Ideas flowed through Sword Flash's mind like an undammed river and he became more excited the more he thought about his plans for leystones.
He said to them, "We can even use a powerful launcher drive to launch leystones into the void so as to reduce the amount of time we have to wait for it to find a world. The possibilities are endless if we can combine leystones with our own technologies."
What he said made Lady Evergreen change her mind. She said begrudgingly, "You have made many good points. Maybe be leystones aren't as useless as I thought they were."
Sword Flash said in reply, "There is still one more point to make in defense of leystones. From the memories of the gem people, leystones are cheap to acquire. This means that we can afford to equip every squad with leystones and use them to instantly communicate across worlds."
At this point, Thunder Drake interjected, saying, "That is true, but the only way to get leystones is to mine them from the gem world. How can we get leystones if they are on the other side of the universe?"
Sword Flash rolled his eyes at him for asking the obvious as he replied, "Of course, we are going to get the leystones by invading them. Once we get our hands on a mother loadstone, we will be able to produce as many leystones as we want."
Thunder Drake snorted in dissatisfaction and said, "I know that we have to invade them. What I'm asking is how we will invade them when we can't find their world or get there?"
After realizing what he meant, Sword Flash said, "Oh. That is indeed a problem."
He quickly explained the problem to them before they could ask, "I have been trying to connect the leystones we have to their world network, so that I can get their spatial coordinates. But they have been rejecting all of my attempts to do so."
"Their verification system is primitive but very effective against us. They can't tell who is who among themselves, but they can immediately tell that the person using the leystone trying to connect to them is not a gem person."
"I'm working on a way to solve the problem, though. I'm thinking of enslaving a gem person and using their heart core to bypass their verification system."
Thunder Drake nodded in understanding and said, "That can work. If it works, we will be able to gain a lot from the gem world."
Then he sighed in awe and said, "Invading worlds is so lucrative. No wonder the Red and Blue Fire sect were so rich."
Sword Flash nodded in agreement and said, "The leystones alone will make the invasion worth it. Even the fact that they can only be used to transport non-living things and gem people still makes them valuable."
Lady Evergreen folded her green woody arms against her bosom as she said, "It is unfortunate that leystones can't transport living beings without killing them. But we don't need it to do that. What I wish we had is the permission to mine Aries."
Thunder Drake agreed with her and said, "We have lost a lot in this campaign. We don't need a lot to make up for our losses. Just a little bit of mining will be more than enough to make this campaign financially worth it for us."
Aries is full of resources, and they have good reasons for wanting to mine some of those resources, but Sword Flash didn't agree with them.
He said sternly to them, "I told you already. We can't take anything from Aries. Everything here belongs to the League of World Eaters. We are only to do our job and leave. Our reward will be the gem world."
"If you want a reward so badly, you should wait and hope that I can get the spatial coordinates of the gem world. If I can't get it, we will have to pay a rank 7 being back at home to help us use the heart cores to trace their world. That is going to be very expensive.
I don't even think we can afford it without having to give up a lot of benefits when we invade the gem world."
Thunder Drake said, "Fine."
Lady Evergreen grumbled as she said, "I guess we don't have a choice in the matter."
After speaking, the two of them looked at each other with a peculiar gaze. The two of them are rarely in agreement, so it felt odd to be on the same side of an argument.
Thunder Drake looked at her and said, "You're not half bad. I always thought you plant people were weaklings, but you have changed my mind by showing that plants can be troublesome to deal with. That is not something I expected to see at all."
Lady Evergreen sneered and said, "I'm surprised a thunderhead like you hasn't had all of his intelligence fried by lightning and can still recognize the power of a plant monarch like me."
Thunder snorted in disdain and said, "The fact that you were able to subdue four gem kings with your vines doesn't make you a monarch. Those gem kings were weak. If it were me, you would never be able to capture me that easily."
Lady Evergreen's eyes widened in anger, and her voice rose as she said, "Is that a challenge? Do you dare to prove your words?"
Thunder Drake grinned in anticipation as he said in reply, "I don't mind if I do. In fact, I'm looking forward to proving my words with action."
The two of them began to argue vehemently with each other. Sword Flash didn't intend to interfere with their argument, so he ignored them. But he had to shut them up when he noticed something strange happening on the leystone.
He said to them, "If you don't keep quiet and let me focus, you should get out of here to argue somewhere else."
Even before he said anything, the two of them had sensed the fluctuations of the leystone. What they sensed made them quiet down on their own without encouragement from him.