It didn’t take long for me to locate another ant, and I approached it with the eager anticipation of a baby dragon who was 98% of the way to reaching level 5. I recalled a T-shirt that I had once seen worn by a student in an exam that I had proctored, something to the effect of, “I’m close to leveling up, and you look like just enough exp.” At the time, the message had struck me as immature, and unnecessarily aggressive, but I was a juvenile dragon who had yet to fully mature, and it seemed that aggression was entirely warranted on my part: each level I gained made it less likely that I would end up as prey, and made me more effective as a predator. There was something within me that finally understood that T-shirt’s message on a truly visceral level.

And, as soon as I felt that impulse, I stopped to interrogate what exactly I had felt. I wasn’t hung up on the ethics of killing ants for exp — no, it was a question of effectiveness. If I really wanted to level up, why bother killing just this one ant? I had just been ready to unleash my [poison breath] with the rationalization that I was collecting experimental data, but the truth was, at this moment, what I really wanted most was exp. I had let my proximity to a crucial exp threshold bias me in this direction. I was being greedy.

Well, if I was going to be greedy, why settle for half measures? I leapt off the ant, and it scurried away, heading toward what I hoped was its home.

As I followed the ant, I felt a growing sense of tension in my belly, the feeling that was halfway between giddy anticipation and anxiety, the feeling I got whenever I wasn’t sure quite what was coming next but I was pretty certain that it was going to be good. It was not lost on me that I had born into the body of a dragon after telling a certain goddess that I preferred the allure of power over knowledge. Here, I was making the same decision: fine-grained experimentation and data collection could wait for another day; right now, I just wanted to pursue exp to make myself more powerful.

Even if I did value knowledge — and I did — this still felt like the right move. More levels meant a higher stamina cap, and stamina was a resource that I could use for a variety of purposes on future days, whether that meant experimenting or just leaving myself more capable of defending myself via breath attacks or sprinting. Besides, fumigating an entire ant nest with my [poison breath] would be its own sort of data collection, and there was value to gaining a large sample, even if I couldn’t precisely observe everything that was going on, right?

I was so wrapped up in anticipation that I almost missed the moment when the ant slipped out of sight in an area where the ground was porous and craggy. It was some distance away from the previous ant nest I had discovered, but the terrain was similar. I flattened myself against the ground, closed my eyes, and allowed my nose to do the work, trying to catch a whiff of the ant’s odor. I slowly pivoted in place, following my nose, until I found an opening. I opened my mouth and exhaled [poison breath].

As soon as my [poison breath] was complete, I breathed out [noxious breath]. Both skills had the same ultimate effect — damage over time — but they did so via different mechanisms: one was a AoE damage-over-time ability, the other inflicted a status ability. Presumably, that meant that the effects could stack.

I continued to blow into the hole after completing my breath attack. Once again, it was time to bask in the glow of notifications:

[Armored ant defeated! Level up! You are now level 5!] [Armored ant defeated! Earned 6% experience toward next level.] [Armored ant defeated! Earned 6% experience toward next level.] [Fire ant defeated! Earned 4% experience toward next level.] [Fire ant defeated! Earned 4% experience toward next level.] [Armored ant defeated! Earned 6% experience toward next level.] ...

More notifications scrolled by faster than I could parse all of them, but buried in the rapid scroll of blinking boxes, I noticed that one of the notifications seemed to be a slightly different shade from the rest. Fire ant? That was new. So, apparently armored ants weren’t the only ant variety here.

The notifications continued to flash by, until my exp bar finally settled.

[Level: 5] [Progress toward next level: 82%] [2 unspent skill points]

All told, there had been four fire ants in the mix.

I felt excited. Once again, I had chosen the pursuit of power, and I had been rewarded, not just with improved stats and new skill points to distribute, but with a new tidbit of knowledge: armored ants weren't the only ants to call this valley home. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with my newfound knowledge of these "fire ants" — which, as far as I could tell, I had never actually directly encountered — but it seemed like a good thing to know. One less thing to surprise me. It was a bit curious that I had managed to kill several fire ants while fumigating an “armored ant” nest — my understanding of ant species back on earth is that different ant species didn’t usually coexist peacefully. Inter-species cooperation wasn’t unheard of, as anyone who had a basic understanding of pollination and other forms of mutualism was probably aware, but the more similar two species were, the more likely it seemed that they would be in competition over the same resources.

But it was probably a mistake to model these ants as earthbound species. After all, I was a dragon with the ability to grow toward learning poison, cold, or fire-breathing abilities. Perhaps “armored ants“ weren’t actually born as such — maybe they were all simply born “ants,” and like, me, had chosen to spec in one direction or another over the course of their life, with armor simply being the most useful and therefore most popular route. That chitinous armored exoskeleton certainly seemed effective at repelling my claws and teeth. Maybe that was why I had never actually seen a fire ant: they all hid underground, since their relative lack of armor left them more vulnerable to creatures like me.

Whatever the case, I was pretty pleased at what I had just gained, both in terms of knowledge and exp. I had spent 3 SP to get most of the way to level 6, and I still had [3/12 SP] left.

I looked at the entrance to the ant colony I had just snuffed out and thought to myself: I could do it again. Not that I’d want to attack the exact same ant nest. But I could find another, like the one I had attacked earlier. I had just been rewarded for being bold. Why stop now?

Then, another thought struck me. I had just discovered the existence of the heretofore unknown “fire ant” after using [poison breath] for the first time. Was that a case of cause and effect? Had my [poison breath] succeeded in doing what my [noxious breath] had failed to do to the previous ant colony? Or was it simply a case of this colony having fire ants while the previous one had none? There was at least one way to find out: I could go back to the previous ant colony and try to finish the job.

I headed in that direction, pondering the idea as I walked. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. If ant colonies were going to be my main source of exp, it made sense to farm them at every available opportunity, while also trying to learn as much about them as I could. Returning to the first ant colony I had fumigated stood to teach me several things about ant biology: for one thing, I would find out whether the underground lair would still be home to ants. For another, I might potentially discover more about fire ants, or even discover a different third ant species, and if my [poison breath] succeeded in uncovering something that my [noxious breath] had failed to eradicate before, that too would be useful information.

I was able to locate the original ant colony entrance without too much difficulty, and as I positioned myself in front of the entrance, I took stock of my surroundings. There was one thing that gave me pause: using another round of [poison breath] and [noxious breath], the same one-two punch that I had used just minutes ago, would completely drain my remaining SP down to zero. Zero stamina meant no way to sprint away from predators, and no breath attacks to use defensively against them. It would be very, very bad if I got ambushed while fumigating the ant colony — or after fumigating it, for that matter.

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That said, it was late in the day. I was perfectly fine with retreating back to the safety of the plateau after this last experiment and spending the rest of the day there until sunset (and a good night's sleep) allowed me to recover my SP. I carefully scanned the area around me, then checked to make sure I had a clean route back to the plateau. While the hyenas had previously caught me off guard, every time they had ambushed me, it had been by carefully planning a coordinated attack during a window of time when I was distracted. No hyenas were close enough to organize that kind of strike in the amount of time that it would take for me to unleash my breath attack and run away.

As much as going down to 0 SP felt risky, it felt like I was taking every reasonable precaution I could. Going for yet another fumigation attempt on the same ant colony that I had attacked only hours ago seemed greedy, but on several occasions today, I had elected to take the greedy option, and been rewarded each time. Fortune, it seemed, favored the bold. This is what it means to live a life in pursuit of power, I thought to myself.

If I really was going to put everything into another ant colony assault, there seemed to be little point in leaving anything on the table. I deposited my 2 remaining skill points into [mouth]. It was an investment that would quickly pay off, as I figured better breath attacks meant better long-term exp gains. Why bother hoarding skill points when you could spend them to get more skill points?

Mouth: Level 7

With that done, and no predators anywhere in sight, exhaled my [poison breath], which I followed immediately by a wave of [noxious breath]. My stamina bar flashed red as it showed [0 SP]. As I finished breathing out the last of my [noxious breath], the first of the notifications began to roll in.

[Armored ant defeated! Earned 6% experience toward next level.] [Fire ant defeated! Earned 4% experience toward next level.] [Fire ant defeated! Earned 4% experience toward next level.] [Armored ant defeated! Level up! You are now level 6!] [Fire ant defeated! Earned 3% experience toward next level.] [Fire ant defeated! Earned 3% experience toward next level.] ...

The notifications continued. I watched them flash by as my tally of fire ant kills increased, until I was solidly 36% of the way to level 7. With that, the notifications stopped.

I spent a brief moment in stunned silence before walking back to the plateau. It seemed like a reasonable hypothesis that the fire ants had been there all along, and it seemed as though my [poison breath] had succeeded in cleaning up what my [noxious breath] had failed to finish off earlier in the day.

I glanced back in the direction of the second ant colony, the one where I had first discovered the existence of fire ants. It was probably simply smaller than this one, which is why I had killed fewer ants of both the armored and fire variety. That, or maybe the composition of the tunnels was just less susceptible to my breath attacks.

As I walked back to the plateau, I could feel my body brimming with enthusiasm. It felt like I had just gotten away with something I wasn’t supposed to. As I climbed back up the plateau, I mapped out the next day in my head. The one thing I still had to keep in mind was my hunger meter: all of the exp in the world would do me no good if I starved to death. But starvation seemed entirely outside the realm of possibility — I could always farm ants above the surface as a contingency food source, and with each level I gained my daily allotment of SP would grow, giving me ever more surplus exp to spend on power-leveling.

I pulled myself onto the surface of the plateau, then turned around and gazed over the edge, looking down at the valley below, like a child tyrant looking down on his domain. I felt a tickle in my throat, and I let out a squawk that felt like the dragon equivalent of a laugh. It was, as much as anything, a laugh of relief. After three days of fighting for my survival against deadly predators, it now felt like I was the powerful one. I had discovered my ecological niche, and now, it seemed, I was playing on easy mode. For the first time, I felt as though I were beginning to taste the "life of power" I had been promised before my reincarnation.

Still, I was all too aware that pride could come before a fall. With nothing to do with the rest of the day but sit overlooking the valley atop my plateau — my throne — and contemplate my next moves, I turned over contingency options in my head. It wouldn't do to become too reckless. From now on, I would keep some SP in reserve. Now that I had a clear path forward, I could afford to take it slow and steady. Still, even though going down to 0 SP had been a slightly risky move, I didn’t regret it. There was something about the memory of that flood of notifications that filled me with a sense of glee. I was a predator, and the ants were entirely at my mercy. Fumigating their colonies was like shooting fish in a barrel. It was a comically one-sided conflict. They had absolutely no way to fight back. The fire ants probably hid underground, thinking it was a place to hide from predators like me, but those enclosed tunnels ended up being the cause of their demise.

It almost felt cruel, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. If I, as a human, was willing to kill hundreds of ants simply for the offense of being kitchen pests, then surely now, as a dragon, I should be willing to kill dozens of ants in the name of my own survival. It was hardly sporting, but I was ready to take every unfair advantage that this world offered me. If that meant making short work of insects that had no way to defend themselves and no way to fight back, so be it.

I spent the next several hours in quiet contemplation, teetering on the edge of elation, relief, satisfaction, and eager anticipation for the next day that lay ahead.

As the sun set slowly in the west, I felt my nerves calm. I crawled back to the center of the plateau, set my head down, closed my eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

———

The next morning, I was awakened by a sharp pain on my tail.

[From sleeping outside, your health has been restored up to 80% of its maximum.] [From sleeping outside, your stamina has been fully restored.] [You are hungry!] [Satiety: 21%] [2 unspent skill points remaining]

I blinked past the daily wake-up notifications, which were practically noise to me at this point, and focused on several bright red flashing notifications.

[You are Impaired - Reduced perception and dexterity] [You are Enfeebled - Reduced mobility and strength]

I once again felt the stinging bite on my tail. Then, I felt it on my foreclaw, and my back, and on my side — all around me, I felt the creepy, crawling sensation, interrupted a fraction of a second later by a biting, stinging sensation on a different part of my body. I lifted my tail and slammed it against the rock surface of the plateau and spun around. And as I spun, I saw them. Rows of red ants, each maybe half the size of my own head. Fire ants. They were all around me. They were on me. I spun around again, desperately trying to shake them off. Several of them were knocked aside, but I could still feel several of them on my body. I felt another bite, and with it, another bit of my HP was gone.

[HP: 15/27]

15 and dropping rapidly. Get them off me. In a moment of panic, I opened my mouth and let [poison breath] spill forth. I felt the ants attached to me skitter away, and the ants that surrounded me started to back up.

Having freed myself of the creeping crawling sensation of insects on my body, I felt my panic subsiding, but only slightly. The [poison breath] had limited duration. It was only a matter of time before the cloud dissipated, and while I had [12/14 SP] remaining, those stamina points were a limited resource against the rows of fire ants that surrounded me. Apparently, I had been wrong to think that my plateau was an impregnable pillar of safety.

So much for shooting fish in a barrel. Now, how to dig myself out of this one?

Class: Baby Dragon Level: 6 Progress toward next level: 36% HP: 15/27 SP: 12/14 Satiety: 21% Strength: 8 Dexterity: 7  Constitution: 6 Perception: 7 Will: 5 Charisma: 4 Claws: level 1 Scales: level 1 Mouth: level 7 Wings: level 0 Traits: Carnivore, Kin sensitive, Carrion feeder Abilities: Sprinting, Noxious Breath, Poison Breath 2 unspent skill points available