The gate proceeded to repeat this routine. It opened up gates at other locations in the Red Ocean, both on land and in space.
The Time and Space Gate granted Ves the ability to relocate directly to the surface of different planets to the interior of mobile starships such as the Spirit of Bentheim!
Ves already deduced that the Time Gate gained a portal generation function!
This was not all. The best part about this was that the destination did not require an expensive and vulnerable portal. He could just program a destination and appear where he wanted! [Upgrade Path #4: Portal Exploration. Transforms the Time Gate into a Time and Space Gate. Allows for one-way transportation to locations and coordinates that you have previously visited in the past. The user must pay an increasing amount of Ascension Points to enable instant displacement across further distances and more difficult locations. Further upgrades can increase the maximum displacement distance, create one-way portals to destinations that the user has yet to visit and increase the size of the Time and Space Gate. The user can spend a large amount of Ascension Points to enable the creation of permanent portals and two-way portals.]
His enthusiasm for this upgrade track dropped a bit when he learned that he would have to pay Ascension Points for each passage to a destination without a portal.
The advantage was still great. So long as he earned enough of them, he could potentially reach destinations that were normally inaccessible!
He could already think of many possible uses for this.
He gained the ability to move between different planets and fleets belonging to the Larkinson Clan.
He could instantly escape a losing battle before his enemies could kill or capture him. He doubted that anyone could stop him from getting away the instant he entered the System Space.
He could sneakily move behind enemy lines and appear on a distant alien planet. From there, he could wreak havoc or steal a lot of valuable goods such as phasewater or archetech.
If he upgraded the Time and Space Gate extensively enough, then he may even be able to hop to a different dwarf galaxy, or arrive directly inside Messier 87!
So long as Ves ensured that he maintained his distance from the likes of the Subjugation King, he could make good use of his ability to appear in other galaxies to plunder specialty resources and absorb valuable alien knowledge.
Perhaps he might even be able to bring a small group of family to a galaxy that was so distant that it would take the Subjugation King centuries to arrive even if he managed to enrich himself with a lot of phasewater!
"The problem is that this option is clearly a lot smaller in scale."
He liked Universal Gate Network a lot more for providing powerful infrastructural support. It was a benefit that not only made life better for himself, but also red humanity as a whole.
Portal Exploration was a lot more limited in scale. He wondered whether it was only possible to pass through it from the System Space.
"Is there an upgrade that can allow me to generate this portal in realspace?"
[Yes, but it will require a great amount of Ascension Points to apply this upgrade.]
Ves grew relieved. He did not have to let others enter his System Space in order to pass through an active portal. That vastly reduced the risk of exposure.
Despite the smaller scope and the constant need to pay Ascension Points for every activation, he actually took a liking for this option.
He could get up to a lot of mischief with Portal Exploration. He could raid his enemies and disappear before he was ever in danger of getting caught. He could potentially leave the Red Ocean behind and hop to a neighboring dwarf galaxy that had never received human visitors in the past.
So long as he had enough Ascension Points, the entire cosmos was within reach!
"The scale is a lot smaller, though."
Would he be able to arrange an evacuation route for his entire clan? That sounded unlikely unless he was willing to invest a lot of Ascension Points in upgrading this parameter.
That was troublesome because AP was limited. Trying to upgrade capacity might cause Ves to have too few Ascension Points left to upgrade the maximum distance.
There was no way he could have it both ways with how much AP he was able to earn.
"Unless… I am not the only user anymore…"