Anthill Project

The Anthill Project was a Government project intended to mass-produce vessels.

Principles
Government has the most summoners out of the three major powers, but since talented vessels are rare, they don't have enough vessels for their forces. The Anthill Project was created to solve that issue. Its main goal is to mass-produce vessels by artificially implanting regular people with spiritual talent. By pairing these new vessels with their rookie summoners who didn't have vessels to pair up with, Government would destroy the power balance between the three major powers. Additionally, if they could increase the quality of their spiritual medium talent, they would be able to control the Materials with much greater accuracy. The most regular vessels can do is direct the Material toward a target, but ideally, they would then be able to accurately dodge attacks and focus on critical attacks that target the Silhouette weak point, possibly leading to upsets beyond the existing three-way deadlock and cost differences.

For this project Government kidnapped multiple people, gathering them in facilities known as Anthills. A number of conditions are necessary to construct an Anthill, but the most important one is using a facility that functions as a miniature model of society. It can be any number of things: a school, a hospital, a prison, a military base, a casino, a theatre, a hotel, a prep school, etc. Any relatively closed facility that manages a group under a single system can be remade into an Anthill. The Anthills were based on the data recovered from the wreckage of the older Fifteen Siblings Project and its Miniature Garden, though according to Biondetta Shiroyama they never moved past the surface level and never even approached its true essence.

The Anthill's subjects will have artificially-created spiritual damage attached to their souls to develop their talent as vessels by forcing them to act as vessels and continuously lose summon battles in specific ways and patterns. This process has the side effect of erasing their memories of their previous life and can also affect their hair and eye color, as seen with the vessel known as Isabelle, whose hair and eyes turned blond and blue, respectively.

Additionally, Government's higher ups were interested in using the Anthill's ability to tune someone’s soul to increase their compatibility with a specific Unexplored-class, searching for a way to have one-on-one conversations with the Unexplored-class and Government's Protector known as the Red Lady. In fact, the Anthill Project was made using the remains of the Queen's Miniature Garden. This communication used a special server known as the Box and a smartphone-like device that produces something like a hologram of the Red Lady.

Background
The Anthill Project started after Maria Heartocean, one of Government's top researchers, found herself in need of funds to continue her research. She came up with the theory of using spiritual damage to mass-produce vessels, believing it would not go past the theoretical stage and merely intending to suggest a practical use of her research in the field of spiritual damage to garner attention and funds. However, she underestimated the greed of her leaders, who decided to go along with her theory.

Forty-one Anthills were built in Toy Dream 35.

Light Novel Volume 03
Several Anthills on Toy Dream 35 were attacked and destroyed by Biondetta Shiroyama and Kuina Murasame Murasame as revenge for Kuina's friend's fate.