In order to test the capabilities of my new giant ants, I’ve devised several small experiments to perform on them. The chamber I’ve stationed the three super helpers along with my assortment of wands and charged magicite crystals is a five-meter-diameter hemisphere with a domed ceiling. Now, I may be paranoid about collapses, but this is a very sound structure; the surrounding stone is incredibly solid, and domes are known for their integrity. I could probably get away with something significantly larger, but for now, I don’t have much need for that.

Resting in the dense floor-growth of polychrome plants and bioluminescent fungi below a line of differently sized square-shaped holes in the ceiling lie the stone blocks I’d lazily carved from where they fell. These are nothing but weights for me measure the super helper’s lifting capacity.

Ever since I, well, reincarnated, I’ve had an intuitive sense of comparative mass and scale after establishing a rough frame of reference and estimate for the length of a meter. I’ve recently altered my definition of the meter (and therefore the liter and kilogram) to further align it with that of my memories.

The first death of Sevit was an older woman, though I’m not sure what the cause was. When she was buried, yet another tradition this world’s people miraculously share with my own, I performed a quick inspection of her cadaver. I know the human eye to feature a width of 23.75 millimeters; the organ is an extraordinary standard as it’s pretty much the same size in every adult human due to its complexity and the behavior of light being heavily reliant on scale. This is my standard; with it, I’ve fashioned a heavily-built stone box to serve as my future reference for a meter.

The thick-walled stone box featured an internal volume of one cubic decimeter, and I’d filled it with water at what I’ve elected to be room temperature. This became both my standard for a liter and thus by extension, a kilogram. I was able to effortlessly ‘tare’ the mass of the box itself using the feedback I receive from using telekinesis; I can immediately tell how much force I am using, and thus used my overpowered dungeon-cognition to subtract the mass of the empty box from the mass of the box when filled with water.

Gravity on this planet seems to be approximately equal in magnitude to Earth’s. At this point, I don’t even think too much of this coincidence as it’s just one of many others. I’ve all but concluded unnatural processes are at play. Therefore, alongside my standard for length, I have quantified my unit for weight: the newton.

I digress, what this all means is that I know, with relative accuracy, how much these blocks weigh. Prior testing has allowed me to measure the strength of my dungeon helpers, so now it’s time to put my super helpers through the same trials.

I will them to lift the differently sized blocks with their serrated mandibles and note down my observations. Actually, to clarify, when I say, “note down,” I’m not actually writing anything down, I’m just making a mental snapshot that I can easily come back to later. Perfect memory and recall are huge cheats! Actually, I’ve taken it a step further with the designing of my mechanisms and dungeon layout; as I’ve no need to write things down, I can perfectly construct persistent visualizations in my head, though the design process is still lengthy. I guess I can’t have every boon.

With their ‘workout’ complete I analyze the results.

They’re strong, I’ll give them that. And it helps that leafcutters are some of the best lifters among the ant species I’m familiar with. And anyway, they are ants, so heavy lifting is something they’ve evolved for. Unfortunately, but predictably, their strength has not scaled linearly with their size. That is to say, while stronger in the absolute, larger ants have a lower strength to size ratio than smaller ants. Pesky physics is trying to impede the glory of the swarm!

Still, they can lift, on average, five times their body weight in optimal conditions and in all practical configurations. In other words, utilizing certain positions and thus specific muscle groups allows for some variance, which I’ve conveniently averaged together. That’s nothing to shake a stick at, let me tell you!

On to phase two: destructive testing!

I’m going to be frank; I have no qualms with killing animals if it means I learn something valuable. Within reason of course. Furthermore, these are still ants. Just because they’re much bigger than normal ants doesn’t mean they’re any more intelligent. What I’m about to do is arguably more humane than using slow-acting poison for extermination. Which, while I’m distracted, I’ll explain: I need to test their resistance to fire and heat, among other things, as that’s what the invading mage used against my helpers to great effect. Slow-acting poison is frequently used against ants because it gives the foragers time to feed their queen(s) with the lethal substance before they drop dead themselves, thus killing a colony. Just think of the following experiments as a kid with a magnifying glass and a healthy amount of curiosity.

Before I incinerate one of my ants, I need to test the fire spell. Taking hold of the dead mage’s wand, I begin my inspection. Most incredibly, the wand is composed of a metal I cannot recognize. Oh sure, I can taste it and tell that it resembles brass, but there’s something else mixed in. Now I know what you’re thinking, “it could be something magical!” And yes, it could, for all I know, but it’s probably not. I simply haven’t had the opportunity to taste every likely metal and thus don’t know all the associated flavors yet. Regardless, it’s an alloy.

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Just like my first wands, the magicite chamber is fastened shut with a metal disk held in place by a comically oversized copper clevis pin. The disk features a wide and somewhat irregular hole for the pin to pass through, hinting that the existence of some rudimentary machining techniques.

What I can’t comprehend is why they’re using this inefficient closing method. During the battle, I’d witnessed the mage frantically scrambling to open and close his wand to refill it with fully charged magicite crystals. Why is it that they aren’t using a faster approach, I can think of so many and I highly doubt none of them have occurred to the wandmakers either!

Scrutinizing the internals of the wand, I see bone cylinders inlaid with runes composed of thick wires crafted from diverse materials, primarily metallic. There are several different spell runes present, as expected because I already know it to be multifunctional. The inscribed cylinders take up so much space that the wand is quite bulky, really stretching my definition of a wand. It’s like a staff, but not quite.

The extraction rune is the portion of every magicite-fueled wand that’s necessary to siphon mana from the charged crystals. The dial the mage used to control which spell was being cast consists of a friction-fitted iron axle driving the rotation of a bone disk seated in a circular indent on the inscribed bone cylinder. The bone disk features a simple series of parallel metal wires inlaid in its face; I can immediately tell that the rotational state of the dial determines which spell is being cast because the wires on the disk link up with a crescent-shaped metal contact which serves as the extraction rune’s output along with inputs for the spell runes.

In simpler terms, depending on which spell the dial is turned to, the output of the extraction rune is linked to the input of the desired spell rune, thus enabling it. While I can marvel at the beautiful function and simplicity of this setup, I’ll admit that I’m a bit disappointed the mechanism isn’t more complex. I guess there’s only so much you can do with limited precision…

I load several magicite crystals into the hollow hilt of the multi-wand, refastening the clevis pin, and turn the dial to a cute little flame symbol. Before I test it on my hapless guinea pig, I direct the mana in the magicite crystals and unleash the spell in another direction.

A familiar vortex of fire spreads out in an arc away from the tip of the wand, identical to the mage’s. The overgrown flora clinging to the walls and floor of my test chamber is reduced to ash in mere moments, but I can also sense the magicite crystals rapidly losing mana. The spell is inefficient.

One thing I find incredible about this spell is the presence of fire. I mean, it implies the existence of combustibles, yet there are no signs of any afterwards. Indeed, the spell is entirely smokeless, though the burning plants do combust normally to emit their own smoke. If I knew how it was runes achieved their myriad effects, something neither I nor the Lyrians understand, then I might be able to pinpoint the reason for this anomaly.

Managing the release of so much mana from the crystals in a controlled fashion is actually very difficult on a mental level; it’s entirely dependent on my mana manipulation proficiency. Before I’d read of and practiced the techniques outlined in “Hilda Davy’s Mana Flowstence” I still had rudimentary mana control, no doubt due to my nature as a dungeon core. This was evidenced by the various experiments I’d performed where I infused different substances such as water and silver with mana. Directing mana from a magicite crystal into an extraction rune requires much more precision, making advanced mana manipulation a vital skill in spellcasting.

Apparently, there are runes in existence which can automatically drain magicite crystals, taking the mage out of the equation, but they’re extremely complex and difficult to make. Therefore, they only really exist in large scale arcane constructs, to account for the inherent precision manufacturing difficulties. They are much too big for personal use, which is why wands require their wielders to perform mana manipulation. This is considered “expert” rune crafting, so my knowledge on the subject is limited, for now.

If I can use a shield spell to defend my swarm from the dangers of area of effect spells, my lethality will improve tremendously. Why is it that I couldn’t before, you ask? Well, no one told me mages can intentionally impede my abilities in a massive radius! I was incapable of wielding a wand anywhere near close enough to him to make a difference!

Fortunately, there are always alternatives to telekinesis…

What I need are carriers for my wands, and I can think of several options. For shielding spells and offensive attacks in tight spaces, I will use leather straps to mount wands to the heads of a few super helpers whom I will recall from the frontlines whenever I need to replace their magicite crystals. For casting offensive spells in spacious regions, I will make use of my gigantic griffinflies. A griffinfly (Really just a massive dragonfly with slight morphological differences.) is perfect for carrying wands because they can fly up, down, left, right, forwards, and backwards with precision, along with hovering in place. This will make them effective highly mobile carriers for my wands.

In fact, their immense size is a little overkill just for wand carriers. Before I get back to testing my super helpers, I spend a few hours modifying a new griffinfly subspecies to be slightly smaller than their wild counterparts to serve as my future omnidirectional casting platforms. It’s a well-practiced procedure by now, I needn’t explain the process to you.

…

Once finished with that abrupt modification, I will the first unlucky super helper to stand in place and not move, no matter what. That’s probably good enough for my upcoming test, but if it proves to be less than sufficient, I’ll have to, uh, remove the next ant’s ability to walk…

Taking aim with the deceased mage’s multi-wand, as I like to call it, I cast a firestorm at the short-lived ant.