The conversation ended after he agreed with Master Willix to discuss their new arrangement in greater detail when he returned to civilized space.

He kept his face carefully composed as Master Willix's physical projection disappeared. Who knew whether this module was still transmitting recordings of him back to Centerpoint.

Inwardly, he felt both ecstatic and defeated.

The reason why he felt defeated was because he had no choice but to reveal some of his secrets to someone outside of his circle of confidence. There was no other way for him to get out of this predicament.

He could either share his work with someone from the MTA, or expose it all to the MTA as a whole.

Between these two unpalatable options, he chose the least-bad solution!

Fortunately, his choice worked out. With the help of his persuasive ability, he managed to get Master Willix on his side.

This was the reason why he felt ecstatic!

It didn't matter if he managed to convince Master Willix completely. It didn't matter if she was more shrewd and observant than she showed.

What just took place was mostly theater. It was similar to trying to bargain with a stall owner to buy something on the cheap.

Ves certainly wasn't stupid enough to assume that Master Mech Designers were easy to fool.

There was no way a thirty-odd year old brat like him could get the better of a supreme Master who traveled the breadth of the galaxy! Master Willix definitely interacted with all kinds of people from many different parts of human space throughout her long life. Successful people like that ought to be very socially adept.

That simply meant that Ves had to be sincere enough. While he lied plenty of times throughout the previous conversation, his underlying message still conveyed an earnest concession. He was willing to share some of his trade secrets to her as long as she kept it to herself.

All of the excuses he spouted such as tempting other mech designers into performing dangerous experiments on mech pilots were merely window dressing. Ves didn't care if his research corrupted other mech designers to the point where they made the Skull Architect look like a compassionate researcher. Their misdeeds were none of his business!

He merely wanted to establish a convenient excuse to make their arrangement work. An organization as big as the MTA abided by a lot of rules, so it was important to ensure they wouldn't get in the way.

"Well, now that I've got this out of the way, it's time to talk to my beloved."

He called Gloriana. As expected, it took no time at all for Gloriana to accept the call!

"Ves! You've finally called! It was about time!"

She wore a stylish red fabric coat with golden buttons that depicted the emblem of the Larkinson Clan. The way it hugged her svelte body looked lovely, so much so that Ves couldn't hold back. He stepped forward, embraced her physical projection and dove in for a kiss!

"Hihihi!" Gloriana giggled as her projection leaned into him. "I heard the good news some time ago. You can't imagine how many fretted for your safety! Our fellow Larkinsons were deeply concerned whether we would lose all of our best soldiers. My blood relatives were also concerned whether the wedding would even go through. The Wodin Dynasty invested a lot to build a grand wedding stage for our coming union. Losing you would have dealt a great blow to our prestige."

"Did you ever doubt our ability to win?" He smiled as he brushed her soft cheek.

"I knew you would make it through. You're so great, Ves. Not even a bunch of overconfident pirates with some bootleg warships can take you down."

Ves wasn't sure whether she meant what she said. In the last month, she expressed plenty of concern. She placed plenty of blame on him for stirring up so much trouble in the Nyxian Gap.

Well, it wasn't important. His task force managed to overcome the unthinkable, though not without paying a heavy price.

The two of them began to sit down on the deck while leaning against each other.

"We lost a lot of good clansmen, Gloriana. I'm sending you the current list of casualties right now. Aside from losing hundreds of mech pilots, our fleet has also lost thousands of spacers and support personnel. You need to prepare the Larkinsons back in the Cinach System for the bad news."

She rapidly skimmed the list. "Did you lose anyone important?"

"Other than the six newly-advanced expert candidates, not really. All of our expert pilots are still alive, and we still have 9 expert candidates left. The Avatars lost more than half of their mech pilots, but the Sentinels that have traveled with us were almost wiped out. I don't look forward to explaining that to the rest of the clan.

"Expert pilots? Expert candidates? Did you gain so many?" Her eyes widened at him. The revelation that the Larkinson Clan gained so many exceptional mech pilots completely caused her to ignore what he said afterwards. "Tell me what happened!"

He began to spend a bit of time to explain what had taken place. Of course, since he was conveying his words through the MTA's private network, he made sure to control his information. He barely glossed over the fact that they were fighting gods, but even then Gloriana ate it all up. That was one thing he could count on. She never doubted him when it came to these matters!

"Those disgusting Nyxian gods had it coming. It's a given that they lost. They were fighting a female god!"

"Uhm, the Inexorable One is female according to the pirates."

"She fought for the wrong side! The moment she stood in your way, she was destined to lose!"

To Gloriana, the battle against the gods did not merit that much attention from her. She hadn't witnessed the battle up close, so it was difficult for Ves to convey the full magnitude of how difficult it was to defeat them. If not for his mother's timely assistance, the dark gods could have easily devoured his fleet!

Instead of focusing on the gods, she instead wanted to know more about their new expert pilots.

"Did all of our expert candidates back then break through?"

"Yep."

"That's remarkable!" She grinned, but her face quickly fell. "It also places a huge burden on us. Don't get me wrong. I'm happy that we gained so many expert pilots at once. The news will definitely turn a lot of heads once we announce it to the public. It's just..."

Ves grabbed her hand and took comfort in its warmth. "We need to supply them all with expert mechs as soon as possible. We can't allow Venerable Jannzi, Joshua and the rest to remain in squalor by depriving them of the machines they need to further their growth."

"It's already difficult for me to negotiate a single collaboration with a Master Mech Designer. Now we need to arrange for the development of four more expert mechs." She suddenly jerked. "Wait, defeating the pirates must have netted you at least 10 million merits, right?"

"I'm not sure. The bounty on the Gravada Knarlax and Lord Hivex is very generous. I'm also expecting a reward for all of the warships and illegal possessions we've taken from the pirates. We'll know for sure how much I've earned once the MTA completed its investigation."

"Well, it's bound to be a large amount. Instead of keeping it all to ourselves, we ought to invest a portion of it into our expert mech design projects. It is a lot easier to gain the help of a Master when we are willing to spend!"

Ves held up his palm. "Woah, before you take this idea any further, let me tell you about a new arrangement I've made with a familiar Master."

He quickly explained the preliminary partnership he struck with Master Willix. He left out a lot of details, but he knew that Gloriana should be smart enough to realize the implications.

She became impressed at his ability to negotiate this deal. "Did you really get Master Willix to make an exception for you? That's amazing! Someone in her position can't easily bend so many rules."

The way she looked at him was if he had convinced the Hexers to put a boy in charge. While Ves felt very flattered by her compliments, he knew that it wasn't entirely due to him that he managed to get Master Willix to play along.

They cuddled and kissed each other for a bit. Despite the immense distance separating them, they felt closer than ever to each other. The intense crisis he lived through had given him an even greater appreciation of life. He could have lost it all if he had fallen short in some way.

"Our wedding is up soon." She happily noted. "After so many years, we will finally bind ourselves to each other. We will be together forever!"

She lifted her finger to show off the engagement ring he made for her. One of Lucky's gems proudly glinted in the light. Ves lifted his own finger and clinked it with his own ring.

"The wedding preparations are pretty much complete on my end." She stated. "Have you prepared our wedding bands yet?"

"Uhm, I'm still working on them." Ves admitted. "Don't worry. I'll get it done. I managed to plunder a lot of special materials from our defeated opponents. The Gravada Knarlax alone is practically a treasure house when it comes to how many goodies she carried. All of it is ours now. I already have a great design in mind for our wedding rings."

"You better do a good job, Ves. I don't want to see any of the sloppiness that you usually exhibit in your work."

"Hey! I can be careful when I need to be! I know how important it is for my work to be perfect this time. Just trust me, Gloriana."

They discussed a few other household matters. Gloriana brought him up to speed on some of the developments that took place in civilized space.

"On our end, my assistants and I made sure to progress all of our mech design projects." She stated. "Even without your help, we have made a lot of progress. Some of them have even reached the prototype testing phase."

"That's great news!"

"He was worried whether the six projects would stall, but Gloriana did an admirable job of compensating for his absence.

Certainly, Ves knew that he might need to do a hefty amount of makeup work in the coming month, but it wouldn't take long for the designs to be complete.

He had waited a long time to complete all of these projects. All of them were running behind schedule and Ves was more than ready to move onto other projects. He also wanted to publish them so he could obtain a lot of Design Points from the System.

After neglecting it for so long, Ves intended to focus on it for the next few years. In order to lessen his dependence on Master Willix, he needed to gain the capability of designing his own expert mechs by himself as soon as possible.

To do so, he needed to accumulate at least 1 million DP. That meant he needed to design a lot of mechs.

As long as he didn't engage in any distractions for the next couple of years, Ves should easily be able to earn this sum of Design Points!

"There's something else that you should know, Ves. The Komodo War has taken a new turn."

"Did the Friday Coalition turn the tides or something?"

"In a way. Its Masters have finally begun to push out their counters against our mechs. The Blessed Squires can't exert their glows onto the battlefield with impunity now. While only a couple of counters have appeared, they are already nullifying some of the advantages of our mech design."

A heavy weight fell onto his heart. He knew this day was coming. "Show me."