So, now that I’ve managed to evolve, I must inspect the new me.

My core is still perfectly spherical. However it is now twice as big as before and the weight is ten times the old weight, I went from a 5 centimeters diameter and 1 kilogram ball to a 10 centimeters and 10 kilograms one. Also, I’m blacker than before. My core was already pitch black but now my stars’ light doesn’t reflect on it, while it did before. What? Turned off? No. They’re not. Lighting them back was the very first thing I did when I woke up.

I can sense that my core is now gathering mana faster than before. The speed and quantity of purified mana are now higher than before. I think the quality also went up, I focus on it and.. yes. The quality of the mana that my core emits now is purer than before. My creatures will now be able to absorb more mana and of better quality than before, they should be able to naturally evolve faster.

I sent my mana into replenishing my mana crystals’ reserves. I also move them nearer to my core, I want them close to it in case of emergencies. While they’re absorbing my mana I go through my creatures’ memories to see what happened during my evolution. I spent sixteen days knocked out, after all, something probably happened.

Humm… Lots of small and insignificant stuff. Like some birds eating my bugs or my lizards on the surface, or some sea fishes swimming in the mountain and being killed by my fishes and crabs. The bees had managed to pollinate all the flowers on the forest’s side cavity and the fruits are starting to develop there. But they are some interesting things to see in there.

The acid-spitting beetle started to make ambushes on the other bugs. It perfected its strategy until only the fastest or strongest bugs could escape it, either by running away too fast to be caught by the acid spit or by being to though for the acid to bit through their shells. It even tried its tactic on some bats, but they are too big for it to take them down for now, but it did manage to kill some crabs by spitting its acid directly in their eyes and mouth. Its aim is really good when the target is not moving. I give it a little mana as a reward for its efforts in getting stronger.

My bees and ants are now slightly bigger than normal bee or ant, their almost ready to go and abduct their respective queens. Or I could order them to do it together, the ants could lend a hand - or mandible? - to the bees as a distraction, allowing my bees to bee-nap the bee queen. That would give me the bee queen faster, but slow the acquisition of the ant queen as some ants would die and the bees can’t enter the anthill as easily as the ants the beehive. No, I won’t do it, I want the two queens at the same time, and I only have to wait for two more days to launch the queen-nappings.

Now the hikers. I see in my bats and birds memories that they come back to the clearing and looked at the plants there. One of them was different, he was taller and looked stronger, he wasn’t wearing clothes on his upper body, letting the air flow through his fur. But he had a lot of trinkets around his neck and used a stick with feathers embed in the top to touch some things. My creatures even saw him use magic. I suspect him to be an evolved hiker and higher in their society than the usual hikers, the others were treating him with respect and obeying his orders.

The big hiker also made some weird dance around the fountain while chanting and shaking his stick. I think it was some kind of ritual. Is he some sort of religious figure? And is he glad or not from the changes? I can’t know right now as the hikers left right after, they also gathered some samples from the water and plants in the clearing. Maybe they need more time to decide what to think of it, or some more important people to look at it.

There are new creatures that enter my domain to take food. Some small white ball of fur with long ears and teeth that love to eat the plants that now grow in my mountain foot, especially the carrots. They are called ‘rabbits’. And they’re the favorite food for the other new interesting creature, a four-legged one with orange fur. I don’t know how it’s called yet, there is only one coming in my domain, and I don’t want to kill it until finding another one. I can understand why these creatures love to eat what grows on my domain, it’s always more reach in mana and of better quality. There is a third kind of interesting creature I want to claim, a big kind of bird that my bats flew from every night.

Now that I've’ finish to looked into my creatures memories, I’m feeling more confident in trying to expand my domain further than before. I infused my mana into the earth all around my previous border and it works fine, better than always even. I only claim three more meters in all directions before stopping and thinking more about the situation.

I want to claim the whole island, but I also want to claim the surrounding area. So I start by claiming the sea on my side of the island, the west side. I successfully claim the seafloor, but the water I claimed is slowly being flown away by the waves. That’s a bothersome thing. I can’t claim the sea like I can’t claim the air outside of the mountain, it’s constantly blown away. But I have an idea, I make some rocks grow until they’re reaching the surface of the water and forming an inlet. Then I reclaim the water between the inlet’s border and the island proper soil. It’s working, the claimed water in here stay claimed long enough so that the water that is slowly replaced by outside unclaimed water is naturally claimed. It’s working on the same principle that the air in the mountain’s cliffs cavities. The border of the cove is ten meters in the sea.

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In my new inlet, I find some new kind of fishes, crabs and water bugs, there is also some new type of algae. It’s all good news and I have a sufficient mana pool to claim all the inlet’s creatures in a few hours. As I inspect them I make an interesting discovery. The water here is full of salt. And that salt is a difficulty for some of my fishes and crabs, as well as some of the inlet’s crabs and fishes are bothered by the absence of salt in the mountain’s water. That would explain why some type of fishes I found in the inlet never entered my domain before and why some of mine never quit it, even when they had the authorization. Fortunately, there are some creatures that can live in both types of water.

The inlet will serve as a first zone to go through if some intruders come by sea. I will also be warned sooner of their arrival.

On the other side of the mountain, I claim more land in the forest but stop myself at a hundred meters from the mountain foot, it’s an expansion of 98 meters, by the way, I claim the land ten meters deep minimum. I claim the forest’s plants growing on it. Before you ask, the clearing is almost one kilometer away, so I’m not claiming it today. The already adult trees are really mana consuming to claim, so I start with the smallest plant and slowly make my way to the trees. It takes me three days to claim all the plant life in this part of my domain. I was so absorbed in it that I completely forgot about the queen-nappings.

I should have done it yesterday. I immediately claim all the unclaimed ants and bees present in my domain, they’re mostly in my part of the forest. Then I sent them to abduct their respective queens. One hour after I sense the bees are back. I go through their memories and see how the attack went.

My bees flew straight to the hive and rushed inside it. The biggest burst in the queen room and grabbed her. The queen immediately orders them to stop it, but my orders were stronger than hers. The other bees saw that something was strange and they attacked my bees to free their queen, but my other bees moved to protect the carriers. The battle was a fierce one - in bee terms - and a lot of bees died for bringing me the bee queen. I’m proud of the bees tactic, they followed their orders perfectly, I hope the ants will do as good. I started claiming the queen the instant she passed my domain’s border, she’s been the costlier bee so far, it took me a whole five minutes to claim her. But now that she’s mine she can order all the wild bees to cease the attack on my claimed bees.

Now that the hive is mine - even the unclaimed bees - I order it to build a new beehive in the first cavity, the bees have to develop a strong hive to defend me, they have poison in their darts and it can be dangerous to big creatures in sufficient quantity. I also send the bees to gather and bring back all the eggs and larvae left in the previous beehive. The hive also has to prioritize the pollinating of the claimed trees before the unclaimed trees.

I pour some bonus mana in the bee queen, I want her to recover faster from the shock of her abduction and to be able to lay strong eggs as soon as possible.

Two hours after the bees the ants come back. They also manage to bring back their queen, but they suffered more losses. I access their memories while I start to claim the ant queen and give the order to the bees to support the ants against the wild ants. In the ants’ memories I learn that they followed the orders even better than the bees, but the local conditions, namely the tunnels and the walking, made it harder to accomplish the mission. The ants were better soldiers than the bees in groups. But the individuals are slightly weaker than the bees, mostly because of the bees poison, on the other side, the ants don’t die after one big attack.

Why didn’t I sent bees to help the ants sooner, or other creatures like the bats to wreck the place before bringing the queens? Because I wanted to test the military capacities of both species. They're supposed to be able to make tactics and wars, and I’m glad by the result. With time and each generations growing smarter and bigger, they will be able to form a veritable army. An army which will incorporate some specialized units from other species.

Once the ant queen's finally claimed, I give them similars orders than for the bees. They’re to build an anthill at the mountain foot and make it grow strong as a defensive line from intruder searching to enter the mountain by land, the bees and bats are taking care of the airways. And for doing so, they obviously have to bring back the eggs and larvae from the anthill.

The ant queen receives the same amount of mana as the bee queen to help her install her new anthill.

There are some additional orders, the ants and bees are to work together like allied countries, they’re forbidden to attack individuals from the other group, but are free to do whatever they want to all the other being claimed by me. The queens are also protected by me from all my creatures. If the bees or ants cross pass with another beehive or anthill, they must join forces to abduct the local queen and absorb it in their ranks.