For four days straight, the ant with a great soul had been constantly feasting and refining liquefied thoughts from the weak, injured, and old ants. Removing the times when he was eating or sleeping, he had mostly used his time to refine both from others and himself.
And on the fifth day, he had discovered something new. After he had refined his twenty-fifth ant, he couldn't add more to his mind space, no matter how much he tried. Forcing it instead caused his body pain and his mind space to crack lightly.
ive droplets, each made up of five smaller droplets. Meaning they are about one hundred and twenty-five smaller droplets. When he first tried to use these droplets, he only used four drops, but this time, he had so many.
"I'll probably be able to manifest a natural phenomenon, even if it's as little as a small shake in the air or a small light or even fire," he thought.
When he was ready, he quickly returned to his hidden cave, which he had stocked with food and locked the door. After eating his share, he quickly prepared himself, as he wanted to start.
But he suddenly had a thought, a stray and pervasive thought. He started merging all his liquified thought droplets, yet after merging seven droplets, it felt as though the newly formed larger body of liquified thought had a mind of its own and started attracting all the other droplets like a black hole.
Very quickly, they merged, yet it wasn't enough, as the newly formed larger liquid body continuously sucked.
"This..." he was surprised at the sudden changes. Yet, at the very next moment, his ant eyes shone with a certain glint. One of his larger tentacles stretched forth, and the tip of that tentacle transformed into a slimmer and slender straw-like tube.
He connected it to his mind space, and the tentacle started squeezing itself. While it was doing so, liquefied thoughts were sliding down from the tube.
"Luckily, even after my mind space refused to accept more liquified thoughts, I still stored up as many as possible in the small space I made in the outer space of my soul, storing up to forty-two large liquefied thoughts. Though only thirty-six remain, as my soul's aura constantly purifies all things too close to its radiance."
He assumed a serious expression as he remembered the large liquified thought wanting to devour his reasoning and send him into depraved madness. The larger body of liquefied thought was consuming all the smaller droplets and was growing without restraints.
Not long after, it was already large enough to be pushing against the boundaries of the mind space.
Not long afterwards, it was already making cracks in the spherical boundaries of the mind space. Sensing the danger the growing liquified thought posed and feeling the pain from his mind, as though his head was being struck by a hammer constantly, he quickly sent forth his soul force to empower the mind space boundaries.
Yet it kept growing and wasn't showing signs of stopping soon. So he had to adapt.
"I'll try to compress the liquefied thoughts as much as possible," he thought. "Or, if I let my guard down even for a moment, my soul's force could either shatter my mind space and turn me into an idiot, or the large liquefied thought could flow out with great force the moment I release my soul force enforcement on the mind space boundaries. That would directly shatter my mind and cause my head to explode like those other ants I experimented on... but mine would be bigger and more concentrated, strong enough to probably shatter not just this little cave but also a small half, if not more, of the entire nest."he thought
This nest was one belonging to a supercolony, meaning this nest could possibly be as tall as a grown man standing upright and would be as wide as two to three grown men standing shoulder to shoulder. And the fearsome part was that it was underground, with this cave being in between the lower middle floors.
An explosion that large could kill a man if detonated close to him. Making up his mind, he sent another piece of tentacle and transformed it into another sphere, but this time, instead of enforcing, this one started compressing the liquified thoughts.
But it wasn't easy, as the liquified thought constantly resisted against the compression by the soul force. Yet he couldn't use more force, as it could lead to more harm than good. He simply had to struggle his way through, constantly fearing and walking on the lines of life and death.
After a whole day of constantly fighting against the repelling force of the liquid thought, he had managed to overpower it and conquer it. Compressing it continuously until it became a tiny blue marble at the center of the spherical space known as his mind space, with grey fog constantly swelling and twirling around inside.
Yet none of the grey fog attempted to approach it at all. Instead, the marble constantly shone with a blue purifying light, which constantly refined and purified the mind space. Not only that, the blue light also shone on the spherical boundaries of the mind space, constantly healing and strengthening it.
This light was different from the soul force, as it was less aggressive and more suited for purifying the mind fog. If he used the soul force, he would inevitably waste away many of the fog particles, as the soul force was too impurity-hateful. However, the marble light used a similar method but was able to refine twenty to thirty percent more liquified thoughts.
Not only that, but a few minutes later, when he was completely settled down, he started noticing changes to his sensory abilities.
"These are energy particles and other elements... This is different from my soul gaze; it's more like my mind can see them instead. Not only that, I can also feel most basic changes in the air. Is this the result of solidifying one's thoughts?" he thought.
Yet he quickly noticed that the amount of burden his ant-like mind could withstand had increased, and he could think more complex thoughts in his ant brain without worrying about it breaking down.
"But that's not what's important now..." he thought as he sent his consciousness into his mind space to observe.
"I don't need to use my soul to get access to my mental space now. I can do it with a little bit of concentration, and if my thoughts are correct, I'll probably be able to control the power derived from the thoughts marble without the help of my soul as well," he thought as he could see his now clear and clean mental space, which had changed largely in just a few minutes of him not observing it.
The small space known as his mind space was like a realm of its own now. Although it was similar in size on the outside, it had become bigger on the inside. The original greyish boundaries had turned transparent and light blue, with the small marble at the center and a small bluish water body surrounding it.
"The mind fog has all been dried out in my mind space, but I didn't fall into depravity and insanity this time. Is this also an effect of the thoughts marble? Well, it probably is," he thought.
"Then let me see how I'll do this time," he thought. In the next moment, he opened his pincers, and with a single commanding thought, the marble started glowing brightly. The water body below him started flowing towards his outer being.
A light blueish light was gathering at its mouth, and this light was brighter than the first one he had originally tried.
Yet it didn't stop there, as he continuously poured more mental power into his pincers, compressing it further. He kept pouring until he felt he couldn't release more mental power, as his body couldn't handle anymore.
At that moment, light particles started getting attracted and attached to the gathering mental power, making it turn whitish-gold from its light blueish color. Looking at a certain corner of the cave, one of the places where he had kept an ant corpse to feed on later, a large worker ant corpse was present.
In a short flash, he shot out the energy blast. And in the next moment, he witnessed a large hole, as big as a soldier ant's head, appearing in the worker's body when the light came in contact with it.
It didn't stop there, as it landed on the cave corner and opened a hole in the cave wall. This new hole surprised all the passing ants, as a beam of light had opened a hole in the wall and killed one of the workers. The proprietor was looking at this in shock and awe.
"This, this is marvelous... But it seems as though this body can only release that much energy," he said as he looked at his mental space. The thoughts water had reduced by half.
"I still have about half of my thoughts liquid left. Should I try again? After all, the marble is protecting my mental state, and I'll probably not fall into madness," he thought about it.
But at that moment, he suddenly felt like all his strength was leaving his body. HUNGER. "I'm hungry, very hungry," he thought as he crawled little by little towards the nearest corpse.
Upon reaching the nearest corpse, he started feasting like a starved beast. After some time, he finished the worker's corpse and still felt hungry, so he quickly ran to the next corpse.
After eating three whole corpses, only then did he feel satisfied. Then he left the cave as the ants were coming in and disturbing his peace. But they couldn't be blamed, as they considered it a new area and thought to explore it in case of danger.
Well, it's not like he could tell them in ant language, "Get out, it's my space." After he left, he first found a honeypot and drank his fill, then he went about his own business.
Suddenly, a big commotion started at the main entrance of the nest. Looking towards the entrance with his soul gaze, instead of going to see it personally, was a reflexive reaction from his end. With soul's gaze, he could see a large group of ants with larger and more old-looking armored exoskeletons.
These ants were marching in and surrounding a group of flimsy-looking honey ants, which were carrying larvae and pupae of ants. "Those seem to be the first generation of soldiers, and the ones in the middle are probably captives of war," he thought.
At the very front of the ant army was a false queen. She was no mere false queen, as she was a general and was the leader of the first-generation army. Normally, the first generation wouldn't listen to a false queen, as they were not true queens and lacked the abilities of a queen. But this false queen was probably around third generation and was two generations below themselves. Almost human-like, I'd say.
But again, I repeat, this false queen was no mere false queen. She was favored by the queen and was granted a gift during birth.
The ability to command. She was releasing a soft and not-so-noticeable pheromone, an ability which a queen would never allow any other than herself to have. Yet she was granted such a gift. Though she didn't have the ability to reproduce like the other queen.
Coupling with her stronger armor, larger build, powerful pinchers, her ability to fly, and the ability to lead, she was the perfect general and figurehead. In case of an invasion that they wouldn't be able to escape, the enemy would tear her apart while the queen hides.
She released her blessing, granted by the Queen, in full force. She had probably used it to take control of the colonies they had raided along the way. "Isn't this queen ant a little too smart? If I couldn't see her soul, I would have probably thought she was also a reincarnator," the ant thought.
The ground started shaking and vibrating violently.
"An earthquake?" he thought as he looked high above his head, and what he saw frightened him.