Eventually Victoria laid the next batch of eggs, with the same faster time as before, five days instead of seven like a normal queen's base speed. It was ether part of her class or the fertility boost from the approval trait, ether way it was a good thing for growth. Once she up-sizes it will go even faster, her mother went down to six days per batch at level four. Two of the workers are pulled from digging duty and join us in the childcare unit. Workers are competent at childcare since they just have to do a few simple tasks, feeding, cleaning, and making sure they don't go outside. At a higher level Victoria could unlock nurse ants that were specifically designed to help with kids, were also apparently the only other ant besides a queen that grew breasts, basically they were a sub-race of wet nurses.

Once they hatched having some extra hands around helped immensely, one part was that the workers could eat some food, digest it a litte, and then throw it up on demand, predigested fruit is even healthier for larva than just mashed fruit. They still had to be rotated from mashed food to Victoria to get a proper diet, which shows why nurse ants are needed, she wouldn't be able to handle a batch of ten larva by herself. I helped where I could but the workers liked taking care of their little sisters, even if it involved a lot of puking. I had to go double time with fruit due to having not just the new babies but the workers needing food too.

Just like last time they had a small feeding frenzy on some meat right before they started moulting. This time though we had adult workers pair with the new ones, while I and soldier paired with the little soldiers. Things were going well, they didn't have anything special but they were incredibly enthusiastic about combat. Later I brought in a whole boar like before and had them butcher it to get them past blood squimishness early. Was interesting how I could feel proud while also feeling it was just so mundane. Just how fast they were growing probably put a damper on the whole fatherhood thing, i'm up to eight kids and four of them were adults and it hasn't even been a month yet.

Once we finished sparing and butchering I headed over to the wood pile with the third worker and checked it's moisture. I'm not sure it is completely dry but it felt dry enough, so we coated it in a layer of dried leaves, and then a layer of mud. Also made sure it was thick and dome enough like that it wouldn't collapse under it's own weight as the wood burnt away. Finally I lit it up and let the fire spread through the mound, the size of the mound made it take quite a bit to spread all the way. Eventually the fire was going strong so the air holes were plugged up and it was left to burn itself out.

There was nothing else that needed to be done today so I decided to help the worker dig out the next area. I could tell she felt weird about being in charge of something and had to repeatedly tell her to lead the digging. Eventually we made the tunnel long enough that it was time to build a room, dig sideways as well as forward to start making a dome. I dug out the middle area while she did the sides, she seemed to have an innate understanding of structual engineering, and I could tell she was using earth compression to strengthen the walls. Don't ask me how I could tell, perhaps because I used dirt control to resist compression a whole lot I can now sense it being used.

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Having three soldiers means one can guard the entrance while the other two go hunting, which meant I could leave the door open instead of covering it every time I left. Speaking of hunting, I saw a boar generate, there was a ball of light sitting there a little bit from the ground, having no idea what it was i watched it for a couple minutes. Slowly the ball grew in size, once it was large enough that a boar could fit inside it it shrank into the outline of a boar and then went out, leaving behind a completely ordinary boar. I gaped in surprise long enough that it spotted me and it immediately tried to attack, it failed and i killed it.

After bringing it back I asked Victoria about the whole spontaneous animal generation thing. She didn't know what the truth is but current ant theory is that life force is sticky, when something dies it's energy stays in the area and when it gathers enough extra energy it reforms. Why only simple animals do it is the real question, I think because they are simple they can swap parts of their energy pattern with others and still be a whole critter. The difference between one boar and another is negligible, but the differences between two people are pretty big. It has to be more to it than that though since once the death rate gets high enough things get weird.

Weird as instead of the normal animals more powerful versions start appearing, and then different creatures appear, and finally real monsters. On one hand stronger creatures are harder to kill, on the other hand stronger creatures are more nutritious. An alpha boar is not only bigger and meatier but you only need to eat half as much of it to fill up. Essentially killing things really fast, constantly, results in the ecosystem fighting back, if you overcome it you get better food. I wonder if luring creatures to one spot and killing them will make that spot energy dense enough to make the bigger things spawn, or if it needs a wide area density.

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Victoria could only wait the one day after the last batch was grown before starting the next set. Her body's instincts had finally gotten her completely in their grasp, she just felt incredibly distressed while she wasn't pregnant. It was easy enough to fix, but this also meant that I could not be away from her for more then five days or she would start to freak out. If her next level also makes that time frame shorter there will be a problem with getting any supplies from town since it is about two days away while running. I know there isn't much there I could use, but I really needed to find a book about magic. If magic could only be obtained by levels then I would figure something else out. 

 Knowing I couldn't put it off if anymore if I wanted to get any information, I packed my bag and attached an earthen jug of food to my control field. Then I did the most important thing to do before going anymore, I gave my wife a hug and a kiss goodbye. She didn't like the fact I was going anywhere, but she agreed with my reasons, so only grumbled mildly. After that I was off like a rocket, dex let me run faster then ever and vit let me go longer. I ran downstream along the river, I will ether hit a river town or a road eventually, but I only had two days to head out before I had to turn around so I could get back on time.

Even with my stats I had to slow down to walking speed several times due to fatigue, but I kept moving. About ten hours of following the river It merged into an even bigger one, it was about fifty meters accross but was lazier then the tributary so I could swim accross if I really needed to. To mark the spot I attached several dirt 'growths' to the side of a tree along the bank before continuing down the river. The sun started to set and still no sign of a town, if this world doesn't have river cities I will be very cross with whoever is in charge. Since I was alone it was impossible to make a camp so instead I dug under a tree and closed myself under it while leaving an airvent.

I woke before dawn so I had to wait a while, being alone in a dark hole really made me want to throw light magic into the pile of powers I wanted, I also finished the food in my jug and merged it with the ground. Once the sun was up I freed myself from the pit and kept moving, even if I don't see a river city there should be a road eventually. It was a few hours in the afternoon when I finally saw a city in the distance accross the river, it was against the side of the river rather than around it, but still. It was quite a bit bigger than Koral with taller and thicker walls, hopefully it has a library with magic books or a book store of some kind. As I approached I saw four guards standing in front of the bridge crossing, they all looked rather haggard.

"Hail the guard!" I called while approaching

"Hail, traveler." one of them said with a dour look "you know the rules. Inspection and ID check"

I handed him my ID and waited, he read it and gave it back, then he takes out the inspection orb, It turned purple when he waved it at me, all four of the guards had surpised looks.

"What does purple mean?" I asked worriedly

"It means it doesn't know, which shouldn't happen. It has a list of things it checks for, something is ether on the list or is not." He shook his head "I'll need to get a magic technician to check it out, wait here." 

He started hurrying accross the bridge, leaving me with the other three guards. "So... what has all of you so tired? I'd think you guards would have proper shifts."

The one on the left spoke up first "not that it's really any of your business, but we are out here as punisment."

I try to leverage my charisma, just sort of think about it existing and what it can do while saying "what could four guards have done that would get all of them punished?"

The one to the right responds next "you heard about the huge ant 'battle'?" I shook my head, I knew the event happened but not how it went down "well, almost eighty demon ants swarmed out of the forest and just stopped right here in front of the bridge and just sat down. The guard were ordered out to kill them and at first it seemed easy, but the fact none of the were fighting back made us" he gestures to the group "really unnerved so we stopped, they were just too pitiful. The captain didn't like that, so we've had to do double shifts all week."

Huh, so her plan worked on four of them. "For what it's worth, I think you guys did the right thing. Killing a helpless opponent, even if they are a different race, is just a dick move." All three of them suddenly looked incredibly relieved, it was on odd reaction. "Uhhh, what was that?"

Center guard explained "never seen charisma relief? Knowing how charisma works and being able to stop it from working are two different things, only cha can beat cha, and you telling us we were right all along broke up the past week of being told we were wrong, so, thanks." 

Just then the last guard came back with a man that was very clearly a wizard, had the hat and everything, but also had a monocle. "This is jeremy, he's a magic technician, so he should be able to see what the orb is saying in more detail."

"Nice to meet you, so how do we do this?" I asked him.

"You don't have to do anything, I, on the other hand, need to use the orb while using 'magic inspection'" he said while waving the orb then staring at it intently as it once more turned purple, I could see his eyebrows raise quite dramatically" now that is interesting, according to this you should be dead five times over."