The Mech Touch

5943 The Violet Refuge

The empty expanse around the consciousness of Ves began to change into a completely different setting.

The void of deep space came into existence. Stars dotted the skies, though not ones that looked familiar.

The illusion, for Ves recognized that he was not observing a location that existed in reality, presented a sea of stars that did not possess the red nebulas that defined the Red Ocean, nor the ubiquitous golden glow of Messier 87.

Instead, a spherical boundary that glowed in a subtle shade of violet caged in this expanse of space.

Ves had a powerful sense that the space beyond this violet boundary might look completely different from a vast expanse of space.

What mattered was the space inside this violet energy bubble. It was not empty. Instead, it was filled with several large space stations and starships.

The human-built space stations did not contain any familiar or unfamiliar markings. They looked rather generic if not for the fact that they were clearly built with the aim of providing long-term habitation in a fixed location in space.

The space ships also looked generic, making it look as if the System tried its best not to taint this illusion with biases or visions of a future timeline.

Whatever the case, the collection of space stations and starships effectively formed a society that could easily host tens of millions of people!

Shuttles and other space traffic showed that every ship and space station was very much active.

Ves identified many forms of fixed defenses, but it was rather clear that the inhabitants weren't particularly afraid of getting invaded.

The space within the violet energy bubble was protected somehow. It formed an oasis of safety in a cosmos that was filled with powerful enemies.

[Upgrade Track #1: The Violet Refuge. This upgrade direction will transform the System Space into a fully developed pocket space. This pocket space must be anchored in a fixed location relative to a cosmic satellite. The Violet Refuge falls under the control of the highest-ranking user of the Mech Designer System, who can choose the anchoring coordinates, the entry and exit conditions and more. The Violet Refuge will be limited in size at first, but many of its properties can be upgraded by spending Ascension Points.]

A pocket space. The first upgrade track amounted to a hidden refuge. Ves grew considerably less enthused when he heard that. He already had the Blinkyverse. Sure, it was a completely imaginary space for the time being, but there was always a way to transform it into a material universe.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of obtaining the Violet Refuge was that its physical laws and dimensions conformed to realspace. A mech built in this System-provided pocket space should work exactly the same in the rest of the cosmos.

This was not necessarily the case in the Blinkyverse. Some of its laws that governed its small reality diverged from the main universe. This granted Ves certain advantages as he could do stuff that was not possible in normal space.

Unfortunately, it could also lead to accidents and other compatibility problems if he shifted stuff from one universe to another.

Ves was sure he could figure out solutions to these problems. The chance of accidents also shouldn't be too big as the differences in laws of reality weren't all that big.

"How secure is this Violet Refuge? Can it block the tracking of my soul mark?" He asked the system without producing any actual sound.

[The Violet Refuge is well-hidden and shielded from many different forms of tracking and detection. It is highly isolated and can block many forms of signal transmission from the beginning. Many functions can be added or upgraded to the Violet Refuge. Its volume, stability, detection avoidance and defense against intrusion can all be improved to a high ceiling. The more Ascension Points the user is willing to spend, the more powerful it becomes.]

If there was one aspect about the System that Ves had confidence in, it was that it always attempted to deliver impressive results.

Ves deduced that this may be an expression of the creator of the Mech Designer System. Whoever made it probably shared a lot in common with Gloriana!

Therefore, the Violet Refuge should be far more than a simple pocket space. It should truly do its name justice and provide Ves with a genuine refuge to hide against threats towards himself and his clan.

Given all of the possible calamities foretold by the prophetic visions painted on the Zeal, Ves had plenty of reasons to believe that it was not redundant to prepare an extremely secure bolthole for himself.

No matter whether he needed safe harbor against humans or aliens, the Violet Refuge had the potential to shield him against many of his enemies!

It also helped that Ves could apparently bring in a lot of people and objects into this exclusive pocket space. He could even turn it into a permanent habitat space. Generations of Larkinsons might grow up and die without ever venturing into realspace!

He understood why the System presented it as the first solution. The Violet Refuge probably offered the most direct solution to one of his greatest threats. If it became powerful enough to prevent the Subjugation King from tracking his coordinates or block his intrusion attempts, then Ves would gain lots of time to solve the dangerous soul mark in a more permanent fashion!

That was already tempting enough for him to choose the first upgrade track right away. He refrained from doing so because he considered it to be a cowardly decision.

Ves did not want to turn himself into a squirrel who dashed into his secret hiding place at the first sign of trouble!

Sure, someone who possessed an affinity for darkness might consider this to be standard behavior, but Ves did not want to deal with his problem by avoiding confrontation all of the time!

Besides, choosing the Violet Refuge meant that he would pass over 6 other upgrade tracks, any of which could offer more compelling options.

"Next."

The illusion changed. The Violet Refuge disappeared. The environment changed to the System Space that he was already familiar with. The same mountain top came into view always.

The difference was that the white mists that obscured much of the surrounding terrain had receded by a huge extent.

Ves found out that the available territory had expanded to include the rest of the mountain as well as a large lake at the bottom!

The lake immediately attracted his attention. He could immediately tell it was not a normal body of water. Instead, his incorporeal senses detected that the lake was filled entirely with phasewater!

That was not even the best part.

The lake was not calm. A fountain of phasewater constantly sprayed in the center.

It turned out that the lake was more than a reserve. It was a phasewater wellspring!

[Upgrade Track #2: Phasewater Generation. The System Space can be expanded to accommodate one or more phasewater wellsprings. Each phasewater wellspring can autonomously generate phasewater. Different from other sources, the wellsprings inside the System Space do not need to be supplied with materials. The initial generation of phasewater is relatively small at the beginning, but can be expanded by spending Ascension Points. The wellsprings can potentially be upgraded to produce as much phasewater as the entire Red Ocean Dwarf Galaxy.]

This was another powerful upgrade track! Being able to generate phasewater in a completely secure location immediately solved the constant shortage of phasewater.

So long as the production rate became high enough, the Larkinson Clan would never be short of phasewater ever again!

What was even more promising was that Phasewater Generation completely cut off his dependence on the Red Ocean.

In other words, if Ves and his people ever traveled to another galaxy like the Milky Way or Messier 87 one day, he did not have to worry about losing access to large sources of phasewater anymore. He could continue to reap the benefits of the Red Ocean's specialty product without actually remaining anchored to the dwarf galaxy anymore!

This was an extremely powerful long-term benefit that would definitely justify this upgrade track.

Having access to a source of phasewater also assisted his phase lord cultivation. If he was no longer able to improve his true body through lightning baptisms, then he needed to grow it the old-fashioned way.

The aliens did so through various means, but one of the most universal one was to steadily inject more phasewater into their bloodstreams. By doing this at a very gradual rate, the alien phase lords were able to increase their tolerance for higher concentrations of phasewater in a safe and stable manner.

Naturally, the greater his phasewater concentration, the greater the demand for phasewater!

Once his body proportions began to approach that of a small moon, he would need far more phasewater than he could ever plunder from an alien warfleet or stronghold!

Ves knew that so long as he chose this powerful upgrade track, there was no need for him to rely on external sources anymore.

He even theorized that it may no longer be necessary for him to procure a phasewater production system!

Either the System would give him the option of procuring a PPS for a lot of Ascension Points, or he could just go without one and rely on infusing phasewater supplied by all of the phasewater wellsprings!

In any case, Ves would become absolutely assured that he would gain abundant access to one of the most valuable and strategic resources of the Red Ocean!

On many occasions, the difference between victory and defeat was decided by access to resources.

If Ves was willing to expose the fact that he could easily obtain far more phasewater than the rest of red humanity combined, then he could gain a massive amount of leverage over the other human powers!

He could potentially supply them with far more phasewater than the Red Cabal had access to. This would enable red humanity to put up a far greater fight against the native aliens as far more combat assets enjoyed the benefits of transphasic technology!

Upgrade Track #2 definitely satisfied his personal interests as well as the interests of human civilization.

Still, an upgradeable source of phasewater alone might not be enough to solve all of his problems.

It might turn him into a much more attractive target instead!

Another reason not to take this option was to consider whether its function largely became redundant so long as he was able to become a greater phase lord.

If he was able to steal the PPS of a phase whale and implant it inside his body, he should definitely gain the ability to generate phasewater by himself.

Sure, the production rate might not be as high, and his subsequent cultivation may proceed at a snail's pace, but he should at least be able to meet his own needs as well as that of his clan!

Phasewater Generation therefore wasn't as unique and irreplaceable as he originally thought.

Besides, so long as red humanity managed to win the Red War and take over the Red Ocean, the supply of phasewater across all of the conquered territories would become incomparable to current conditions!

Ves concluded that this was a convenient but not quite essential upgrade track. There were many viable substitutes available, though they required a lot more effort and struggle to realize.

Besides, Ves was not sure whether it was a good idea to build up an enormous dependency on phasewater. It had its strengths, but it might also limit the technological development of his clan in the long run.

Hyper technology had the potential to reproduce the powerful effects of phasewater in different ways. It just needed a lot of development before people figured out more sophisticated ways to manipulate space-attributed E energy.

In the end, Ves had to decide how much of his life should be dominated by phasewater.

It was an exotic material that possessed much greater promise than what the phase whales had managed to uncover, but it required a huge commitment to realize its endless potential!

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