Kain now had 1,873 Energy Coins remaining.
He had spent approximately two hundred on Asuna's world.
Traveling there and remaining for one hundred hours had cost ten Energy Coins.
Connecting a personal space to A2's and forming a cross-world passage also required ten coins just to open a space measuring ten meters on each side—a total volume of (10^3), or one thousand cubic meters.
After 6O and 2B arrived, they remained in Asuna's world for nearly seventy hours. Between the passage expansion and its sixty-nine hours of operation, the cost came to another 110 plus 69 Energy Coins.
Most of that expense resulted from the equipment they had brought with them. Had it only been the two androids without any equipment, forty-two hours would have cost just twenty-four Energy Coins.
Their visit had also allowed Kain to test exactly how the passage calculated its operating costs.
That was why he had subsequently asked them to transport even more equipment, enabling him to determine precisely how much additional capacity would increase the Energy Coin consumption.
The initial personal space had a volume of (10^3) cubic meters. As long as the combined volume of every traveler and everything they carried remained below that limit, maintaining the passage cost one Energy Coin per hour.
However, once the total volume exceeded that capacity, the personal space had to be expanded. Otherwise, the additional cargo could not cross over.
The personal space could not be enlarged gradually, either. It had to jump directly to the next tier: (100^3) cubic meters, a space measuring one hundred meters along each side. Upgrading to that size required one hundred Energy Coins.
Under the system's bandwidth-style measurement, the original passage had provided 1,000G of capacity. 2B, 6O, and their equipment had already filled all 1,000G.
Expanding the passage to (100^3) cubic meters increased that capacity to 1,000,000G.
However, maintaining a passage of that size cost ten Energy Coins per hour.
The tests also revealed that if the combined volume of everything transported exceeded (100^3) cubic meters, no more cargo could pass through without another upgrade—to the (1000^3)-cubic-meter tier.
Kain had naturally declined to perform that test.
He could not afford it.
Fortunately, after temporarily expanding the passage to (100^3) cubic meters, they could transport the excess cargo back through it. Once the total volume of everything remaining on this side fell below (10^3) cubic meters, the larger passage could be closed and immediately downgraded, returning its operating cost to that of the smaller passage.
Because Kain had tested the (100^3)-cubic-meter passage for one hour—even though the actual test had lasted less than an hour, the system rounded it up—the experiment cost 110 Energy Coins.
The final calculation was therefore:
The initial one-hundred-hour stay cost ten Energy Coins.
Opening the (10^3)-cubic-meter passage cost ten.
Maintaining that passage for sixty-nine hours cost sixty-nine.
Upgrading it to (100^3) cubic meters cost one hundred.
Keeping the upgraded passage active for one hour cost another ten.
The total expenditure came to 199 Energy Coins.
Even after the passage had been opened, A2's side could still transmit cargo remotely, sending it directly into Asuna's personal space.
A2's end effectively functioned like an optical modem capable of supporting both wireless Wi-Fi transmission and a wired connection simultaneously.
The personal space serving as the exit on Kain's side, however, was directly connected through the equivalent of a cable. Since the passage was one-way, his personal space had temporarily disabled its Wi-Fi function and was being used solely to receive cargo through the wired connection.
In this case, "one-way" did not mean that objects sent through the dimensional passage from A2's side could never be returned.
They could be sent back.
What it meant was that objects originating from anywhere other than A2's world could not use that passage to cross into her world.
As for the Energy Coins required for Asuna's personal space to receive all that equipment, she refused to let Kain pay them. She still had enough Energy Coins of her own to cover the expense.
The Cross-World Invitation function had also become more detailed.
When someone invited a visitor into their own world, the host paid the initial Energy Coin cost.
If additional time was needed, either the host or the guest could pay for the extension.
Naturally, any extension still required the host's approval. That had always been the case. Every time Kain extended one of his visits, the host had first agreed to it.
The approval system could now be configured to operate automatically. If Kain purchased additional time, the host could set the system to approve his request by default.
Alternatively, they could require every extension request to receive manual approval.
There was also a separate option allowing a guest to apply for entry into someone else's world rather than waiting for an invitation.
In that case, the guest paid the travel expenses. Any attempt to extend the visit still required the host's permission.
Such applications had two possible settings.
The host could place their world in a publicly accessible state, causing every application to be approved instantly.
Otherwise, the applicant had to wait until the host personally granted permission.
After the update, the default setting required the host's approval.
Anyone who wanted visitors to enter without asking first would have to change that setting manually.
The World-Time Dial, which altered the difference in time flow between two worlds, also could not be used repeatedly without restriction.
Asuna, for example, had accelerated her world by one year, while Lacus had accelerated hers by nearly a year.
Before either of them could use the dial again, Asuna would need to wait a full year, while Lacus would have to wait for nearly a year.
Otherwise, A2 could have activated her own time acceleration again. By the time Kain visited her world, the Moon-class cruiser would already have been completed.
Unfortunately, A2 had previously accelerated her world by one month. She therefore had to wait one month before she could use the function again, and that much time had not yet passed.
The livestream system had received several changes as well.
Streams could now be placed in either public or private mode. Private streams could only be entered through an invitation.
That particular feature had apparently been added during an earlier update, but Kain had simply failed to notice it.
Users could also perform basic edits on the videos recorded from their livestreams.
For instance, some livestream recordings exceeded one thousand hours. Anyone interested in watching only the most exciting scenes previously had to search manually, skipping through the recording until they found the relevant segment.
Now, a single one-thousand-hour video could be divided into ten separate episodes of one hundred hours each, with a title assigned to every episode.
Viewers could use those titles to understand roughly what happened during each period instead of searching through an impossibly long recording before trimming and downloading the scenes themselves.
The main chat interface and each livestream's chat channel could also retain twenty-four hours of message history.
That way, anyone who logged out and returned later would not lose the entire conversation and have to ask everyone what had happened.
Those were all the recent changes.
Kain had also obtained a new suit of power armor from Archmagos Cawl—a set of heavy power armor designed specifically for him.
It was effectively a second layer of armor.
Kain would first put on his original lightweight power armor, then climb into the heavy suit over it, like one armored shell nested inside another.
The result made him appear as large as an Astartes.
Anyone who did not know the truth might genuinely mistake him for a Space Marine.
Kain had now reached the star system containing another Quantum Beacon and was preparing to excavate the STC buried there.
Originally, he had only intended to teleport into the vicinity before traveling to Lacus's world to deal with another problem.
The visitors from the movie had truly appeared and were preparing to visit Orb.
Kain planned to be there to keep watch and prevent them from carrying out any conspiracy.
Their visit would not take place for another two days, however. After inspecting the planet containing the STC, Kain concluded that the excavation did not seem particularly troublesome.
One day should be enough.
The primary obstacle was the xenos species inhabiting the planet.
They strongly resembled the Xenomorphs from Alien. Kain had initially mistaken them for Tyranids, but closer examination revealed that they were an entirely different species.
Since the operation appeared manageable, he decided to livestream the excavation.
His one-day estimate also assumed that he would be bringing reinforcements.
A ten-man Lamenters Tactical Squad under his direct command would accompany him.
The ten Astartes were not the only Lamenters who had survived the previous operation.
The others would undergo a new round of enhancements using an improved treatment derived from the D-99 serum.
Only after successfully completing that transformation would they formally enter Kain's service and become part of the forces directly under his command.
Now it was time to begin their orbital drop onto the planet.
While Kain's attention was elsewhere, however, he failed to notice a sudden change within the Hyperdimensional Channel.
Its interface transformed into something resembling a radar screen and began searching.
That could mean only one thing.
A new member was about to be added to the group.
Had Kain seen the newcomer's ID, he would probably have immediately identified who it belonged to.
The new member was not truly human.
They were an existence similar to A2.
(End of Chapter)
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