Kai created a miniature portal to the Akok Adventure Society with a report on the nest and notified them of the finder, as verified by my Adventure Society ID. We then set up camp for the night, and action will start in the morning.

Tony certainly liked his luxuries. He didn’t call it camping. He called it Glamping. He tried to convince me it was a widely used term, but he obviously made it up. Glamorous Camping, or some such nonsense. Poor Greg had to cart all this stuff around. He seriously had everything for a three-course candle-lit dinner ready for Kit. I seriously felt like I was intruding.

I didn’t reveal the Garden to them or any of my abilities. I was quite pleased I would be here for the destruction of the ant nest. I was planning to stay back, but Kai could follow the teams and munch on the plentiful carcases. I figured there was a great chance of him getting the liquid fire ability.

At the appropriate time, Kit opened a portal to Akok, and a silver-ranked portal specialist in Adventure Society uniform stepped through and opened a second portal. Then, the two teams started coming through.

A large Leonid seemed to be in charge of both teams. There were twelve in total.

“Hello, I am Ndifor,” the large Leonid greeted me.

“Theo,” I said.

He grinned a toothy grin, “I hear you were out here by yourself levelling?” I just nodded. “Well done, lad. We need more like you taking risks and getting stronger. You will obviously join us, right? Got to finish what you start.”

It didn’t seem like I had a choice. I nodded, switched my greaves and bracers to the chitin ones, and grabbed my chitin shield.

“OK, you know the plan,” Ndifor said to everyone. “One Earth mage here and the other opposite. Concentrate on not letting any escape and smother the fires. One Healer with each earth mage so you all know where to go if you have to. The rest of you spread out. We wake the nest in five minutes.”

I looked at Tony, “No water mage?”

“No. Water isn’t much good against these ants. The fires just float and spread. Best to harden the earth and bury it.”

I took a position not far from the nearest Healer. I was the only bronze-rank person there. Eight Kai’s were at my feet and were getting some strange looks, but nobody objected. My leg was sore this morning but much better. One of the healers gave it a helping hand, and now it only looks bad with no fur. They also sold me a couple of bronze-rank healing potions and mana regeneration Potions, for which I was grateful.

Right on time, the earth mages woke up the nest by shaking, collapsing, and compacting as many tunnels underground as possible. The ants can dig, but this will slow them down and make it more manageable for us and less likely for ants to escape.

I had a metal mage on my right. He has a cloud of razor blades swirling around him. The silver ranker on my left had a hammer and thick boots. Before we set off, she was doing a little dance, and I got the feeling she would stomp as many ants as she could. Even silver rankers would not be doing one-hit kills, well maybe on the worker ants if they were powerful enough.

The earth shook, and we moved out onto the burned area as ants started swarming out of the ground. My Hunters Tether was my best weapon against this swarm, and if the crystal rod didn’t explode fast enough, I tossed some liquid fire on it from my Pack, and it soon caught alight and exploded.

The razorblade dude was great at dismembering the ants, but it took him a bit to kill them. Kai swarmed after him and finished off the helpless ants. Hammer Girl was literally stomping ants to death and occasionally using her hammer on the Soldier ants. When she saw me looking at her, she grinned and said, “Foot Essence!”

The smoke from the fire soon blocked out everything else from my sight and the battle was reduced to the three of us and ant after ant after ant. I had to watch my mana levels and pace the tethers. I had trouble with the soldier ants, and the Razor guy and Hammer girl helped with those.

My shield was literally dripping fire, and my greaves were invaluable. I caught a couple of bad sprays, but the healer must have been watching out for me, and smoothing heals were not far behind, allowing me to keep going. I am not sure how much fur I am going to have after this. The value of a good healer was obvious.

My shield was worse for wear despite the chitin, and my axe had melted parts of the blade. The axe was only iron-rank and would have been useless by now, except for the fact that I kept resharpening it and stacked it with as many Durable Edge instances as I could.

Stolen novel; please report.

After about forty minutes, the ground erupted in front of us, and a Queen emerged with multiple soldier ants. They made straight for me, and I cast my Tether as fast as I could while chugging a mana potion. The tether rods were exploding as soon as I cast them, and the tethers were not slowing the ants. They were damaging the ants, though and Razor and Stomper closed in on either side of me to help.

Razor’s blade didn’t have the same effect on the queen and only took off the leg where my tether had cracked the chitin. He conjured a big two-handed sword, but Stomper moved in with her hammer, which was much more effective. Between the two of them, the Queen went down without too much trouble.

That wasn’t the end, though. Ants kept coming and coming. Kai looked to be handling things fine, staying out of the fire and attacking from the rear. Ardisia even got in on the fight several times. When an ant got past me, she would whip out her vines and entangle them for Kai or me to finish. She also got a few small burns, but her bronze-rank vines are a lot tougher than the iron-rank ones.

Time started blurring, and endurance was the name of the game. This was a much larger nest than I realised. It must be as deep as it was wide.

Eventually, the ants were reduced to a trickle, and we changed to clean-up mode. The earth mages were walking around the nest, using their senses to find more. Then they started to move the earth in key places, and I watched as the nearest one as she brought an essence to the surface. “Fire,” she said as she tossed it to Ndifor. There were several cheers, and I realised that this had now turned into a treasure hunt.

They turned up an Ant Essence, and an awakening stone that we were pretty sure was the liquid fire. There was a lot of cheering about the epic rarity and the fact that it would bring in more than the fire essence. There was also a chitin awakening stone, and then came the real prize. They uncovered the epic Potent Essence. There would be celebrations tonight. It was a massive nest.

I cleaned myself up and saw several Leonids applying a cream; their fur was growing back as I watched. “Hair Growth cream,” the Stomper girl explained as I watched her apply some. It is in big demand here; no Leonid likes to have patches. I have a spare bottle if you want to buy it. This wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.”

I bought the bottle from her, and I suspect it was at least double the price I could get it in the city, but it was worth it. I am definitely going to learn to make some. The label said, “Jory’s Hair Cream.”

“Whose Jory?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” was the reply, “Probably a bald alchemist. The stuff is imported from down south and is still cheaper than the local brew. It is just as good.”

I even used it on Kai to cover some bald patches. One bottle was not enough for me, but it was a start, and I felt better anyway. Razor dude gave me the remainder of his bottle. Tony, Kit and the Celestine Healer were the only non-Leonids here. It was comforting to be around my own kind. I was just on edge waiting for questions, so I couldn’t relax.

After a rest, Ndifor organised the teams, and they went to sweep the area. I stayed with Kit and Tony and meditated to consolidate my gains.

Kai, Hunter Tether and Resistant Fur all went up a level. The early levels are always the easiest. My fur heat resistance went up to small, but the fire resistance went all the way to moderate. I wouldn’t have been able to keep fighting if I hadn’t had a competent healer looking after me.

As for Kai, three of them had permanent changes, but only one was Liquid Fire. The other two had fire-resistant Chitin. The chitin was hard, like from a soldier ant, and there were additional bonuses to resist a lot of fire. That was great. Five Kai’s now had specialisations, and the specialisation that made them harder to kill was my preferred specialisation. I was also pleased to have a source of liquid fire to experiment with.

There was an abundance of magic to reap. I had the option of making larger stuff, like swords and spears. I didn’t think the Chitin would make a good sword or spear, but I did make a chitin shield. My few experiments with combining liquid fire and Resin enabled my Reaping Magic to offer me Sticky Fire, or that is what I called it. The resin sticks and then burns.

I got some chitin shears for cutting and trimming. They will be better than the knives at cutting the Cutting Webs. I picked up some meat and sheets of chitin to sell. I got a second fire knife. This one was with a serrated edge. I also made some spearheads.

I collect a whole barrel of liquid fire. The magic just kept coming.

Then something happened I was not expecting. I had the option to create Ant Eggs from the magic. If I did get them, would they hatch ants? Could they be someone's bond? This was new. When I felt the skill, and it said a wider range of items, I didn’t think ambrosia creatures were part of it. I got them because why not? If nothing else, Kai will enjoy eating them, but I suspect they will be very valuable. There were three types of eggs, and I got one Queen egg, two soldier eggs and two worker eggs. The queen egg took more magic than all the others combined.

The Magic then started to dissipate. I am very glad my Hunters Pack expanded when I hit Bronze, or I would have to borrow Greg.

My axe was a write-off, as was the shield I had used and my belts and pants. Fortunately, I had spare pants.

Being around Leonids was giving me memories of home. It also reminded me I am short and skinny, the runt of the litter if you will. That was not a good place to be in a culture that venerates power and the strong.

This part was not like home. At home, we had a place for everyone, but here, the strong rule. I really wanted to go home, but I had no home. I wanted to relax in the cool calm of one of Death's Temples, but there were no temples here.

I was dreading the teams coming back because then the questions would start. Even if I claim being kidnapped, what proof do I have? A broken Suppression collar? I need to send messages to Vitesse and to Nia at Stillwater.

Then I heard the first teams coming back.