The Martial Unity

Chapter 4357: Opportunities

While the dessandrites and the aquadites forged a secret alliance in order to team up against the arakai, human civilization continued on.

The air, politically speaking, had grown tense. Word of a seemingly inevitable war had spread across the top brass and even to some layers below. More than anything, it manifested in ways that were visible even to regular people.

Across human civilization, people observed more and more mechs and MECHAs on active duty, more patrols, more oversight, more surveillance, more of just about everything that could increase security.

It was hard to miss frontier states immediately investing in long-range and wide-scale detection technology. They also put money into strengthening their battle-readiness. Although all frontier states were battle-ready, they were the most fragile interstellar states.

It rippled over into the financial markets as well. Stocks tumbled, and bond yield rates rose. Even insurance premiums rose because of the rising uncertainty and the associated risk. The cost of commissions rose tremendously as pathwalkers demanded more to undertake risky missions in the frontier and beyond the frontier of human civilization.

After all, if it was an inevitable war, then they were most at risk of running into something extremely dangerous and being annihilated.

The adventurer and mercenary guilds and other brokerage platforms also shifted, becoming more cautious. They rated operations as more dangerous and as more risky. Not only had all operations to the Strehegeld Star System been completely prohibited as a matter of law from the Gaian Alliance, but there had been a subsequent collapse in all missions to regions surrounding the star system.

Humanity felt distinctly more tense.

Like something bad was about to happen.

Perhaps one key reason that human civilization remained stable was because of the domineering show of force from the Gaian Alliance over the Blood Cult, completely subjugating and then dismantling it into pieces. It showed that they had much, much more absolute grip over human civilization than they could have ever imagined.

The fact that it was over in a week reinforced the sense of security that people got from the Alliance, ensuring that the tenseness didn’t lead to civil unrest.

”And what are your state of affairs in regard to the impending war?”

The voice of Minister Ru rang across a spacious meeting room. She sat at the head of a long table with some of human civilization’s greatest powerhouses, wearing an elaborate formal business attire with the crest of the Kandrian Empire embroidered on her chest. Her golden eyes swept the table, landing on the man closest to her.

The Esoterist simply shrugged, leaning back in his seat. ”The Esocline Federation is always prepared for the worst. We are armed with extremely powerful technologies, as we demonstrated three months ago with Planet x-167. Rest assured, we are very much in the position to fight back, but...”

A grin emerged on his face.

”We are also investing in our exo-planet mining capacity.”

Several other leaders within the meeting internally frowned at those words, even if they maintained perfect poker faces.

Investing in mining at a time of impending war? That was a complete fool’s errand. It wasn’t that mining was useless during a time of war. The demand for more weapons, more spaceships, more superweapons, and more of all kinds of space infrastructure would lead to an increase in the raw materials used to construct them.

But this was only useful after the initial stage of war, where munitions and other military resources were consumed at a great pace, and after the war entered the industrial phase.

Military strategy wisdom always favored investment in defense and security if one was expecting a war, rather than mining.

”You clearly are aware of how foolish investing in mining is at the onset of a war, and yet you do it,” one woman remarked with a pointed tone, sharpening her eyes.

She was at least part evolutionary due to a partially translucent elder body. She wore a sharp pair of spectacles that only made her cutting narrow slits for eyes seem to hurt more. She spoke with a rugged, powerful voice with an authoritative, elderly tone.

She leaned forward, staring at the Esoterist.

”Do you happen to be aware of any mining opportunities that I may have missed?”

The Esoterist simply shrugged nonchalantly. ”I wish, but the reality is that I’m a material scientist. My value—” He gestured to himself. ”—is only proportional to the amount of materials I have, Miss Mearsheim.”

He smiled at her mysteriously. ”Of course, if you’re willing to sell your company to me, I won’t need to invest in mining, and you’d get to be rich. It’s a win-win, don’t you think? Would you like to reconsider my offer?”

Miss Mearsheim narrowed her already razor-sharp eyes, reducing them to slits through which she intently studied the Esoterist and his body language.

’He’s hiding something.’

She realized that very quickly. Somehow, the man had come across some extraordinary mining opportunity that he needed to expand his mining capacity to capitalize on, so much so that he had dogged her to buy her company outright for the past three months.

She was ever more certain of this, as the CEO of Terrestrike, the largest mining corporation in all of human civilization, accounting for a whopping forty percent of all commercial mining activities across all of human civilization.

The old woman was a willy business woman who ran the largest mining company in Gaia at the dawn of the Era of Expansion, and capitalized in space mining faster and more than any other commercial and arguably even sovereign mining enterprise.

It was not for no reason that Ru felt the need to invite her to a meeting featuring the powerhouses of human civilization.

”This meeting is not an avenue to discuss business deals, Mr. Esoterist.” Ru smiled at him harmoniously, though the smile didn’t reach her eyes. ”Please keep your curious attempts to acquire Terrestrike for after this meeting.”

”Meh,” the Esoterist shrugged. ”The old bat won’t budge. Stubborn as nails. No point in even trying. Which is why I’ll have to flesh out my own vast mining enterprise. Don’t be surprised if I overtake you grandma.”

He smiled at her mysteriously and gleefully, as if he couldn’t control himself from sneering at her smugly. It was that immature expression of his emotions that only confirmed to her what she had known.

’He has come across some mining opportunity that he is extremely confident in.’

The only question was what that opportunity was.

’I must find out what this opportunity is...’ She sharpened her eyes. ’...And seize it.’