Elder Cultivator

Chapter 986

As it turned out, it was much more difficult to be a mother than a queen. This was something Crossed Antennae had learned through trial and error. Oh, so much error.

As a queen, she could order any of her subordinates to do whatever she pleased, and they would execute her orders without hesitation. Or at least, usually. Some of her spawn had become downright insubordinate… but only to the point they thought they were doing things for her own good.

Those were the four who had been most exposed to other sapients. Fire, Bullet, Chops, and Snips had trained with Aconite and Chidi in the poison and sword arts. Saying they were influenced by humans wasn’t quite right, but the wolves were closely associated. Then again, so were the void ants, at least since the Great Queen. Their entire lineage stretched through her.

The aforementioned subordinates had forced Crossed Antennae to take an overly long break. She hadn’t appreciated it at the time, and she was still somewhat annoyed at them, but it had been useful nonetheless. She was fortunate she hadn’t fully screwed anything up.

Crossed Antennae had been a bit hasty. Obviously she had limited time, and it would take time to raise up colonies along the border planets… but merely creating the most numbers was not her goal. She wanted the best daughters, aligned with the overall goal of the void ants. She’d almost lost both.

The first few- especially those neighboring Bounty- had proper time taken for them in terms of both gestation and teaching. However, most of the rest had been dealt with too quickly and mechanically.

Returning to them, Crossed Antennae found many problems. The queens said they would obey her orders- and indeed they would, as long as she was around. They didn’t have a rebellious spirit… but they certainly weren’t invested, either. It was impossible to say what they would have done, when the forces of the upper realms placed their temporal bases. They might have stayed in hiding, or perhaps revealed themselves too soon. It was unlikely they would have been foolish enough to try to work with them, but it was possible.

The queens had been weak as well. Not enough time under proper care. Ascension energy made them grow, but an unguided void ant was likely to fall behind. Humans sought out their own goals, but merely being told what to do was not enough for void ants developed enough to properly lead a coordinated attack against humans. At least the queens and perhaps their royal guard needed something more than a royal decree to guide them.

All of Crossed Antennae’s days were now spent correcting her mistakes. They were too numerous to count, despite her focus on perfection. If she’d continued as she was, the trust placed in her might have been entirely wasted.

The four upstarts held the position of her most honored royal guard. Truth be told, she was fairly certain they could even defeat her. Individually, and not just as a group. That was logical, because she hadn’t been focused on her combat abilities. Nor did she need to be. The Great Queen had a much longer lifespan to grow in all areas, but Crossed Antennae was just trying to be a queen.

One of her first orders of business had been to prevent the isolation of planets. While independent travel for void ants was quite difficult, the humans had made useful vessels that could bring a small number of void ants between systems. They were reusable as well, just tiny ships.

Having more than extremely rare travel between their systems would be a risk. It wouldn’t be safe after humans came around, even in emergencies. But before then… she could foster a functional social structure. It seemed like a waste at first, but she realized that it would promote the growth of all the void ants.

Obviously Crossed Antennae couldn’t spend time with each and every one. No, she usually spent her time with planetary queens. Sometimes there was a single queen over a whole planet, with sub-queens for each colony.

When gathered together, Crossed Antennae’s time was more efficient. She could train with and teach them in a group, and they could then go spread any necessary information to their subordinates.

For the most part, the queens didn’t have names. It wasn’t a void ant tradition, but Crossed Antennae had been influenced by Akrys. Her own daughters were slowly affected by that as well, and Crossed Antennae felt that it was only a matter of time. In person, pheromone patterns were sufficient. Designations of planet and position were good enough the rest of the time… but sometimes ‘good enough’ was disappointing.

As the planets they were settling were largely empty- sometimes completely so except for a few species of plants- there weren’t many sources of conflict. While peaceful growing was preferred to some extent… Crossed Antennae didn’t want her daughters to be weak.

Fortunately, they had sisters. While there were very few things for them to naturally compete over, she could still give them a reason. A proper form of competition, not the sort that tore apart human family structures when taken too far. She came up with several categories. Single combat was easy. Group combat was a bit more complicated, as they didn’t want any deaths… but having void ants work against each other to accomplish arbitrary objectives was great training.

It wasn’t all about combat, though. She still needed the colonies to grow. Thus, individual colony growth and planetary growth were both measured. There was an advantage given to those with less fertile planets, to try to keep things as fair as possible.

Having just implemented all of her various policies, Crossed Antennae couldn’t actually say that anything worked just yet. Perhaps she was merely distracting the queens from functioning properly. The only way to know for sure was to give it time. And that was something they still had, even if it felt like it was rapidly running out. Frankly, she thought it was better if she didn’t have a known time limit. It was impossible to forget, though.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

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By the time Velvet was prepared to leave Rezdu and the Guardians of the Veiled Brilliance- at least in the short term- there had been news from the more thorough inspections of Carrelos and the Nighstar sect. News that made Velvet extremely glad she wasn’t the one involved.

People had disappeared. Not killed by guardians or the like- though that had happened to some as well- but instead they were gone. The cause was later determined to be some sort of portal node. However, unlike the one to exit the sect, it was tucked away behind a number of sealed doors. Furthermore, it seemed that whoever operated the portal was obligated to go through, opposite the exit portal where they couldn’t reach it.

A second team had been sent through, but neither had returned after several months. It was entirely possible they went somewhere instantly fatal.

When that had come up with Durff around, he had questions. Simple ones, like… “Why? If all your disciples die, then you would run out of sectmates very fast.”

“Maybe as a trap,” Velvet had surmised.

“It was awfully hard to get to, wasn’t it?” he asked. “Not a great trap.”

“Or maybe one of the best,” Velvet said. “Meant to take out the most competent individuals. Though we don’t actually know it killed them. There might have been no way back, or they found themselves extremely occupied.”

“Should we go check it out?” Durff asked.

“I’d be fine fighting alongside you more in the future,” Velvet said. “But with this newest revelation, I’d rather not. There’s something about known versus unknown risks- but when the known risks are so high, I don’t think it’s worth it.”

Durff nodded. “So you’re going back to your sect?”

“Yes, I’ll be gone for a long time, most likely,” Velvet said.

“Okay,” Durff confirmed. “I still want to explore these sects, though. Maybe one of the other ones, without a scary portal.”

“I’d recommend against it,” Velvet said. “Remember how you almost got trapped inside last time?”

“But I made it out.”

“Only with help.”

“I’ll bring friends. This time it just won’t include you,” Durff said.

He didn’t mean for it to hurt, but it did. It wasn’t about how long they had known each other, but the kind of person he was. Velvet was tempted to remain with him, to try to keep him safe. But she knew she couldn’t be responsible for any individual’s safety, if they chose to take risks. Nor should she be. It was how cultivators grew. If she coddled Durff too much, he might hit a dead end.

It still felt like a betrayal, partially because she was going back to her true sect which was potentially in conflict with them. At the very least, the Trigold Cluster as a whole was and enemy… and Ratna hadn’t made that any less likely for the Guardians of the Veiled Brilliance in particular. While Durff wasn’t a proper member of them, he also wasn’t associated with anyone else.

She almost wanted to invite him to join the Scarlet Alliance. Unfortunately, it was too risky. The problem, in fact, was Durff’s honesty. If he did join, along the way he might give them away accidentally. And if he didn’t, the same might be true even if he didn’t want to get her in trouble.

So Velvet said nothing, except. “I’ll contact you later.”

-----

A year of cautious travel brought her back across the border to the Scarlet Midfields. Her travel speed was much faster there, because she felt safe. She brought back everything she had learned. Learning of some of the Nighstar sect’s locations in the Scarlet Midfields, people were intrigued. Especially Catarina.

“Secret realms, portals, and advanced formations?” she asked. “Fascinating.”

“What about the information on Domination cultivators?” Timothy asked.

Catarina shrugged. “I can’t do anything about that at the moment. We might launch an investigation into these ‘anchors’, but I’m not the best to do it. Unless we find out formations are involved. More than people normally have in their fancy palaces, I mean.”

“I can’t really argue with that,” Timothy admitted. “It’s just a big, looming issue.”

“Too bad we can’t have void ants among us,” Catarina said. “I imagine they would be quite useful. But since we can’t, we have to deal with things how they are. I think we should ready a team to explore one of these locations. A team including us.”

“Are you certain that is wise?” Velvet asked. “Even you couldn’t survive if a portal took you somewhere like the center of a star.”

“Positive,” Catarina said. “Besides, you were missing proper formation masters. I could either figure out where something is going to some level of success… or rework such a formation to bring us to a known safe location. If not, I should at least be able to determine that the formations are beyond me before we get too deep into things. I can’t say I’m perfect, after all. Though with unlimited time, I believe I could pick through even the best work of Everheart. If anyone far surpasses him… then we should very much leave their old, dead sects alone.”

“It will be quite interesting,” Velvet said. “Perhaps like old times. Without Anton, of course. Alva hasn’t reached Augmentation yet, but I doubt she’d hold us back.”

“We’ll have to figure out what team composition actually makes sense,” Timothy said. “But I certainly think going with familiar figures would be good. And nothing stops us from bringing others along as well. For Alva specifically… perhaps it would be a good opportunity for her to advance.”

“So,” Catarina asked. “One of these sects is located- hmm suspicious…”

“You haven’t even gone inside yet!” Velvet said. “Though we should be prepared for something like that paranoia field. But what struck you?”

“I’ll have to see it in person to know,” Catarina said. “But I have a theory already.”

“Well that just makes me more curious,” Velvet said. “But I’ll wait.”

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