A hand was placed on an external window, showing a view of space. Then came a sigh, as a woman looked at her reflection in the glass. “What am I even doing here?” Then her eyes flickered to something else. “What are you doing here?”

Anishka watched as the ant on the glass furiously signed at her.

“Here to protect- I don’t need to be protected!” Another silent response. “Well yeah obviously they could try something but-” another pause. “No I don’t need someone to watch over me as I sleep.” Anishka sighed. “Look, Sergeant. I’m glad you want to watch out for me, but you shouldn’t be here. What do you mean ‘why’? Because you’re a dangerous cultivation beast!” Her face was almost pressed up against the glass now. “I know you’re not technically cultivating but that doesn’t change things! I told you to stay behind! … Yes, we’re still friends…”

Anishka reached out her finger and the Sergeant climbed onto it. The void ant had never grown large, but Anishka had underestimated her power more than once. It had been… quite surprising.

She went to lay down on her bed, holding her finger at an angle she could easily see her friend. At least she wasn’t worried about crushing her anymore. It would have to be a deliberate act, as the little ant was quite a bit more durable. She continued to sign to Anishka. “Even if I’m not supposed to be here, you should be,” the ant emphasized.

“Why? Because I’m Anton’s great-granddaughter? Or the last daughter of the Fire and Ice?”

The ant’s antennae twitched. “You have many siblings, do you not?”

“Sure like, a dozen. So what?”

“Are any of them here?”

“Well… no,” Anishka admitted.

“Then it is supposed to be you here.”

“I haven’t even done anything though. I saved a few people on Ekict and then made sure nothing horrible happened for a while. And now I’m going to be one of the first people to visit the Shining Cooperative?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The ant signed with deliberate motions. “Because you are important and strong, but not too important or too strong.”

Anishka sighed. “Is that it?” She honestly didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse. “So you know I’m not going to be able to talk to you while we’re there, right?”

“That is not an issue.”

“Isn’t it? I’d be the only person you know and can interact with, and you’d never get to.”

“It is not for very long. Just a number of years.”

“Man, I thought human cultivators were supposed to grow strangely casual about the passage of time. Do you- what kind of lifespans could you expect from void ants?”

“I am not dead yet, so a few more years will make no difference.”

“I suppose that’s true. The Great Queen is like… three hundred? But you were made to be lower ranking.”

“I cannot achieve my goals if I do not survive. So I survive.”

“Still on about that? You don’t have to listen to orders, you know.”

“I am aware,” the void ant signed. “You are my friend, so I don’t have to listen to you. I just do what is best for you.”

“Ugh. Maybe I should have taught you to listen to my orders.”

“It is too late. My understanding has transcended that point.”

Anishka looked at the Sergeant. Then her hand snapped forward. Her fingers pinched and… found no purchase. The ant slid from your grip. The Sergeant was on the back of her hand. “Your attempts to restrain me will be unsuccessful. Nor could any of your human restraints hold me.”

“I was going to put you in a metal box and rest the bed on it.”

The void ant paused. “That couldn’t have been successful. I would have escaped.”

“Whoa, when did you learn to lie?”

“It is not a lie. I just… simply do not yet know how it would have been accomplished.”

“Okay but you should definitely take the first ship back. We can’t have any void ants getting spotted- wait, there aren’t other void ant spies going along, are there?”

“I am not a spy,” the Sergeant said. “And I am not aware of any being sent.”

That made Anishka feel relieved. Until she realized that it felt like the sort of thing the Great Queen would do. And that it made sense. Even she was kind of going as a spy. Just one everyone knew about. Anishka specifically was not an envoy, but instead a ‘world cultivation consultant’. The Shining Cooperative really liked the idea of everyone cultivating, building up whole worlds. They just hadn’t had the pieces put together for that to be fully practical, apparently.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

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Anishka walked onto the planet Lotren with the confidence of a woman who didn’t have a void ant somewhere on her. And if she never checked, she could plausibly maintain that lie to herself. Casual sensing wouldn’t do it, since she could easily look over a tiny blip of nothing.

The first thing she noticed was the different style of spaceports they had. The aesthetics were quite different, which wasn’t surprising. Even if there were common stylistic elements among cultivators, when developing new things they could easily go in different directions. The spaceports were also smaller, but that was likely more of a feature of recent development rather than choice. And they might have been directed away from larger or more military style spaceports.

The ship she came in on most likely got a vague scan of the planet, but they hadn’t been able to get a good look as they were escorted from the edge of the system. It all made sense, of course. Reasonable cautions for newcomers.

She wasn’t assigned to any specific team, so after they were escorted to where they would be staying- an uncomfortably nice hotel of sorts. At least she was fairly certain it had already existed instead of being constructed for their visit. She had some experience with luxury- she’d never known true poverty, at least- but the Fire and Ice Palace had made sure that its disciples understood that luxury was not the core pursuit of cultivators, nor even a necessary byproduct of power.

She wanted to look for the Sergeant, but she didn’t. Plausible deniability and all that. So she just lay on her bed, glad to be in proper gravity instead of a ship.

A knock came on her door, jolting her consciousness. Had she fallen asleep? She could have. Either way, now was the time to get moving. She walked to the door, opening it. On the other side of the door was a woman who appeared older than Anishka- though given the difference in cultivation that may not be correct. She had olive skin and dark hair. She was also using a technique Anishka had been shown before… at the same time as Anishka scanned her for being part of the Twin Soul Sect.

Anishka smiled. “Everything check out?”

“Yes,” the woman nodded. “How about on your end?”

“I hope you would know the answer to that,” Anishka said. “But I think I’m more the kind of person who would kill a strange member of the Twin Soul Sect who showed up at my door without thinking about political consequences. And yet here you are.”

“My apologies,” the woman said. “My name is Nezihe. I am to be your guide and defender while you are here.”

Anishka nodded. “Not to be rude but… defender?”

“It will be more convenient for us if you do not have to personally respond, should such unfortunate circumstances arrive,” the woman said, holding her head high. Well, her cultivation wasn’t bad. But the late Life Transformation stage just wasn’t enough. Anishka had achieved Assimilation some time ago- though she couldn’t say she’d advanced much further than the early stage.

“I see. How likely are such incidents?”

Nezihe shrugged. “There is no precedent for outsiders.”

“I suppose your presence is also to assure people that I am properly being watched.”

“I can’t deny that. And if anyone wanted me to, they should have picked someone else.”

“Good,” Anishka said. “I prefer this.” Anishka didn’t mind openly studying Nezihe’s cultivation. This was what she was here for, after all. Sort of. She was sort of wispy, like air. And yet there were hints of stones and… even water and fire. “An interesting cultivation style. Four elements based, but focused on one?”

“That’s right.”

“Too bad,” Anishka shook her head. “I have a lot of things to say about fire and ice, but they’d probably just throw off your internal balance.”

Nezihe frowned. “Aren’t those two inherently in conflict?”

Anishka grinned. “You should have seen my parents.” She hadn’t seen it directly, of course. Her father died while her mother was pregnant with her. But there had already been some videos, using older Ruteran technology. She liked to keep those. She kind of wished she could show this person, just to have an excuse to watch them.

“Perhaps overcoming the difficulties of such a cultivation style is how you reached your current heights,” Nezihe commented.

“I wouldn’t say that’s wrong, but it’s certainly not complete. Fighting through contradictions works just as well as following a clear path. There are simply other understandings one must come to. But we should probably not just stand around here. What would you recommend I see first?”

“Taron has many things to see. What would you prefer?”

“I want to see the worst part of the city,” Anishka said.

“... oh.”

“It doesn’t have to be the most dangerous. I understand that every world has places that are less than ideal. But I would prefer to look at the place that is the most run down. After all, when seeking prosperity one must consider every area. Taking some time to see how things came to be is a necessity.”

“Understood. Would you prefer to walk?” Nezihe asked.

“That would depend on how acceptable it is for us to move quickly,” Anishka said. “Or how far we have to go.”

“It is likely better for us to take an automatic carriage,” Nezihe commented.

“Then let us do so,” Anishka replied easily. She wondered about the automatic carriages for a short time, but they turned out to be quite similar to familiar versions of cars with a different control scheme. Rather than physical controls, it relied more on the cultivator to direct the flow of energy. “Interesting. I haven’t seen a vehicle quite like this one.”

Nezihe frowned. “And yet, you appear unimpressed.”

“Not… intentionally,” Anishka said. “The complexity of the formations is impressive. I just wonder if it’s necessary.”

“How could it be better?” Nezihe asked seriously.

“Unfortunately, I’m more likely to make a fool of myself than to actually provide improvements. And I haven’t seen it in action yet, so it could easily be bias. Please, go on.”

Her final judgment? It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t good. It was effective, certainly. Nezihe was able to accelerate and decelerate quickly, turning where she needed to while the ride was quite steady. But the problem was that it took her to run the vehicle. In short, a strong cultivator. Anishka thought an Essence Collection cultivator might be enough, but early stage could be insufficient.

Since the time to attain such a cultivation ranged from a handful of years to a couple decades, it was a long journey for anyone who had not already begun.

“Are there lower performance options?” Anishka asked. “What is the minimum cultivation required to use one of these automatic carriages?”

“Essence Collection,” Nezihe confirmed. “It’s not ideal, but with the world cultivation project… there will be more people who meet those requirements, will there not?”

“Yes… but until that point, most people can’t have access to this. And I assume it is not cheap.”

“That’s true,” the other woman agreed. “But can anything so amazing ever be inexpensive?”

“You would be surprised.” Though there was some difference to be had between those things that were made efficiently and priced for low cost and those things that were truly not worth much, cheap products had few return customers. And in a world of cultivators, competition for long term customers could be quite high.

Anishka wondered where they were headed. Slums, an old industrial area? Certainly it should still be within the bounds of the city- or perhaps just outside. She had no illusions that she would be able to walk in and magically make the place better… but an outsider’s perspective might be valuable. Or they might laugh at her and say change was impossible, in which case she’d be even more motivated to make it happen somehow.