Theo had to explain quite a bit about why he couldn’t simply abandon everything else and focus solely on swordsmanship. And by the end of it, Rhys was left speechless.
"You don’t have to tell if you would rather not," Rhys said after a mont, curiosity creeping into his voice. "But I can tell sothing about your body has changed. That ability... Can you tell what exactly it is, young master?"
Theo didn’t know what to say anymore.
’This man has never shown any kind of expression all the ti I have been there, except for one that makes want to send him to sleep...’ Theo thought.
And yet the sa man now stood there with his eyes wide open and his gaze fixed firmly on Theo, waiting for an answer about the ability.
"It’s a spatial affinity, Sir Knight," Theo finally stated. "It helps perceive everything in the space around , and that makes very sensitive to every movent that happens around."
Rhys nodded slowly upon hearing that and thought for a mont.
"I swear on my honor, young master," he said with a serious expression. "If you were to truly hone your swordsmanship with an ability like that, you could beco unstoppable."
The more Rhys spoke, the more Theo felt validated about his own claim: this ability could be a perfect match if paired with his knight training.
_____
A day later, Theo had completed most of his training and returned ho. When he entered his room, he saw the mantis devouring a pile of veggies scattered across the table. Clara stood right beside it, hiding an armful of leafy greens in her hand.
"So you’re balancing its diet, huh? I like it," Theo said as he approached.
"You always feed so really weird stuff, young master," Clara replied. "Soone has to keep it healthy."
Theo watched the mantis eat as if there was no tomorrow. The thought of its lifespan suddenly crossed his mind. His smile faded slightly for a mont, and he stared at it with seriousness.
’I have already started researching the lifespan of most of the ant groups in the colony... but there’s no way for to determine mantis’s lifespan with the sa thod...’
"By the way, young master, where is a crawler?" Clara asked curiously.
"You can’t store it in your beast space, so it should be around sowhere, right?"
Theo snapped out of his thoughts right away and pointed outside.
"While you were gone, I left it near the Whispering Forest and told it to search for an ideal spot for the colony."
His words made Clara look at him with amusent.
"Maybe if it finds a good, safe underground location, I can start transporting the ants there."
Clara just looked at Theo for a mont before shifting her gaze to the mantis.
"So you are really going to send them into the forest, just like during the Gate..." she said. "But there’s no Baron’s aura to protect them this ti, young master."
Theo smiled when she said that, and Clara imdiately realized he already had sothing planned.
"You are forgetting that one territory on the outskirts of the forest," Theo said. "A place that’s practically child’s play."
Clara imdiately understood what he was pointing at, but even then, so unanswered questions lingered in her mind.
"Moss slis..." she said slowly. "But aren’t they the worst kind of enemy for your ants, young master? The slis will absorb the ants the mont they co out." Clara asked with concern.
Theo smiled again. He enjoyed brainstorming, especially when the other party had strong opinions about sothing.
"That is exactly what I am trying to play with right now, Clara. I want the ants to learn to defeat the slis. If they can, they will be able to shift into one of the safest territories in the entire forest and thrive there," Theo spoke.
He paused before continuing.
"That’s what the ant queen wanted. Now, I will try to give it the best place to rule."
The more Theo spoke, the more chills crept down Clara’s spine. She had already seen what the ants did to the crawlers in the Gate.
As the ants expanded, the crawlers’ numbers had dwindled steadily, almost as if the ants were defeating them faster than they could reproduce.
"For now, our short-term goal is to capture two more ant colonies, make the ant queen take over their queen, expand the colony, and then find them the best spot to settle in, which the crawler is already currently working on," Theo explained.
After finishing his sword training, Theo headed to the first ant colony along with his own.
When they reached there, Theo quickly noticed that the species of the ants there were all the sa as the ones he had in the past.
They were the Shardjaw worker ants.
And surprisingly, the mont the small glass container’s door opened, ants imdiately sward out of it with glowing antennae.
Once Theo’s ants clashed with the newer ant, the difference in size beca obvious. It was as if his ants were at least 50x larger than the ones they were fighting.
The mont one of the smaller ants ca into contact with them, Theo watched them getting chopped cleanly in half and tossed to the side.
Seeing this, Theo ordered the ant queen not to kill the ants they were encountering, which made it respond back with just one word.
It was a bold and simple NO.
According to it, every ant except the enemy ant queen needed to die before they could start the process of taking over, which didn’t feel like it made sense for Theo, but the ants clearly followed their own instincts.
The ants of the defending colony were in such a small number that within monts, only a few hundred of Theo’s larger ants had already slaughtered at least 50% of the smaller ones.
Soon after, an ant, nearly as large as a reinforced one, was dragged outside.
The enemy ant queen.
Theo’s own ant queen never stepped out of the glass container. Instead, the captured ant queen was dragged inside the container.
Curious, Theo focused his attention to see what was really going on.
The new ant queen was placed directly in front of his own. After that, all the ants sward over both of them, forming a dense mass that completely blocked Theo’s view.
But one thing was clear.
The capture of the first ant queen was already completed.
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