The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3961

Chapter 3961 Gloriana the Genius

As Ves and his family continued to enjoy their week-long holiday, many other parts of the Larkinson Clan were moving as well.

Not all of them went on vacation as they still had to take care of a lot of business.

Meanwhile, inquiries kept pouring in as more and more parties wanted a piece of the phasewater that the Larkinsons had obtained.

From building superdrives to conducting new research on this miracle substance, many institutions based in Davute and beyond possessed an incredible hunger for phasewater!

"Phasewater! More phasewater! A few grams aren't enough! We need at least ten times as much phasewater to produce a strong enough spatial reaction! Damnit, why can't we obtain enough phasewater!?"

The properties of phasewater in its purest form were relatively simple. The more phasewater gathered together, the more it was able to shake the fabric of spacetime.

While this had many implications, the most important one for most scientists and engineers was that more powerful and profound applications of phasewater could only be achieved by gathering a sufficient quantity of this liquid exotic!

A single gram of phasewater barely made any disturbance while a hundred grams was enough to affect entire starships!

The reactions produced by concentrating more than a kilogram of phasewater were inconceivable, especially if the gathered material was actively stimulated!

As for concentrating more than a hundred kilograms of phasewater… only the Big Two and other top organizations mastered the applications of such a powerful quantity.

In the hands of the Larkinson Clan, none of this was particularly significant. The Larkinsons had no background in FTL drive technology or warp drive technology. Their researchers possessed no foundation in superluminal travel methods or any other obvious applications of phasewater.

The clan pretty much treated their reserves of phasewater like a massive mountain of money!

At its current state, the Larkinson Clan was unable to make effective use of phasewater in any of its engineering activities. It made a lot more sense to trade it away to those who could utilize it better in exchange for other benefits.

Whether it was money, favors, high-tech products or protection, the clan received so many different offers that it became hard to decide which ones to accept.

While there were plenty of Larkinsons who were eager to accept these deals right away, Ves adamantly called for patience.

Going on vacation was a nice excuse for him to let this frenzy play out long enough for the initial burst of excitement to die down a bit. Too many clansmen only had green in their eyes these days, and that caused Ves to grow more concerned.

"The more people want to buy my phasewater, the more I feel the urge to hoard it for myself." He muttered as he looked out at the glistening expanse of water.

He didn't know why, but when he woke up today, he felt the urge to depart from Kotor City and take a boat trip onto a lake.

This prompted him to take his family out to a scenic waterfront and rent a luxury yacht called the Semerosa so that they could all enjoy the wonders of one of Davute VII's great lakes.

Currently, the local star was shining down from above while a calm wind whipped up the water into different waves.

The yacht that Ves had chosen to rent was an interesting one. While the seaborn ship was equipped with all kinds of technological bells and whistles, he had turned all of that off so that he could try to propel the craft by manipulating the Semerosa's old-fashioned sails.

Naturally, Ves had no clue at all how to manipulate the various sails, but fortunately the vessel came with an AI that could either give hints or perform all of the necessary operations by itself.

Ves may have wanted to seek out simplicity, but that did not mean he was willing to perform an excessive amount of manual labor. He was a clan patriarch, not a sailor!

"What are you thinking about?" Gloriana asked as she approached the rails where Ves was leaning on. "You looked troubled."

"I just don't know what to do, honey. I'm glad that we have solved our poverty issue after concluding our last expedition, but I don't think anyone in our clan is prepared for this scenario. We have way too much money but not enough clues on how to spend it responsibly and in a sustainable fashion. Do you know how many proposals and requests are waiting for me once I get back to my office? Each of them can propel us all forward, but it could also cause us to squander our entire windfall while getting little to nothing in return."

Gloriana snorted. "Look at you now. The victorious plunderer and fish-whale slayer, all sad and burdened because he can't make up his mind on how to convert hundreds of kilograms of phasewater into solid benefits. A lot of pioneers would kill you if they hear you struggling like this. You're being a melodramatic fool, Ves. You're suffering from success."

"That's a real problem, you know." Ves retorted. "A momentary success doesn't equate to permanent prosperity. Phasewater itself is just a hugely valuable material. It doesn't generate any income by itself. I would rather have more enduring assets such as additional capital ships or access to high technology that can comprehensive strengthen our clan and enable us to harvest more phasewater in a more sustainable fashion."

"Then why don't you do that, Ves?"

Ves sighed. "There are too many choices. When our financial strength was weak, everything was a lot simpler. We didn't have the money to invest in multiple initiatives, let alone a single expensive one. All we could do was spend our money as sparingly as possible on a couple of cheap and simple areas. Now… we have a million more choices. Which ones are the best? Which ones are a waste of money? Which ones will put us into danger? We can never truly say. I'm so afraid that I will screw up this fantastic opportunity and delay all of our growth as a consequence."

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