Long after Calabast left his office, Ves remained introspective.

"Meow?"

Lucky crawled upon his shoulder and poked his smooth-shaven cheek that was as soft as a baby's bottom.

Ves reached out with his hand and pushed his cat away.

"Do you think we've become Rubarthans without realizing it? If someone from the outside looks at how we run the clan, then there's at least a 60 percent resemblance to a Rubarthan equivalent!"

His cat tilted his head.

"Meow."

"Don't underestimate this degree of similarity! It only takes a few more rule changes and cultural shifts to bump that up to 80 percent!"

If the Larkinson Clan reached that point, then it would pretty much become a discount Rubarthan organization.

The only reason why Ves couldn't push his clan even closer to the Rubarthan standard was because he lacked the amazing amount of wealth, tech and resources to implement the most extravagant policies.

Even so, it was already pretty good to be able to fit in with one of the greatest human states to such an extent!

The New Rubarth Empire emerged as an explicit rejection of Terran philosophy. Its ideology had spread throughout human space for a very good reason. Its pursuit of meritocracy, its worship for actual strength and its rejection of inherited authority had allowed the Rubarthans to quickly catch up and slightly overtake their former overlords.

With such a stellar example of what their ideology was capable of, many other states throughout the galaxy copied the Rubarthans to a varying extent and mostly became stronger due to these reasons!

Even all the way at the border of human space, both the Bright Republic and the Vesia Kingdom avidly adopted the Societal Revival Theory. Whether purposefully or not, both states warred against each other every generation with the expectation of conditioning and strengthening their fighting forces.

Yet the Rubarthan philosophy also had its downsides!

The central premise of this thought was that people were surrounded by enemies and needed to become strong enough to deal with them. Those who adhered to this philosophy had to be prepared to pay a heavy price in order to survive in a hostile galaxy.

"The cruel price is often paid with human lives." Ves muttered.

Wasn't that what he was doing as well right now? In his personal pursuit of strength, he did not hesitate to drag his fellow clansmen into the Nyxian Gap in order to bloody them and refine them into crack troops.

Just because no one died so far did not mean that Task Force Predator would be able to escape the Gap unscatched. Now that they had entered Maynard Fields, the Black Cats had already identified many pirate organizations in this zone that could easily give his forces a run for their money.

The fact that Ves did not feel bothered about the possibility of suffering a substantial amount of losses meant that his personal philosophy had already shifted in this direction.

He felt rather mixed about that. On one hand, the New Rubarth Empire was a role model to many humans in the galaxy.

On the other hand, he did not identify himself as a Rubarthan. He was a Larkinson, and the clan he built and shaped was supposed to develop its own identity.

The fact that the clan unintentionally imitated the Rubarthans to a very strong degree was a bit unfortunate.

"This is going to be problematic." Ves frowned and bent his head in thought.

Out in the Komodo Star Sector and the galactic rim, there was no need to pay much attention to this resemblance. The Larkinson Clan was situated so far away from the galactic heartland and galactic center that no one would tie the Larkinsons to the Rubarthans.

They were just too far away!

Yet once he entered the much smaller Red Ocean and mixed up with many powers with connections to the first-rate superstates, this resemblance would definitely affect the Larkinson Clan's treatment!

Even if the Larkinson Clan tried to remain unaligned or joined the neutral Red Ocean Union, others would still suspect that the clan was in the camp of the Rubarthans!

"This is a huge issue." He concluded.

If he did not want his clan to get entangled with the Rubarthans, then he needed to change the culture and policies of his clan.

Yet that was unacceptable to Ves. The values and principles that underpinned the clan was the source of its strength. Ves had grown up with some of these ideals, and acquired the rest through his experiences in his life.

He believed it was absolutely necessary for the Larkinson Clan to hold on to its current philosophy!

That left him stuck. If he was unwilling to change his clan, then did that mean it was stuck with its Rubarthan association?

He frowned. Calabast likely brought up the issue of alliances in the Red Ocean because she must have recognized this latent problem beforehand.

If Ves and the Larkinson Clan naively entered the Red Ocean while remaining unaware of this issue, then they would likely get into a lot of trouble!

Hearing about the complex political considerations in the Nyxian Gap made him feel as if this shark pool was much more dangerous than he thought.

As a response, he developed a faint yearning to acquire a qualified diplomat. As long as he hired or partnered up with someone who could navigate the various interests off the Big Two, the first-rate superstates, the alliances carving the Red Ocean and the pioneers following their ambitions, then Ves did not have to worry about leading his clan into a dead end.

"It's stupid to remain independent." He sighed in resignation. "Without the protection of an alliance, the Terrans or the Rubarthans can easily use their overwhelming might to squash my clan like a bug. There is no way we can resist their might."

Joining the Rubarth Pact sounded like a great way to gain solid protection. Yet the price of doing so was great. By aligning his clan to the Rubarthans, Ves could basically forget about doing business with the Terrans and their allies ever again.

As a mech designer, Ves really did not wish to exclude any customers. He already knew how awful it was to get blocked from a huge portion of the market when the LMC's products were pulled from the shelves in every Coalition-aligned space.

Therefore, Ves would much rather join the Red Ocean Union even if it sounded a bit weak and scattered.

Yet perhaps it was too late. Ves could already predict that if the Larkinson Clan in its current incarnation entered the Red Ocean, every outsider would treat them as Rubarthan vassals.

"This is too frustrating!"

Diplomacy was not the Larkinson Clan's strong suit. In fact, none of his clansmen possessed any meaningful experience in it! Though Ves could instruct the clan to recruit capable diplomats, he wasn't sure whether that was enough.

He resolved to keep an eye out for any notable diplomats in his travels. Anyone who was competent enough to navigate the complex relations of the Red Ocean and could turn enemies into friends was worth befriending!

That was something to consider for later. For now, he had enough issues on his plate.

As Ves resumed his design work, several days passed as the fleet quietly traversed through Maynard Fields.

Though the forward scouts dispatched by the Flagrant Vandals and other forces found sporadic traces of battles and pirate activity, the task force hadn't encountered any actual pirates.

The population density of the various zones of the Nyxian Gap wasn't all that high. Weeks might go by for someone to encounter a pirate group. If this wasn't the case, the Peacekeeper outfits would never dare to venture too deep!

It was just that the Larkinson Clan actively traveled to the coordinates to as many pirate groups along the way as possible. Now that the task force stopped seeking out enemies on its own accord, Ves felt unaccustomed to spending so many days in peace.

Fortunately, he did not spend all of that time in vain. The tranquil days allowed him to focus fully on his mech design projects.

All four minor projects chugged along very nicely. The attentive supervision from Ves and Gloriana helped them remain on track and prevented any of the assistant mech designers from getting stuck too long.

Of the four minor projects, the Crystal Lord Mark II and Sanctuary Projects achieved the greatest progress. The former used the original Crystal Lord as a template so the Mark II version was actually more like developing an upgrade variant than designing something completely novel.

Still, the project generated a considerable amount of consternation to Ves. The original Crystal Lord design was one of his babies, and he wanted the second edition to stay true to its roots.

This meant that Ves had to find a way to preserve the alien character of the original design. Its design spirit, the Crystal Leader, was a barely sentient empowered spiritual fragment that wasn't all that strong.

Yet Ves never thought about replacing it. This was disrespectful to life.

Some people treated their wives as clothes and did not hesitate to change to better ones as they grew wealthier or more successful.

Not Ves. Even if he lamented the Crystal Leader's weak foundation, it was not as if there were ways to resolve this problem.

For example, Ves was pretty sure that he could empower the ancient and almost-forgotten spiritual fragment if he was willing to expend some of the life-attributed energy derived from a drop of serum.

Yet was it worth it for Ves to expend such an extremely precious resource just to empower a low-value design spirit?

From a cost-benefit perspective, it made a lot more sense for Ves to break up the Crystal Leader spiritual fragment, blend in some ingredients that weren't too costly, and form a completely new spiritual product that was at least an order of magnitude stronger and possessed much better growth prospects!

Whenever he considered this option, he felt disgusted by it. Ves truly cherished his design spirits, at least the ones he had friendly relations with, and he believed it was wrong for him to treat them as replaceable commodities or pieces of equipment.

Therefore, even if he had to pay a greater price, Ves felt more and more inclined to nurture the Crystal Leader and all of his older design spirits.

One consideration that justified this choice was that spiritual entities grew in strength and sophistication over time. Replacing an outdated design spirit with a newer one meant throwing away all of that accumulation.

Perhaps the difference wasn't so big in just five to ten years, but when a design spirit continually performed the same duties for 50 years or longer, they might have achieved a qualitative improvement that could not be matched by any newborn spiritual product!

A rueful smile appeared on his face. "Isn't the Ouroboros a great example?"

Even though the circumstances wasn't entirely the same as the Ouroboros was a physical mech as opposed to an intangible mech design, the principles shouldn't be too different.

Life accumulated strength through the passage of time!

Therefore, even if the Crystal Leader wasn't particularly impressive, its unique origins and history might produce something completely unsurpassed in the distant future!

When Ves settled on keeping and investing in the Crystal Leader, he knew that he had to retain the alien character of the Crystal Lord line. No matter if it was the Mark II or the Mark XII version of the mech, its design had to incorporate a significant amount of alien tech in order to stay true to its nature.

Ves encountered another problem at this junction. With the original crystal builder technology losing its competitive advantage in the current generation, how could he possibly meet this demand?

It wasn't as if Ves could randomly approach one of the many asteroids floating in the Nyxian Gap, trigger some sort of hidden alien teleportation device, and be ported over to the ruins of another long-dead crystal-using civilization!

"Maybe there is another way to get my hands on what I need." He muttered.