"Good morning, Lady Gaia," Karl greeted her as he felt himself being transported to an unfamiliar location. The sensation passed quickly, and he found himself standing in a spacious room where a large table occupied the centre, surrounded by chairs that were already filled. The patriarchs and matriarchs of the other trade families were seated around it, their attention directed toward the place where Gaia was waiting for them. Just yesterday, Karl had received a notification informing him that he was required to attend a meeting concerning the rewards their families would receive for helping Gaia push back the Void. Consequently, he had been rather curious about the meeting ever since waking up that morning, as any opportunity to learn more about Gaia was one he welcomed.
"Good, you are all here," Gaia said as she looked around the table, confirming that every invited leader had arrived. She had deliberately summoned them into her own space, a place where her authority was absolute and where she could examine those who entered without interference. This allowed her to investigate the character and life history of every patriarch and matriarch present, ensuring that none of them had been corrupted or possessed a deeply immoral nature. Considering the importance of the knowledge she intended to distribute, she had no intention of taking unnecessary risks simply because these people belonged to respected families. Before she handed over something capable of changing the future of humanity, she wanted to be certain that the people receiving it could be trusted.
After examining their souls, Gaia found little reason to be surprised by what she discovered. Humanity could certainly be greedy, ambitious, and willing to commit terrible acts for the sake of power, but the people sitting before her were the leaders of families that had survived for thousands of years. Their ancestors had occupied some of the highest positions of influence throughout history, and their descendants had managed to preserve that influence even after the Information Age had transformed the world. They understood politics, economics, and the delicate balance of power better than most people could ever hope to learn. Some of their families had even maintained the ability to assassinate prominent figures, a dangerous advantage that had historically represented one of the greatest weaknesses of those who sat at the very top.
However, what interested Gaia most was the fact that these families had eventually chosen to leave much of that power behind. Rather than continuing to pursue political dominance through the methods their ancestors had once used, they had concentrated their efforts on their respective crafts and the traditions that supported them. The souls sitting before her reflected that choice, revealing people whose identities were rooted in craftsmanship rather than the endless pursuit of authority. Naturally, not every craft represented something peaceful or harmless, and some of the skills preserved by these families were associated with activities that could leave blood on their hands. Nevertheless, Gaia did not consider that fact sufficient reason to condemn them, since the value of a person's character could not be determined solely by whether their profession had ever resulted in another person's death.
As a planet, Gaia witnessed death on a scale that most humans could scarcely comprehend. Life flourished across her surface, but so did the countless natural processes through which living creatures were born, struggled, and eventually perished. The number of deaths she observed every day was enormous, making it difficult for her to attach the same emotional significance to each individual loss that a human would. What caused her to hesitate briefly was not the existence of bloody professions themselves, but the fact that their victims were often other humans. Humanity was the only species on her planet that had reached the stage of civilisation, making conflicts between people particularly significant to her, especially when the knowledge she was about to share could influence the direction of their future development.
"I have called all of you here to discuss your reward, and I have finally reached a decision," Gaia announced, bringing the conversation back to the purpose of their gathering. "Because this reward is so important, I want to inform you that all of you will receive one shared reward rather than separate rewards for each family. Individual rewards would not adequately represent what you have accomplished, and dividing the reward between you would create unnecessary complications." Her tone made it clear that she had already considered the alternatives and had settled on the arrangement she intended to use. She was not asking the assembled leaders to design the reward themselves, but informing them of the decision she had reached after a considerable amount of thought.
The leaders exchanged brief looks, but none of them raised an objection. Their souls appeared as transparent white avatars resembling their physical forms, allowing Gaia to observe their reactions as they considered her announcement. They understood that she was not attempting to shortchange them by combining their rewards, particularly when she was the one who had summoned them to discuss the matter in the first place. More importantly, they could hear from her voice that the decision was already final, making it pointless to resist merely for the sake of negotiating. Their curiosity was far greater than their desire to argue, as they wanted to discover what sort of reward could be valuable enough to justify treating the contributions of all their families as a single undertaking.
"The reward I am giving you is the knowledge of how to create genuine mana veins that can produce enormous quantities of mana," Gaia explained with a smile. The words were simple enough, but their meaning took a moment to settle over the people listening to her. Genuine mana veins were not ordinary resources that could be purchased, transported, or exchanged like conventional goods. They represented a potential source of mana on a scale that could transform the development of an entire region, provided people knew how to create and maintain them. By offering the knowledge required to accomplish such a feat, Gaia was giving the trade families something that money alone could not easily obtain.
"Sorry, genuine mana veins?" one of the leaders asked, unable to hide his confusion. "I thought we were all living on genuine mana veins already." His question reflected an assumption that many people on Earth had accepted without giving it much thought. The presence of mana throughout their surroundings had encouraged people to believe that the places where they lived were supported by ordinary mana veins, particularly when the energy available in those areas appeared more abundant than elsewhere. If Gaia was now offering them the knowledge required to create genuine mana veins, then the leaders clearly needed to reconsider what they understood about the world beneath their feet.
"No," Gaia replied, maintaining her smile as she prepared to correct their misunderstanding. "Strictly speaking, what you are living on is a cultural vein, which is more important in certain respects, but not particularly helpful for your cultivation." The explanation was so unexpected that several of the patriarchs and matriarchs struggled to understand what she meant. They had assumed that the energy supporting their current circumstances came from the same source that they were now being promised the ability to create. Instead, Gaia was telling them that the energy they had experienced so far came from something fundamentally different, with its own purpose and limitations.
"The increased mana in your surroundings comes from the carrier of cultural energy being released," Gaia continued, clearly enjoying the reaction her explanation produced. As the meaning of her words became apparent, the leaders stared at her in disbelief, and several of their mouths fell open. They had believed they understood the foundations of the new world well enough to begin making plans for their families' futures, yet they had apparently misunderstood one of its most important features. If their current source of mana was not a genuine mana vein, then the energy they had relied upon might only represent one part of a much larger system. The revelation forced them to reconsider what they thought they knew about cultivation and the resources that would determine humanity's future.
"So, I am granting all of you the knowledge required to create genuine mana veins," Gaia repeated, still smiling as she watched their reactions. She was pleased that she had found a reward capable of benefiting all the families without requiring her to distribute numerous expensive items individually. More importantly, the knowledge would give them something meaningful to work toward, allowing their combined resources and expertise to contribute to a project that could benefit the entire planet. The families would have to learn how to apply the information themselves, but that was precisely the kind of challenge Gaia wanted humanity to undertake. She had no desire to solve every problem personally when she could give humans the opportunity to develop the necessary capabilities on their own.
Gaia was particularly pleased that she could make this offer so early in humanity's development. Initially, she had expected that it would take at least another ten years before she could provide meaningful assistance with the creation of genuine mana veins. At that time, the resources available to her had been insufficient to support such an undertaking without compromising other priorities. However, the recent outbreak of the secret realms had changed the situation considerably, giving her access to additional energy and allowing her to reconsider what had previously seemed impossible. The development had therefore proved beneficial for her plans, even if the secret realms themselves had created considerable complications for the people living on Earth.
The reason for these limitations was connected to the energy Gaia needed to produce what she called her own chaos energy. To generate it, she required both Void energy and cultural energy, two resources that played different roles in her ability to influence the world. Unfortunately, like most planets, she had access to an abundance of cultural energy but comparatively limited opportunities to obtain the Void energy she needed. Having a vast reserve of one type of energy while lacking enough of the other was rather like possessing an enormous fortune that could not be spent on anything useful. The cultural energy was not inherently a problem, but without the necessary balance, Gaia could not use it to make the kind of progress she wanted.
Her main obstacle had therefore been the shortage of Void energy. The only sources she could absorb were the energy naturally leaking out of the secret realms and the allowance provided to her by the universe. That allowance was sufficient to let her make small, steady improvements, but it did not provide enough energy for the major advances she wanted to achieve. If she wished to make significant progress rather than slowly moving forward, she needed another way to acquire more of the resources required for her work. Gaia suspected that the arrangement was intentional, as the universe's systems often seemed designed to make the removal and purification of dangerous energy particularly valuable. However, whether that was truly the universe's intention was not something she could decide, nor was it a matter she had the authority to change.
The recent developments had finally given her enough flexibility to reconsider her priorities. With the Void energy she had absorbed from the secret realms, Gaia could afford to divide her attention and assist with the manifestation of genuine mana veins. Instead of being forced to concentrate nearly all her available resources on maintaining her existing responsibilities, she could now devote part of her effort to a project that would improve the world's long-term development. The additional energy did not mean that her difficulties had disappeared, but it provided enough room for her to pursue an opportunity she had previously expected to remain out of reach for many more years. For Gaia, this was an important change, because it allowed her to support humanity's progress without waiting for the natural accumulation of resources to solve the problem on its own.
The creation of genuine mana veins would also benefit Gaia directly, since it would give her a more effective way to generate mana than the methods she currently relied upon. Rather than simply increasing the energy available to individual humans, these veins could become part of the broader structure through which the planet produced and distributed mana. That would make them valuable not only to the families receiving the knowledge, but also to Gaia's own efforts to develop the world and restore its natural balance. If humanity could learn to create them successfully, both sides would gain from the achievement. The trade families would receive an extraordinary opportunity to shape the future, while Gaia would gain another means of strengthening the planet without having to bear the entire burden herself.