Chrysalis

Holy moly, I'm completely wrecked. Each of my three brains feels like seared mush; soft and jelly-like, yet wreathed in hot, hot flames. I managed to gain two whole levels in cerebral endurance in just under two hours, that's how mentally intensive this work was. However, I have been successful.

I have triumphed!

Despite being some of the most draining and mind bogglingly difficult mental work I've done, I managed to complete the project as well as I can. It was enough to gain me three levels in core surgery, going to show just how difficult what I was attempting to actually was. Each of those levels helped significantly with the task at hand however, so I can only be grateful in the end.

In front of me sits a gleaming special core, plump with energy, ripe with the encoded information of my artisanal hand crafted creature, ready to be instantiated as a pet.

I knew I wouldn't be able to make a heap of edits to the creature I'd created after successfully fusing the cores together, so I hadn't gone crazy with it, but I was mostly able to hit my goals. After the fusion was complete there were a few oddities that had slipped into the design. A few sloppy bits about the place, such as the one leg that somehow had lost its knee joint, but managed to gain two extra feet. Fixing these took a bit of a toll on me but I was able to have the finalised creature I had hoped for: an oversized aphid, roughly the same size as myself, stuffed full of spare energy.

Naturally I used that energy to shape the egg production pathway, something that took a heck of a lot more potential than I had thought it would. The egg production organs are expensive. Luckily I had enough budget after fusing six of the normal aphid cores together. Then it was a simple matter of neatening up the edges. I lowered the creatures Cunning a little, I want them to be dependent on their ant masters after all, took away the poison gland, made them overall a little weaker and gave their Biomass production organ a mutation that increased the amount of Biomass they could produce straight out of the gate.

So if all things go according to plan, once reconstituted, this core will give rise to the first aphid Queen, let's call her Aphy, who the colony will care for and raise until she is mature and can start producing her aphid offspring which the colony will nurture and use as their own Biomass producing herd. This should work out well, by the time Aphy is producing eggs the colony should have the numbers and levels to start launching raiding parties into the expanse itself and with a little clever planning the aphid farming project could go into action at that point.

Nice work Anthony!

I'm quite proud of myself, I have to say. This was a lot of effort and could prove to have a major effect on the colony going forward.

Weary but satisfied, it's time to retreat back to the colony. We've been gone for roughly a day, which isn't as long as I thought I'd be off on this particular excursion, but I'm chasing a rest and I want my aphid core to begin its life as a loyal pet of the colony, something I can't really do down here.

the surface via the shortcut and then make our way across the land

something is going on. It looks like there is a lot of activity around the anthill. Heaps of ants and it looks like … humans? What the heck is going on? Each moment we draw closer the more questions

be insane! Certain

do they think

I break into a sprint, rushing towards the nest. The workers are the first to notice me coming and make way before I crash into them, I don't drop

ant general, "What the

these creatures living in close proximity to the nest. In your absence we weren't sure what to do so we convened a

"And?" I demand.

I trained had to put up with my angry roaring on many occasions. I can almost see

that it would be best to remove the threat and collect the Biomass

THWACK!

twitch when they hear the sharp kinetic thud of my

eat the village?!" I

unafraid of us, they even approached us of their own volition! So we gathered some workers

up to the nest and feed themselves to the Queen without

can see the gears turning in the generals

"No" he replied firmly.

"Why?"

to the