Amelia was heaving the worst couple of weeks of her life.

Everyone at home was avoiding her grandfather, even she could feel he was in a bad mood.

She almost did not want to admit it, but she was glad he left her alone after the day the bloodstained scout showed up. From that moment on he did not check up on her training and she finally felt like she had some breathing room.

Maybe grandfather found out that she skipped training after all? After all, all the messenger doves were gone, and she could not contact her friends anymore.

Her brother did not talk to her anymore, as he had to prepare for his class unlock and is always tailing grandpa now that he did.

Then those boring classes went over all the basic's again. As if anyone who goes to class did not know about them. This time she almost joined David when he snuck away to play.

This night she barely slept from the loud arguments between the miller and her grandfather

And tomorrow she will have to explain how she was afraid of a burning ant. Amelia Phoenix, spooked by a burning ant. She was not looking forward to that conversation.

Or maybe she was, after all, she hoped she would be able to find a way out of this dungeon.

Trying to look on the bright side she reminderd herself that at least she got reunited with quite a few of her classmates.

One of them is even an [Apprentice ranger] and told her that spooking the (Deer) is the best way to find a path out of here.

Expecting to see that deer, she instead got greeted by the sight of more ants.

Before joining the fight she took a quick look in the other tunnel.

It seems like even the (Deer) was incapable of finding anything but dead ends in this maze.

Putting the deer out of mind, she started to focus on the fight.

While Ben was able to lock swords with the ant, only the help of his classmates kept him in the fight.

With that stalemate, every bolt of flame from her changed the war of attrition in their favour.

With the sound of a short, but heavy hit, the yellow flames stopped dancing in her hand.

Still stuck on a (Stag)'s antlers, she bumped into Ben, pushing him into the ant's mantibles.

Her clasmates running away in a chaotic retreat, chased by a (Stag), was the last thing she saw.

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I could hear the whisper's of the system tell me that these halls were missing something.

I had mana in my domain, but I could farm more!

That's what the new ants, the (Attini) were for.

Even if his new ants were strange, they had power looking jaws and could lift many times their own weight. But with a head a big as the rest of their body, they seemed to have trouble keeping their balance.

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These acted just like the Leaf cutter ants, or (Attini) as Bert called them in his rant about farming.

Only that they were many times bigger as dungeon monster's.

The original layout of the lower parts of the dungeon made place for something else.

Their industrious efforts of the ants turning the straight tunnels in an almost alien beauty of chambers with white fungi.

At first the fungi farm had little success, more of the fungi ended in disappointment then in success.

At least now that I took personal control of the expantion of the farms my success rate improved.

The true breakthrough in my expantion efforts happended when I planted one near a dead body.

With blue glowing blue eyes me and (Attini) looked at the remaining corpses as I connected the dots. Now they seemed hellbent on feeding the fungi anything they could grab. After throwing their catch at the foot of the fungi, it was visibly drawing it's required energy straight out of the corpse.

Seeing my fungus growth stall after running out classmates I set my sights on the (Stag).

The funny thing was that it not only caused new growth, fully decorating a room with the white fungus. It's return every few hours seemed seemed to cause the funniest chases ever.

It's not just my (Stag) that's coming back to me. The army of ants also seems to endlessly respawn.

It's the only reason I am able to hold of these guards.

I would never be able to hold them off if I had to resummon them.

It does cost more then only a couple of hours of timeout though.

My ant's lost their beautiful red luster, and went back to a baby white hue.

But worst of all was when that cursing old man came in and burned all of my beautiful fungi.

The system was screaming at me that fire isn't good for my fungi.

At least he got quiet and left me in peace after he found Amelia's corpse under one of my biggest fungi trees.

With the guards unable to aproach due to the raging fire, and with Amelia's brother to busy helping the old man back back to the village, I could go back to farming.

Using these past few weeks everything but the occasional (Deer) hunt was quiet farm work.

As long as I did not come to close to the village's dungeon entrance I could farm to my heart's content. At least I had a few good weeks.

Not the grandfather, but Amelia's brother is now the one setting eveything on fire.

With 4 people just as old and strong as her grandfather, he walks straight to my core.

Everthing is on fire, but the smoke seems to actively avoid the interlopers.

Collapsed tunnels revert to their original form, opening the shortest way to my core.

If a dead burning ants blocks the passage, the fire gets doused in water.

If a living one bloks it, it gets split in 2 by the armorded one.

Just like my core.

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A young boy is left standing motionlessly in the smoke.

As the smoke disperses three frantic old women with almost goblinoid features came into full view.

Their worried looks are in stark contrast to the blank look on the boy's own face.

One sister was trying to stop the twisting of a spinning wheel.

Another found the broken string and pulled it back towards the wheel.

The last sister cut out a ragged looking piece of that string.

Under the careful watch of the three sisters the slow twists of the wheel were once again connected and adding now pieces to the string.

None of them were giggeling this time, visibly relieved when the boy started breathing again.