Chrysalis

I'm exhausted and my mandibles are aching something fierce after all that digging, but is it time to rest?

NOPE.

Those damn pupae are teasing me with their very existence. The twenty large casings are resting against the side of a chamber, taunting me with their stillness. Within them, the hope of ant kind is taking the final steps of their gestation, turning from a grub into something more, something incredible. The ant species to end all ant species.

At least that's what I'm hoping for. If they suck I'm going to be really disappointed…

It shouldn't happen though! I reinforce my own positive mindset. They are going to be great, I've put so much effort into creating them and into making sure they'll get a solid boost to start out their new lives, surely they'll be great!

The closer this project is getting to fruition the more stressed I'm getting.

Put it behind you Anthony, put all of it behind you!

Focus on yourself for a while, treat yourself. To what should I treat myself? To skill training, of course!

Not only me, Tiny and Crinis have been roped in as well.

the system has greatly expanded and the weightiest nugget of wisdom

energy within my core, I was

does not grow properly, drowning instead of

rank he'd nearly slapped me out of sheer shock and in the process lost his

come to take part in that most sacred of all

grind like there's

important thing to grind? Of course

enlightened me of. I'd thought I'd made use of an awesome hack in using my free magical affinity gland on gravity mana, and in a way,

the gland doesn't give me access to what I really need to make use of it, which is the spell forms. I have the generic spell shapes that I've been using, but according to Beyn, every mana type has particular spells that make best

he'd never seen Gravity magic before, he was sure it was a particularly advanced form of mana, which means that the skill I want, Gravity Mana Affinity, will be deep in the skill tree

up my basic affinities, which will unlock the next rank of affinities, and so on until

magic affinity to the third rank, the next wave of affinity skills will unlock. That is my most immediate goal. Apparently the exact types of mana that unlock are not necessarily set, and

the skill Elemental Mana Mastery, which gives powerful boosts to the basic elements. Most local mages aim for this elemental path apparently, but it seems like a waste to me. The higher ranks of magic will

Rush to the top!

For me, that means forming and releasing the ice mana construct over and over again, casting water and ice spells at everything I can see. The walls, dipping into the

just hitting the walls but being as mentally exhausted as we are, I don't want us diving into frenetic combat. Keeping to the upper tunnels and picking on some plants is as much as I'm willing to commit to at this

like this, we grind, and grind, and

Crinis to attempt to use her skills on