It was no wonder that the proposal was going to make people angry. Mana veins were already among the most highly sought-after resources in Europe, and giving them to the military would immediately create competition between the different branches of government. Private institutions were one thing, because most of them knew better than to interfere with the armed forces. Going against the military was generally considered an extremely stupid decision, especially because the armed forces operated under different laws than the rest of the country.
The police, however, were not willing to simply stand aside. They had been demanding access to mana veins because they wanted to cultivate elite crime-solving detectives capable of dealing with the increasingly dangerous world. Those detectives needed to become strong enough to survive possible retaliation from the organized crime groups they were investigating. Without powerful personnel of their own, the police feared that criminals with access to mana veins would eventually gain an overwhelming advantage.
The same argument was being made by the Tax Department and several other powerful government departments. Every organization had begun realizing that strength was becoming increasingly important and acting on it, as nobody wanted their personnel to fall behind. If one department received access to a mana vein, the others immediately had a reason to demand the same privilege. The result was a growing political struggle over a resource that was already extremely scarce.
Fortunately, the European intelligence agency had already secured its own mana veins. The public arguments they made about wanting additional access were mostly for show, because their existing mana veins were officially recorded as being under military management. Nobody outside the relevant circles knew that those mana veins were actually being used to operate the intelligence agency's top-secret cultivation department. Maintaining that cover was considered far more important than publicly admitting how much magical infrastructure the intelligence agency possessed.
The department giving Herman the biggest headache, however, was the Ministry of Education. They argued that mana veins should be provided as rewards for the best-performing universities. With the announcement on Null Island already providing them with solid ground for their argument, Herman could not simply dismiss their request as unreasonable. The universities had a legitimate reason to want access to stronger cultivation environments, especially if they were expected to produce the next generation of talented professionals.
Luckily, Herman had managed to delay the issue. His argument was that there were simply not enough mana veins available to distribute them freely between government departments, and that a better system had to be developed before anyone began handing them out. That excuse had worked for the time being, but Herman knew it would not survive forever. The proving grounds had changed the situation too much for the government to continue ignoring the demands.
The biggest problem with mana veins was that they could not simply be used for everything at once. Only one proper magic circle could be placed on top of a mana vein, meaning that the cultivation environment could be specialized around only one type of mana. The alternative was to simply filter the undesirable attributes out of the surrounding mana, but doing that would defeat much of the purpose. If they were going to waste the natural advantages of the mana vein, they would have been better off building a normal cultivation facility elsewhere.
The army had already recovered the results of its experimental cultivation technique. The results had finally provided them with one of the answers they had been searching for regarding the importance of different types of mana. The type of mana a person was exposed to while growing into adulthood was not nearly as important as they had originally feared.
However, that did not mean the attribute was irrelevant. Exposure to a specific type of mana helped expand a person's sensitivity toward that attribute. In other words, cultivating in an environment filled with a particular type of mana could make someone more naturally sensitive to it. That increased sensitivity could become extremely important later in life.
The advantage was therefore obvious. If someone already possessed a strong affinity toward a particular attribute, exposing them to that same type of mana could help expand their sensitivity even further. Unfortunately, the military had not yet discovered another reliable method for increasing sensitivity to an attribute. The mana veins therefore remained one of the best tools available for cultivating talented individuals.
That created an important trade-off. A person could cultivate faster in a specialized environment, but doing so might mean losing the opportunity to develop greater sensitivity toward another attribute. For adults, that might not always be a major concern, but for young people it could become an enormous waste. The military therefore considered using the wrong mana environment on young people to be an unacceptable loss of potential.
This was also one of the biggest reasons the military controlled so many mana veins. They genuinely needed them for their own cultivation programs. The army used access to these environments as rewards for soldiers and other personnel who performed exceptionally well, giving them cultivation opportunities on top of the commendations or medals they had already earned.
It was not simply a matter of giving someone a medal and sending them home. A soldier who had distinguished themselves could be granted access to a mana vein so they could improve their strength. The reward was therefore both symbolic and practical. It encouraged soldiers to perform better while simultaneously creating stronger members of the armed forces.
The military currently controlled around one hundred of the three hundred known mana veins in Europe. The remaining mana veins were primarily owned by private institutions. That distribution had already caused arguments, but the military had always been able to justify its enormous share by pointing toward its genuine need for cultivation facilities.
The situation had come about after devices capable of recording mana concentration were made public. Unfortunately, those devices no longer worked properly, making the discovery of new mana veins far more difficult. There was still no real science capable of reliably identifying them. The general consensus was simply that if someone entered a region where the concentration of valuable resources was significantly higher than anywhere around it, they might have found something extremely valuable.
The problem was that this method was highly unreliable. People could spend enormous amounts of time searching through regions that appeared promising only to discover nothing useful. Even after three years of searching, Europe had found only around sixty additional mana veins. Until now, the military had been allowed to claim those discoveries for itself.
Other government departments were beginning to complain, and Herman had to admit that their complaints were justified. The military could no longer simply take every newly discovered mana vein while telling everyone else that they were too valuable to share. The government had tolerated the arrangement because the military genuinely needed them, but the balance was becoming increasingly difficult to defend.
The problem was that the military's requirements were enormous. To create a complete system capable of reliably training its troops, it needed a huge number of mana veins. Even with the hundred veins already under its control, the military still did not have enough to build everything it wanted. That had allowed them to dismiss requests from other departments by arguing that giving away their resources would cripple their own plans.
The proving grounds had made that argument obsolete. Their greatest advantage was that once a soldier completed the required level of training, they could be rewarded with access to the type of mana their body was best suited for. Suddenly, the military did not need every soldier to spend their entire training period in one specialized environment.
That changed the entire calculation. The proving grounds could potentially make the military's existing mana veins far more efficient. Instead of simply using each mana vein for one group of soldiers, the military could use the facilities to train personnel and then guide them toward the attribute their bodies were naturally suited to.
Herman stared at the figures in front of him with a troubled expression. "So the question is, how are we going to hold onto these mana veins?" he asked. He already knew that surrendering too many of them would damage the military's plans. At the same time, he could not simply pretend that the other departments had no legitimate claims.
They could not empty the mana veins they already controlled, either. Those facilities were essentially booked solid for the next ten years. Every available training opportunity had already been assigned, and the military had built its future plans around those resources. Giving away the existing mana veins would therefore mean disrupting an enormous number of soldiers who were already scheduled to use them.
"That is going to be a tricky question," Rian replied with a serious expression. He began listing the problems one after another. The first was that they had spent so long blocking requests for mana veins by claiming that other departments would not benefit enough from them.
"The cabinet is no longer going to accept that excuse," Rian continued. "They are going to ask us to hand over some of the mana veins they have been demanding." He paused before continuing, already knowing what the negotiations would look like. "We are going to need to give at least one to the police, one to intelligence, one to the Tax Department, and three to the Ministry of Education."
Herman's expression darkened.
"So even if we are lucky, we will keep nine," Rian said. "And realistically, I think we will end the negotiations with only five remaining." His expression showed just how painful that possibility was. Five additional proving grounds would still be useful, but it was nowhere near what the military wanted.
"Right," Herman said. "Then we are going to need to search for more mana veins, and we need to do it quickly."
He wanted as many proving grounds as possible. The advantages described in the blueprints were simply too good to ignore, and if the designs worked as promised, they could dramatically improve military training. Losing access to mana veins now could therefore mean losing an opportunity that might not appear again.
Rian nodded slowly. "We are going to have to hurry."
He already knew another problem was approaching. "I would bet numerous companies are already smelling profit from this," Rian said. "The moment they realize what these proving grounds can do, the price for discovering a mana vein through the Adventurer's Guilds is going to skyrocket."
Herman frowned. "Because they will build their own proving grounds?"
"Exactly," Rian replied. "And then they will charge people a hefty admission fee to use them."
Rian's expression suggested that he could already see the future taking shape. Private companies would begin searching for mana veins with unprecedented enthusiasm, not because they cared about helping the military or government, but because the proving grounds had created an entirely new business opportunity. The military was no longer competing only with other government departments.
It was about to compete with the entire private sector as well.