While governments across the world were busy rethinking their entire approach to rebuilding their countries, the problem ran much deeper than simply replacing damaged infrastructure. Keeping people packed inside cities indefinitely was neither healthy nor sustainable, and everyone knew it. They needed farmers back on the land producing food, especially now that mana-rich crops were proving valuable and required experienced cultivation. On top of that, there were undoubtedly vast quantities of new resources hidden beneath the expanded earth waiting to be discovered and extracted.
That realization was causing panic among many economic factions, particularly among large capitalist organizations. For decades they had relied on expertise built around advanced technology, automated logistics, and highly specialized industrial systems. Now they were discovering that much of that knowledge had become far less useful outside population centers and mana veins. The mana permeating the wilderness seemed almost eager to consume and destabilize their equipment, making many previous assumptions obsolete overnight.
Most civilian expeditions did not get very far before they were recalled. Messengers on horseback were dispatched to catch up with exploration teams and deliver urgent instructions from headquarters. The expeditions needed to return, reevaluate their equipment, and prepare entirely new logistical plans. Many explorers were already unnerved after watching their phones literally disintegrate in their hands once they traveled too far from civilization. On the positive side, nobody had to worry about clearing their browser history anymore.
As a result, most private organizations halted their advances almost immediately. The only groups still pushing forward aggressively were military forces. Partly this was because they were required to do so, as all secret realms within a 100 km radius of the city were claimed by the military for safety, but money also played a major role. Military units were permitted to keep fifty percent of many rewards they acquired, paying only normal taxes afterward, making exploration an incredibly lucrative activity.
That policy had created a flood of new recruits. Career prospects within the military suddenly looked far more attractive than they had before the System arrived. Soldiers had opportunities to earn wealth, gain levels, and secure influence in a rapidly changing world. For many people, it represented one of the safest paths toward advancement. At least compared to wandering into unexplored territory with a private expedition.
Not that corporate factions treated their combat personnel poorly. In some cases, they treated them better than national militaries did. The problem was that the System imposed limits on how many individuals could formally belong to a faction. While many conglomerates commanded armies far larger than five thousand personnel, only a limited number could be officially registered.
This restriction infuriated countless executives. They had far more than five thousand fighters under their control, but only officially registered members generated certain System benefits from slain monsters. Most large corporations already maintained extensive security divisions long before the System arrived. After the integration, those divisions rapidly expanded into full military organizations. Unfortunately for them, the System did not care how many people they paid.
That did not mean ordinary employees were incapable of fighting. Quite the opposite. Most corporations now required combat proficiency from nearly everyone. Their reasoning was simple and brutally pragmatic. In the new world, strength mattered, and weakness became a liability that endangered everyone around it.
As military reports spread throughout Europe, expedition plans began collapsing one after another. The warnings regarding mana degradation forced organizations to reconsider their assumptions. Equipment failures could not simply be ignored. Even the most optimistic planners recognized that continuing without adjustments would be reckless. As a result, many exploration teams turned around before reaching their destinations.
Back at headquarters, corporate leadership descended into chaos. Entire development strategies had to be rewritten from the ground up. Most companies had already planned gradual transitions toward more handmade production methods because handmade goods were proving both more durable and more profitable. However, they had expected modern industrial support to remain available for decades. Even the most pessimistic forecasts still assumed fifteen years of machine-supported growth.
Now they were being told something very different. If they wanted to explore and develop territory beyond cities and mana veins, they might need to rely almost entirely on handmade production. That represented a fundamental shift in how civilization functioned. Entire industries suddenly found themselves standing on unstable foundations. Nobody enjoyed hearing that their business model might already be obsolete.
The alternative was even worse. Companies could simply abandon attempts to develop the countryside and focus exclusively on cities and mana veins. To most capitalists, that suggestion was almost offensive. Vast stretches of newly expanded territory represented opportunity on a scale humanity had never seen before. Walking away from that opportunity felt comparable to willingly crippling themselves.
Consequently, corporations across Europe began redesigning their long-term strategies. The countryside represented an enormous blue ocean filled with resources, farmland, and undiscovered opportunities. Nobody intended to surrender access to it willingly. The only question was how they would adapt. Some would succeed, while others would inevitably disappear.
It was during this period of uncertainty that the importance of history began revealing itself once again.
"I swear we are having these meetings far too regularly," complained Gustaw Pettmont while reading reports forwarded through official military channels. He already knew the information would eventually reach them regardless. The governments understood that as well. Consequently, everyone had decided it was easier to share certain reports openly rather than pretend secrecy would be maintained.
Of course, truly sensitive information remained hidden. Nobody around the table expected otherwise. That was simply how power worked and always had worked. The relationship between governments and Europe's old noble houses had never been entirely straightforward.
For centuries monarchs had attempted to control them while the noble families used monarchs to advance their own interests. The arrangement only truly began breaking down after the First World War. The conflict damaged their influence severely and left them unable to shape events the way they once had. According to many of the families, that weakness ultimately contributed to later disasters.
Several individuals around the table maintained that a stronger noble network might have prevented figures such as Adolf Hitler from ever gaining power. Whether that was true remained impossible to prove, but the belief persisted. They viewed unstable actors as threats to long-term stability and traditionally preferred predictable systems. Unfortunately, by then their influence had already been greatly diminished.
The situation became even more complicated after the rise of American influence throughout Europe. Many old families believed powerful American interests actively worked to suppress them whenever possible. Whether out of self-interest or ideology, the result was the same. European noble networks spent decades attempting to preserve their remaining influence.
That effort eventually led to the creation of the council currently gathered around the table. Following the Second World War, several great houses established informal structures to coordinate their interests and support one another. Their influence rose and fell over the decades, but the organization survived. After various geopolitical upheavals, their meetings gradually became less frequent.
"Yes, we know your displeasure regarding these meetings," said Orazio Vassevilliers with the tone of someone speaking to an impatient child. "But you also know why they are necessary." Several attendees chuckled quietly. They all knew Gustaw remained sensitive about being among the youngest of the great houses.
The teasing was largely affectionate. Many of them enjoyed these gatherings precisely because they allowed them to interact as peers rather than symbols of ancient institutions. For a few hours they could simply be people again. That alone made the meetings worthwhile.
"No, you're right," Gustaw admitted. "And while we're discussing good news, congratulations, Julia." He turned toward Julia Ravelino. "If technology really works the way these reports suggest, your mining industry is about to become even more valuable."
There was no jealousy in his voice. Everyone present understood exactly what he meant. The Ravelino family possessed generations of mining records documenting deposits, extraction methods, reserve estimates, and geological surveys throughout Spain. While modern corporations possessed advanced software and simulation tools, historical records provided something computers often could not.
Direct experience.
Every great house maintained archives like that. Important books were copied multiple times and stored in separate secure locations. If even one copy disappeared unexpectedly, investigations followed immediately. The records were already priceless before the System arrived. Afterward, their value became almost impossible to calculate.
The System had revealed the difference between genuine mastery and merely assembling information from scattered sources. Everyone present had experienced that lesson personally. As nobles, they had all received sword training growing up because tradition demanded it. That training had seemed ceremonial for most of their lives.
Then the System arrived.
Almost every person at the table had received some variation of the Basic Weapons Mastery skill at (uncommanded) rarity. The descriptions consistently referenced broader martial understanding despite their practical experience being limited mostly to swords. But it did not stop them from doing more damage with their swords and other weapons because the skill had increased in rarity. That alone demonstrated how valuable structured knowledge could be. Proper instruction and accumulated experience were not the same thing as reading a manual.
And suddenly, centuries of preserved knowledge had become one of the most valuable resources on Earth.