Although he didn’t think much of it when it happened, the mental screech of emotions from Ellise was far different to all his subsequent boss’s messages. Although they could send basic messages, She could send practically anything she wanted by now, Lucifer thought that Ellise just had more practice because she was around longer, however, Kuro’s messages haven't improved in quality since her creation.

So the problem of a telepathic creature was solved, he would just copy her which was far cheaper than and easier than making something from scratch. Although she was still a powerful boss, so the idea of her being cheap was doubtful, even if it was essentially copy-pasting. Still, Lucifer had somewhere to start.

He left the lab and soon entered Ellis’s chamber, she greeted him with a happy screech and a flood of images. They didn’t help much but he assumed they meant she was happy because they were images of things that ants liked. There was a picture of his core mixed in a few times too.

Lucifer smiled and casually said, “do you want to help me more”

He received another half screech before Ellise caught herself and answered with language instead, “I would be happy to master”. Her mouth wasn't suited for magic, but she didn’t seem to have a problem sending the words directly to him. He initially thought she did this through the link, but it was far clearer when he was in a humanoid body and closer. Both of which wouldn’t change if it was through the link.

He quickly started, after scanning her body with his dungeon sense he began creating a copy of her. The lack of a soul was quickly fixed with a sacrificial ant which happily took over the new body.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Thus a new ant queen was born, and it took entirely too much mana. But he wasn’t done, the new queen's telepathic abilities weren't good enough, so after some experimenting, he found the organ responsible for the ability. He pumped life energy and mana into the organ and its size rapidly increased.

Only after running low on mana did he stop. The result was a massive round body that was 90% brain, its head was several meters round and occasionally pulsated making the air in the room twist and curl. Lucifer thought that was interesting and threw a rock into the twisted air, the rock offered no resistance and twisted along with the air as it passed through. Then it disintegrated when it left the affected area.

‘I have to give myself telekinetic abilities at some point’ Lucifer thought. It seemed as if it wasn’t twisting the air but reality itself, or at least space which was an interesting ability. This gave him other ideas. He can use his body freely in the presence of others, unlike his dungeon powers which are restricted by life. So if he gave his body a natural affinity for magic then his body could use it without impairment. Perhaps he should ask Ahri how she casts magic at some point.

Lucifer began testing with the creature, it could enter the minds of various animals and one unlucky human who became a brain-dead vegetable. It needed practice to be more subtle. He created several more of the mysterious organ and implanted it into various animals. Which was easier when you could literally pump life into a creature as you cut it open. Or just create the creature around the organ and connected everything up.

It took some time, but he ended up with several cheap creatures he could copy. Breeding experiments were underway to see if they retained the modifications through generations, but he was hopeful because the ants with acid glands were now being born instead of created by him.

So far there was a crow, its head was slightly larger than normal, but you wouldn’t notice unless you closely examined it. The squirrel-like creature had the same fault, along with the cat, wolf, fly, and owl. Although that's just what Lucifer called them because of their similarities to Earths counterparts. For example, his owl was larger and had far larger talons, but it still had most of the features of a normal owl. Almost silent flight, keen night vision, good locational hearing etc.

Now he just had to make copies for the new creature to practice connecting to. A week later he named the new boss “hive mind” because it was easy to remember, which had now become proficient in connecting to its little spies. Although it couldn’t take in information from all the creatures in its control, it could quickly switch between them. So he sent all his little spies out into the city, and made sure to have them watch a few specific people.