"Okay, get off your high horse," Gaia thought to herself, finally pulling back from the pride she had felt over transforming humanity into the next stage of existence. She had allowed herself to become rather pleased with her accomplishment, especially when she considered how much better off her inhabitants were compared to those of other civilizations. However, she knew perfectly well that there were far more frightening civilizations somewhere in the universe, not to mention creatures that had been born at a higher rank than humanity could currently imagine. Dragons were one such example, although she had no concrete knowledge of whether they actually existed somewhere in the universe. Nevertheless, she was almost certain that creatures of such a rank existed somewhere, and if they did not, she could always create them herself in the future.
After all, dragons carried enormous cultural significance for humanity, and that significance alone made their eventual creation an attractive possibility. If she introduced creatures that already occupied such an important place in human imagination, the cultural energy generated by their existence could be considerable. The more cultural energy she possessed, the greater the possibilities for her own development and for the growth of humanity as a whole. She could not afford to ignore such opportunities simply because she was pleased with her current achievements. More importantly, she did not believe she would always possess enough cultural energy to convert all the Void energy she accumulated into energy that she could use herself.
With that thought in mind, Gaia set aside her pride and returned her attention to the planet she had been born on and nurtured. She scanned the latest news while simultaneously reviewing the information her subconscious routines had gathered from events taking place across the world. There was always something happening among humanity, and she needed to understand how those developments would influence the planet's future. Fortunately, she did not have to rely on people reporting everything directly to her, since her routines could collect and organize information far more efficiently than any ordinary person could manage. As she began examining the latest reports, she quickly discovered that the Great Houses had been making considerably more noise than before.
"They certainly haven't wasted any time," Gaia thought, watching the commotion their actions had caused. She was not particularly bothered by the attention they were attracting, since the developments were largely in line with what she had expected. The Great Houses had begun to realize that they did not possess enough mana stones to establish all the mana veins they wanted, and that shortage had naturally encouraged them to accelerate their mining operations. They had also dispatched additional expeditions to search for new mana stone veins, hoping that their efforts would uncover resources capable of solving their immediate problems. Unfortunately for them, their search had produced very little success so far.
The problem was not that humanity lacked the ability to search for resources, but rather that there were not many mana stone veins in the world that could be mined at present. Such deposits were difficult to form naturally, and their scarcity was not something that could be overcome simply by sending more people into the wilderness. The formation process required mana to become trapped underground for an extended period, where it would be subjected to considerable pressure. As the mana gradually compressed and solidified, additional mana had to continue flowing into the surrounding area to replace what was being compressed. Only after the necessary conditions had persisted for a sufficiently long time could the process produce mana stones.
The process was considerably more complicated than merely gathering mana in one place and waiting for it to become solid. Pressure, time, and a continuing supply of mana all played important roles in determining whether a deposit could form. If the conditions were unsuitable, the mana would not solidify into the resource humanity needed, no matter how much time passed. The process also explained why the mana stones found in nature were specific to individual attributes. Different types of mana interfered with one another during solidification, preventing them from combining into a single, stable mana stone. Instead, the pressure forced the different types apart, allowing them to form separate deposits rather than producing stones that contained several attributes together.
Even with those natural processes at work, the number of mana stone mines available to humanity remained limited. Gaia had deliberately refrained from creating large numbers of deposits simply to satisfy humanity's immediate demand, since she understood that many of the existing veins were side effects of Earth's expansion. The same expansion had produced other unusual phenomena, including plants such as the lotus that grew near certain mines. These discoveries were consequences of the planet's transformation rather than the results of Gaia deliberately manufacturing every resource humanity might find useful. She had allowed those natural processes to take place without attempting to control every detail of their outcome.
After examining the available information, Gaia confirmed that humanity currently had access to only ten mana stone veins that could be developed and exploited. Those deposits would have to supply the mana stones required for establishing mana veins across the world, placing considerable pressure on the limited resources available. She could already see the problems approaching from a considerable distance, and the consequences were hardly difficult to predict. The Great Houses and Trade Families would compete to secure the deposits, while the growing demand for mana stones would make every accessible mine more valuable. Nevertheless, Gaia had no intention of intervening simply because humanity was about to encounter difficulties.
If people decided to fight one another over the available veins, then those conflicts would become part of humanity's own history. She was not going to solve every problem before humans had the opportunity to experience it, particularly when the underlying difficulty arose from the choices they made and the limitations of their available resources. There would always be competition over something valuable, and mana stones were simply the newest resource capable of provoking such struggles. Gaia had no desire to manufacture an endless supply of them merely to prevent people from experiencing the consequences of scarcity. Instead, she intended to allow the deposits to form through a more natural process, even if that meant humanity would have to wait.
Of course, Gaia was not sitting idle while the existing deposits attracted the attention of every powerful faction on Earth. Deep underground, approximately a thousand mana stone veins were already in the process of forming under the conditions she had arranged. They were developing slowly, allowing the necessary geological and magical processes to take place before the next expansion of Earth. When that expansion eventually occurred, the veins would emerge in locations she wanted them to occupy, potentially becoming larger and more valuable than the deposits humanity had discovered so far. This approach would give her greater control over their eventual distribution without requiring her to force the entire process to happen immediately.
She had considered whether she should accelerate the formation of the existing deposits to meet humanity's growing demand, but she quickly concluded that doing so would be unwise. The energy required to speed up their appearance would be far too great, especially when the result would not meaningfully advance the goals she wanted to achieve. Spending enormous resources to solve a temporary shortage would be wasteful when the planet already had a longer-term solution underway. Furthermore, the shortage itself would influence humanity's development in ways that Gaia did not necessarily consider undesirable. The problem was not simply about producing more mana stones; it was also about determining how humanity would use them and what consequences their growing dependence on those resources would create.
One of the most significant consequences would become apparent once the Trade Families revealed the existence of mana veins to the wider world. After that information became public, the value of mana stones would rise sharply because every faction capable of establishing a mana vein would want to acquire them. Their demand would no longer be limited to experimentation or smaller technological projects, since the establishment of mana veins would become a priority for powerful organizations. Under those circumstances, purchasing mana stones for research would become increasingly difficult, particularly for projects that could not promise an immediate and substantial return. Gaia therefore expected that further experimentation with mana stones would become nearly impossible for many people once the news spread.
This was one of the reasons she had never given humanity all the knowledge she possessed. Information that appeared beneficial at first could create serious problems when introduced into a society that lacked the resources or institutions needed to use it properly. If people developed technologies that depended on mana stones, for example, those technologies might become economically impractical once the stones became too expensive to acquire. Research could grind to a halt, promising inventions could remain unfinished, and existing technologies might become impossible to maintain at a reasonable cost. Gaia had recognized this danger before it became an immediate problem, but she had also understood that avoiding every possible disadvantage would require her to restrict humanity far more severely than she wanted.
Despite those risks, she considered the situation a necessary step in humanity's development. The mana veins were not merely valuable structures that allowed powerful families to cultivate more effectively; they were also essential to her plans for increasing the amount of mana circulating through the planet. Humanity's growing population of cultivators would consume enormous quantities of mana, and that demand would only increase as more people advanced in their cultivation. A civilization in which everyone could cultivate would place a far greater burden on the planet's mana supply than one in which only a small number of individuals could use it. Without a more efficient way to distribute mana throughout the environment, the growing demand could become a serious obstacle to humanity's continued development.
Indeed, the sheer amount of mana consumed by an entire civilization of cultivators was one of the largest concerns Gaia had to address. Even if the planet possessed a substantial amount of mana, that did not mean it could be distributed wherever it was needed without cost or difficulty. The existing method she used to supply mana to the atmosphere was wasteful, requiring more energy than necessary to achieve the desired result. As humanity continued to grow stronger, maintaining that approach would become increasingly inefficient. Gaia therefore needed a way to improve the planet's mana distribution before the demand became even more difficult to manage.
This was also why she felt so enthusiastic about the prospect of fighting corrupted creatures. Their presence represented a threat to humanity, but it also offered Gaia an opportunity to obtain the Void energy she needed. Rather than relying entirely on cultural energy and exchanging it with the universe, she preferred to acquire additional energy through other means whenever possible. Cultural energy was valuable, and she did not want to spend it unnecessarily when she could obtain something useful from the enemies humanity would eventually have to confront. The prospect of turning those battles into a source of energy made the struggle against corrupted creatures considerably more appealing from her perspective.
For that reason, Gaia had provided humanity with the mana vein tome. Its purpose was not simply to help people establish mana veins for their own cultivation, but also to give her a more efficient way to distribute mana throughout the planet. By encouraging the creation of mana veins, she could establish a network that would allow mana to circulate more effectively through the environment. This would be a substantial improvement over her current method, which consumed more energy than necessary to achieve the same result. In the long run, the tome would help humanity develop its cultivation while allowing Gaia to manage the planet's mana supply more efficiently, bringing both of their interests closer together.