An Argument for Books
Honestly I did not even consider we could lift the military restriction on books with this. Now that I know we can I am all in on this, let me explain why. Firstly we are a wizard of the Colleges of Magic. 'Doing magic' is the fundamental thing that the institution does. The measure of that skill breaks down into two parts, personal and idiosyncratic skill and institutional lore that
every single wizard can get. Going from Ulgu +5 to Ulgu +10 is huge, same for all the other winds. This is, and I am not kidding, potentially a bigger impact than the orbs in the long term, much like those Rooms of Calamity were. Knowledge of the Winds compounds, the more you know the safer you are pushing the limits the more likely those wizards are to live and push the limits more.
Secondly we have esoteric subjects like Apparition binding, we can make it more likely Knightbringer will be passed on, we can make Liminal Realms study more likely to bear fruit, we can make enchanting more likely to stick and work the way we want and so can everyone else with an access to the College's full body of works and so much more. The Colleges of Magic, all eight of them, have a significant number of wizards who stick around the campus and so would get the full book bonus of the Colleges. That bonus would in most regards double. We have never seen a College magical subject produce more than the +5 imperial and the only case of one we made was getting the Indic books on the Wind of Fire ourselves.
Thirdly this is a chance to get books on subjects the Colleges know nothing about like High Magic, sure we can't
use the stuff but how it works might well have insights into the nature of magic. This has the potential to synergize very well with our new book on AV.
Lastly what we just did is sure to raise some eyebrows at least vis a vis handing a military resource to the Eonir, if we turn back around and give a military resource back to the Colleges and the Empire that is sure to mollify people and it will set the stage for more and more people in the Colleges and in the halls of imperial power in general thinking of the Eonir as allies.