Even though I failed to create my own bugs bunny, my search for knowledge continued and I found several animals to conduct several more tests on. That lead to several interesting conclusions. For example, I could verify that the bugs loved to eat the creature that was under a heavy emotional burden. Every creature that was influenced by either a heavily bleeding wound or was trying to run away was prefered to those still unsuspecting.
I did not give up on having the bugs invade the body of an animal and take control of it, though every option I tried till now only ended in a catastrophic failure. Letting the bugs eating the insides of a squirrel and then letting all bugs try to run onto the next target did not work as intended. The skin of the squirrel was not durable enough and I had created a fragmentation grenade or more likely a bug-bomb. My next test was to only fill the limbs with bugs, the general concept was better, but yet the bugs did not have a sense of unity and just moved randomly. Therefore any sense of balance was nowhere to be found.
The next idea was to not actually put the bugs into the dead corpse but underneath it. On paper, this was a looking like a feasible option, but the bugs were far too big for each of the squirrel's legs. The movement looked as if the stiff corpse was pulled by an invisible thread.
Due to this visual spectacle, I had a sudden urge to try and use the threads of the cocoon I was hidden in. Though I needed a much finer and smaller version to try and let the bugs control the actions and movement. But this kind of thread needs a place to be fixed to, therefore movement is quite heavily restricted. The only way this could work is if you combine it with the bug bomb.
After running out of ideas, I decided to the test the congenital level of intellect these bugs have.
The first test was about simple orders. I pointed at a dead squirrel and without much suspense, the body of the dead squirrel was brought in front of me. Repeating the same task but by pointing at several more corpses, I still achieved the same result.
So they are able to react sufficiently to non-verbal orders. Now I tried to order them by speaking directly to them. I tried several things. But most of the times those bugs, just stared at me not understanding the task. That must be the first time they have heard me speaking directly to them.
I pointed at a squirrel at voiced the command "Bring". repeating the process several times and giving the food to the bug that brought me the corpse. After what felt like an eternity some bugs began associating the order with bringing something to me. Or the began associating the reward with the action of them bringing something to me who knows. If I did not specify a target all bugs swarmed out and brought me everything that they could carry, making the second thesis much more likely. From sticks to stones, nearly everything found its way to me. I had to give out every dead squirrel rewarding them and creating an association to me based on bringing me stuff. Now I finally knew what kind of torture Pavlow had to undergo to come to his conclusions. I am glad I can borrow some of his knowledge, even though I still wonder if the brains of dogs and one of those bugs here are wired in a similar manner. That means if they have a brain and not a centralized system, based on the queen that sends the orders and signals.
After that short experiment came to a close I began to hunt for more creatures. This time I found several mutated poisonous toads. I had to hunt them carefully because I am not sure how my body would react to the poison and I had no intention of finding out. Quite frankly I did not want to lick them anyway. Arming myself with rocks, I tried to approach them and bash their heads in but once I got too close they just jumped away out of my reach. Therefore I decided that doing the same mistakes over and over again would not lead to any results, I decided to try my luck and just threw the rocks onto the frocks. I missed and missed over and over again until I got lucky and hit one, it was dazed by the impact. After my successful throw, I closed in and launched every rock I carried with me onto the poor frog.
The frog stood no chance, it was a pure slaughter disregarding the fact that my body needed to rest after exhausting itself, it still felt quite good. But those were just 5 measly rocks that I have thrown and yet it sounds like I am nearly dying here. I curse this weak body. Panting I began to resume my experiment. I summoned all my bugs and pointed at the corpse of the frog and voiced my previous command "Bring". Most of them tried to bring the corpse of the frog I killed but I picked that one up myself, most of the bugs had no idea what to do and just stood there waiting for more commands. Only a handful ran into the forest and brought me several things, after waiting for nearly an hour 2 bugs brought back a corpse of a frog they haunted and put it in front of my feet.
I patted those 2 bugs and gifted them the 2 corpses and those 2 little bugs, climbed by happily into my mouth carrying their prey. Some spectating bugs got the gist out of it and began hunting they prey I referred to as a frog.
Those who returned with a frog got rewarded the rest was left ignored, more and more bugs started their hunt and found more and more frogs. Prey, that I don't reward to a single person gets shared by the whole colony, that is why every single reward is like a rush of dopamine for them. After having a success quote of nearly 80%, I started with another animal, this time I made them hunt some blindworm.
And without suspense, every single one of them brought me more frogs. Shaking my head I lifted the corpse of the blindworm I hunted and said "Bring blindworm" once again. Even though nearly everyone still insisted on bringing me frogs, some finally brought me the corpse of a blind worm and I gifted them the corpse of the one I hunted beforehand. And now I just had to wait and watch the development repeat itself.
"Frog,Frog,Frog,Frog,Frog...."
"Still way too many Frogs"
"Yeah..., more frogs"
"Finally a blindworm"
"Frog, Frog, Frog Blindworm, Frog"
"Blindworm, Frog, Frog, Blindworm, Blindworm"
And after a long time of trial and error finally, the 80% mark was reached. In order to really test whether the bugs had learned or not. I asked for either blindworms or frogs in turns.
And utter chaos to happen once anew.
"Bring me frog"
" I wish I had dogs, I can't imagine how fast I would have been done by now.
" Don't bring me more blindworms"
" NO BLINDWORMS"
After rewarding those who brought me frogs and ignoring the ones that brought blindworms.
I reversed the task and demanded blindworms and I got way too many frogs.
"Those are just 2 animals, how long do I have to train them, if I want them to understand every single creature" a sigh escaped my lips. Rome was not built one day as well. I have to continue step by step this training session that will most likely rob me out of my last sane brain cells.
During this long period of trial and error. I began some simple workouts for my body. Starting with push-ups and crunches. Even though my body is weak I forced myself to do at least 1 repetition. Muscles grow if they are used frequently after all. That statement is true for a normal human body, but I have absolutely no idea whether that holds still true for me. All I know that under an influx of mana, my body transitions into a monstrosity and without the mana my body returns to its weak former state.
I have no idea, how much my genes have changed. It is quite vexing being unable to know what has changed. My body is just the first fusion of mana and foreign matter, judging by certainty I can be glad to be alive in the first place. The odds of me standing here right now are so ridiculously low my brain fails to even perceive such a number. It feels like getting hit by lightning, a cow that was lifted up by a tornado, while at the same time being run over by a car after you survived a plane crash in the middle of the desert. And just minutes before that the hospital called that your wife is pregnant with 4 children at the same time, while you just won the lottery. And even that ridiculous chain of events is not as likely as what has happened to me.
While I was busy contemplating and bitching about the unlikeliness, the bugs continued their conquest of blindworms and frogs, but their consistency improved over time. Therefore I decided to add another animal to the mix. After one of the bugs brought my an earthworm, which had a striking resemblance to the ones I knew from Earth if you just disregarded the razor-sharp teeth. Holding it up yelling "Earthworm" several times and afterwards it was time again for the usual "Bring". And thus the chaos resumed anew.
While pandemonium was currently happening in front of me, I decided to see how much human I still was.
I launched my fist into the tree over and over again, until it was finally bleeding. The red liquid was dripping down my fist, even though it hurt quite a bit I was still glad to know that the colour of blood has not changed one bit. Though I did not suspect that after the consumption of those players my skin would already be that tenacious. There was no improvement in pain tolerance and the neural system was as fast as before.
Well while my bugs are currently busy learning to follow my instructions, I will train my body and see how much it is able to take. So I lifted my bloody hands and began punching once again
Any spectator would be left wondering about the many bugs crawling around furiously, to a strange rhythm of dull impacts. Those dull impacts were varying in intensity, be it from fists or legs, the sound of the fierce training resumed and only ended after headbutts were added to the routine.
A sweet dream powered by head trauma.
Sadly this was just the first time this happened and it won't be the last time either.
After an uncertain amount of time passed the cycle of self-harm began once more.
And the wheel of time began to spin rapidly.