Wow, I posted the prolouge yesterday, not expecting anybody to read it, or like it but then like 60 people did, thanks guys, anyways it means alot, so I made sure to finish this one today. Now enough of me heres chapter 1

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Chapter 1

The green plants stirred in the wind, small animals snuffled through shrubs and dug up dirt. And deep below, far, far, down buried in the depths of the earth, something stirred, and awoke!

"Damn that hurt" said Josh

He slowly became aware of his surroundings, he could feel through slightly more than a hundred points, all stretched over the nest, but everything in between them was blank.

Curious, Josh tried to move some of them, it was like moving your toes, it was unconscious, he just wanted them to go somewhere and they did. For some reason they would not go straight to where he directed, confused about the phenomenon, he concentrated on just one point, as he did he seemed to zoom towards it.

Continuing to concentrate, he slammed into the point, and was absorbed into it. As he was absorbed the other points disappeared, and he could see through the single point, Josh looked around confused at the dirt  surrounding him, and realized the points probably had to travel through tunnels to where he had directed them.

Then he realized the points were in tunnels, then that the tunnels were really small, then that when he looked down he could see pincer things under his face.

Josh panicked and wrenched himself out of the ant and toward where had been before, then realizing what he thought as himself might be an ant too. And began to pull the points toward himself to see if he was some kind of super ant.

All the points... ants, began toward what he perceived as himself. The first Point of feeling reached himself, and he could see that what he thought was himself was a small glowing blue orb, next to a giant ant with a large body and small head.

The ants began to run into each other as tunnels ran together and focusing on one of them to see, made Josh realize that they were large worker ants. He slowly started to calm down once he remembered the meeting with the GR, and choosing to be reincarnated as a hive mind.

Curious about the giant ant next to him he sent several of the workers to investigate, they crawled over the queen, the ants found a large hole in the queens back that seemed to be the same size of his orb thing, noticing the queen looked dead, and remembering batteries from his world, he sent the ants to carry him into the hole.

As Josh was pushed into the hole he felt a tightening of the flesh below him and when he was settled into the queen, it pulsed to life and knowledge flooded into him.

First the queen would eat food which would be processed by his orb and the processed food would be taken by the queen to make more ants, he could control which type of ants could be made, but the queen had to have eaten one of those types, so conquest of other nests was needed to expand.

Second, apparently once his ants traveled somewhere they would release pheromones which created a sort of map for him that he would be able to remember.

Armed with this new knowledge Josh decided to fully explore the nest and sent his workers out into the tunnels, he had around one hundred workers and one queen, there were no soldiers or any other type of ant.

As the map of the nest became complete, it started to look like one large grapevine coming down from the surface, one long tunnel a quarter centimeter in diameter, with lot of little room branching off of it, some of the rooms had tunnels of their own but were dead ends.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

The long tunnel ended twenty inches down and took a sharp turn which led to where the queen was, many other littles tunnels branched out from the throne room as well.

Josh decided the map was good enough and sent half the workers to the surface to look for food, the other half he sent to fill in the main tunnel, and enlarge one of the other tunnels leading to him.

The nest was, from what the ants had explored while searching for food, in a clearing, of some size, the ants had not ranged far from the nest, and no trees had yet been detected. The old main tunnel had been filled in and Josh began to feel the first of the ants he had sent for food return, he directed them down the new tunnel, and had them feed the queen.

After the queen digested the food, and it started to trickle to Josh a screen popped up with instructions.

Welcome to the Ant creation menu.

Here you can process nutrients into current Ant designs.

For twenty times the cost you may design your own Ant with current parts, which will then be added to the collection of Ants you can make.

For one hundred times the cost you may create your own parts using materials.

Note:Ants you create will be more loyal and easier to control, than Ants from other colonies, or the default Ants.

'huh, so I guess I really need to get more designs, how much does the production of a worker cost?' Thought Josh,  before quickly looking through the menus ,'well might as well make a worker and see'.

Josh opened the Ant creation menu, and selected the Produce option, The queen shivered, and its entire body began to undulate toward its back, like it was pushing something out. A sound like a washing machine began to sound, two minutes passed before a small black vaguely ant shaped blob appeared.

Please select which ant you want to create

Note: there are currently ten units of low quality material.

Options

Worker

'Well that's interesting, but how will I ever choose!' Josh selected the Worker, the black ant blob suddenly glowed before shifting into one of the many workers running around, Josh could feel this new Ant as well, it seemed slightly stronger than the others and moved easier.

Current designs

Ant worker (takes five units or material)

A half centimeter long and a quarter centimeter wide.

Brown coloration, has strong shovel claws in front, and wider jaws.

Ant can be used for digging, building, and harvesting and other.

'Well I have enough for one more Worker, eh might as well' Josh selected the Produce option and looked on from an Ant as the queen did its thing, then selected Worker again.

'I need more Ants and I need to find soldier Ants, and for all that I need food so...'

"Fly, my minions Fly, or walk, but Go!" Josh shouted and the minions,ahem, Ants scurried out of the throne room to the surface for food.

Several hours later, and some unfortunate accidents involving his Ants and the not so friendly neighbors, Josh had amassed a little under a hundred units of material, and as the queen got to work making more Ant Workers,

Josh fell asleep.

Josh woke up back in the swirling white room, and groaned. The GR stepped out of nowhere and smiled while saying

"come on it can't be that bad, right?"

"Yes, yes it can" deadpanned Josh,

the GR's smile faltered before he shrugged and summoned two chairs with a snap of his fingers, and gestured for them to sit down. Josh sighed and sat, sinking down several inches in the red plush cushions, then made a get on with it gesture.

The GR looked and said

" I just wanted to congratulate you on your progress, no need to be so touchy, you know most people don't handle, reincarnation well, and here you are king of your tiny little ant kingdom already"

"Blame my reading habits, with all the fictions on reincarnation it's like it happens daily, and with the number of truck deaths it might."

"Hah, hah" the GR laughed weakly, before turning serious and saying

"Anyways, because you advanced so fast you get a prize! One Ant design, or part, but they can only be the most basic designs"

"I want a Soldier Ant"

"What! That's no fair, you were supposed to spend hours debating with yourself before finding some loophole into OP hood."

"Nope, I want a Soldier Ant"

After Josh's decision, the GR sighed and slumped over and sadly snapped his fingers.

"There's your Soldier Ant" then the God of Reincarnation pouted and disappeared.

"Finally, now how do I get back?"

Josh started to walk around the small swirling space looking at the walls, then

"no, oh nooo!" Was all Josh could get out before he was compacted and popped back.