The Martial Unity

”This quickly?” Arastia asked her niece with a raised eyebrow. ”You know human civilization has a limited mining rate, right? It might be more prudent to limit the rate at which you find infected worlds.”

There were even greater limitations during war, where risks and insurance premiums were at all-time highs. The cost of transporting extracted esoteric ores from distant star systems and back into human civilization would undoubtedly rise, making it that much more difficult to do.

Ria understood this rationale, of course. She knew that it was going to be very difficult for her civilization to mine if they were under the threat of invasion, but she knew that the benefit was worth it.

”Right now I’m racing to find more infected worlds because the mining capacity of all powers hasn’t been fully tapped into yet,” Ria explained. ”For my first and second infected world sales, I sold it only to the top ten or so major powers in humanity. After that, I intend to go down the list and start selling the data to lesser powers, to maybe second-rate and middling colonial states that have multiple star systems, but not enough to draw the attention of major players in our civilization. I will thoroughly saturate human civilization with so much esoteric matter that arakai will think that we are consorting with the virus the way they are.”

Arastia looked impressed at the plan that her niece had shared. It was comprehensive and well-thought-out. It showed that she knew what she was doing, and wasn’t simply selling the information half-heartedly. That was good. Although Ria’s significance to human civilization had only just risen to strategic heights, she was already able to adopt a mindset befitting her power.

She was surprisingly able to adopt a far-sighted vision as to just how her power could be used to benefit human civilization the most. What worried Arastia, however, were the people who were going to be negatively affected by her.

”The virus hunter industry has already been shaken by what you have achieved,” Arastia warned her niece. ”I know dozens of senior Sage teams that have lost lucrative contracts from mining companies and colonial states because they have become obsolete. A lot of pathwalkers who made a living searching for infected worlds are now out of a job because of you.”

Ria shrugged with an apathetic expression. She didn’t see the part where that was her problem. As far as she was concerned, this was simply the free market responding to the circumstances that she had brought about.

”You might not care, but they do, and they will undoubtedly be looking for you,” Arastia insisted. ”Not all of them, and not all at once. But if they have the opportunity to find you and eliminate you, many of them would not hesitate.”

”Let them try,” Ria remarked with an unconcerned tone. ”I have hidden myself well. And, frankly, with how strong I have become, I don’t think any of them could possibly do anything to me even if they wanted.”

Arastia’s eyebrows furrowed. She didn’t like what she was hearing from the young lady. Indeed, she had started off at an extremely high level of power as a Martial Sage. But her confidence was excessive, as far as Arastia was concerned. She considered sparring with Ria and demonstrating the gap in power between them to temper her confidence a bit, but ultimately decided against it.

Ria had been negatively affected by the losses her team had suffered during her first operation. She would not take kindly to such a forceful lesson about her overconfidence. Of course, if not for the fact that she had extremely good anonymity, Arastia would have done it anyway. Better to have her more wary and less confident at the cost of being disliked than to have her be the way she was.

”You should commission the Transcendent dwarf for an exo-Martial suit or a new stealth ship,” Arastia insisted. ”If you have a product created by a Transcendent, its stealth will be off the charts. This will drastically reduce the odds that anybody will be able to track you. The only concern is…”

”…Whether or not I can trust a Transcendent Dwight,” Ria understood the issue. ”Besides, I don’t think I would be able to earn his attention without revealing my true identity as the head of EsoQuest Solutions. As a Transcendent, he’s probably rushing to contribute to the war as much as he can. Maybe I can get papa to do it for me but…”

She shook her head. ”I don’t want to rely on my dad for everything. I’m already relying on him for the Tide of Samsara, but that is the limit.”

She got up, wearing a serious expression.

”I will be fine by myself.”

She left the office shortly after, leaving Arastia in a troubled state of mind in regards to her niece. She would have loved to spend more time with her, but unfortunately…

She glanced at the holographic screen in front of her.

[War Summons Notification]

The Blood Humanist Society was an organization with territory, and thus was classified as a polity under Interstellar Law. Thus, it was subject to conscription under Article Two of the Gaian Alliance Charter. She and a solid portion of all of her forces were to head to the Solar System, where they would enter the chain of command of the Gaian Space Force.

”It’s time to go.”

She knew she would be back to the Arima III Star System once the invasion began, of course. But she needed to keep up the act. The arakai could not find out that the humans had managed to figure out where they were going to attack from and had prepared a grand trap.

When it was time to leave, she flew to space, joining up with a fleet of fleet carriers and cruisers that the Society had mobilized. It wasn’t long before the fleet headed to the edge of the star system, then smoothly entered superluminal travel.