"Well, that is going to be difficult," Herman said with a headache already beginning to form. The thought of competing with the private sector was enough to make him uncomfortable, because private companies were willing to do some truly insane things when enormous profits were involved. Their methods were difficult to predict, and their money could be deployed far more quickly than government funds. Compared with private equity, the military's financial resources often moved painfully slowly.
"Fine, holding onto those mana veins is going to be difficult, but we can still make our position stronger," Herman said after thinking about it for a moment. "Let us start building the infrastructure around the ones we already have so we can begin profiting from them." He wanted the military to establish a sizable investment in those locations as quickly as possible. That way, if the government eventually demanded that the military surrender them, they could at least demand compensation for everything already invested.
"And get our scouts to start searching for more mana veins," Herman added. "Treat it as a massive training exercise that we needed anyway." He did not wait for anyone to argue with him because the order made sense from several different perspectives. The military needed more scouts, it needed better information about the surrounding territories, and it desperately needed more mana veins.
Herman stood up and walked out of his office, already preparing to start ordering people around. Every proving ground represented a potentially massive asset for the armed forces. If the blueprints were accurate, these facilities could fundamentally change the way soldiers trained and were rewarded. Herman wanted as many of them as he could possibly obtain.
According to the blueprints, a soldier could enter a proving ground and sit inside one of the specially designed chambers. Once the process began, the soldier would enter a state of meditation and become connected to an illusion or mental trial. The system would then present the soldier with a wide variety of different options. The military, however, was far more interested in one particular section of the facility.
That section was designed specifically for armed forces training. An individual soldier or an entire team could enter a simulated battlefield and fight against monsters created by the proving ground. These creatures were not simply illusions with no consequences. If the soldiers defeated them, they would receive the mana that had been used to create those monsters as a reward.
That reward alone was enormous. Soldiers could therefore improve their combat abilities while simultaneously receiving resources that could be used to strengthen themselves afterward. It transformed training from something that simply consumed resources into something that could potentially generate valuable resources for the people doing the training.
The proving grounds also solved another problem that had plagued military training. The facilities could ensure that everyone fighting the same challenge encountered the same monsters under the same conditions. That meant soldiers from different units could finally be compared fairly. Their results would not depend on whether one group happened to receive an easier opponent than another.
The system could also maintain a leaderboard containing an enormous amount of information. It could track combat performance, completion times, victories, failures, individual contributions, and numerous other statistics. Those records could then be used as part of the new framework being designed for the United Nations.
That possibility had made Herman even more interested in obtaining the proving grounds. A standardized system for measuring soldiers could completely change how international military cooperation worked. Instead of relying solely on reputation or vague reports, armies could compare their personnel using objective results generated under identical conditions.
Herman was not alone in his enthusiasm. The rest of the military staff at headquarters had been delighted when they saw the new blueprints. Even the legion commanders had begun scrambling to find mana veins that their own legions could claim. Nobody wanted to be the commander who failed to secure one of these facilities while every other legion obtained several.
The standing legions had already sent their scouting regiments into the field. Officially, the purpose was training, but everyone involved knew the real objective was to find more mana veins. The commanders had simply found a convenient way to combine two necessities. Their scouts could improve their skills while simultaneously searching for resources that could give their legions a major advantage.
The military's investment in better scouts had already been enormous. After the trial, they had been forced to adapt to an unpleasant reality. The old methods of reconnaissance no longer worked properly because drones could not simply be sent out to investigate every centimeter of territory. Human scouts once again had to take responsibility for gathering information.
That had created an enormous burden. Modern militaries had become accustomed to using machines to observe terrain, identify threats, and map areas. Suddenly, soldiers had to return to methods that belonged to an earlier era of warfare. The training required to make those scouts effective again had therefore become a major priority.
The map they had received during the trial had not helped matters. It was technically a map, but it was not reliable enough for the military's purposes. Too much information was missing, and too many areas remained uncertain. The scouts therefore had to begin rebuilding their understanding of the surrounding territories from the ground up.
Because of that, the military's scouting exercises had already begun before Herman even gave his order. The legion commanders had independently reached the same conclusion as headquarters. They needed more mana veins, and the only way to find them was to put people into the field and search.
They also needed to move quickly. The bounty being offered for the discovery of mana veins was constantly increasing. Every time the value went up, more adventurers, companies, and independent groups became interested in searching for them. The military was therefore entering a race against people who had no reason to wait for government approval.
Unfortunately, the government could not simply declare the existing mana veins controlled resources and seize them. The people who already possessed those mana veins were far too powerful. Attempting to take them by force would create political and economic upheaval on a scale that governments were simply unwilling to risk.
The situation was not unique to Europe. Even China, despite being a communist country with a powerful central government, could not simply reclaim all privately controlled mana veins. Doing so would mean confronting some of the country's fifty most powerful companies and political families. The disruption caused by such a move would be enormous, making it far wiser to leave the existing arrangements in place.
That meant a race had begun. Governments, companies, military organizations, universities, and adventurers were all searching for newly discovered mana veins. Everyone wanted to find them before someone else did, because owning one could provide an enormous advantage in the new world.
Of course, not everyone wanted to search for new ones. Some people looked at the existing mana veins and saw perfectly functional resources sitting openly in front of them. Why spend years searching through dangerous territory when they could simply attempt to buy one that already existed? For those people, the potential profits were simply too large to ignore.
That attitude eventually brought one US-based private equity company straight to the Sonnenberg family.
"Hey, Arin, what do you think those business people are here for?" Bertho asked. He was hanging upside down from a tree branch as he watched the group from a distance. Below him, Arin had just finished guiding a highly decorated negotiation team from the United States through the grounds of the Sonnenberg family.
The private equity company they represented was famous for its aggressive acquisition policies. There were even rumors that members of the company had been involved in illegal dealings with organized crime. None of those rumors had been conclusively proven, but they had become common enough that the company's reputation was already deeply questionable.
"I have no idea why they are here," Arin replied, disgust obvious in his voice. He had spent enough time around the group to recognize their attitude. They had been extremely condescending toward the people they met, as if their money automatically made them superior.
"Although, let's see if they flee with their tails between their legs," Arin added. There was a hint of amusement in his voice as he remembered the expression on his grandfather's face when he saw the delegation. Grandpa had clearly not been impressed by them from the moment they arrived.
Arin had personally guided the Americans through the impressive reception hall. The Sonnenberg family did not openly display its history, and the visitors had therefore walked through the building without understanding what they were actually looking at. They barely glanced at the decorations and artifacts surrounding them.
If even one of them had taken the time to look closely, their attitude might have changed. They would have realized that they were standing inside the home of a family whose history stretched far beyond anything their money could purchase. Instead, they simply walked through the reception hall as though it were an ordinary business office.
"What?" Bertho said with a sneer. "Are these still the same Americans who believe in capitalism and think anything can be solved with money?"
He shook his head while remaining upside down. "Money without strength eventually becomes a liability. Everyone knows that."
"Yes, they are," Arin replied. "But don't worry. Grandpa did not look kindly upon them." He paused for a moment before continuing, "Considering the current craze surrounding mana veins, he has every right to refuse to welcome them."
Bertho's expression changed immediately after hearing that. His amusement disappeared and was replaced by disgust. The very idea that someone could arrive at their ancestral land believing that enough money could purchase it was deeply offensive.
"The fact that they think ancestral land is something that can simply be bought is ridiculous," Bertho muttered. The Sonnenbergs had spent generations building their identity around their profession and their homeland. To them, treating that history like another asset on a balance sheet was more insulting than almost any ordinary business negotiation could have been.
There was a reason the matter was taken so seriously. Six families were still being hunted because of the insult they had committed against the ancient families. Their greed and obsession with glory had driven them far beyond ordinary business competition. Some had even turned toward the void after becoming blinded by those desires.
Bertho's disgust deepened as he considered the situation. Those families had believed that wealth and ambition could overcome anything. They had forgotten one of the oldest lessons of the new world: power was not something that could always be purchased.
Arin looked toward the distant negotiation team once again. The Americans had arrived believing they were entering another business negotiation. They had apparently failed to understand that the Sonnenbergs did not view their ancestral land, their profession, or their history as commodities.
And that misunderstanding was likely going to make the negotiation far more difficult than the visitors had anticipated.