The first day was easy enough, the little grubs only slept or ate, waste was just gathered as a dark glob in their tail end. The second day though, that was when they became a problem, they gained that special child power of disappearing if you take your eye off them for a second. One even managed to wriggle halfway up the entrance tunnel in a blink, I solved that by adding an overhang gate in front of the gate. The next thing that happened was their organs finally developed enough that they could poop, and it got everywhere. The only saving grace was that dirt control could scrape it up without me having to touch it, just commanded the dirt particles to slide under it and then carry it into a jar that I would dump outside.

Soon I had to leave to restock on berries, to prevent escapes I made a dirt screen, just a sheet of dirt with small holes all over it to allow air flow, were only a little smaller then their heads so they couldn't fit through. When i got back it turned out they thought that was super interesting so while three of them kept their mom distracted the forth was trying to chew her way out. How the hell they managed to think of a plan like that I will never know, their stats are basically nothing, and how did even they communicate it to eachother, they don't have antenna yet.

At least they don't need to moult to grow yet, their bodies are squishy so they grow normally, well supernaturally fast but still normal KIND of growth. Eventually they wiggled themselves to exhaustion and passed out, we put them on the leaf pile pile together and they wrapped around eachother in their sleep. They were already almost bigger then the pile when just yesterday all of their eggs fit on it with room to spare. Them falling asleep was a sign for us to sleep too, i double checked they wouldn't be able to get out before we fell asleep together, praying they will be out all night.

We woke up when they did, they had learned how to make a noise, some sort of high pitched sound that reminded me of dumb and dumbers' most annoying sound. It must be an 'i'm hungry!' noise because they stopped making it as soon as I brought food over, looking in their mouths they had some kind of basic teeth, just some mashers on the sides of their mouths. Course I had to show Voctoria and ask if that means they can eat solids yet, and the answer is yes, mashers means they can handle plant matter. They will grow their last couple teeth just before they moult so they can eat meat to stock up on proteins for their shells.

I make four bowls, fill them with berries, and let them go to town on those fruits. Our little soldier finished first and needed a little more food than the workers, which makes sense since she is a bit bigger then her sisters. I needed to get more water already so I decided to try upping my dirt control again. I grabbed the empty water jug and headed for the river first, once there I started making two more jugs from the mud, ripping the dirt out of it. I got the same style of tingle that forcing the water jugs to ignore water did, I upped my effort to try and pull out a larger swathe of dirt at once and all I got was a migraine.

I just held two jugs of water in my hands and used magic to hold the third one on top of my head. When I got back I sealed the top of one and made an attached dish before punching a hole in the bottom, this turned it into one of those self filling dog bowls. Now it may have seemed a little fucked up to feed my kids from a bowl on the floor, but we literally didn't have a table. Besides, they loved it, being able to wiggle over and take a drink whenever they wanted it made them happy, at least if that chirping noise they started making meant happiness.

"So do we need anything else or are we good with what we have?" I asked while petting one of the workers

"We should be okay right now, but with how fast they are growing we may need more meat sooner rather then later" Victoria said thoughtfully

"And more berries, they just love them" I switched to a different one and she chirped at the contact

"Haha, yes, and more berries" she agreed

I headed out once again to get some more food for these hungry catapillars. Those berry bushes really are amazing, I really wondered if they were running on some kind of magic, I can't feel anything but I only have literal dirt magic. I summon two dirt jugs and load them up with berries, even if these bushes were amazing I would need more eventually, two jugs took almost half the grove to fill. I have one of them hover on the way back, the dirt provides no resistance when I hover it by itself but the berries make it resist the magic so I have something to improve against.

The feeling of the magic getting better is odd every time, after all this practice I can almost intuit the exp and how close it is to leveling. The lack of any bars or levels on the blue box about it probably made people think it getting better was all in their head, that they just got better at using it rather than the skill itself becoming more powerful. I try entering in a new way, I grab on to both jugs, place my back against the dirt mesh door, and try to will it to simply morph around me instead of me just knocking it over and putting it back. It worked, but way too slowly, it was like falling through a thick sludge and I could tell if I forced it faster my berry jugs would melt along with it.

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Getting back in I can tell they already finished the previous jug of berries, and my earlier catapillar impression has come true, they have 6 nubs on the sides of their bodies now, where their arms and legs would be when they moulted. I refill their berry bowls from one jug and share the other with Victoria. I asked her about the nubs and it turned out it meant their first moult was near, so their meat teeth will come in soon. So I had to leave again right after I got back, man, children need constant attention, C’est la vie. 

It takes around an hour for me to find a boar and I decided to try some other magic tech, quicksand, well, quickdirt. I got the boar's attention and sending waves of magic into the dirt around me it started loosening  and the grass all being pushed free in an area between me and the boar, the boar charged and it sank up it's ankles. Adding more power it started sinking more, soon it had no part of it's legs above the dirt and it couldn't gain any foothold. I calmly walked up to it's head, pulled out my dagger, and stabbed it right between the eyes. Reversing the power I pull the boar out of the pit muck and then solidify the ground back to normal dirt hardness.

It worked but I clearly needed to know where my enemy was and where it was going, using it against a surprise attack wont work unless I could vastly increase the power output to liquify the ground instantly. I hung the boar up and slice it's head off really easily, is another thing I noticed, a boar's flesh became a lot weaker after it died, it must have had some kind of defense skill that shut off on death. My huge str was easily able to power through from a standing start, and that time with the stone spear used it's own attack against it.

While it was draining I made a fire and sharpened some skewers, I made the meat chunks as big as possible and left some of the larger bones in since they could be used as handles. I had gotten really good at cooking boars over the last week, lots of boars means i get a lot of practice. Once done I made a large platter plate from hard dirt and loaded the meats on it, it was late afternoon so hopefully this is the last time I need to come out today. Once home I just waved the door away and put it back, hopefully I wont need it anymore once the workers are grown and they can look after their little sisters.

I sat down the platter of meat and they swarmed it like an adorable pack of piranhas, they didn't quite strip it too the bones before they were full up and seemingly fell asleep. Guess that's all it takes for their first moult, their bodies liquifying on the inside and transforming, using their current skin as a casing. I added a second layer to the door so if they finish in the middle of the night I should hear the door breaking open and catch them before they ran outside. Then me and V finished off the meat, she crunched up one of the bones with her mandible and ate some bone powder before we fell asleep.

We woke up to a loud cracking sound, sitting up I saw soldier was the one that was done first, which is ironic since she was the biggest. As she pulled free of her old body, she fell over, her new arms flailing uncontrolled for a minute. She eventually sorted out how to work them and pulled the rest of the way free. She pulled the same manuver Victoria did when I saw her moult, she splayed herself out for surface area to dry off faster. The shell was thin and didn't completely cover her like a full grown soldier's but it was clearly set up to provide just enough support to stand up. 

While she laid their her antenna popped free from the top of her head and started hanging above her new eyes. I helped her roll over and she gave me her first antenna wiggle, it was... weird, it didn't send words, more like ideas, or concepts. She sent me the concept of thanks and recognized me as the idea of king/father. I tried to send the concept of fatherly love but I don't think it worked, so I just gave her a head pat. Well now I knew that just having the power didn't mean I could use it properly, I am sure like with dirt control I would get better with practice.

Once she was dry I helped her up, she was wobbly for a bit as she tried walking around but she got the hang of it soon enough. She stood around a meter tall and was rather thin compared to a full sized soldier. She then sent me the idea of 'pretending to fight' which must be sparing, so I gave her a staff, aka a spear I didn't weaponize yet. I grabbed one as well and simply played defense while she struck at me with her's. She was stuffed full of battle instincts and learned rapidly, being designed specifically for battle comes with advantages. While I was with her, Victoria was handling the workers, they were a lot more pliable since they were designed to handle odd jobs and follow orders.

Their practice was lifting things, moving them, and putting them back down. After a couple minutes of testing their newfound ability to move properly they were hungry, so I let them gorge on the rest of the jug of berries and some of the smoked meat. I then showed them how to drink from a jug instead of the feeder bowl. Now that they could somewhat care for themselves I could trust them to not wander off. I melted open the door and sent the little soldier the idea of danger and and concept of her making sure none of it would come in through the door. I thought hard on an imagined picture of her killing a boar that came charging down the hallway. Then left on another hunt, once she's grown we can hunt together.