During the ti the four chs faced the Emperor Tree's probes, two ch designers quietly observed the proceedings from afar.
Ketis and Ves had successfully employed a remote avatar channeling technique to deposit their respective companion spirits into their masterworks.
For now, Blinky remained quietly embedded inside the Everchanger while Sharpie continued to ride inside the Decapitator.
Neither companion spirits spent any effort to aid the expert chs. There was no need to provide any assistance as the high-tier expert pilots were already strong enough to take care of themselves.
So far, the probing attacks allowed the two sides to gather a lot of information from each other.
The Emperor Tree gained a very clear understanding of the individual combat capabilities of each of the four chs.
The two expert chs stood out for their remarkable attack power and their incredibly strong resonance shields.
The two custom chs were remarkably weaker, but they excelled in either lee or ranged combat.
The combination of the four chs was very difficult to deal with, but the Emperor Tree apparently did not perceive an acute threat towards its life, or else it would have gone all-out a lot sooner.
If the calamity plant was truly a sapient being with the capacity to think in a logical manner, then it should understand the importance of planning and timing.
It beca apparent that neither side intended to fight a decisive battle that would decide the overlord of this region on this day.
That did not an that the Emperor Tree intended to be lenient towards the invading chs!
Whether it understood that the chs needed to return to Chira Base in order to supply valuable data and tissue samples to the Larkinson Biotech Institute, the Emperor Tree was not about to let them return alive!
In the anti, the human ch pilots grew more and more vigilant towards the Emperor Tree.
Their understanding of calamity beasts was relatively poor. The galactic net hardly supplied any detailed and reliable information on these mysterious twice-evolved creatures. The Hunting Association probably conducted the most research on them, but its most valuable data was only available to hunters and cooperating biotech organizations.
If the Larkinsons really wanted to, they could probably gain access to that valuable data, but that would require them to pay a price and beco more entangled with the recently reford and expanded association.
When Task Force Solus initially arrived in orbit of Reticula Corein V, the Larkinsons chose to collect information about calamity beasts themselves. There were over a dozen of them on this untad planet alone, so that should make it easier to figure out their capabilities.
At least that was what they thought.
What the Larkinsons did not account for was that the calamity beasts were considerably more intelligent, powerful and adaptive than they thought.
Compared to mutated beasts, the difference was like night and day!
The Larkinsons learned the hard way that despite the lack of an overpowering Saint Kingdom, the claim that calamity beasts should be regarded as beings on the sa level as ace pilots beca more and more justified!
Perhaps the only consolation to Venerable Joshua and the other three ch pilots was that the Emperor Tree's comprehensive power did not exceed that of a junior ace pilot.
That was still a powerful being, but it was not entirely unbearable as Venerable Joshua and Venerable Dise were already ace pilot candidates.
Only a single barrier separated them from Sainthood!
Still, the Emperor Tree had not yet demonstrated all of its capabilities.
The ability to replicate chs with its own wooden variant was the biggest surprise of this encounter so far.
How many wooden chs did it manage to produce?
Were any of them stronger than the ones shown before?
What exactly controlled these chs in battle?
More importantly, what could Ves learn from these remarkable creations?
Ves fixated on the latter question the most. From the mont he observed the wooden chs erging from the clouds, he instantly beca fixated as if he had just co across an entire basin filled with phasewater.
As a man who craved novelty, how could he not beco chard by the Emperor Tree's weird attempt at replicating chs?
Even though the calamity plant obviously did not possess a systematic understanding of basic science and engineering, the massive creature clearly possessed its own special talent and abilities. For it to be able to make a poor but relatively functional imitation of chs already elevated the Emperor Tree far beyond any other calamity beasts and plants as far as Ves was concerned!
Ves even developed a strong urge to preserve the Emperor Tree and maybe even seek cooperation with it. From his perspective, it would be a waste to destroy such a magnificent and productive entity!
However, according to the Hunting Association and other sources, calamity beasts and to a certain extent plants were fundantally hostile towards civilized life forms. They had proven to be utterly unreliable and untaable.
Many forces had already attempted to do so, but it had always ended in disaster!
Perhaps the reasons for all of these failures was because of lack of knowledge. There were still a lot of groups out there who stomached the losses and continued to perform different experints.
The hope was that they would finally be able to develop their own proprietary taming thod through trial and error.
Still, even if it was possible to form peaceful coexistence with a calamity beast or plant, iti would take ti for red humanity to develop an established and proven thodology.
If the Larkinsons wanted to ta their own calamity beast, then they had to take a lot of risks and potentially incur a lot of losses before they could get everything right!
This was clearly not an easy task to say the least. Ves did not dare to think about it any further. This was not the right ti and place to harbor wild ambitions.
"What do you think about the wooden chs, Ketis?" Ves asked over the still-active communication channel.
Deep inside the Wild Torch, the swordmaster furrowed her brows as she continued to think about what Sharpie managed to perceive of the strange imitation products.
"They cannot be defined as chs." She spoke with certainty. "Sharpie is not as good at sensing life as you, but she has only sensed one controlling spirit inside each wooden construct, and it is not too strong either. They were all spawned by the Emperor Tree a relatively short ti ago and developed to their present size and strength in haste. It would be more accurate to say that they are wooden battle bots."
Ves nodded in agreent. "I concur. Blinky is able to perceive a lot of interesting details about these wooden constructs. What I can tell you is that they are all strongly infused by fairly high-quality wood E energy. What is special is that the constructs themselves are not strong or developed enough to generate all of this wood energy. It is instead supplied by the Emperor Tree from remote. Whether accidentally or through deliberate attempts to imitate my living chs, it has found a way to assu a role similar to a design spirit. Since it is the creator of its own wooden constructs, it is trivially easy for the Emperor Tree to forge a strong bond with these detached products."
In fact, becoming a design spirit was not very difficult so long as the receiving party was sufficiently alive.
The wooden constructs may be awful at replicating the full brilliance of their authentic ch counterparts, but they were alive in a sense!
Combined with their fantastic affinity with wood energy, it beca easy for the Emperor Tree to convert its creations into tiny wooden extensions of itself.
"So the wooden chs are not completely independent, but they are not directly controlled by the Emperor Tree either." Ketis summarized. "Either way, neither option is good at piloting chs. The calamity plant may have attained so success in replicating our chs, but it is much less able to replicate the decades of education, training and combat experience of actual ch pilots."
"It is learning quickly, though. Have you noticed that the second wave of wooden chs started off the previous bout with absolutely no sign of any deliberate tactics and positioning, but gradually began to adjust their operations as they suffered disproportionate losses? By the ti the four chs finished off the last of their wooden opponents, the Emperor Tree seemingly mastered so of the basics of tactics and formation theory."
That was scary. The Emperor Tree may have erged from a low starting point, but its frightening capacity to learn from its enemies had raised its upper limit!
The Emperor Tree would definitely beco a fearso opponent if it ever managed to evolve into a god plant, especially now that it had already beco exposed to human fighting thods!
Ketis narrowed her eyes. "After our chs have collected the necessary samples, I won't wait too long for the LBI to present with all of their data and conclusions. We need to get ready to mobilize a kill force in order to take this tree down once and for all. The longer we delay, the harder it becos to defeat it without generating lots of noise."
Generating too much noise would alarm all of the other calamity beasts on the planet. In the worst case scenario, they might spontaneously decide to band together to demolish the extraterrestrial invaders!
"It won't be easy to kill the Emperor Tree in a short amount of ti without relying on massed firepower." Ves noted. "Saint Tusa can't help even if his Dark Zephyr has been upgraded to an ace ch because his machine simply isn't configured for mass destruction. You are better off fielding the Prothea instead."
Ketis frowned. "In hindsight, I shouldn't have let Venerable Isobel Kotin transfer back to the expeditionary fleet."
"She went back in ti to speed up the downfall of the Tornt Fleet and prevent multiple alien warships from eliminating a lot of good chs and ch pilots. In any case, the expeditionary fleet has retreated from the frontlines, so there is no problem with transferring the Prothea back to your task force. You will need her firepower now that burning a huge amount of biomass in a short amount of ti has beco desirable again."
The reason why the Prothea only fought on the surface for a short ti was because the Larkinsons did not want her to burn all of the exobeast carcasses.
Even if Venerable Isobel and the Prothea went against their nature and deliberately suppressed the propagation of their purple flas, it was too difficult to completely ta such a volatile force.
Far too many valuable beast carcasses got burned into worthless ash due to the Prothea's fiery firepower!
"Are you willing to let the Prothea burn down the entire Emperor Tree?" Ketis asked.
"To be honest, no. I have a strong suspicion that I can harvest unimaginable gains if I can capture the Emperor Tree alive. It would be irresponsible for to request your task force to subjugate it to the point where it has completely surrendered to our control. Just do your best to harvest as many gains as possible. Even if the tree is lost to us forever, we will most certainly encounter other calamity trees in the future. We don't need to get too hung up over missing a lot of opportunities this ti."
It was not quite certain what Ves could gain out of studying the Emperor Tree anyway.
Perhaps its wooden constructs did not really possess anything significant that was worth studying and reverse engineering.
Wait. That was not quite true. Ves could think of one benefit that elevated the research value of these wooden creations!
"Did you notice that both the Emperor Tree and these wooden constructs have infused Solus Gas into their structures? This has made them a lot more difficult to detect and read through different ans. The effect is remarkably stable and consistent. We may be able to learn a thing or two about how to make practical use of Solus Gas by studying the powerful tree's thods."
Depending on the supply of Solus Gas and the ease of integrating this exotic substance into tallic chs, this could potentially make every Larkinson ch harder to detect and read!
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