The Mech Touch

5891 Faith Economy

The fleeters and the other people who must be monitoring the Dominion of Man could only see the power she had gained, but not the price that must be paid to keep her in this impressive state.

The subject of faith made Ves ambivalent as well, but ever since he decided to weaponize it during this event, he had to accept all of the baggage that came with its usage.

Ves tried to explain why the future of the Dominion of Man literally hinged on the faith of red humanity.

"If you understand that Furia can only maintain her current incarnation when her more rebellious parts of herself are suppressed by faith, then it shouldn't be too difficult to understand the ominous implications. Caramond doesn't have to channel every scrap of faith to his partner True God, but he has to divert at least some of it day and night. Oh, I also have to mention that his current influx of faith is far higher than what we should normally expect from our population base. I have been told that the Red Two and other major groups have been going all-out to promote Supreme Marshal Caramond Perle and his legacy. Once all of the excitement has died down, the ancestral spirit won't receive as much faith as before, making it increasingly more burdensome to keep Furia in line."

That did not sit well with the dread captain and many other high-ranked leaders who were listening in on this conversation.

"Let me understand this correctly, professor. Our ship is under constant threat of getting destroyed from within. The reason for that is because relying on the subject named 'Furia' as the primary power source for our dreadnought is a double-

edged sword. She can elevate the Dominion of Man to greatness, but if we ever lose control over her, she can easily degenerate, causing her to corrupt or destroy our vessel entirely."

"A compromised dreadnought should be the least of your concerns." Ves mildly stated.

The threat posed by an actual offshoot of one of the most powerful cultivators that humanity had produced in ancient times could not be overstated!

Such a being could inflict untold damage to human civilization in the Red Ocean and beyond!

The dread captain did not disagree with Ves. "One of our concerns with the new state of affairs that you have set in motion is that it is dependent on the masses. The current population of red humanity is not large in relation to the Milky Way, but it is not too small either. Many powers are already doing what they can to expand their population levels, but it takes time to produce results. In the meantime, the Red Cabal is already gathering forces to launch multiple offensives. Each organized and concentrated attack wave will batter at our border regions and compress our living space. The more star systems we lose, the harder it becomes to sustain a large population. The reduction in numbers translates into a reduction of faith."

In other words, if red humanity started to incur significant territorial losses during the Red War, it would not be able to produce as much faith energy as before!

The worst outcome was that so many humans got killed that they could no longer supply enough faith to keep Furia in line!

The fleeters in charge of the Dominion of Man had to make an incredibly painful decision at that point.

The most obvious solution would be to kill Furia as a preventative measure. This was a painful measure that would definitely downgrade the dreadnought.

The riskier and more desperate choice would be to allow Furia to degenerate. This was an exceedingly dangerous course of action, but if red humanity was losing the Red War anyway, then what was the harm in letting the original creator of the Fire Scroll free?

People would just hope that the so-called immortal god would have enough humanity left to save the dwindling amount of people left in the Red Ocean.

Neither option seemed palatable to the fleeters.

Dread Captain Argile adopted a frustrated expression. "I suppose it was too good to be true. You have given us many boons, but it is not pleasant to realize that they turn out to be poisoned chalices."

Ves as he beheld the man. The recent changes had done him a lot of good. Even now, his Dread Armor was still radiating a powerful but highly controlled red corona.

"This dynamic cuts both ways. Think about it. If we are able to push the aliens back and colonize more high-value star systems, we can double or triple our current population level. The more people we have, the greater the supply of faith. They can provide an additional buffer for Furia, but they can also support other possible transformations."

"Explain. You are addressing two separate subjects."

"Ah, excuse me. First, let us talk about Furia. She's pretty strong at the moment. However, now that she is alive and awake, I do not expect her to remain as stagnant as before. The large supply of faith that keeps her on our side is also facilitating her growth. I am not sure how much progress she can make, but each time she makes progress, the minimum upkeep level rises a bit further. There is… a chance that our population may not be able to keep her in line anymore."

"That is highly troubling." Volkert Argile rumbled. "I take that to mean that it is impossible to preserve the status quo. We cannot stop Furia's growth because doing so will cause her to go out of control. She will grow regardless of what we do, which means that she may ultimately become too strong for us to keep in line. You are essentially claiming that the Dominion of Man will not be able to last forever even if we manage to expand our population base."

While the two continued to converse with each other, the Dominion of Man had already become embroiled in the 7th round of the tribulation event.

The storm clouds had spat out large masses of condensed tribulation lightning and turned them into giant alien warships.

One or multiple of them appeared in each wave. Each of these warships possessed distinctly alien and cultivation vibes to them. It was not difficult to guess that they were representative of the vessels used to travel and make war across Messier 87.

These warships were actually quite impressive in how they leveraged hyper materials in a superior fashion. They also incorporated a huge amount of runes to program and direct the flow of E energy.

However, they were far behind when it came to the use of mundane science and technology.

For all of their impressive tech, their actual performance was not that impressive.

The Dominion of Man precisely aimed her primary and secondary cannons at any hostile vessel and blasted them with so much power that their defenses crumbled at a rapid rate.

There was no need to resort to convoluted measures when the most warship of Red Humanity could simply rely on brute force to overcome her opposition!

With Furia working to concentrate huge amounts of fire energy in every active weapon system, the firepower of the Dominion of Man had undergone a qualitative evolution.

It could even be argued that her ship-based firepower already surpassed that of the Guns of Armageddon!

Since the Dominion of Man was actively making a mockery out of the representatives of different warships from Messier 87, neither Ves nor Volkert Argile saw any reason to pay too much attention to the ongoing fighting.

The officers and crew of the dreadnought were not incompetent. They were all elites who could take care of themselves. They were also smart and adaptable enough to keep up with the rapid upgrades that changed a lot of parameters.

Ves decided to reassure the fleeters a bit. It was not his intention to cause them to fear their new prize.

"It doesn't necessarily have to be that way, captain. We can prolong the point of no return by increasing the supply of faith energy. This will at least buy us all more time to figure out a more permanent solution to Furia's problem."

Dread Captain Argile did not possess much confidence in this solution. If it had been that easy to render the Fire Elementals harmless, then the fleeters would have implemented it a long time ago.

There was no easy way to erase the imprints of what may very well be a God King. Ves already had a taste of that with the annoying soul mark.

"Maybe I am being too pessimistic. You have already accomplished the impossible by converting a Fire Elemental into a more useful contributor of humanity. Perhaps you can do so again." The captain said in a lighter tone.

Ves smiled back. "That is the other subject that I wanted to raise. Earlier, you asked me whether it is possible to empower the other 7 dreadnoughts. The full answer is a little complicated, but as long as our population base has multiplied by several times, it should be possible to apply a similar plan to another dreadnought. The premise is that there is enough faith energy to spare."

That intrigued the fleeter. The man was highly attached to the Dominion of Man, but he was not opposed to elevating her sister ships. More living dreadnoughts meant that there would be more hulls that could share the pressure of his current command.

"Your earlier words must not be wrong, so it is difficult to reconcile them with your latest statement. What are the complications, professor?"

"Meaning. Symbolism. Domain." Ves responded. "Caramond is a unique existence, and he should stay that way. His faith comes from people's belief in human supremacy, which is an excellent match with the symbolic meaning of the Dominion of Man. If you fleeters ever decide to transform another dreadnought, then you have to select one that carries a useful meaning. Then you need to brainstorm a new ancestral spirit that is based on another strong and widespread belief that is strongly associated with the human race. It will be quite difficult to find anything that can exceed the strength and ubiquity of human supremacy. Your best bet is to artificially cultivate new human values in an organized fashion. For example, you can promote the appreciation of human legacy or militarism."

That was an intriguing suggestion. Dread Captain Argile and the people behind him were doubtlessly exploring the viability of this idea.

"You are talking about creating a new church for every dreadnought that we wish to transform."

Ves raised his armored palms. "No! Nothing as exaggerated as that! Caramond did not need a church in order to tap into people's belief of human supremacy. You just have to educate and indoctrinate enough people to value other aspects of our race as well. The important part is that they are reflective of modern human traits. It is the human element that is chiefly responsible for taming the Fire Elementals."

"We will take your suggestions under advisement. I admit that you have given us tantalizing ideas. The main issue is that we can only implement them if we are able to expand our population base."

"That is true, captain, but you do not have to focus on quantity alone. The spread of cultivation will make a lot of people stronger in mind and in spirit. That will allow them to produce increasingly more faith energy, which means that there will be greater room for this kind of stuff. Devotion is also an important variable. People who hardly think that humans are special will never be able to supply as much faith energy as those who are utterly convinced that humanity is the strongest race in the cosmos. All of these variables are levers which we can use to manipulate the production of faith energy in our society."

Though Ves spoke about this subject in purely secularist terms, there was still a part of him that was a little afraid of what his words might unleash one day.

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