Chapter 3810: Tough Bones
Two weeks!
The MTA ultimately gave Ves and the rest of the Golden Skull Alliance two weeks to make as many gains as possible from the Royal Tomb.
After that, the entire space pocket and its contents were none of their business anymore.
Ves felt incredibly sore about the entire situation. If the Simile Halifax wasn't following around the expeditionary fleet like a stubborn barnacle, the MTA probably wouldn't have moved so quickly in claiming his discovery.
"Getting too close to the MTA is not always good!" He reminded himself.
The Mech Trade Association had its own interests in mind. His own wishes and desires always took a backseat in the face of one of humanity's most powerful organizations!
It was because of the immense strength of the MTA that Ves did not even think about defying or protesting the MTA's tyrannical directives. A mere Journeyman was not qualified to voice his complaints.
The good news was that the Survivalists stood up on his behalf. Even if they ultimately granted him a few minor concessions, some progress was better than no progress!
Of course, Ves only had Jovy's word to go by. Who knew what really took place behind closed doors. It could be that his friend was exaggerating the role of the Survivalists so that he would think more favorably about the faction.
He shrugged. That wasn't something that he could investigate. All he could do was make the best out of the cards he had been dealt.
"I better make sure the MTA is far away from my fleet the next time I find such an amazing discovery." He resentfully muttered under his breath.
After he reluctantly settled his roiling feelings, he passed on the news to the others.
Naturally, their reactions weren't any better than his own, but they too had the good sense not to fight against this development.
How could they fight against the MTA when their voice was even smaller than that of Ves? They had no hope of overturning this new development!
When Ves called his wife in order to discuss the news with her, she did not exhibit a strong reaction.
"With a discovery of this magnitude, what did you think would happen?" She stated as she held their daughter in her arms. "Phase whales are the strongest native alien races of the Red Ocean. The Big Two has to leverage a large amount of firepower to defeat individual whales. Now that we have found the remains of what might possibly be the largest and strongest phase whale to ever exist, the findings that the MTA can make from this immense skeleton will surely facilitate the war effort. In comparison to all of these major gains, whatever you plan to do with those bones is not important!"
"Whale!" Auralia cutely yelled! "Big whale!"
Gloriana smiled at her daughter. "Yes, sweetie. Daddy has found a big whale, though it is long dead."
The couple moved on to discussing their next moves. Ves hoped that his wife could give him another perspective on the problem.
"Given our failed attempts to retrieve samples of the giant skeleton, it is clear the phase whales have implemented special means to preserve it. I am not sure about this, but all of the years that have passed since then may have weakened the protective measures. If this is the case, then we have a chance of breaking through them. We can do this in two ways. We can either decipher their mechanisms and unravel them or we can rely on brute force to overcome the remaining barriers."
"These are my thoughts as well." Ves nodded. "Personally, I don't have much hope for cracking and dissolving the mysterious protection methods. We are way out of our depth. I can barely figure out a minute portion of luminar crystal technology. There is no chance we have the expertise and knowledge to figure out phase whale technology!"
That left the only viable option, which was to bring in the strongest and heaviest equipment and hope they were powerful enough to chip away the bones from the suspended phase whale skeleton!
Of course, Ves and his men could also attempt to dislodge the skeleton from its place and drag it through the portal whole!
Ves didn't think this was easy, though. The Skeleton occupied the exact middle of the Royal Tomb and appeared to be fixed in place through unknown but undoubtedly powerful means.
The married couple discussed potential methods to harvest portions of the skeletons.
"It is clear that the skull of the phase whale skeleton is where the protection is strongest." She told him. "That is where the interference is strongest and also where the phase whale has developed the most when it was still alive. Our best chances of obtaining any harvest is to cut off the furthest end of the spine. The last vertebrae are probably the most vulnerable bones of the entire skeleton. Although they are not much compared to the total remains, don't forget that they are already large and heavy on their own. We can retrieve more than enough bone to construct a handful of high-quality mechs with all of the tons of bone material that we retain after handing over the rest to the MTA."
"I am not satisfied with taking off the tip, but I'll take it if we can't cut off anything further." Ves sighed. "Do you have any ideas on what kind of means we should use to cut the furthest vertebrae? The best idea that I can come up with is to send in the First Sword and hope that its Decapitator sword is sharp enough to cut through the part that connects the vertebrae together."
Gloriana responded with a skeptical expression. "You are seriously underestimating the phase whale skeleton if you think that has a chance of working. I have studied the data and analysis on the composition and hardness of the bone. It is harder than Unending alloy, you know that? Even if a thousand of the new Redaxe mechs chop at the skeleton with their powerful axes all day, the bones will not even show any traces of damage! In fact, their axes will break long before anything can happen to the skeleton!"
"Normally, you're right, but expert mechs don't play by the same rules as ordinary machines. The First Sword possesses the most potent cutting power of any single machine in our possession, and the reason for that is not because it is strong or possesses the sharpest mech sword, but because it is empowered by true resonance! I am hopeful that the reality-distorting effects of the First Sword's cutting power can exceed whatever hardness and protection is keeping those bones together."
Gloriana still didn't lift her pessimism. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ ꜰʀᴇᴇᴡᴇʙɴᴏᴠᴇʟ.ᴄᴏᴍ
"Okay. Let's assume that this is possible. What then? Have you seen the size of those bones? We are talking about a spine that has kept together a biological whale body that is probably as large and heavy as the most powerful CFA battleships in service today! The First Sword may be larger than a human body but its scale is insignificant compared to an organism of this size! I am afraid the First Sword must hack its sword hundreds of not thousands of times in order to cut the furthest vertebrae, and those happen to be the smallest ones of the entire skeleton!"
He sighed. She was right about that. All of the recordings and sensor readings made it clear that not a single part of the bone remnants was of a manageable size!
"If we can't cut off even a single whole vertebra, then we can take a step back and chip away as many 'bone flakes' as we can in the time we have available."
This was an awful-sounding plan, but what else could his men do? The damn phase whale had grown too damned big before it perished!
"You need to form a better plan than hoping that the First Sword can chip away at the surface of the vertebrae, Ves. This is hardly an approach that instills confidence."
"Then maybe we can make use of our other mechs. Our ranged mechs can all switch their luminar crystal weapons to slicer beams. If we bring in enough mechs and have them fire at the same part of the skeleton all day, the vast quantity of concentrated attacks may overwhelm the damned bones!"
"That sounds more viable, but you will be taking a great risk if you proceed with this plan." She responded. "What if the portal destabilizes faster than we expected? What if the attacks trigger a dangerous defense mechanism that instantly crushes everything inside the Royal Tomb? You are risking the loss of thousands of mechs and mech pilots if you have miscalculated."
"I know. This is why I am not going to open up a portal right away. I am hoping that we can all study the data and brainstorm better solutions in the next few days."
"How many days?"
"I truly don't know." Ves shrugged.
They discussed a few more suggestions, but none of them sounded any better than hoping that a literal miracle could magically dislodge the vertebrae from the rest of the giant skeleton!
Once they finally ended the call, Ves fell into thought.
Cutting off the vertebrae was only one of his goals.
He also had other goals, and he had a feeling that he could only fulfill them if he was able to reach the head of the phase whale skeleton!
"How can we possibly reach the front half of the skeleton?" Ves wondered.
The interference and increasingly more violent hazards posed a lethal threat to any mech that attempted to go forward!
Phase whales, especially the older and more mature ones, grew to become stupendously powerful creatures that could challenge the Big Two's best war assets and not get instantly crushed!
Even if the skeletal remains were only covered by a fraction of the power of the phase whale at its height, that was still far in excess of what the entire expeditionary fleet could overcome.
"This is an engineering problem." Ves stated. "That means that it is possible to engineer a solution. We just have to be inventive enough."
A two-week time limit was tight but not unreasonably so. The mechers granted the Larkinsons and their allies enough time to try out a few hopeful solutions.
If those attempts failed to yield any positive results, then chances were that any subsequent solutions were unlikely to do any better.
In that case, it might ultimately be a good idea to cut their losses and settle for the 15,000,000 MTA merits as their principal gain from this exploration.
Ves ruefully smiled. "It hurts to miss out on an insanely strong biomaterial, but 15,000,000 MTA merits is not a trivial sum! I can do a lot with this much merits!"
Though he felt inclined to save them all up, he could choose to exchange them for many useful benefits.
He could get his hands on high-tech goodies such as teleportation devices and first-class augmentations.
He could obtain new perks or extend his current ones.
He could exchange additional PPs.
He could request permission to access and make use of restricted technology.
He could solicit an MTA mech designer to contribute to one of his mech design projects.
In other words, there were so many benefits that he could exchange for that Ves should not be dissatisfied with the MTA's reward at all! His excursion to the Garimel System and back would definitely be profitable in the end!
"Those bones, though…"
Ves really did not want to miss out on those powerful phase whale bones. They beckoned to him. It was as if he was Lucky staring at a pile of first-class exotics. He could not resist the call to retrieve enough quantities of bone to make fantastic mechs out of this exquisite biological material!
"Phase whale bone will be my second Unending alloy if I have anything to say about it!" He vowed to himself!