《Kingdom of the ANTS》 Prologue 1/1 Prologue Hello, everyone and welcome, to tonight''s show!" *obviously fake applause* "This time we will be judging the fate of, Josh Wilding, give a round of applause to our contestant" *even faker applause* A a short lanky man suddenly popped into existence on the gleaming wood stage in front of a large screen, and to the side of a podium in which a man with... well my eyes they can''t seem to focus! Aha I must strap him down and duct tape his head so it can''t move and I can describe him to my readers! No he might just evaporate me. So he is just the undetailed man, k? The popped in man with the handy-dandy nametag saying Contestant Josh Wilding fell over from the standing position, and curled up on the floor, not crying, just shaking and whimpering, after half a minute the undetailed man seemed to be impatient, then rolled his eyes and snapped his finger, Josh stood up like a marionette, and seemed to relax before opening eyes out of curiosity and becoming frantic when he noticed his surroundings. "Wha, what? Who are you? Where am I? Where did the truck go?" The surprised man asked. The undetailed man looked uncomfortable and looked away from the man while almost whistling. "What? Why are you acting weird" the man said then suddenly looked thoughtful before saying " nevermind I can''t even really see you, so why am I here?" "Well you died, obviously, and you are here because I need to decide what to reincarnate you as, and here is the place where that happens!" Smiled the undetailed man. Josh (the popped in man) took a deep breath, stepped forward, squared his shoulders, took another deep breath just to be sure, then, promptly fainted. The undetailed man looked surprised for a moment, then turned to the nonexistent audience and shouted "Josh Wilding everyone" before snapping his fingers and the whole stage unpopped out of existence." Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Josh popped back into a existence in a white room that seemed to swirl around him, several different colors occasionally flashed through. As Josh opened his eyes the room stabilized into a kitchen with marbled surfaces. He was in a open ended rectangle with a sink, a stove/oven, and refrigerator, all in slots in the surfaces. Under the marble countertop were cabinets made out of faux wood, above the countertops were more cabinets, all were filled with various dinnerware, and cooking utensils. Josh looked around in almost surprise before rubbing his eyes, yawning, and walking out of the kitchen on the tile before peeking into his bedroom, with plain white walls, a plain mattress bed, and a bedside table with a lamp. Josh sighed and walked past the kitchen, to a table with lots of bills and random papers. He ignored those, obviously, and turned on his computer, a shiny laptop, after settling into the chair, a swively black one, he started browsing through his email deleting almost everything, then started his morning ritual of googling random stuff. The doorbell rang, Josh sighed before tearing himself away from his computer and walking to the door, he opened the door and stared, blinking, the undetailed man from his tv show dream was back! The man smiled and pushed back into the apartment, as he strode into the large kitchen/living room, he frowned then snapped his fingers. The room briefly turned back to the swirling white room before stabilizing into a blank concrete room with a metal table and two chairs on either side, on one side of the room a mirror like window covering most of top half of the wall. Josh looked around before sighing and sitting the chair. "What now?" He asked. The undetailed man chuckled slightly before sitting in the other chair and adopting a serious expression. "Well Josh, you died, and while normally released souls are sent to be reprocessed into new bodies, you were killed by a truck." "Okay, why does me being killed by a truck mater?" Asked Josh confused. The undetailed man looked uncomfortable and looked away before sighing and turning back to Josh. "Well a long time ago, souls would be picked randomly for reincarnation, and sent to other worlds with some of their memories or instincts, but then the god of reincarnation and incarnation, got a bit drunk, which is no small feat for a god, anyway he thought it would be funny if only people killed by trucks could reincarnate, and since not many people died by truck, he influenced fate so it would happen more often." The undetailed man said all this with a pained and embarrassed feeling ( it''s not my fault I can''t describe his facial expression.) "You''re the god of reincarnation, aren''t you" Josh said resignedly. The unde- god of reincarnation seemed surprised and suspicious, "You''re not mad?" "Why would I be? I get another chance at life, don''t I?" The god of reincarnation quickly nodded his head at Josh''s question. "Yes so what do you want to be reincarnated as? Keep in mind this is your first reincarnation so your choices are limited to very small things, here is a list of everything you could reincarnate as and the combinations" the god of reincarnations (hereby referred to as GR) snapped his fingers and held out his hand that was suddenly holding a smallish blue book. Josh hesitantly took it and started reading. Several hours later he looked up and said "So where am I being reincarnated?" "You will be reincarnated into a world with magic and medieval level tech, there are many beasts from your myths and legends and stories, I can''t tell you any more than that." Said the GR apologetically. "Good, I guess, I wish to reincarnated as an ant hive mind" "Do mind if I ask why?" The GR asked while looking slightly surprised. "Well, ants are great builders and omnivores, plus all the other ones seem to be op dung beetles." "Well okay, I guess I can''t fault your logic, good luck" the Gr snapped his fingers and disappeared. The room reverted to the swirling white, Josh looked around surprised, and felt slightly worried about his new life. Just as he was beginning to wonder if he had to do anything, the room started constricting, and squeezing Josh into a small ball, which of course popped out of existence. Chapter 1 Wow, I posted the prolouge yesterday, not expecting anybody to read it, or like it but then like 60 people did, thanks guys, anyways it means alot, so I made sure to finish this one today. Now enough of me heres chapter 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Chapter 1 The green plants stirred in the wind, small animals snuffled through shrubs and dug up dirt. And deep below, far, far, down buried in the depths of the earth, something stirred, and awoke! "Damn that hurt" said Josh He slowly became aware of his surroundings, he could feel through slightly more than a hundred points, all stretched over the nest, but everything in between them was blank. Curious, Josh tried to move some of them, it was like moving your toes, it was unconscious, he just wanted them to go somewhere and they did. For some reason they would not go straight to where he directed, confused about the phenomenon, he concentrated on just one point, as he did he seemed to zoom towards it. Continuing to concentrate, he slammed into the point, and was absorbed into it. As he was absorbed the other points disappeared, and he could see through the single point, Josh looked around confused at the dirt surrounding him, and realized the points probably had to travel through tunnels to where he had directed them. Then he realized the points were in tunnels, then that the tunnels were really small, then that when he looked down he could see pincer things under his face. Josh panicked and wrenched himself out of the ant and toward where had been before, then realizing what he thought as himself might be an ant too. And began to pull the points toward himself to see if he was some kind of super ant. All the points... ants, began toward what he perceived as himself. The first Point of feeling reached himself, and he could see that what he thought was himself was a small glowing blue orb, next to a giant ant with a large body and small head. The ants began to run into each other as tunnels ran together and focusing on one of them to see, made Josh realize that they were large worker ants. He slowly started to calm down once he remembered the meeting with the GR, and choosing to be reincarnated as a hive mind. Curious about the giant ant next to him he sent several of the workers to investigate, they crawled over the queen, the ants found a large hole in the queens back that seemed to be the same size of his orb thing, noticing the queen looked dead, and remembering batteries from his world, he sent the ants to carry him into the hole. As Josh was pushed into the hole he felt a tightening of the flesh below him and when he was settled into the queen, it pulsed to life and knowledge flooded into him. First the queen would eat food which would be processed by his orb and the processed food would be taken by the queen to make more ants, he could control which type of ants could be made, but the queen had to have eaten one of those types, so conquest of other nests was needed to expand. Second, apparently once his ants traveled somewhere they would release pheromones which created a sort of map for him that he would be able to remember. Armed with this new knowledge Josh decided to fully explore the nest and sent his workers out into the tunnels, he had around one hundred workers and one queen, there were no soldiers or any other type of ant. As the map of the nest became complete, it started to look like one large grapevine coming down from the surface, one long tunnel a quarter centimeter in diameter, with lot of little room branching off of it, some of the rooms had tunnels of their own but were dead ends. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. The long tunnel ended twenty inches down and took a sharp turn which led to where the queen was, many other littles tunnels branched out from the throne room as well. Josh decided the map was good enough and sent half the workers to the surface to look for food, the other half he sent to fill in the main tunnel, and enlarge one of the other tunnels leading to him. The nest was, from what the ants had explored while searching for food, in a clearing, of some size, the ants had not ranged far from the nest, and no trees had yet been detected. The old main tunnel had been filled in and Josh began to feel the first of the ants he had sent for food return, he directed them down the new tunnel, and had them feed the queen. After the queen digested the food, and it started to trickle to Josh a screen popped up with instructions. Welcome to the Ant creation menu. Here you can process nutrients into current Ant designs. For twenty times the cost you may design your own Ant with current parts, which will then be added to the collection of Ants you can make. For one hundred times the cost you may create your own parts using materials. Note:Ants you create will be more loyal and easier to control, than Ants from other colonies, or the default Ants. ''huh, so I guess I really need to get more designs, how much does the production of a worker cost?'' Thought Josh, before quickly looking through the menus ,''well might as well make a worker and see''. Josh opened the Ant creation menu, and selected the Produce option, The queen shivered, and its entire body began to undulate toward its back, like it was pushing something out. A sound like a washing machine began to sound, two minutes passed before a small black vaguely ant shaped blob appeared. Please select which ant you want to create Note: there are currently ten units of low quality material. Options Worker ''Well that''s interesting, but how will I ever choose!'' Josh selected the Worker, the black ant blob suddenly glowed before shifting into one of the many workers running around, Josh could feel this new Ant as well, it seemed slightly stronger than the others and moved easier. Current designs Ant worker (takes five units or material) A half centimeter long and a quarter centimeter wide. Brown coloration, has strong shovel claws in front, and wider jaws. Ant can be used for digging, building, and harvesting and other. ''Well I have enough for one more Worker, eh might as well'' Josh selected the Produce option and looked on from an Ant as the queen did its thing, then selected Worker again. ''I need more Ants and I need to find soldier Ants, and for all that I need food so...'' "Fly, my minions Fly, or walk, but Go!" Josh shouted and the minions,ahem, Ants scurried out of the throne room to the surface for food. Several hours later, and some unfortunate accidents involving his Ants and the not so friendly neighbors, Josh had amassed a little under a hundred units of material, and as the queen got to work making more Ant Workers, Josh fell asleep. Josh woke up back in the swirling white room, and groaned. The GR stepped out of nowhere and smiled while saying "come on it can''t be that bad, right?" "Yes, yes it can" deadpanned Josh, the GR''s smile faltered before he shrugged and summoned two chairs with a snap of his fingers, and gestured for them to sit down. Josh sighed and sat, sinking down several inches in the red plush cushions, then made a get on with it gesture. The GR looked and said " I just wanted to congratulate you on your progress, no need to be so touchy, you know most people don''t handle, reincarnation well, and here you are king of your tiny little ant kingdom already" "Blame my reading habits, with all the fictions on reincarnation it''s like it happens daily, and with the number of truck deaths it might." "Hah, hah" the GR laughed weakly, before turning serious and saying "Anyways, because you advanced so fast you get a prize! One Ant design, or part, but they can only be the most basic designs" "I want a Soldier Ant" "What! That''s no fair, you were supposed to spend hours debating with yourself before finding some loophole into OP hood." "Nope, I want a Soldier Ant" After Josh''s decision, the GR sighed and slumped over and sadly snapped his fingers. "There''s your Soldier Ant" then the God of Reincarnation pouted and disappeared. "Finally, now how do I get back?" Josh started to walk around the small swirling space looking at the walls, then "no, oh nooo!" Was all Josh could get out before he was compacted and popped back. Chapter 2 Thanks for all the feedback and stuff, if anyone had any suggestions please tell me in the comments, I will try to get another chapter out tomorrow, but its a monday, and the weekends ending :( but either way heres chapter 2. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Chapter 2 Josh popped back into the throne room, and immediately sent several Workers to put him back in the queen, excited about the soon to be Soldier Ants. As the queen tightened around him once more he realized that all the material that had been collected was gone, and that around fifty new Workers were connected to him, apparently more food had been gathered and more Ants produced while he was gone. He sighed and sent some of the new Workers to fetch food from a storeroom. It was odd, the material counter in the Ant Creation menu counted all material in certain areas but not in others. Like materials that were being transported through the nest were not counted until they were put down in a storeroom, and weirdly enough, as soon as Josh Produced a Ant the counter would go down, even though the material hadn''t been transported. Also after some experimentation, Josh figured out that one unit of material, was equal to a square centimeter of Ant food, which was fungus, meat, seeds, and other things. For some reason the Workers only collected food and nothing else, maybe other types of Ants could collect more. Back to the present, Josh was currently Producing another Ant, but this time he chose Soldier. The black goop, shifted into a Ant slightly bigger than the Worker but with more claw like, and sharp claws in front, and a small stinger in the back. Josh looked in the Ant Creation screen at the description for the Soldier. Current Designs Worker Soldier - 3/4 centimeters long and 1/4 centimeters wide. Black/brown coloration, sharp pincers, and small stinger. Able to spit a slightly toxic poison, sting is also slightly toxic. ''Great, let the terror of my poison Ants reign upon the puny mortals, muahahahaha!'' After enjoying the feeling of power, Josh started production of several Soldiers, then switched over to Worker production. The reason being that he needed to explore the area around his nest, and sending cheap Workers on suicide missions was the best way. After the stockpiled material was used, Josh started sending the Ants he started out with to the surface, an out with the old, in with the new, easily controlled, kinda thing. The 90 or so old the Ants still left from the various foraging expeditions, started spreading out in a circle from the nest. A while later the map of the clearing had expanded to twenty feet in diameter, but some of the Ants had been encountering tree roots so it might not be much larger. Surprisingly no other Ant nests had been found yet, but there were some signs of other Ants, mostly the lack of stuff the Ants usually ate. Excited to take over a nest and see how his Soldier were in battle, Josh sent out all of his Ants except the Soldiers. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Detail quickly grew on the map due to all the blank spaces left by the first Ants sent out being filled in by the second wave. Sadly no Ant nests were found but the entire clearing had been explored, due to its size, and the speed of the Ants it had taken a little over a day. When the first Ants ran into a tree trunk Josh''s first thought was of building a nest inside of it, and creating a Ant cave skybase. He could have platforms all around the tree, and whenever it was attacked swarms of flying Ants would stream out dealing tiny annoying bites to his foes. Sadly, after fantasizing, Josh sent a Worker to try and tunnel into the tree, but the bark proved too hard. Deciding to leave the rest of the forest for another time Josh called back the Ants and sent half the workers to forage for material, while the other half expanded his nest. First. He had them create a new throne room a couple feet below the current one, and connect them. After finally moving the queen down, which constituted a mixture of pushing Ants and Ants used as rollers, Josh created five large storerooms surrounding the new throne room, connected by thin tunnels. Then after moving all of the material into the new storerooms, Workers were sent to fill in all of the old tunnels and rooms, so Josh could build a completely new base from scratch. Once the Ants finished, all that was left was the long tunnel down to the ''atrium'' aka old throne room, and the new storerooms and throne room. Deciding to have a tunnel going straight down into the middle of his base, Josh had the Workers begin to make a new tunnel that circled around the old one, because the harvesting Workers were still bringing materials down to the storerooms. While that was happening Josh sent some of the Workers to find and bring back rocks from the surface, so the materials in the storeroom would not rot as quickly due to moisture. Many,many hours later most of the nest was complete, stretching down about four feet, and at its widest point two feet wide, it is full of rooms and... more rooms! The throne room was completely encased in the pebbles the Ants had brought down, so were the storerooms, which were almost completely full of material. The throne room was shaped like a pentagon, with storerooms at every corner, and the queen at the back side. Above that was the infirmary, not that any of the Ants could heal yet, but a separate space for wounded was useful, mostly because it allowed Josh to see what Ants not to use when he needed materials, and what Ants to use when exploring unknown territory. Above that were the Tunnels, they shot off in most directions, they were so that the nest could create outposts away from the nest and allow easy travel to places with lots of food, and eventually once another nest had been conquered, they would connect the two nests. Josh sent several ants to create outposts around the clearing. As well as several Ants to the tree roots to build a base there for future attempts at a sky base. And finally above the Tunnels were the barracks, which housed the Soldiers, the Workers would almost always be working, though they did have a smaller barracks attached to the Soldier¡¯s. All of the rooms were much bigger than they needed to be, but when you had nothing to do and lots of time to do it, you may as well be extravagant. Due to the large amounts of material in the store rooms Josh decided to create more Workers since there was no need for Soldiers yet. For some reason there were some small shards of what looked like glowing glass in some of the carcasses that had been harvested, not knowing what they were Josh let them be fed to the queen. The process of creating the Ants was exactly the same as always, queen digesting, nutrients being filtered through Josh''s orb, then the queens washing machine dance. Even the screen to choose what type of Ant he wanted created, but once the worker formed from the black goop, a new screen popped up Congratulations Due to the use of part of a lizard''s core the Worker Ant has upgraded to An Earth Worker, this Ant will be better at digging and building with earth as well as being slightly sturdier. ''Well, that was a thing'' Josh was extremely excited and immediately sent several workers to bring all core shards to him, there ended up being three different piles of them, the first were clear shards from a dead sparrow, the second were more brown ones from lizards, and last were tiny, almost dust sized green ones from a grasshopper. After creating several more Earth Workers, Josh used some of the clear core shards to create a Worker , the result was this Congratulations Due to the use of part of a sparrows core the Worker Ant has upgraded to A Sense Worker, this Ant is able to sense vibrations from stuff up to two feet away. ''Cool, now what else?'' Josh immediately created another Worker with the green core dust Congratulations Due to the use of part of a grasshoppers core the Worker Ant has upgraded to A Nature Worker, this Ant is able to feel where the best materials are in a two foot radius ''Sweet, now to find more of those cores, and dominate with my magic army!'' *thunder crashes in the distance, and rain starts pouring* ''Well, at least Ants can swim'' then after a second of thought ''Wait a minute, let me double check something, yep, I am not a Ant, well... shit'' Chapter 3 Chapter 3 The rain pounded down on green grass, pelting through leaves, bringing life to dry plants, while, underground a little blue orb shook, as much as it was able with its nonexistent muscles, in fear. Hours later the rain finally stopped, and the relentless pounding ceased. Expecting the worst Josh sent one of the old Workers to the surface, the Ant crawled up the spiral tunnel finally, poking its head out of the nest. Loyal to the bitter end and not receiving further orders the Ant stood there valiantly, his antennas waving. Josh frowned, inside his head of course, no mysterious blue orbs had face muscles. The Worker had stood at the top of the nest and since he didn''t die, Josh began to relax, but suddenly the point of feeling representing the Ant had disappeared. Still worried Josh quickly sent another Worker to the top, then focused on it so he could see what was happening, everything was tinted blue for some reason. Remembering the first time he saw through a Ant, it wasn''t blue, but then again it had been dark in the tunnel. Suddenly the point vanished again, now resolved to find out what was killing his Ants, Josh sent one to a nearby outpost. After the Ant arrived and looked above the tunnel entrance, nothing happened, then this Ant also died. Deciding that whatever it was could see all around the nest, Josh sent another Ant to the edge of the clearing up in some tree roots. Because by golly if he could not have a sky base he was going to have the next best thing! The Ant finally reached the tree, and started climbing up, this time Josh took control of the Ant from the first person perspective, it was the weirdest experience of his life, having six legs, and going almost vertical while speeding at an incredible 3 inches a second. Once Josh felt the Worker was high enough, he turned its head and looked toward where the nest was, and saw a large blue sea, various back spots speckled the surface. Josh suddenly realized why no other Ants had settled in the clearing, and why the Workers had blinked out of existence. A while later (3 hours, 47 minutes, 26 seconds, and 14 milliseconds to be exact) Josh had sent half his Workers, all the upgraded Workers, and all his Soldiers to the tree outpost, or as Josh liked to call it ''operation bat tree''. Remembering ant videos from earth, which were watched during the ads in cat videos, Josh formed the workers into a large ball thing in the water, with the Soldiers and upgraded Ants on top. (A/N: think in Ant Man, in the tunnels under the corporation building)If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ''And launch, the HMS Antly, is off!'' The Ants on the bottom and sides of the ship used half their limbs to paddle, while holding on to other Ants. Above them or to the side. As the Ants paddled toward the nest, Josh took control of two Ants and moved them to the front of the ship, before having them stand up on their back two legs. Their antennas waved into the wind as the one in front spread its top four legs, while the one behind hugged it, all the while Josh hummed the Titanic music in his head. As the living ship floated towards the nest, Josh kept an eye out for any hostile creatures. The Antly was quite literally a sitting Ant, with the range for the Soldiers poison spit being quite small, and the poison was barely corrosive. After Josh learned about the new surface, he immediately thought of a water core, wanting a Worker or Soldier that could do stuff in a water environment. So keeping a lookout for a small, water dependant creature, while avoiding the larger ones, the journey passed to the nest. The entrance or the nest greeted them with a sad sight, the brave explorers, stood tall, antennas waving in the currents. That is until a large bug flashed by a second later and scooped them into its mouth. ''Charge! Avenge our already dead comrades'' Josh mentally shouted this while giving chase to the Bug, it was small enough that he and his Ants were capable of taking it down. Knowing that his Ants were not fast enough, Josh moved all his Ants into a net, with the Soldiers on the inside. They were linked together red rover style, with several layers of Workers, Josh then sent two of the old Workers into the middle of the net as bait. Josh anxiously waited for the Bug, knowing that if it took too long, his Ants might drown. As the seconds ticked by, and as Josh was about to recall his Ants, a ripple, well, rippled through the pond. The Ants grips tightened, and the Bug slammed into the net! Several Ants were crushed, but the rest floated strong, and as the Bug sped off the Ant net was pulled along like a funeral shroud. As the Ant net was pulled by the Bug, the Soldiers on the inside were pressed against the Bugs side, they immediately began stinging and biting. After several minutes of this, the Bug finally began to slow as the Ants poison coursed through its veins and pierced its heart. After the Soldiers had latched onto the Bug Josh had his Workers let go and form the platform again, and once the Bug was dead, they began paddling towards it. Once they reached the corpse, they formed around it and began toward the bat tree, dragging the Bug with them. Once they reached the bat tree, Josh had the Ants begin cutting the Bug into pieces, while searching for the core. They finally found it in the stomach, apparently the cores were used to filter nutrients into a sort of mana or life force, like a magic stomach, while Josh used his to create the life force of the Ants. Ants typically do not need much life force to live. The cores also seemed to be used as a regular digestive tract, hence the placement in the stomach. The dismemberment of the Bug, took five minutes, Josh was astounded, before remembering videos of Ants completely eating tarantulas in short amounts of time, and tarantulas were four or five times as big! The core was the size of one of his Ants and aquamarine looking, it was also perfectly bowling ball shaped. (A/N: hah! Not what you expected right!? *smile smugly and takes a bite of a cookie*) The Ants rolled the core back through the tunnels towards the throne room, the core was big enough to scrape the walls and ceilings. Josh was salivating at the thought of a complete core, and all the little water minio-Ants it would create. As the core rolled closer to the throne room it began to hum, Josh frowned as much as he was able, and decided it must be because two complete cores were so close together. Chapter 4 Hello People, sorry for not writing for almost a year, anyways I deleted the poll and am replacing it with a chapter, I have a couple of days before school starts so i am hoping to get alot more chapters written. also i saw that I got a really low rating and I dont know why. ); so if you want to maybe leave a reveiw or raiting that wold be great! thanks. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Chapter 4 The humming grew louder, as the core was carried by the Ants as if it was an Egyptian pharaoh. Once the core passed thorugh the doorway, it let out an static shock, momentarily paralyzing the Ant bearers, causing the core to fall. Moments before it hit the ground the humming changed and the core zoomed towards Josh, hitting him and sticking, just like the trick where you throw the magnet towards a fridge, and it sticks. A screen popped up in front of Josh, before the shock of what happened could register, Congratulations You have the opportunity to absorb, a water core, you will unlock several new items, however if you chose to not absorb this core, and upgrade your Ants, you may absorb another core once you find one. Core information 3/4 water 1/8 nature Grade G Josh was astounded by the new information, and as he slowly began to think properly he started asking questions, he had no answers for. ''What!? Cores have grades? Should I absorb it?'' After derping out for a while, Josh finally started to calm down once he realized that whatever his choice, he could always just try the other way next time he managed to kill something. Deciding that absorbing was the better choice for now, because he didn''t particularly need water Ants or whatever they would become, and he didn''t know how to split it anyways. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Josh clicked absorb, the Core began to sink into him, still stuck on like a magnet. A burning sensation began to pervade Josh as the Core sank further,he mentally screamed in agony as his Core began to grow. Finally Josh fell unconscious. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Josh opened his eyes in the swirling room, once again. "Oh come on, really!?" "What? Don''t you like this room?" "No, it treats me like I am a sardine." "Well it''s your conscious, so change it however you like" Josh immediately imagined a beach, he traveled to often as a kid. A soft orange light shone across the glittery sand and rocks, while small crabs duked it out in tidepools, and hermits crabs lined up in a otherworldly congo, to trade shells. (A/N the other world is Earth, cause The hermit crab trading shells is a thing) Josh sighed and took a sip out of a pink lemonade filled glass, while relaxing on a throne of sand. The GR was buried up to his neck in sand open mouthed as Josh used his head as a footrest. The GRs ears turned red with embarrassment, before breaking out of the sand in an explosion, he turned around to see Josh roaring in laughter while rolling around his throne. "Ah ha, ha... that was AWESOME" shouted Josh before doing a little dance. "Oh, your expression, priceless, here look." Josh snapped his fingers and a giant screen appeared above them, with a still shot of the GRs surprised face. It sent Josh into hysterics again, the GR sighed and grinned. "Well, all... of that behind, there is a reason I called you here, you have absorbed your first Core!¡± *confetti falls down, and trumpets sound* Josh simply looked confused, the GR sighed then started to explain. "Well, whenever your Core is changed, upgraded, or when you hit a milestone of sorts, you are kicked out to here until the change is finished. Like today, your Core is growing and opening up more options for you." The whole time Josh''s smile was growing wider and wider, and the scene briefly changed to one full of fire, blood, explosions, and one glowing ANT standing on the bodies of its enemies. It then reverted back to normal, but not before the GR had slightly flinched, *cough* mightily stood tall, with hair fluttering in the wind! ;). "So, how long is this going to take?" Asked Josh, almost bubbling with excitement. "Well, the Cores should have finished melding... right... about... now!" The beach reverted to the swirling room, which immediately began to compress Josh. A brief moment of pain and Josh was back in the Core, but it wasn''t shining blue anymore, now it was shining deep blue with swirls of green traveling through it. Congratulations You have successfully absorbed with a water/nature core You now have the ability to produce Ants with affinities You have currently unlocked water and nature affinities Absorbing more core will strengthen your affinities and unlock more. Higher Water affinities will allow Ants to move easier and survive better in water,as well as collect water based foods. Higher nature affinities will allow Ants to find better food, and blend in. ''What! it''s my birthday, it''s my birthday!'' Sang Josh while having his Ants make a congo line.