For two hours, Stone was using his Mana Carving skill to carve several connected holes according to Partner's lead. He activated his new spell Healing Bath for stones with it. Due to him doing it to himself, the holes weren't healed and after he was done he could produce a sound.
[Your skill Mana Carving gained a level 2 times]
"Done," Stone stated after an hour and grumbled, "this didn't feel good at all."
"It was necessary. Now try to use mana to talk with ants."
Stone tried, but only a high-pitched sound was released.
"It doesn't work," Stone was disappointed.
"Use more mana and vibrate it. Use the celestial language you know and talk."
"STONE!" His still high-pitched voice reverberated over the whole anthill and his first minions stopped and turned to him.
"Good!" Partner praises him and thanked the gods that they didn't abandon him.
"Now we can finally move around!"
"Oh, right. I can order ants to move me around," Stone understood.
"It's time to move. We should kill some rodents to level you up again!" Partner's soul was swimming in a sea of joy and happiness.
"Ants! I am your King Stone!" his new voice echoes in the throne room. Ants look up to him and the brave ant steps towards him.
"Yes, Queen King Stone!"
"King Stone!"
"Yes, Queen!"
"King Stone!"
"Understood, Queen Stone!"
This went for another half an hour and Partner's happiness dried out after the first 5 minutes. The whole sea of it. Instead, the bed of despair hit him hard. Partner tried to stop the downward-spiraling Stone. Unsuccessfully. "Oh, for the love of gods! HELP ME!" Partner yelled in his mind, thinking he would go insane. Who knows, maybe he had gone insane.
"Ants! I want the strongest to lift me and bring me outside! We will hunt rodents!" Stone ordered after he gave up. The ants were too stupid for it and he lost interest. So, be it... Queen it is. It was not like he cared too much.
The ants did not wait and fourteen royal guards picked up the throne with him sitting on it.
"This small ant is interesting. He is almost sapient. Maybe we could train him."
"You! Small ant! Yes, the one who was the first on the battlefield to talk to me. Come with us," Stone commanded on Partner's advice.
"Onwards!" Stone declared, enjoying newfound good feelings. Ordering around was quite enjoyable.
Fourteen ants, carrying the talc throne fitted with leaves, gaiting towards where their new King sits, left the Talc Anthill quickly. The brave, but still small ant crawled behind the throne and let the guards carry him too.
Meanwhile, Stone enhanced his sphere of sight to 2 metres. The nothingness behind the clear line did not bother him even a bit.
"We are moving! We are finally moving around freely…" Partner cried in happiness.
"You said that word before. Rodents. What are rodents?"
"Mice, rats, squirrels… You will see!"
Ants were tenacious trackers and hunters and soon they found their first target: a rat, eating a half-rotten fruit, very similar to a pear but slimmer and orange. The rat had brown fur with an occasional darker streak and red, ravenous eyes.
"Stop!" They were one and a half metres away. The rat completely ignored them. Why shouldn't it? A few ants and a pebble in the dark shaft. Nothing to see.
"What now?" Stone questioned.
"Now, create a spear from the refined mana as I taught you and send it directly into its eye."
The translucent spear out of 3 RM materialized before the rat's eye—the rat tensed as it felt the danger but was not fast enough to evade. The spear penetrated through the eye, then the brain, the tip broke through the skull. The rat slumped to the ground with the blood and brain tissue pouring out of the wound as the mana spear dissipated into motes of translucent mana and ethereal experience got absorbed by Stone.
[You have killed a rat. You have gained 31.4% experience]
[Your skill Mana Carving gained a level]
"Partner, I gained a lot of experience!" Stone excitedly bragged. The growing number made him happy.
"That's good! Now, off to the next target," the same could be told about Partner too.
"Ants! Find the next rodent!" Stone high-pitched voice sounded in the shaft.
The small ant glanced at the new Queen, thinking, "he is much stronger than our previous queen.".
Stone noticed that the small ant, he completely forgot about and who was with them the whole time, was watching him. It felt strange to him and did not hold it for himself.
"Partner, the small ant is gazing at me. It makes me... unease."
"Hmm, maybe we should name him?"
"Why?"
"Are you going to call him a small ant forever?"
"Ah," Stone realized the inconvenience, "small ant! Your name is Ant from this moment!" Stone proclaimed.
"Thought so…" Partner just shook his imaginary head.
"Queen! Something is happening! There was a voice telling me I joined Universum!" Ant danced around.
"Partner? Ant said that he joined the Universum too."
"Yeah, I see," he answered, impassively, and thought "as expected. This one would become the new Queen instead of the idiot...".
"Stone, he is she…"
"That gender thing again?"
"Yes."
"Does it matter?"
"Sometimes."
"Ant is Ant. What matters if he is she?"
"She can make eggs."
"Eggs?"
"Babies," Partner explained with a plain tone. "Why me? Why should I explain this to him?! Gods! Do you hate me that much?!"
"Oh. Can I make babies?"
"You are stone. Well… I think you can't," Partner was uncertain about this and for his sanity, he refused to contemplate anymore. Some things were better left unanswered.
"Partner! Another rodent!" Stone examined the large lizard with his sphere in and out, "but it looks strange."
"It's not a rodent! Still, it's worth almost the same as rodents! Kill it," Partner observed the poor lizard too through the Stone's sphere. It had yellow skin, with black spots and round black eyes.
"Queen! That's the enemy!" Ant panicked. The previous Queen had to scare a lot of these powerful adversaries away quite often as they loved to eat ants in great numbers and did not even shirk away from attacking the anthill.
"Do not worry, Ant!" Stone graciously proclaimed.
The lizard detected the ants and rushed towards them. Stone cast a new spear and sent it against the eye of the incoming foe, but the lizard dodged with ease.
"Partner! The lizard evaded!"
"So? Make another spear!"
"I don't have refined mana anymore!"
"So, use a normal one!"
"Queen! Quick! It's almost there!" Ant slowly stepped backwards, trying to find an opportunity to… tactically retreat.