The Mech Touch

5944 Gate Bonanza

The System only presented two new upgrade tracks so far, and they were already powerful enough to be absolute game changers.

Both of them were strongly related to the space element, just as Ves expected. This implied that once he completed another Supply Mission by submitting Yondu Milk, the next round of System upgrades would probably be centered around biotechnology.

The expanse of space shifted yet again. The mists that obscured the environment around the mountaintop covered everything else up yet again.

The perspective shifted. Ves' consciousness appeared right in front of the Time Gate.

The difference was that the gate in question looked a lot different than before. It had received a massive overhaul that caused it to become a lot bigger and thicker. Additional modules of indeterminate function had been added as well.

The large gate activated.

The view shifted to show a much larger portal floating in space.

Ves instantly recognized it. How could he forget about the greater beyonder gate that was located in the Maryun Ultima System in the Milky Way?!

"No way…"

After a brief wait, the greater beyonder gate slowly activated.

A large procession of human starships hailing from the Red Ocean slowly passed through the activated gate!

[Upgrade Path #3: Universal Gate Network. Transforms the Time Gate into a Time and Space Gate that will serve as the nexus of an expandable gate network. Enable the construction of additional gates by investing Ascension Points or material resources. Continuous upgrades can lead to the creation of an intergalactic gate network that can span across the cosmos.]

This looked and sounded quite familiar to Ves!

"Isn't this a way to recreate the Milky Way Galactic Gate Network?"

Ves could understand the appeal of being able to support the creation of a new network of gates, especially if they fell under his control.

However, the Red Two should be fully capable of setting up a gate network themselves. Perhaps the only reason they hadn't already done so was because the Red Ocean was a lot smaller, so the demand for instant transportation was much smaller.

The lesser beyonder gates may be just a fraction as powerful as their greater counterparts, but they still required an immense amount of phasewater in order to function.

Red humanity had better uses for phasewater than to build a mostly redundant gate network!

Perhaps it made sense to set up a proper gate network if humans started to conquer a lot more territories, but for now human-occupied space was so small that modern superdrive-

equipped starships could easily cross from one end to the other end of human space in a matter of weeks or months.

Ves did not actually possess much interest in creating his own gate network. The only promising part about the illusion presented by the System was the possibility of reconnecting to the greater beyonder gate located all the way in the Milky Way.

This told him that if he chose this upgrade path, he may be able to offer salvation to red humanity!

If he could arrange an evacuation route back to the Milky Way, then he could save every human stuck in the Red Ocean from getting wiped out by the native aliens or enslaved by the Subjugation King!

Sure, it may be a cowardly decision to run without putting up a fight to the very end, but no one would blame Ves and the others for running away from an incoming God King!

Ves couldn't help but associate this upgrade track to the prophetic vision called 'The Triumphant Return to the Milky Way'.

Had he been responsible for helping red humanity return to the Milky Way in this possible future timeline?

That may very well be the case!

The only point of uncertainty was that if he arranged for red humanity's evacuation back to the galaxy they originally came from, this reunion would be anything but 'triumphant'!

He mentally shrugged. "Who cares. If the alien God King can't be stopped, I can at least buy a lot of time for myself and my family."

Getting soul marked by this tyrannical bastard was his fault. It was only fair that he would suffer the consequences of his own recklessness.

What he couldn't accept was the possibility that he doomed the rest of his family!

His children did not deserve to suffer for his mistakes. Each of them was special, and he just knew that the Subjugation King would take a liking for them. Aurelia was especially attractive because her companion spirit just happened to possess a powerful affinity for the light element!

As a parent, he would do anything to save her from a predator. If he had to choose this upgrade track and figure out a way to reconnect to the greater beyonder gate in the Maryun Ultima System, then that was a worthwhile endeavor!

"Still… does running away solve the problem?"

Not necessarily. He would just be able to bring himself along with much of what was left of red humanity back to a low-

energy environment.

Though it would be nice to reunite with his mother and father with his main body, he feared that all he would do was to delay the inevitable!

There was no way that the Subjugation King would settle for conquering the Red Ocean.

Once he gained access to all of the phasewater available in the dwarf galaxy, the entire cosmos opened up to him. With his immense power and vast amount of alien knowledge, he would definitely find a way to jump all the way to the Milky Way!

Once the God King arrived in the Milky Way, he would definitely seek to conquer the much larger galaxy, low-energy environment or not! Just the fact that Ves still bore the alien tyrant's soul mark would just make it a lot easier for him to dial in the right coordinates!

"Wait, is this the reason why I got chained up like a war criminal in one of the prophetic visions?"

He had no idea whether this was the case, but it sounded like a plausible scenario.

To be sure, Ves did not think the Subjugation King or other invaders from Messier 87 would let off the Milky Way. They would find out the origin of the human race soon enough by capturing and interrogating a lot of people and aliens once they arrived in the Red Ocean.

Ves did not even possess a lot of confidence that red humanity and original humanity combined could fend off a Subjugation King with access to lots of phasewater. The Milky Way was broken and devoid of energy that could give humans the edge they needed to defeat an actual God King.

"This is not that great of a choice. Those portals are all vulnerable to attacks, and they can't be built in locations where no human has reached before."

Another point of criticism was that humans had already mastered this technology. Their beyonder gates might not be as sophisticated, but they could do the job well enough.

The main attractions of selecting this upgrade track was to build and control his own gate network and to recreate a bridge between the Red Ocean and the Milky Way.

Ves was ready to move on and explore another possible choice.

"Next."

His perspective went back to the Time and Space Gate. This time, the device had been modified in other ways. It looked smaller but also more mystical.

The transformed gate activated. It generated a portal that led straight to the streets of the capital city of New Constantinople VIII!

The gate shut down then activated a portal that led to an entirely different location. Ves could see that it led to the Cat Nest on Davute.

The gate proceeded to repeat this routine. It opened up gates at other locations in the Red Ocean, both on land and in space.

The Time and Space Gate granted Ves the ability to relocate directly to the surface of different planets to the interior of mobile starships such as the Spirit of Bentheim!

Ves already deduced that the Time Gate gained a portal generation function!

This was not all. The best part about this was that the destination did not require an expensive and vulnerable portal. He could just program a destination and appear where he wanted!

[Upgrade Path #4: Portal Exploration. Transforms the Time Gate into a Time and Space Gate. Allows for one-way transportation to locations and coordinates that you have previously visited in the past. The user must pay an increasing amount of Ascension Points to enable instant displacement across further distances and more difficult locations. Further upgrades can increase the maximum displacement distance, create one-way portals to destinations that the user has yet to visit and increase the size of the Time and Space Gate. The user can spend a large amount of Ascension Points to enable the creation of permanent portals and two-way portals.]

His enthusiasm for this upgrade track dropped a bit when he learned that he would have to pay Ascension Points for each passage to a destination without a portal.

The advantage was still great. So long as he earned enough of them, he could potentially reach destinations that were normally inaccessible!

He could already think of many possible uses for this.

He gained the ability to move between different planets and fleets belonging to the Larkinson Clan.

He could instantly escape a losing battle before his enemies could kill or capture him. He doubted that anyone could stop him from getting away the instant he entered the System Space.

He could sneakily move behind enemy lines and appear on a distant alien planet. From there, he could wreak havoc or steal a lot of valuable goods such as phasewater or archetech.

If he upgraded the Time and Space Gate extensively enough, then he may even be able to hop to a different dwarf galaxy, or arrive directly inside Messier 87!

So long as Ves ensured that he maintained his distance from the likes of the Subjugation King, he could make good use of his ability to appear in other galaxies to plunder specialty resources and absorb valuable alien knowledge.

Perhaps he might even be able to bring a small group of family to a galaxy that was so distant that it would take the Subjugation King centuries to arrive even if he managed to enrich himself with a lot of phasewater!

"The problem is that this option is clearly a lot smaller in scale."

He liked Universal Gate Network a lot more for providing powerful infrastructural support. It was a benefit that not only made life better for himself, but also red humanity as a whole.

Portal Exploration was a lot more limited in scale. He wondered whether it was only possible to pass through it from the System Space.

"Is there an upgrade that can allow me to generate this portal in realspace?"

[Yes, but it will require a great amount of Ascension Points to apply this upgrade.]

Ves grew relieved. He did not have to let others enter his System Space in order to pass through an active portal. That vastly reduced the risk of exposure.

Despite the smaller scope and the constant need to pay Ascension Points for every activation, he actually took a liking for this option.

He could get up to a lot of mischief with Portal Exploration. He could raid his enemies and disappear before he was ever in danger of getting caught. He could potentially leave the Red Ocean behind and hop to a neighboring dwarf galaxy that had never received human visitors in the past.

So long as he had enough Ascension Points, the entire cosmos was within reach!

"The scale is a lot smaller, though."

Would he be able to arrange an evacuation route for his entire clan? That sounded unlikely unless he was willing to invest a lot of Ascension Points in upgrading this parameter.

That was troublesome because AP was limited. Trying to upgrade capacity might cause Ves to have too few Ascension Points left to upgrade the maximum distance.

There was no way he could have it both ways with how much AP he was able to earn.

"Unless… I am not the only user anymore…"

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