Yes. Yessssssssss. Finally, finally, I am free!
I can feel the mana going down. The blazing, potent energy of the wave is receding, slowly, slowly returning to normal. Which means I don't have to sit around on my thorax anymore! No more practising this stupid spell!
I'm sick of it! If I never have to pretend to cast another Singularity, I'll die a happy ant. It's been weeks! WEEKS! Non-stop drills with the very occasional expedition out onto the platform to fight just to stop myself from going crazy.
The improvement has been there, for sure, but that's beside the point. I haven't experienced such soul-crushing monotony and boredom from the moment I was reborn on Pangera. But it's fine, it's fine! I no longer have to stay in this boring chamber, repetitively doing the same, boring mental exercises.
"I'm free!" I declare, doing a six-legged dance to celebrate.
I have to say, despite my size, I can really move when the mood takes me. Tiny's got nothing on my fancy feet!
"To be fair, Great One, you were free all along," Jern says from nearby.
He's sitting on a rock, sharpening that massive axe he carries around. Strange how someone can look like a country boy who builds barns for a living, while also being surrounded with such an air of danger. I've seen what he can do with that axe. I'm not sure what sort of benefits the Templars get from their Class, but Jern has put in some serious work and turned into a rather intimidating fighter.
To be honest, Alis and Bertran have also come a long way. To their credit, they've been fighting and training consistently throughout the wave and done their best to get stronger. In fact, pretty much everyone but me has been getting a lot stronger.
Which is fine. They had some catching up to do considering how far ahead I was. I'm just such a paragon of excellence, how can anyone hope to keep up?
Gweheheheh.
"Look, I could have left, technically, but I wasn't going to abandon Tiny, Crinis and Invidia while they were trying to evolve, and I wasn't going to drag them away from their opportunity."
"Technically being able to leave is the same thing as being able to leave, Great One," Jern says simply, not looking up from the edge of his axe.
Geez, it looks wickedly sharp already, just how much more sharpening can it possibly need?
"Can… can you just call me Anthony? Didn't we have this conversation?"
The big man blinks.
"We did, didn't we? Sorry about that. It's easy to forget sometimes. Sitting in the same room as you gets me feeling spiritual for some reason."
"Jern… you are absolutely hopeless."
"Sorry, Great One."
Dammit.
I can't even muster the energy to curse out loud. Trying to talk Jern out of his beliefs is an entirely pointless exercise. If he wasn't so matter of fact about it, I might find it hard to be around him, but even though he thinks I'm so much greater than I really am, he still treats me fairly normally, which is a comfort.
"Who's out on duty at the moment?" I ask him.
"I think Tiny is right now. Crinis and Invidia have been sleeping for the last little while, but I think they'll probably wake up soon. They've been trying to fight a few more hours a day while the spawn rate is still elevated."
Makes sense. All three of them are on the final push to reach their tier eight evolutions, and I'm excited to see how they go. Once they're done, we can drop down into the sixth and wreck the place—I mean explore a bit.
"Oh, Great One, it looks like you have visitors."
Visitors?
"Who the heck is coming all the way down here to say hello?"
We really are in the depths of the stratum here. In the depths of Pangera, truth be told. There's no one from the upper strata down here but us.
And the chal, I suppose.
And the wuffers. Do they count? Maybe.
I turn around to face the entrance, though I don't have to in order to see behind me. It always seems more polite to actually face the person I'm talking to, perhaps that's a hang-up I've held over from my time as a human.
"Well, well, well! Look who we have here. Ascendant, Hippocrant and Demetant. Still looking after these two, are you? Surely they can't have gotten into that much trouble. They've barely hatched!"
"I'm tier five now!" Ascendant huffs, flapping her wings rapidly. They really are rather impressive. As long as her body, they're folded against her back when she isn't using them, which isn't often. Almost translucent and shimmering with some sort of energy, they blur and become almost invisible when she flies, leaving nothing but a blue and greenish tint in the air.
And is she wearing a scarf?
"Tier five, really?"
I lean down to look at them. Well, Ascendant looks a bit bigger, maybe, but Hippocrant is still tiny. Well, she is a healer, I suppose. They tend to be rather small, one of the more intelligent castes of ant, with most of their evolutionary energy going into casting Healing Magic better and replacing their acid glands with regeneration fluid dispensers.
"How were the evolutions? You two have rare cores now?"
"We do," Hippocrant confirms, looking up at me with a little trepidation if I'm not mistaken.
I mean, I am huge and incredible. Also shiny.
"Well now, tier five! Good job, you two! Geez, you weren't even born that long ago. It took me a lot longer to get to tier five, let me tell you. I suppose you've had a lot of help from the family along the way, but you'll need to do a bit more to earn your keep now. Build up your expertise from the ground up, no more shortcuts!"
Demetant gives both of her young charges an encouraging pat on the back.
"That's why we came to talk to you, Eldest. I think these two both want your advice."
Somewhere behind me, Jern laughs, then covers it with a loud cough.