Ves had invested an unusual amount of ti on his investigation.
He gambled on whether that ti was well-spent.
Though he failed to obtain any important or actionable information in the first few hours, he had a growing feeling that this was about to change.
The critical breakthrough arrived when Ves beca more proactive and deliberately introduced more and more external pressure.
What he sought was deviations from the standard pattern. He already knew how the Destroyer particles behaved when two of them got close to each other.
The data he obtained from his earlier recording were too dull for Ves to derive anything groundbreaking.
The only way he could create new data was to engineer new conditions himself.
Given that he suspected that all Destroyer particles used in Destroyer weapons were projections of the sa source, he heavily leaned into spatial manipulation in order to produce a asurable deviance.
At first, he relied on his powers as a phase lord to warp the interior of the chambers that contained the lone Destroyer particles.
He warped space. He bent and shook it in ways that he could not properly describe to most humans. He leveraged more and more of the power locked inside the phasewater circulating in his bloodstream.
He also made increasingly more use of the formidable power of his phasewater organs.
The lesser Dofner organ provided the most assistance. It was an organ that was normally a miniature warp drive to phase leaders, thereby turning them into true star-faring native gods.
Though the Dofner organ was optimized for macro-scale space warping, Ves found that it could also be used to distort space in a much smaller volu of space.
Of course, much like using a muscle that he had rarely exercised in the past, his skill and proficiency in doing so left much to be desired. He had to channel a lot of concentration and correct his mistakes quickly lest he accidentally damaged the containnt devices.
Though he had wasted more than half an hour on correcting various mistakes, this was enough ti for him to gain rudintary control over the processes.
He no longer slipped up as often as he began to learn the knacks needed to achieve an acceptable degree of precision and consistency in his spatial manipulation.
Though his control began to slip whenever he tried to increase the power of his space warping, he eventually got used to it, enabling him to push the boundaries a little further.
"This is like ascending a stairway."
Every few minutes, Ves carefully increased the power of his spatial manipulation. This caused him to lose a bit of control, but not to the extent of inviting serious danger.
He only needed to spend a few minutes on acclimation before he could take another step.
He did this a few dozen tis until he approached the limit of how much his lesser Dofner organ could achieve in precision spatial warping.
Unfortunately, all of this testing failed to affect the Destroyer particles in any unusual fashion. Their behavior did not change when accounting for all of the variables. Ves also did not uncover any kind of secret connection that could prove his hypothesis.
His spatial manipulation capabilities were still too weak.
His lesser Dofner organ had been salvaged from the Eminence of Tornt.
Though he used to be a failed orvan phase lord, the Red Cabal had rewarded him with clean and relatively high-quality lesser phasewater organs due to his loyalty and usefulness.
It would be difficult for Ves to find a better lesser Dofner organ than the one he already implanted in his own true body.
There were other ways to strengthen his spatial manipulation, from implanting other relevant phasewater organs to increasing his phasewater concentration, but Ves could not fulfill any of them in a short amount of ti.
Still, it turned out that he was not entirely out of options.
He discovered that he could partially repurpose his lesser Marigal organ to fold a small section of space!
This was a different and more specialized form of spatial manipulation.
The lesser Marigal organ was normally responsible for helping to fold space inside a phase lord's true body.
Normal phase lords and phase whales already possessed this capability without this specialized organ.
The addition of a Marigal organ only amplified this capability, and had thus beco the favored add-on for martial-minded phase leaders. It strengthened their physique by adding a lot more mass to the sa amount of 'space'.
Though the lesser Marigal organ had never been designed to be used outside of one's body, it theoretically possessed the capability to do so, though at a much reduced effectiveness.
When Ves carefully experinted with the lesser Marigal organ, he felt that it took a lot more effort to produce much less dramatic results.
Still, it worked, and that was enough.
While he was still utilizing his lesser Dofner organ, he gradually increased the space folding effect from his lesser Marigal organ.
The two effects partially clashed with each other, but generated a lot more spatial turbulence in the process.
What mattered to Ves was that the Destroyer particles beca subjected to increasing external pressure.
Though their resistance to anomalous effects were high, they were not as strong as they used to be when they were packed inside genuine Destroyer weapons.
Ves banked on this relationship as he continued his efforts.
Though the increasingly more severe spatial disturbances rendered most of the sensor systems useless, he could still observe the Destroyer particles with his eyes and his other senses.
Just when he was about to reach the limit of how much space he could fold outside of his true body, he finally observed a visible reaction that fell outside the norm!
The two particles visibly beca a little more translucent!
Ves most definitely did not imagine this response. He imdiately inspected the few reliable sensor systems. Many of them managed to record a brief blip that showed that the isolated Destroyer particles had grown weaker for a mont!
Even if the magnitude was a few percentage points, that was still significant enough to prove that this deviation fell way outside of the margin of error!
The fact that multiple instrunts registered this pattern showed that it was not because one of them had glitched for whatever reason.
Unfortunately, Ves was unable to reproduce this result, causing his mood to significantly dampen.
He did not know why that was the case. He tried to reproduce the earlier conditions as much as possible, but no matter what he did, he failed to generate another reaction!
It was difficult for him to power both his lesser Dofner organ and his lesser Marigal organ at close to full strength for a long ti.
He did not want to exhaust himself to the limit, so he reluctantly suspended his spatial manipulation before he drained himself entirely.
"This isn't working." He frowned.
The montary blip definitely indicated that he was working in the right direction. "I need more power in order to provoke another response."
How could he do so? After thinking for a few seconds, he suddenly ca up with an idea.
If his powers as a phase lord was not enough, then what if he utilized tools?
He imdiately acted on this idea. He retrieved modest amounts of phasewater as well as low-grade superdinsional matter along with other resources. He proceeded to utilize his mixed understanding of the relevant science and materials to cobble together an improvised spatial manipulation device.
Gloriana would have considered the jury-rigged instrunt to be an abomination. Ves had whipped it up without bothering to prepare a proper design or conduct adequate tests. He crudely combined phasewater and superdinsional matter into structures that partially resembled the key components of warp drives as well as other related devices.
Though Ves was not proud of his creation, he only considered it a ans to an end. He had created it in haste and only put just enough care to prevent an imdiate collapse.
When he cautiously activated it, the device fortunately worked, though its effects were far from stable and precise enough for his standards.
He had to spend almost another hour debugging the settings, refining the most problematic components and becoming more proficient in controlling its capabilities.
Once he was done with this step, he finally gained enough confidence to proceed with his experint.
He began to utilize his phase lord powers once again on the isolated Destroyer particles, but this ti he also added in the effects of the new spatial manipulation device.
Due to the limitations of the improvised instrunt, he only directed its effects towards one of the contained Destroyer particles.
"Let's see whether this will make a difference."
He gradually increased the power of the spatial manipulation device while keeping his own output constant.
The combination between all of the spatial effects generated a lot more disturbances!
Ves encountered a lot of resistance from a new source, making it harder for him to maintain his current efforts.
Yet he persisted because it was working. The compound spatial disruptions induced so much exotic stresses on the targeted Destroyer particle that it finally began to grow a little fuzzier and translucent!
Though the more reliable sensor systems clearly experienced difficulties in asuring accurate data, they all registered significant decreases in whatever they were asuring!
"It's working!"
If his guess was correct, he effectively managed to weaken the connection between the origin and the projection!
Though he believed he could never produce this effect on a larger concentration of Destroyer particles, it didn't matter because just ssing with one of them was enough!
Ves stared at the other Destroyer particle that was not subjected to as much spatial disturbances.
It did not weaken in intensity, which probably ant that its connection with its origin remained intact.
"Interesting."
Though the current observations did not absolutely prove that his projection theory was right, he gained enough proof to satisfy his own judgnt.
That was enough!
Due to the need to keep his forbidden experints a secret from the Terrans, Ves never intended to share this discovery to a wider circle.
That ant that he did not have to satisfy the higher and much more rigorous scientific standards of 'proper' ch designers.
Ves already began to fantasize about the little improvents he could apply to Destroyer weapons after he gained this crucial insight.
Yet just as he was about to switch from fundantal theory to practical applications, a new idea spontaneously entered his mind.
"What if…?!"
He did not know why he ca up with this idea or how he could make such an insane connection.
He also did not know why he had lost his previous caution and decided to make an extrely reckless and impulsive decision.
He just felt a burning curiosity in his mind. If he did not conduct this experint right away, he would definitely feel unfulfilled!
Ves proceeded to throw all caution to the wind. He first grabbed a small block of spare low-grade superdinsional matter and began to separate a tiny chunk from it. He then proceeded to use a variety of other tools to bring it over to the Destroyer particle that was still being disturbed to the point its connection to its origin had degraded.
Before he could question the wisdom or safety of his next act, he imdiately forced the tiny chunk of superdinsional matter to make contact with a single Destroyer particle!
The differences in scale were enormous.
The Destroyer particle was so small that it could not be observed by mortal eyes.
The chunk of superdinsional matter may be smaller than a grain of sand, but it was still much larger in comparison!
When the two ca into contact with each other, the Destroyer particle ate away at the foreign matter, but because it was isolated, its progress was extrely slow.
Yet when it did so, it also exhibited anonymous behavior.
What Ves witnessed next stunned him into silence!
The Destroyer particle in question seed to shake and grow less defined at the sa ti.
Its energy levels rose, but its definition weakened.
When this rise in activity had reached a threshold, it suddenly split into two!
Two identical but much weaker and almost translucent Destroyer particles appeared alongside each other!
"WHAT?!"
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