Chapter 55: Chapter 55

For the next few hours or so Kai worked together with Anna, trying to figure out how the bag of holding worked. Admittedly, she wasn’t of much help and couldn’t see most of the things her daughter saw, let alone make sense of them so she became moral support instead.

The work also hammered home again that, as exciting as the prospect of magic was, Kai was not really talented in manipulating mana and most of her skill originated from her daughters, copied through the hive connections. In addition to that she didn’t even get the support of the system, which made magic even more difficult.

In a way it was like not understanding math and thus having to memorize everything to solve a problem. If it was necessary to combine that knowledge to solve the math problem, to connect several methods together, then the person would be royally screwed because chances are they didn’t memorize how to solve this beforehand.

So, not being of much help, Kai opted to go through the things that Ember managed to get out of Sveck instead. Her daughter had managed to bug the guy for a good two hours before he finally requested to get a break and was led to his room.

Of course there was a good amount of knowledge that Kai wasn’t interested in such as the current fashion in the kingdom, not that Sveck knew much about that, but there were also some juicy bits that were new.

After having been asked about the best materials for armor or just generally more resistant clothing for example, their visitor had told Ember quite a lot of information that was unknown to them as he had to explain a few other things too.

Apparently mana permeates nearly everything in this universe called Lotusrive, which was definitely not where Kai had lived as human. It was possible to create mana free areas with a lot of effort, but they didn’t have more use than a few scientific experiments and were quite costly in maintenance cost.

Anyway, mana permeated everything, but the natural concentration of mana wasn’t the same everywhere. There were a few natural phenomena that could cause this, like high level dungeons, certain ores and plants or volcanos. It was there that people went to acquire not only more strength but also the materials for better equipment since the hides of beasts did not lose all of their mana when the animal died, remaining more durable than those of beasts from lower level regions. The same thing went for ores, plants and pretty much everything too.

To put it simple, the higher the mana density the better no matter what you were searching for.

For Kai this simply meant that the dungeon was probably more than just a goldmine, at least if it worked like she hoped it would, an area with floors guarded by monsters and the deeper you went the stronger they became, which meant they also held more mana inside of them. The dungeon was by all means an endless source of riches and giving it up would be the most stupid thing that she could do.

The second thing that Sveck told Ember was that the more skilled a craftsman was and the more difficult the piece they were working on, the more their work would be imbued and strengthened with their intent. Because of that it was important for skilled crafters to have a vivid image of what they wanted, deadly sharpness for example, or the product would get a random effect that could very well be negative.

What neither Kai nor Ember understood was what Sveck exactly meant by that. It was clear that wanting some special effect for the thing you crafted had a chance that this effect actually appeared if you were good enough, but why was the human speaking of intent as if it was something tangible?

It was something that greatly bothered her for some reason and she pondered about it for the rest of the night. There was just something off about it.

When the moths finally gave up for the night and after Sveck had slept a bit, Kai led him to the edge of the hive’s clearing and said her goodbyes, subtly urging him to spread good information about them. 

Then the human left, secretly shadowed by Artemis and a few drones until he was good distance away. Leaving the drones behind as support for the scouting efforts the huntress returned to the hive.

There Kai waited together with Anna, Tiffany, Ember, Erika and a few more of her daughters. By now there were far too many of them to hold any kind of meeting where all of them could participate without it taking extremely long. 

That did not mean that all the others would be exempt from the decision making, it was just that Kai had prioritized those that seemed to tend towards leadership or warfare here. The others would get the information passively through the hive connection, most likely through their sleep, and could then voice their opinions on the matter. 

That might lead to a change of action and that was okay. For Kai it was just important that they did something and didn’t endlessly discuss until it was too late, one of the greatest problems of democracy in her opinion.

With Artemis back home, Kai voiced her concerns and possible plans for the future to the others, which led to them calming her down collectively. In her daughters opinions they had enough time to prepare for armed conflict and not only claim the dungeon, but also farm it.

Thanks to the daily settlement quest Brian had been able to somewhat measure the time on this planet. The 24 hours the system used were around the same measurement of time that had existed on earth and with that the hive brain had narrowed down the time of a day on this planet to close to 36 hours, a good 12 hours longer than on Kai’s previous home planet.

That said, while they had more time per day, an Antanoid needed about 10 hours of sleep every day, which was about as long as the sun disappeared behind the horizon to the southwest. The drones required sleep too, though they generally had smaller wake and rest periods than Kai’s daughters and slept multiple times a day.

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The second point regarding their time was that the 1 month of graze Kai had set was the absolute minimum and they would likely have more time than that. She had entirely discarded the thought of them having to scout the area and especially the hive too or they would send their men against largely unknown opponents, if it even came to blows in the first place.

Considering that Kai had played more than enough strategy games in her past, this was not only embarrassing for her, but she was also ashamed. She hadn’t been the best, not even above average, but she should have thought of something as simple as this. In her opinion she had simply failed as the queen of the Antanoid here.

A reassuring hand weighed down on her lower shoulder and Anna’s voice sounded out. “It’s okay, mother. Everyone makes a mistake sometimes and I am sure you will do better in the future!”

Kai looked down at her daughter who couldn’t reach her normal shoulders comfortably anymore and who was smiling at her softly. “Are you sure?”

She sniffed a bit. This had hurt her confidence greatly and she was silently doubting if she was fit for this position.

Anna and the others nodded. “Yes mother, I am sure. You have played games in the past, but this is something entirely different, this is reality.”

Artemis crossed her arms and looked at Kai sternly. “Here you don’t only lose a few points or a bit of time, here you lose your life and that of your daughters. The stakes are high, weighing on your mind so you can’t expect to just suddenly be good at this mother.”

Ember cheered for her. “Yeah, you gotta improve mum! And I’m sure you will!”

Tiffany took one of Kai’s hands with a kind smile. “And if you make mistakes, that is what we are here for is it not? To make sure you notice them, to help you improve, but also to support you with everything we have.”

The others at the meeting voiced their own thoughts and Kai could swear her heart was melting. She hugged both Tiffany and Anna with a sniff. The others stood sadly too far away from her. “Thanks. Thank you!”

She was sure normally she would cry, but unsurprisingly that didn’t happen as her body simply lacked the function. 

Kai stood like that for a few seconds, taking deep and controlled breaths until she calmed down again. Letting go of her two daughters and straightening her back, she looked at all of her daughters, entered the hive connection and sent a deep feeling of appreciation and love to everyone. She did not know what she would do without them and they deserved it.

Her daughters all showed the same reaction and smiled brightly at her before they continued the meeting until they had a somewhat good plan for the near future.

To boil things down, while Tiffany and her girls finished the last two fields 30 drones would search for the dungeon and begin to scout out the region as well as keep a lookout for humans. 

When that was done the construction crew would split up, half continuing their work on the hive and the other half traveling to the dungeon to fortify the area. They would be accompanied by 5 of the advanced swarm drones and the rest of their fighting force.

Kai had argued that she wanted to go with them, but her daughters were adamantly against sending her near danger. She would somehow have to convince them that they let her go into the thick of it, because she didn’t want to just sit idly by while her daughters thought for her.

Not interfering with the Xanai was already difficult, but she wouldn’t go out without their permission either. The reason was simple, if she did her daughters wouldn’t be able to fully focus on the fight and look out for her in the middle of combat. If one of them got injured or even killed because of that it would be her fault and she wasn’t sure if she could stomach that. She didn’t want to lose her daughters and the loss would surely devastate her.

This of course was a problem so Kai proposed that she somehow proved herself to her daughters after she became level six, by fighting against some of them in a spar and a few of the moths, to which they grudgingly agreed. If they knew she could handle herself they wouldn’t have to worry about her, though Kai doubted that they would ever not worry if she got into a fight, but it was better than nothing.

With a plan made and a decision done they closed the meeting and dispersed to get to work. It was time for them to grasp their future.

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