He was walking around appreciating his growing kingdom. His diligent workers were filling the storage with food and cloth. Everyone seemed happy. But all good things have to come to an end. His people's life was still way too short. This, however, wasn’t as devastating as it used to be. The simple fact that they laid eggs twice in their lifespan meant that he still had half of the workers living.

The hatchery was filled with the seemingly usual number of eggs. There weren’t any big changes there. Except for when the eggs hatched. [Farming +1500exp], well maybe his count was a bit off however this wasn’t it. This time there were clear differences between the hatchlings. Once again the creatures have evolved, their appearance steered towards the adaptation to do their roles.

The farmers had slim and nimble legs, making them experts at climbing vines. Their mandibles changed in form, it was as if it was made exactly to tend to the TomGrape vines.

The weavers and fibre processers grew an extra two little arms next to their mouths. This seemingly provided them with the extra dexterity needed for their job. And perhaps now technically made them fully fledged spiders (8 limbs and all that).

Builders for one reason or another grew smaller, which was quite counterintuitive, but their number increased as well. There was a dozen of them working on maintenance.

The jungle clearers were visibly bigger at birth. Both their legs and mandibles were thicker and stronger.

“The jungle eh…” He wanted to sign.

The trouble was that his workers didn’t respond to his commands very well and he didn’t know how to stop jungle clearers from doing their work; in the nearby surrounding area, there wasn’t much of the jungle left. The deforested area must have a good three miles in radius.

“I guess they just plan in advance. After all, the farms are expanding.” He gave them due credit.

It was almost scary how clever his people were. He didn’t even need to teach or show them things.

“Hmm…” He thought about it some more.

A theory formed in his head: what if they don’t truly die, not in a conventional sense, but copy their minds into their eggs? “That would explain quite a few things.”

That and the fact that he was stuck with now 24 jesters doing absolutely nothing except for hanging in his room and following him everywhere around. That is to say, if a lazy personality had formed and then transferred their mind into an increasing number of eggs, the reborn hatchlings would be all lazy too.

“Are you all just lazy?” He asked his ever-growing entourage as a whole. “Nah, just look at your siblings, that’s just impossible.” He scratched his head in thought. “Something else is going on.”

“Maybe you are my personal guards?” A King needed those, “But then from whom are you protecting me?” It was a mystery.

…

He rolled an obsidian piece of chitin in his hand, the hexagonal chip was slim but surprisingly sturdy. He had loads of these pilled by the wall outside the hatchery. These segments were the pieces from the hatched eggs. Each egg upon hatching would split into 32 hexagonal panels. At first he thought of them as junk, not even good for fertiliser since it was too sturdy to be ground into power and refused to degrade, but obviously he had been wrong. These small chips were sturdy enough to be used as armour.

Well, he wasn’t an armour maker, but he wasn’t a clothes designer either yet look at his clothed workers now. There was something about the way this world worked, after all there were magic, perks and levels. Obviously, his lvl.1 Crafting and Superior Design had to do something with this. He hoped that the two will be enough to craft something close to armour.

First things first, he needed a workshop so he set on to build one. Just as he was done hammering corner poles as a guide for a square building the builders swarmed to it and did what they do best.

“Yeah…”

They were making walls with expert motions and in no time at all, he had a hollow dome for a building. The little builders were already better builders than him.

He gathered a good amount of chitin chips into a sack, took some twine, rope and cloth and began working. In his mind he visualised segmented armour of old: Asia Minor scale mail or Oriental Laminar were the ones he was most familiar with.

Of course, knowing armour from an image and trying to replicate it, were two separate things. He only had a very rough idea of how to do it. First, he fashioned a long shirt out of blue cloth, he made it extra thick using two layers. The shirt was meant to use as a base to attach the chitin.

He punched tiny holes into chitin ships, which was a lot harder than he thought since he had no drill. Then he weaved BlueDust-treated twine through these holes and then to the shirt. Chip after chip he formed a protective layer. The process was labour-intensive but he was happy to have something fun and meaningful to do.

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“A set befitting a king!” He finished it.

[You have crafted scale armour of common quality. Crafting +50exp.]

Even though he used simple materials the armour turned out quite decorative. The hexagonal pieces were linked neatly in rows giving this scaled look, plus they were dark obsidian and surprisingly shiny if polished. The outline of the shirt and the areas where he couldn't use chitin were vivid blue. The black and blue gave a nice contrast.

He put the shirt on. “This is lighter than I thought” He moved around for a bit. “Doesn’t impede movement either. And for the bonus.”

[Scale Armour: +1 Rep with Dragons]

“Ehh!” He shouted indignantly. “There are dragons?!” If so, he didn’t want to meet any; that sounded scary. “Anyways, am I not too intimidating?” He asked for opinions.

One of the tiny jesters, a baby one, chirped at him.

“This is new! Was that a compliment?”

It chirped again, but this time it sort of resembled a distorted human voice which said: “y-e-s.”

He blinked twice unable to believe it. “I must be tired… hearing things. Off to bed then.”

…

While the Scale Armour was one of the better articles of his work he knew he do better.

“Practise makes perfect.”

After a few tries he had completed a set and it even was of superior quality.

[Scale Armour], [Scale Greaves], [Scale Vambrase] and finally [Scale Helm].

The helmet was the hardest to make, the individual pieces were slightly too big for fluid assembly. In the end, it ended up being just a dome of scales in-lined by cloth. To avoid it being too plain he had added scale pieces to the sides of it. It looked like the frills of a lizard.

[Gear bonus achieved: +20 Rep with Dragons]

[Temporary perk Minor Regeneration obtained.]

This meant that sets of superior gear could give him perks of various kinds.

“Yes! This is amazing.”

He donned his armour and walked around the farm displaying it proudly.

…

The other thing he needed to do was to expand the DustyBlue fields. The flowers were growing well, but they were growing best in the areas where the TomGrape used to be. The discovery was accidental but the conclusion was obvious: TomGrape enriched the soil in which it was growing; truly a magical plant.

Also, Johny had grown larger. Like really large for a slug; it was half of an arm in length already. “You glutton!” He patted the slug with affection. A bigger slug meant more jelly for him.

He wondered if this high-sugar diet he was on was any good to him, but anyway, he wasn’t putting any extra weight on. Well, that wasn’t necessarily true. He had been here for a while, and where once was useless fat now was lean muscle. He liked his diet of fruits, syrup and jelly. The days of gnawing on bitter vines were in the past and forgotten. However, he still craved something more, he wanted meat.

“Maybe…” he patted his armour making the links jiggle. “It’s time for another expedition. There must be something alive here, somewhere.” He looked at his embiggened escort. “I reckon we could take even a dragon.” He joked.

Much like before he gathered the necessary gear. This time he turned in the opposite direction.

“This way, Legion. Onwards we march!” He directed.

It wasn’t quite a legion with only twenty-five members, but in his mind, it felt like one. He felt bold, empowered even. He felt like he could take this jungle and become its master.

The first few miles were the easiest since he went through the cleared area. Thereby the border he saw one of his workers nibbling at the bush to dissemble the useless plant.

“Ancient Rome, hmm…” he had an idea. The Romans had it figured out. “It wouldn’t hurt to have a road or two. Hey you, come with us.” He ordered.

Of course, the busy spider ignored him completely.

“So we have to do this the hard way.” He knew the right trick for that. “Look what I have.” He opened a wooden container of sweet syrup. The worker sniffed at the air and in no time it was jumping excitedly begging for the treat.

“Now-now, only a tiny sip. Follow!” He ordered again and this time it obeyed and joined the group.

A lone worker will never be enough to clear enough of the jungle as they went along, but it was still useful since this spider was an expert at cutting past the overgrowth and making the journey so much easier.

“If only you guys took upon this good example.” He looked at the rest of the crew who refused to take any meaningful work. “Forget it, my mistake, I should have gathered more of spider cutters for this expedition. Oh well…” At this point, he didn’t want to turn back.

He knew that there must be more to this jungle, he just needed to survey it properly.

They had marched for days, stopping only at night to rest. Like before the jungle seemed endless, that was until…

“What is this?” He found himself in a small clearing. “No way!”

He was excited to find signs of life. There was a camp of a dozen straw huts, they were shabby and clearly only a temporary construction. in the middle of it there was a fireplace. If there was life, it was long gone. He inspected the camp further. He found a piece of shattered pottery and some bits of dried fruit. Those were his only clues.

“Hmm…” He wasn’t the detective but. “A primitive tribe.” He had summarised.

Signs of human activity meant that there must be other life nearby. A food source: some fruit or even animals to hunt. He salivated at the idea. “It’s high time to expand the kitchen menu!” He urged his men forward.

It took him days, more days than he would like to admit, and there still were no signs of life.

“This is so unfair!” He complained.

He wanted to push, to pursue further, but the food supply was running dangerously low.

“At best, we can make a few more days before we need to turn back.”

One of the spiders nodded at him, as if it understood.

Recently he noticed such small cues. They were more responsive to his words, almost as if they understood what he said. But then even dogs would respond when talked to, even if they had no real idea of what the owner was saying.

“Aren’t you getting smarter? Maybe soon I will be able to give you commands and teach some proper tricks.”

The fantasy pleased him, he distracted himself with such things for the last two days.

The scenery began to change. Ever so slowly the familiar jungle turned into something else. Different plants and different trees began to pop up.

“[You have exited The Dreaded Place]”

“No way!” But he was at the turning point, if he pursued his goals further he won’t have enough supplies to make the trip back. “Those who don’t risk don’t eat slug jelly. Forward!”

He urged his men to push deeper.