Want to see your favorite novel featured on our site sooner? You can speed up its addition by making a donation via PayPal. Just include the title of the novel in the donation note.
I managed to fix the player, but I don't know how long this solution will last. I apologize for all the inconvenience caused by the change in rules on the audio file server side over which I had no control.
Server 1
Audiobook Speed:
This chapter is updated by Novels.pl
After the expeditionary fleet managed to capture the Eminence of Torment, the biotech experts managed to salvage 5 phasewater organs from his body.
Ves only held a moderate degree of interest towards the basic three organs.
While the orven phase lord had invested enough of his resources to obtain upgraded and more developed versions of the Locos, Maracos and Kelsis organs, they had never been his focus.
The Eminence of Torment was a typical phase lord who did not pay too much attention to the fundamentals. He instead invested much of his resources into acquiring more powerful, more exotic and much flashier phasewater organs that could generate more advanced effects.
This was why Ves cared a lot more about the latter than the former!
It was a pity that it was exactly due to their greater value that the Eminence of Torment deliberately ruined them out of spite!
If he was destined to suffer defeat, then at least he did not want to give his enemies more reasons to celebrate!
In battles between phase lords, it was actually distressingly common for the defeated party to destroy his own phasewater organs to prevent the victor from earning more spoils.
This made it more difficult for human forces to obtain any working phasewater organs. They were exceedingly rare and precious, especially since phase whales and phase lords rarely possessed the courage to enter the battlefield.
"What is this organ?" The physical projection of Ves asked as he looked at an image of a strange collection of alien flesh.
"This is known as a Dofner organ. It is a very common but useful phasewater organs that most phase lords install after they have increased their phasewater concentration by a noticeable extent. It massively strengthens and automates the process of generating a warp bubble that can be used to grant superluminal travel to the phase lord. It is relatively slow because it is a simplified version of a larger and much more powerful phasewater organ that is exclusive to phase whales, but it is highly valued nonetheless."
Ves' eyes lit up when he learned about the properties of the Dofner organ.
Superluminal travel!
"So in other words, this is an organic warp drive."
"You can say so. There are many differences, but you would have to ask a bioengineer in order to obtain more detailed answers." The mech commander shrugged.
The Dofner organ held a very strong attraction to Ves. As a phase lord, he already possessed an inherent capability to form a warp bubble, but doing it by himself was a very tedious and inefficient manual process.
It may be possible for him to travel from one star system to an adjacent one, but the trip would be long and exhausting. He would always be better off if he just boarded a proper starship.
Once a phase lord equipped himself with a proper Dofner organ, he should be able to keep up with the superluminal travel speed of a typical warp drive-equipped starship!
Of course, alien warp drives were much slower than human FTL drives. The superdrive that combined the functions of the previous two drives was even more outrageous when it came to speed!
The Dofner organ was therefore not as impressive as Ves hoped, but it was still an effective way for him to escape from danger if there was no one else around him that he could rely upon!
"This Dofner organ looks remarkably intact. Did the Eminence of Torment lack the time to destroy it as well?"
"There is a reason for that, sir. The Eminence of Torment still tried to cling to the hope of being able to escape from the battlefield. He fought and overloaded his phasewater organs in sequence. He likely placed his Dofner organ on the back of his list because it plays a vital role in his escape plan."
"I guess the other intact phasewater organ holds the same meaning." Ves speculated.
"That is a good guess, sir. The Pelmir organ is responsible for generating fairly strong thrustless propulsion. It essentially works as a reactionless drive that can make phase lords move much faster in realspace without needing to rely on conventional thrusters. It is an excellent complement to the Dofner organ. It does not make as much sense to implant one without the other."
Generating a warp bubble did not immediately result in faster speeds. It only caused the object within the bubble to traverse more distance with less effort.
The ability to move fast in realspace was therefore still an essential factor in any form of warp traversal.
A starship with a weak warp bubble could still travel quickly across the stars if she was equipped with powerful thrusters.
Of course, the more optimal combination would be to have the same starship be surrounded by a bubble with a much higher maximum warp factor!
"What is the warp factor of this Dofner organ?"
"The biotechs cannot make that determination. They do not even dare to form an estimate. They are not familiar with all of these phasewater organs. They will need extensive examinations and cross-reference a lot of confidential data on the study of phase whales and phase lords before they can answer your question. You will probably have to install the organs yourself if you want the final answer."
That was probably the case. The Larkinson Biotech Institute did not have the high-level research talent or the enormous accumulation required to conduct thorough enough studies in this advanced field.Ves shrugged his shoulders. "The researchers of the LBI will be really happy once we ship these organs back to them. They will gain access to years if not decades worth of prime research materials. From the looks of it, these two organs are products of the orven civilization, correct?"
Casella nodded. "Our biotechs believe so. The organs are not as sophisticated as the organ responsible for launching space ripple attacks."
That was relatively good news. The Eminence of Torment's Dofner and Pelmir organs should be relatively mature, standardized and highly optimized biological products. They may lack advanced features and probably did not acquit themselves well when compared to higher-end products, but they should stand out in terms of simplicity. That made it easier to decipher their working principles and develop imitation products without taking too many detours.
Ves was not greedy enough to desire the more advanced 'models' developed by the Red Cabal.
The phase whales were famous for their excellence in biotechnology, but their long lifespans and weird ideas caused them to develop much more exotic and complicated phasewater organs.
It made sense as they always preferred to research and develop their own personal phasewater organs from scratch. They invested many years of effort into perfecting and personalizing their own ability sets.
Ves did not have the luxury to waste his time on what could arguably be considered the most correct approach. He needed to rely on professional teams of biotech researchers to do all of the hard work.
Given the remarkably pristine states of the Dofner and Pelmir organs, he had high hopes that the LBI would be able to develop their own versions that he could install inside his true body within a decade!
"This is an excellent set of prizes, commander. The expeditionary fleet has done good work." Ves praised. "What else have you managed to yield from your captive phase lord?"
"Well, our enthusiastic biotech experts have taken the liberty to collect a massive quantity of tissue samples. We have also assigned many retrieval teams to the task of salvaging all of the phasewater-infused blood that the Eminence of Torment has spilled into open space. They have taken action quickly enough that we are confident that we can retrieve approximately 30 to 50 percent of all of the blood that has been spilled. We will not be short of phasewater in the foreseeable future."
That was a disappointingly low percentage. It told Ves that the Eminence of Torment resisted for several long minutes after he first suffered an actual wound before he finally lost his ability to resist.
Ves smiled. More phasewater was always good news, though it was no longer a particularly scarce resource to the Larkinson Clan.
"I am sure that you have managed to salvage many more tons of phasewater from the intact alien warships. The ordinary alien raiding fleets don't carry much phasewater as they are expected to get defeated sooner or later, but the Torment Fleet should be different."
"You are correct in that, sir. We are still in the process of sweeping and securing all of the intact hulls. There are still so many of them that our infantry troops are being stretched thin at the moment. On top of that, we have taken the liberty to siphon more blood from the Eminence of Torment's massive body. The main purpose of doing this is to weaken him and lower his ability to resist captivity. Of course, securing additional phasewater is a welcome bonus. If we are lucky enough, we may end up returning to the Bortele System with over 10 tons of phasewater in our cargo holds."
10 tons of phasewater!
That was an extravagant amount of wealth!
The Larkinson Clan could make excellent use of so much phasewater. From mass producing transphasic mechs to designing and constructing warships clad with premium transphasic hyper alloys, these were all excellent additions to his future first-class fleet!
"What will happen with the Eminence of Torment?" Ves asked next. "Will you be able to ship him back to Diandi Base where we can conduct thorough scientific studies on a live phase lord?"
The legion commander shook her head. "I am afraid that we cannot oblige your request. The Red Association has issued a demand that we surrender the captured phase lord into their custody. A retrieval fleet is already en route. This is why our biotech experts have been working hard to collect whatever organs, blood and tissue samples that they think they can get away with. They are racing against time."
Ves' expression dropped. He really wanted to take possession of the body of an actual phase lord!
There were so many different experiments that he could conduct on such a stellar test subject.
For example, he always wondered whether it was possible for him to convert an alien phase lord into a biomech!
Unlike other biomechs that had been created through the conversion of large exobeasts, a biomech formed from the base of a phase lord was a natural transphasic biomech! The performance of a working version of this idea was bound to be groundbreaking!
Alas, Ves guessed that the Transhumanist Faction already came up with the same idea. The Transhumanists were much better positioned to produce a successful result from this venture. This may be for the best.
"Will the mechers at least compensate you guys for taking away the Eminence of Torment?"
"Most certainly, sir. We will all earn a large bonus of war merits on top of the ones that we have already secured after defeating the entire Torment Fleet. The three ace pilots that are chiefly responsible for capturing the Eminence of Torment alive will earn the lion's share of war merits."
That would probably allow them to exchange for a lot of expensive goodies!
While Ves was happy that Tusa earned a lot of spending power, this was not an entirely positive development.
War merits were not issued by the Larkinsons. This meant that Tusa gained a lot of room for maneuver outside of the confines of his own clan.
Perhaps this was one of the sneaky ways that the Red Association employed to poach expert pilots and ace pilots from their original states and organizations.
Oh well.
The conversation soon shifted over to the captured warships, of which there were several.
Commander Casella wanted to highlight one of the captured prizes in particular.
"Do you recall the request that you have issued? Well, we have found an excellent stopgap warship that you can use with the help of your Battlecruiser Token. Let me introduce you to one of the most modern hyper battleships that we have managed to capture in a relatively intact state…"
I created a game for Android Idle Ninja Empire , I could use a little support in promoting it, just download it and play for a while. Thank you in advance.