LATEST UPDATES

Rise of the Antanoid - Chapter 47

Published at 9th of November 2022 01:09:26 PM


Chapter 47

If audio player doesn't work, press Stop then Play button again




Kai walked out of the hive on the second floor, wearing her dress and took a look around to make sure things were proceeding as planned. She was still a bit exhausted by her latest egg laying sesion, but that exhaustion didn’t stop her from fidgeting around and worrying so she had to distract herself somehow.

The latest egg had been the 50th and the moment that daughter connected to the hive, Kai would level up again. But what if something happened to one of her daughters because their mana was siphoned off to her?

Gah! She had come here to distract herself not to continue her circle of endless worrying. Kai shook her head slightly and tried to focus on what was in front of her.

Anna sighed softly, as always accompanying Kai everywhere she went. “Mother, my sisters are all aware that you will level up sometime in the next hour and are prepared.”

She took Kai’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “Nothing will happen and we aren’t dependent on mana anyway with only the one spell we know.”

Kai let out a deep breath and nodded slightly. She knew her daughter was right, it was pointless and she should put more trust into the others. They were a lot better at surviving in the wild than she herself and knew how to handle themselves well enough.

Thinking of how Anna had called her mother, Kai couldn’t help herself but smile a little. It wasn’t only Anna, but her other daughters too that had started to slowly transition from calling her ‘Majesty’ or ‘Queen’ to ‘Mother’. 

She wasn’t sure why it happened, but she had the feeling it had something to do with the Dunes and her daughters beginning to discover themselves. It reminded her of her talk with Gaia and she was inclined to agree with the girl that her daughters were slowly shaving off the human influences. They were discovering what it meant to be Antanoid and Kai was only learning about that with them.

She tried to scratch away the itch in one of her new arm stumps, but alas she didn’t really achieve much by scratching away at the chitin cover. While her growth was slowing down somewhat, her new pair of arms had started to grow at an astounding rate and even forced Ember to create a second pair of sleeves for Kai’s dress.

Kai gave up on satisfying the itch and tried to get back to her train of thoughts. Right, about her daughters calling her mother.

They had made mother some kind of title in a way. It was different from being called the queen, but the same if not even more respect was communicated. Kai was the mother and as such something special, something sacred, though there were still a few like Ember that called her mom or mum. There would always be some outliers and Kai was only too happy to be treated in a more intimate manner by her daughters so nobody called them out for it anymore.

At first Kai had been very delighted by the development, but when she became something sacred a few days later she had been disturbed. It had taken her a few hours of thinking to realize that her becoming something sacred as the only mother was pretty much an inevitability and maybe even for the best. 

She wanted her children to prosper, but they wouldn’t be able to without her. There was no real way around being the center of the network that was the Antanoid for Kai.

Kai and Anna walked over to the edge of the second floor at one of the roots and looked at the first half of the second section of the hive that was being built here. Since the area between two roots was about twice as large as the area they had started to build the hive in, Tiffany had decided to divide the section in two. The rooms on the first floor had nearly all been finished so they should be able to increase the area of the second floor in a few days. If Kai had to translate the rooms into houses of a medieval village, she would guess they had around thirty to forty family homes of rooms.

Satisfied with the progress, she was just about to leave the second floor to walk around a bit when her hive tether flared up, becoming visible for the first time. Anna flinched for a second as her mana left her and both of them watched with rapt attention.

The mana surged towards where Kai guessed Brian and the hive archive to be, her two rooms, and united with the mana of her other daughters before it traveled along Kai’s mana tether and into her.

The whole process didn’t take longer than a second, but at least this time they had been able to observe it and now knew where to look for it when researching the mysterious abilities of the Antanoid. If they still couldn’t find anything it just meant they weren’t good enough or were doing something wrong.

Kai’s whole being vibrated for a moment longer with power and strangely enough purpose. The feeling faded away as fast as it had come, she didn’t care too much though and turned to her daughter. “How much has it been this time?”

Anna concentrated for a second before she answered. “It took around 70 units of mana away from me, so a little less than last time.”

Kai nodded in thanks. That it took less mana was good, it meant that in the future her level up process would hinder her daughters less, if things stayed like this that is. It could also have something to do with the stats of her daughters and if they didn’t find a way to go beyond the potential of the first level her level up might even take hours or days. There were so many things Kai would really like to know, just to be able to plan ahead and for the sake of her peace of mind.

She flexed her fingers in anticipation and opened her status.

You have reached a population of 50 sapients!
[Level up!]

[Status]
Name: Kai Antana
Species: Antanoid queen
Level: 4
Level progress: 0%
Health: 100%
Mana: 167/194.77
Mana regeneration: 1.95/min

[Stats]
Str: 68
Agi: 68
Per: 68
Int: 68
Wis: 68
Wil: 68

[Active skills]
Lay egg(s): worker, hunter, traveler

[Passive skills]
Hive knowledge (archive)
Map of the sovereign
Accelerated incubation

[Other]
Population
Technologies

Kai took a quick look at her status, noting all the important things. First of all, her power had increased from around 165% to around 195%. That meant a 30% power increase from the 17 points in every stat, which is already quite a bit more than her second level had given her and thinks would only accelerate in the future.

Secondly, the system had created extra menus for technology and her population and Kai was thankful for it, because the technology option would have swamped her status. Brian was continuously improving things everywhere and there had been 63 technologies somewhere in between. A lot of them were things that Kai couldn’t do much with such as ventilation, though they were still important especially for their hive. The point was it didn’t help her in being the leader and mother she wanted to be for her daughters.

She opened the population menu to figure out what that was about.

[Population]
Workers: 32
Hunters: 10
Travelers: 8
Queens: 1

Huh, that was at least nice to know, though Brian could tell her that already so it wasn’t more than a bit of convenience. However, Kai had hoped she would get more for this level up and sighed dejectedly.

Not believing something would appear if she waited longer she closed her status and the population menu only for a new screen to appear.

Your settlement reached a permanent population of 50 people and is now acknowledged as [Outpost] by the system. (Note: Due to available cheap and fast transportation to the wood felling site and the set worker rotation the site does not count as a settlement. This can change in the future.)

As the current leader of the [Outpost] you get access to a special management menu. Should the population decrease to less than 25 you will lose your acces.

The [Outpost] menu offers special quests that reward you with skills, but more often improve the menu itself. 

Kai looked a bit dumbfounded at the screen. Maybe complaining did help in the end.





Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!