[ Empire's Fleet ETA: 27 days ]

Several days had already passed after the Arians arrived on Earth…

Ace, or perhaps Veda, did a lot of experiments with them and realized an important thing about the Meredith Empire plans…

"Veda… Are you sure about this?"

[ Yes… We analyzed the Arian's bodies' reaction to mana and through the help of the Avalon and Omen's A.I. Support, we confirmed that this should be the true reason why they are coming to this planet. ]

Veda answered dutifully.

This A.I. is better than Avalon in terms of experimenting body. After all, Veda's purpose of existence was originally for medical reasons.

"Very well, I trust you… In any case, there's nothing we can do about it. At most, we'll just have to ensure that they wouldn't be able to take one for themselves…"

Ace replied.

What they discovered is that the Meredith Empire was actually planning to take some blood of the Magicians on this planet to create a perfect Gene Optimization Fluid.

They had discovered this through various clues from the Omen's A.I. and the Arian's body which has various components that seem to be gearing up in preparation for the existence of Mana…

Apparently, there was a trace of contact between the Empire's soldiers and this Minor Race…

That single contact allowed them to spread something on the bodies of Arians…

Veda hasn't completely uncovered this yet but the A.I. discovered that it was likely for their Gene Optimization…

This matches the records that they've found from Omen…

Ace thought about this for a while.

It seems that the Empire was truly aware that the Mana can truly cause them death… In order to survive from this, they've perhaps made several gene enhancements already. Aeolia is the living proof of this.

However, his survival was perhaps only possible due to his connection to the empyrean family. After all, he's the only one who managed to stay alive after so long…

Ace had to change some protocols. If capturing a Magician is their purpose, they have to ensure that the empire wouldn't be able to take one even if they lost their space battle.

"Thank you for your hard work, Veda."

[ Your welcome. How are the Adept Mages I've sent? ]

Veda is referring to those Cryptic Link users.

They are people who didn't undergo Arcane Baptism.

It means that the purity of their Mana might be questionable and might cause problems if they can only refill their mana from the stones…

"They are doing very well… I'm observing them closely and I'm very impressed. Most of them has become a pilot and others were managing our satellite-class Artifacts…" He answered.

Ace just created the name "Satellite-Class" because of how different it was from what the commonly seen Mana Artifacts.

He is referring to a huge Canon powered by Lunar Solar and Mana Stones…

Unfortunately, this ultimate Moon Base weapon could not be manned by Automatons or Avalon who lacks the sense of mana.

Ace wasn't expecting to have Sages here on Moon so he was already quite happy with having a number of Adepts in this place…

He then requested full details of Veda's examinations on the Arian's body…

***

[ Empire's Fleet ETA: 23 days ]

Ace looked at the time and noticed that the moment of truth is getting near.

[ Creation of Automatons on Earth has stopped and now focusing all available workers to create Spaceships and Mech Knights. ]

"Good… How's the creation of Lucent Knight Fleet?"

[ We are at 82% complete. Full payment has been received. ]

"Very well. Are there any orders?"

[ Yes. We received several more orders. Would you like to look into it? ]

"Of course… As long as they came from our allies. Let's do our best to complete their request…"

[ Affirmative. Should we still charge them at factory price? ]

"I'll decide once I've seen their designs."

Ace answered after hearing Avalon's question.

After he acquired a license in creating Steel Knights, or what he calls Mech Knights, thanks to Yumi's connections, he received a lot of requests in creating customized Steel Knights…

Who wouldn't want to have a customized humanoid machine that seemed to be one of the Lost Arcane Technology?

Because not many have a license in creating a Steel Knight, a lot of rich people requested his service and of course, some people truly needed his amazing creations…

One of them is a request from Marco Schmidt from the Lucent Force…

They have been fascinated by Hilda's Radiant Knight during her stay here on Earth so they got interested in having some of these similar designs…

In the end, Ace and Avalon decided to create a new design specifically for their group…

They call it Lucent Knights… As per their request, they wanted this Steel Knight to be flight-capable, stealth-capable, and focuses more on speed.

They don't want bulky Mech Frames as they can hinder their operations…

Luckily, Avalon is capable of fulfilling their request since this wasn't anything new…

The only challenge was controlling its weight as they wanted it to possess high-speed movement.

Ace browsed the other requests and found an interesting one…

It is from his senior apprentice Lacus…

"Can you help me modify my Iron Knight? I've seen your creations and I tried doing my own customization but it didn't end well… Iron Knights are very complicated and as you know, their cores aren't something I should be touching…"

Although Lacus is already an Arcane Artificer, she's not specializing in Iron Knights or Steel Knights creation.

She knows how to operate them but she's incapable of creating them.

"Alright… Let's make one for my senior apprentice and another for my elder sister…"

That's right, his sister Clarice seems to have some time again and will be on a long vacation.

Due to this, she's also requesting to have a customized Steel Knight that she can use for traveling… Apparently, she wanted it to be capable of transforming into a normal plane or any vehicle that can hide the true appearance of the Steel Knight.

Although there would be a lot of sacrifices to accomplish this request, Ace still decided to do this for his sister.