Upping The Ante

65. The Work of the Mind

Nearly there!

This construct has defeated me over and over again. To the point that this glittering shape of Mana is literally burned into the insides of my eyelids. Except that I don’t have eyelids—not the point!

With every passing second, the shape begins to come together, weaved out of threads of light, it shines brilliantly inside my mind.

Finally!

Crunch.

AW HECK!

In my eagerness, I slip in my control and one of the threads gets shunted out of place. Which, of course, causes the entire thing to collapse in on itself and dissipate into nothing…

GAAAAAH!

Undone by my own eagerness and joy at success. This is the cruel irony of the world at play and not entirely my fault!

Ok, it is.

I can almost feel the smouldering resentment from my own sub-brains, irritated that I ruined their work. What the heck? You don’t get to be mad at me, dammit! I’ll make you guys transform Mana on your own until you melt into sludge!

That’s right. That’s who’s in charge!

Putting aside this failure, I’m still feeling extremely positive. I’d never been that close to succeeding in that notorious transformation before, and I almost nailed it on my first attempt! With diligent practice, I’m sure I’ll be able to succeed. If I can manage the Mana Transformation then I can surely succeed with the simple ones. It seems this evolution was a wild success!

The next thing I’m keen to try is working on the cores. If I can practice the Core Engineering skill at a faster rate, then I’ll be massively pleased!

Rushing over to the cores, I roll one out with my mandibles and crack right in.

Core Engineering!

My mind sinks down into the little core and the nebulous energies that contain the information, the Mana DNA of the monster, rise in my mind.

Now for the tricky bit.

Bringing the force of my mind to bear and calling upon the reserves that are my sub-brains for assistance, I begin to force and hold the changes to the information in the core. What I find almost immediately is… it’s so much easier! Forcing the change is a breeze with all the power I have humming inside my head, then locking it into place is so much easier, I’m able to task my sub-brains with that and move onto the next change immediately.

This is going to increase the speed of my skill training immensely!

Happily, I continue to shove around the values in the core, sometimes making large stat changes and going in and making finer adjustments to the body shape, muscle density, even the brain matter. As usual, the process becomes more and more difficult the further away from the original state of the core we get. With my newfound mental strength, I can push it so much further than before, reaping more XP from every core I start to work on.

I could almost cry, this is everything I wished for! Now my Core Engineering skills will be able to go to the next Level!

Once I hit the wall with the first core, I push it to one side and take a brief rest. If I alternate resting and working, I’ll be able to work for longer and grind my skills more efficiently, even with my extra brain power this rule will hold true.

After a minute or two I shift over to the next core and then the next. On it goes until the fatigue starts to mount up. I push through until my mind is entering the familiar braindead zone I spent so much of the last few days in.

[Core Engineering (II) has reached Level 8.]

Yessss!

Two whole Levels from grinding today. Though it took hours of effort, with my new brain rig, I’m able to make more changes to each core and work for a longer period of time before I fall flat and run out of energy. This is a huge boost. Gaining two Levels in one go is evidence of the kind of power my new brain is packing!

Two more and I’ll be able to morph it into the next Level of the skill. I cannot wait!

Literally, I can’t.

I know Tiny is hungry and Vibrant is bored, I think she’s run off somewhere with Crinis actually, but this is too important. My biggest goal and major project is dependent on this skill taking shape.

Determined to see it through I decisively… take a nap! Need to replenish my mental stores. When I wake up, I notice Tiny has shifted his position and moved somewhere below me. Judging by my senses, he got tired of waiting and tunnelled his way down to underneath the queen’s chamber, so he’d at least have something to eat.

I don’t mind that, I’m also starving, but the cores come first.

Cores, cores, cores!

Pleased to notice that my headache is resolved, I jump straight back into grinding until my thoughts are sluggish and my head is pounding. The pile of cores I’ve worked on goes past fifty and almost reaches seventy by the time I finally get the announcement.

[Core Engineering (II) has reached Level 10. Skill upgrade available.]

[Core Engineering (II) Core Surgery (III): Cost 1 SP. This skill guides the user when making finer and more detailed changes to core energies. It also enables the manipulation of the cores of living creatures.]

Awwwww, snap!

Called it! I had a feeling this was coming after my conversation with Formo. After all, how could they create such insanely powerful monsters in one go? Surely they worked on them over a number of evolutions after setting the core up the way they liked it. Here is the proof I was right!

Gwehehehehehe.

This will enable me to work on the cores of Tiny and Crinis if I want, adjusting their evolution paths as they go. Not to mention the project I’ve been wanting to do this whole time. It’s going to be a lot of work but the future of the colony will never have looked brighter once I’m done!

That’s right. I’m going to work on the queen! If she agrees, I’ll use this skill to make adjustments to her core, not changing her at all, but focusing on her children. If I can make her offspring more intelligent, more like Vibrant, then I’ll be able to teach and guide them, turning them into something more than just workers.

Don’t get me wrong, my siblings are great ants, loyal and brave, hardworking, basically better than me in almost every aspect. After seeing them cut down in their dozens by the humans as they charged in blindly… I decided then I would have to make a change.

Ants are designed to fight that way, to sacrifice themselves, hurl themselves forward and overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers, their lives treated as disposable. I don’t want my siblings to live like that. Family is important! I want them to be intelligent and clever, surviving the fight and not dying off pointlessly.

With this skill I can make it happen. I’ll go into the core and modify the offspring of the queen until they’re like me. Super ants!