The Mech Touch

Ves ended his speech shortly after that. There was no time left, and saying anything else may cause people to pay less attention to his valuable tips.

The founding ceremony continued after Fleet Admiral Amelie Jameson completed the introduction of the legislative branch of the Red Collective.

She proceeded to introduce the 5 nominees for the Office of Executors that had already received majority approval from the Lower and Upper Councils.

The executors were the equivalent of the chief ministers of the Larkinson Clan and led the day-to-day operations of the Red Collective. They possessed a lot of authority and could even assume near-absolute power during emergencies.

Ves did not know any of them in person, and had little interest in befriending them. He knew that each Executor was actually chosen to placate different interest groups.

If Ves needed to borrow the power of an executor to get anything specific done, he just had to approach the ones that were closely aligned to the Red Association and the common folk.

So long as the other 4 executors did not deliberately obstruct this little move, there should be no problem for Ves to obtain what he sought.

The founding ceremony continued after the fleet admiral concluded the introductions.

The 5 newly-appointed executors took over and began to hold their own speeches. Each of them expressed their own values and priorities before solemnly promising to help the Red Collective become as strong as the Red Association and the Red Fleet.

Every speech was interspersed by a ritual. From dances to sacrifices, the collies evidently understood and appreciated the value of rituals, especially ones that a massive amount of people paid attention to. Every ceremony seemed to bond red humans a little closer to each other.

Ves started to lose interest at this point. The ritual displays were quite impressive, but their content was a little thin. Perhaps the collies were too afraid that they would inadvertently imitate the Five Scrolls Compact, so they deliberately controlled the intensity to avoid alarming too many powerful people.

Whatever the case, the entire show finally concluded a little over an hour later.

The Shrine of Light had descended into an amiable silence again. Nobody dared to chat with each other or make any noises. Everyone had become thoroughly affected by the grand chamber illuminated with radiant light.

The positive E energies that flowed through the Shrine of Light at a higher concentration than usual kept everyone in an airy and more receptive mood. As they slowly began to leave their seats and exit through the many entrances that had opened up, they continued to mull over all of the words that the speakers had conveyed earlier.

Ves hoped that they did not forget the advice that he had given to them. As far as he was concerned, their first priority should not be to earn enough RC merits to obtain a good premium curated cultivation method, but to spend the fruits of their labor on a companion spirit fruit instead!

Companion spirits not only opened up a second and parallel channel for systematic cultivation, but also vastly increased an individual's sensitivity and perception towards E energy.

Having a companion spirit that consisted entirely of E energy would naturally make it a lot easier to practice most forms of qi cultivation methods!

Unfortunately, the Red Collective deliberately inflated the redemption price to 100,000 RC merits, which was a large and unattainable sum for ordinary folk.

Rich and powerful people should be able to satisfy this condition with relative ease by donating cash, high-grade materials, phasewater, starships, real estate and other assets needed to expand the operations of the Red Collective.

It took an immense capital for the Red Collective to catch up to the rest of the Red Two, which was why it needed to depend heavily on the RC Merit Exchange to gain what it needed.

In any case, the production of companion spirit fruits was not costly at all. The only restriction that prevented them from becoming more readily available was the absence of enough trees that could grow the fruits.

The Cultivation Method Department had to invest a lot of resources and manpower to develop new cultivation methods. Drafting them required the expertise of high-level cultivators and extremely knowledgeable cultivation scientists, both of which were quite scarce in the Red Ocean.

Every newly developed cultivation method had to go through a large battery of tests before getting sent back to an R&D team in order to optimize it further. The new iteration of the cultivation method had to undergo a second battery of tests in order to expose as many flaws and possibilities for further improvement.

A cultivation method could only become curated after repeating this cycle often enough. The Red Collective served as the highest authority of systematic cultivation of red humanity, so any flaws were completely unacceptable!

Given all the work that the Cultivation Method Department put into preparing dozens of free and premium curated cultivation methods, it was a miracle that people had so many to choose from right on the date of the founding ceremony!

Ves had already taken a look at the options available in the Repository. Most of the cultivation methods were very modern, simple and devoid of any frills.

It was not until he browsed the more extravagantly priced premium curated cultivation methods that he started to encounter a lot of weirdness.

Ves figured that they were essentially modernized and optimized versions of very powerful ancient cultivation methods.

The cultivation scientists may have been able to tweak a few peripheral elements, but they did not dare to alter any of the core components for fear of collapsing the entire mysterious framework.

To be honest, Ves seriously questioned the wisdom of adapting old cultivation methods instead of starting from a blank slate, but the Red Collective probably wanted to show off the greater potential of systematic cultivation.

Their ridiculously high redemption prices were probably meant to deter people from actually practicing the methods.

Ves expected that the Cultivation Method Department would eventually replace these modernized legacy cultivation methods with fully modern equivalents that possessed a lot less ancient baggage.

In any case, this was not his problem.

The Cultivation Method Department was understandably one of the most well-staffed and well-funded departments of the Red Collective.

The department head and the executors should be able to improve the catalog of curated cultivation methods to a satisfactory level within a decade.

As Ves finally exited the Shrine of Light, his chief of staff joined him once again.

"Your new office awaits, chief councilor. Your entire staff has already relocated to the adjacent workplaces."

"Please lead me to my new office. By the way, can I change out of these stuffy robes? I look good in it and all, but it is far too much to wear now that the founding ceremony has ended."

"There is a sizable apartment attached to your office where you can sleep, refresh yourself and change your clothes."

"Good."

Ves carried Lucky in his arms as he followed Eliza Mo Ragadan to his new office.

All of the senators of the Upper Council got assigned to offices at the same section of the Astral Octagon. The interior design had shifted when Ves first entered this part of the crystalline space station.

An air of calm and solemnity was infused in this section. Actual incense burners lined the walls, causing the air to be filled with a spicy scent that Ves did not expect.

He could feel that there was more to incense than met the eye. Just smelling it caused his Spirituality to become stimulated.

"What is with the incense?" Ves questioned.

"Classified." Eliza responded. "I do not have the security clearance to know this information. You should be able to learn the full details as your security clearance is much higher than my own. In fact, in the following two days, you are expected to remain inside the Astral Octagon so that you can be briefed on all manner of secrets that the chief councilor of the Upper Council is expected to know. This can include the existence and functions of grand works, the secret projects that the Red Collective is working on and confidential intelligence related to the native aliens of the Red Ocean."

Ves couldn't help but smile. Now that he had broken into the top levels of human civilization, he finally completed his transformation from a chess piece into a chess player.

Knowledge was power. The more he knew about the true score of red humanity, the less he became vulnerable to plots and schemes that deliberately exploited his ignorance!

"I see. I look forward to receiving all of that confidential information. Do I have any further obligations? Does the Upper Council need to convene in the near term?"

His chief of staff shook her head. "No, sir. We have already made extensive arrangements for the first quarter since the start of our operations. Our plans are already locked on, and there is little need to debate on changes, barring any emergencies. The Lower Council also needs time to take stock of our current situation and draft longer term plans that seek to chart the Red Collective's course in the next two or three years. It will take months for the councilors to debate each other and come to a consensus. I predict that it may take half a year before the Upper Council finally needs to convene in order to inspect the Lower Council's work and vote the proposed plan into law."

This was exactly how it should be done. The Lower Council were expected to do all of the work, while the Upper Council simply skimmed through the final results and issued a stamp of approval.

Under normal circumstances, the Lower Council should not be stupid enough to send a bill to the Upper Council that had a high chance of getting stalled at that point.

Numerous people accused Ves of being lazy.

This would mean that the Upper Council should essentially act as a rubber stamp that approved every bill without needing to think too much under ordinary times.

This saved Ves the greatest amount of work. He just wanted to start a virtual session, vote yes on any bills that required approval, shut down his connection and go right back to his mech designs!

Numerous people accused Ves of being lazy.

He preferred to frame it as maximizing his efficiency.

Few people wanted to waste their time. Ves was glad that most members of the Upper Council held similar opinions.

After their floater platform finally brought them to their destination, Ves and his entourage finally entered his own slice of territory within the Astral Octagon.

The same staff rose from their seats and formally saluted their superior and the esteemed chief councilor.

Ves casually waved to them to return to their seats while heading straight towards his main office.

The entire place was tastefully decorated, but was devoid of a personal touch. Ves reminded himself to decorate his main office later.

The good news was that the previous painting that depicted the former Great Temple of the Five Scrolls Compact had not been brought to his new office.

The wall remained bare, so Ves preferred to stop by the Art Department so that he could pick out a replacement piece in person.

Before he sat down on his large and opulent office chair, he briefly explored the private apartment that was built right next to his main office.

The place offered a luxurious living space to Ves. It was perfect for workaholics who preferred to waste as little time in transit as possible as they worked full-time within the Astral Octagon.

"Meow!"

Lucky had immediately taken a fancy at a floating pillow that appeared to be tailor-made for cats. The contraption featured multiple controls that could easily be operated by pets with a sufficient amount of intelligence.

As the gem cat began to woop around with his latest toy, Ves quickly completed his inspection of the private apartment before he returned to his main office.

"Ah… that is really good."

Ves sank into his luxurious chair and noted to his delight that it was made out of top-quality puelmer leather.

He indulged himself for a small moment before shifting his attention to his chief of staff.

"So… what is next on the agenda?"

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