Greater numbers provided greater safety.


    "By the way, make sure to take your time. Don''t be in a rush for quick sess. There are still plenty of years before we need you at your absolute best. The first deep strike operations will probably take a minimum of 5 years to ger started."


    Venerable Joshua knew what Ves was talking about.


    "You do not need to remind me of that, sir."


    The reason why Ves felt necessary to mention this was because the A7-KE1 General Purpose Pilot Cultivation Elixir had an especially powerful effect on Joshua''s resonance strength!


    Every other expert pilot who ingested an elixir only advanced their resonance strength by just over 2veres on average.


    In contrast, Joshua''s resonance strength growth peaked at 4.1veres!


    The Red Association had never witnessed such an outlier in the past. The mechers eagerly dissected all of the data in order to figure out why the general cultivation elixir responded particrly well to Joshua in particr.


    Ves already came up with a usible exnation in his mind. It was joshua''s domain that was responsible.


    For whatever reason, Joshua was probably able to extract more strength from the minute quantity of god pilot blood blended into the vial of elixir. This was a newly discovered advantage and might have considerable implications in the future.


    Ves could at least look forward to saving a handful of vials If nothing else. A collection of 500 vials sounded like a lot, but it was actually not that much when it had to be allocated to many different expert pilots!


    Not only did he have to supply general cultivation elixirs to the Larkinson and Glory Seeker expert pilots in the expeditionary fleet, lie also had to do the same for the expert pilots who currently served in the Warborn Mech Division!


    He was already starting to think on how he could exchange a second batch of general cultivation elixirs. Would it be enough for him lo contribute his second generation Carmine System when hepleted its development, or did he have toe up with additional bargaining chips in order to persuade the stingy mechers?


    Ves could figure that outter. For now, he said goodbye to his favorite export pilot and moved on to Venerable Tusa Billingslcy-Larkinson.


    "Your ability to bypass transphasic energy shields is invaluable, cousin." Ves spoke in an appreciative lone. "If 1 wasn''t so distracted by so many different affairs as ofte, 1 would have spent a few weeks collecting more data and studying how exactly you are able to get through the toughest defenses of our alien adversaries."


    Tusa smirked. "1 don''t think you''ll get too much out of studying me. My new ability is intrinsic to my own power. It is also difficult to teach mech pilots who aren''tparable to me. I will try and figure out a way to pass on some of my tricks to the Speed Demons. If they manage to break through one day, they may be simr enough to me that 1 can pass on my technique outright."


    "Hopefully, the Larkinson Army will witness many breakthroughs. This is one of the new priorities of our n."


    "Won''t it be too much?" The expert pilot asked in concern. "I mean, we don''t have enough mech designers to take care of so many expert mech design projects. I am afraid that all of these necessary projects will dy the upgrade to my own expert mech. My Dark Zephyr is starting to fall behind the times, you know."


    "We will hire additional second-ss and maybe first-ss mech designers when ites down to it." Ves spoke. "We might even decide to outsource much of Che development of initial expert mechs for our new heroes. You don''t need to worry about projects getting backed up. 1 think that 1 will upgrade every older expert mech to quasi-first-ss standards in theing years. After that, I expect you all to break through to ace pilot before I am willing to overhaul your battle partners more extensively."


    Although the use of general cultivation elixirs and the transcendence glow should massively speed up the growth of all of his expert pilots, it would be a bit too difficult for Tusa to break through if his Dark Zephyr was still equivalent to a mid-tier expert mech.


    The expert light skirmisher starred out as a machine that was optimized for an expert pilot that had recently broken through. While Ves left enough room for growth to ount for two decades of growth, he never expected that the variables would change to such an extent that Tusa would exceed the lipper limit of his battle partner in record time!


    Ves valued his cousin''s capabilities a lot. He could already foresee that the ability to bypass virtually every barrier in a manner that seemed iprehensible to him would be of enormous use in the future!


    The stronger the enemy, the easier they tell once their defenses had been breached!


    Every adversary had a weakness. The Dark Zephyr was perfectly positioned to defeat the strongest possible enemies by directly targeting their weak points without fail.


    This was an advantage that would only grow in value as they encountered more formidable enemies In the future!


    Il would be great if Tusa could tutor additional mech pilots into developing simr abilities once they broke through in the future.


    If not, then Ves would just have to make sure that Tusa did not die by making his Dark Zephyr strong enough to survive every possible adversity!