The conflict between these two sides started out with loss for both. Or at least that’s what the Four Major Businesses thought of it. They had no idea of the scale of lower level resources that the Lang Clan had access to. The quality of the resources on the Inner World were somewhat dependent on Sage’s own strength as well as the varieties of Heavenly Materials he gathered. Whenever he got stronger or assimilated another Heavenly Material they learned that new resources started to appear on the Inner World. The Lang Clan researchers discovered that the ‘energy of the heavens and earth’ on the Inner World gained more depth and diversity. The energy swirling through the space around the Inner World changed when the new planets that represented the Heavenly Materials were added.

Compared to the outside world, there was much less access to the highest tiers of materials as well as having much less variation among them. This meant the highest levels of Magical Tools were far more limited in scope as they had far fewer materials to work with. The same went for the other Professions, like Alchemy which had less natural treasures to work with. Even so, with thousands of years of development, they had found many ingenious ways to create new and interesting tools and pills using the same resources.

The Four Major Businesses had access to such a large variety of powerful materials harvested from all over the outside world. The Inner World couldn’t really compete in that regard. Yet, the Four Major Businesses only operated in the Dou Kingdom. How could they compare to the power of a whole world? This comparison was a little misleading because the outside world was orders of magnitude larger than Earth was, such that Sage had no idea how big it really was. In fact, just the Dou Kingdom alone spanned 100,000 miles wide. He was pretty sure the earth was only a fraction of that size, and this was only one kingdom of a single empire and there were at least two empires he’d run into so far. When comparing sheer area, the Dou Kingdom was actually larger than the Inner World by quite a bit. Neither Sage, nor the Four Major Kingdoms had complete control over all the resources of these large areas.

In a direct comparison of goods and materials, the Four Major Businesses had the advantage. The difference came in the ‘talents’ they nurtured. Every power needed to train and raise their own personnel. The Four Major Businesses likely spent quite a bit of their resources in this regard, but how could they compare to the Lang Clan that dedicated an entire continent to raising their insect troops? As Spirit Insects, the Dragoons were cheap to nurture and there was no need to search for the most talented and specially invest in their training. The downside of course being their strength was very lackluster and their comprehension was basically nonexistent. Yet, that was all secondary to the true advantage: time.

Even if the size of territory that the Lang Clan and the Four Major Businesses controlled was similar, the fact that the Inner World moved so much faster meant that Sage could raise millions of Dragoons in just a few weeks. In an open war, he was confident they could put up a good fight at the very least. Yet, there was also the concern that the Lang Clan might become too reliant on him, so unless an actual war was declared he tried to limit his own involvement. Without him, the Lang Clan still had hundreds of thousands of Dragoons in reserve. Over the last decade they’d built many training bases in remote areas to raise these shock troops, and they recently expanded these facilities to also raise Blastids. The loss of thousands of Dragoons was not insignificant, but they could recover from it with just some time.

To prevent further losses from massed mercenaries, the Prosperity Company created a massive trading convoy. Without Transportation Arrays like Thousand Treasures, they had to move things the slow way. Their locations needed to be supplied with product and they used a single giant convoy to do the transporting. A massive flotilla of Airships with an army of Dragoons as escort. To tip things in their favor further, many fifth rank experts from the Lang Clan came along as escort, along with a number of new Military Airships equipped with powerful offenses and defenses, most notably high ranking Blastids.

No more mercenary armies attempted to assault the large Airship groups as they made a single large circuit that passed through the largest of the Prosperity Company locations. The only problem was that this route didn’t pass by every store and those nearby sent smaller landbound convoys to distribute product. The Four Major Businesses didn’t let this small weakness pass and the land based convoys were hit by constant ‘bandit’ attacks. Over the next few months, the Lang Clan chose to shutter these locations, dropping their total number from over a hundred down to sixty. Rather than stretching themselves thin, they strengthened their position instead. The reason for doing such a thing was to focus on defending the other area that the Four Major Businesses had attacked: reputation.

Using their deep connections with City Lords, County Prefects, and Provincial Governors, they started to pile up red tape upon the Prosperity Company. An old widow came forth claiming to hold the deed to the land one of their buildings was placed on. A tax collector came forth with ‘proof’ that the Prosperity Company was not paying the proper tax on their property. A council meeting reviewed land zoning and found that a Prosperity Company building was built in an area that was reserved for only smaller businesses.

In addition to the trouble with officials, malcontents started to show up among the populace of many cities as well. Crowds formed outside of a Prosperity Company building, protesting their insect based devices. They claimed the bugs would turn on them and backstab them as soon as they were in a dangerous situation. Many random people started spreading rumors in places where many people gathered, telling stories of the Prosperity Company’s nefarious nature. A woman came forward to seek justice from the public. She claimed the head of a Prosperity Company location forced her into an affair and threatened to destroy her family’s business if she didn’t go along with his demands.

A few days later, the old widow lost the deed. The tax collector came forward to admit to a mistake in his bookkeeping, and a few of the city councilors died in an accident and their replacements found errors in their work. The protestors were arrested, evidence was found in their homes tying them to a series of large crimes and scams. More rumors went around about how much the Prosperity Company spent on improving conditions for the common folk and how helpful all their new products were. The woman seeking justice confessed that her husband had a grudge with the Prosperity Company leader and he put her up to telling lies.

The widow and the tax collector were dealt with by men with golden colored eyes, requiring a simple application of the Hypnotic Eyes. The Four Major Businesses soon found that their plots required the involvement of high level Cultivators or else these people from the Lang Clan could somehow change their minds no matter how much the Four Major Businesses offered to pay them. The city councilors and protestors required a little less subtle solution and were visited by members of the Lang Clan that followed in the path of Yawen. These unseen assassin’s could turn anyone too troublesome to be dealt with using Hypnosis into ‘accidents’. They could also sneak in and discover or plant evidence upon their enemies. The mass of rumors were dealt with by making even bigger rumors using the Lang Clan’s Intelligence Network, and they used blackmail of their own to topple the rich and powerful that faced off against them.