Chrysalis

"Get down from there you little varmint!" I yell.

"What even is this thing?" she yells back, still scurrying about on top of the gate as she pokes and prods with her antennae inspecting every nook and cranny.

"It's some sort of spatial gateway that allows instantaneous travel across vast distances and we are trying to learn how it works so we can link our nests together. Now get your butt off of there before you break something!"

Reluctantly, she starts to climb down, still excitedly examining whatever she can.

"You can practically feel the power rolling off of that thing," she exclaims when she finally reaches where I'm waiting at the bottom. "It's incredible! Why doesn't it work?"

Her question catches me mid-thwack and I pause before regretfully retracting my antennae.

"A big part of the reason is that no ant has managed to unlock the Spatial Mana specialisation Skill. Upon learning that skill, and then on ranking it up, knowledge of how to create and utilise spatial mana constructs will be granted by the System and by studying those we are far more likely to be able to understand how these things work and then build our own."

She looks confused.

"We didn't build this?" she points at the gate with one claw.

"Of course not. If we could already build them, how would we not know how to get them working? Obviously this gate was made by others and we are trying to unlock its secrets. It isn't enough to learn how to operate it. We need to learn how to construct our own and operate those. Only then will we be able to establish a gate network throughout our territory and connect our nests."

"Why is it so important to connect the nests?" the hatchling asks.

stepping forward from beside me to

nests using one gate network, then we will be able to spread much further, much faster without running the risk of being unable to support each other. It will be like every nest, no matter how far, will be no more than a few steps away from every other nest. We can never be trapped, never be sieged, not by normal methods. If we can unlock

nobody can work out

chip in, "not

announces, "I bet it's not

This hatchling…

it up," I poke her with an antenna. "There's a hundred ants in here, all of them older and stronger than you, and they

of them are pretty annoyed at this annoying hatchling

see," she brushes my antenna off angrily. "I'll be able to

we can start powering up the gate and you can take

That'll be cool,

array matrix that they've constructed, monitoring and taking measurements as it slowly powers up. Slowly at first, and then with gathering speed, the matrix starts to draw in mana at a prodigious rate, pulling in the energy from the air until the entire gateway is shining brightly to my mana sense. The more energy that gets packed in, the gateway seems to hum as it gradually lights up from within, illuminated by the sheer

gate continues to release that sub-harmonic hum that rattles my mandibles but without anywhere for the energy to go, it simply leaks it back out into the

I'm amazed at how much mana it

cast. One of the current hypothesis is that the reason no ant has been offered the Skill is because none have a sufficient

not a bad theory actually, it would

max out my core as soon as possible and see what happens," I assure her. "Who knows? I might get

the mythical Gravity mana specialisation continues and perhaps I've been denied that Skill for the same reason. Only time will tell. Once I’ve mastered Mind Magic to the point I need it, I'll be able to go shopping for the next level of magic to

down with excitement. "Did you feel it?

questions, but tough luck for her, she isn't going to get

your business and