I spend the rest of the night squeezing Edona of every knowledge I could absorb. After few hours of relentless talking, Edona concluded that she has no more information that she could offer. With that, she bid farewell to get some rest.
I don't feel like resting though. I felt like I have infinite energy to nullify the sleepiness. I took a leisure walk inside the den and from the holes up above the ceiling, I could tell that the sun was about to rise by the pink, Violet and blue hue of the sky. I head to an empty chamber where my siblings take their rest. It's still early, maybe I should just find something else to do.
Oh! I have an idea. I should do that thing! The novel I have finished has this chapter where the main character recognise and familiarise his mana which exist here in this world too. Because of that, he achieved using magic efficient, fast, precise and powerful than anyone! I don't doubt that I could do the same but the result will be impossible to copy from the novel.
I settled my giant figure on the very corner, close my eyes and started to sense my core. It's warm, spherical and strong. I imagine a spherical orange that emits a warm light. It looks like a small sun though. I tried to will it a few times and I notice few movements. Every time I attempt to do use it, a prominence-like arc rose into the surface of the small sun and when I was ready to deploy the magic out of my core, the arc dissolves and spread around my core like a thin translucent layer. I materialised a floating fire orb in front of me and the faster it materialise, the faster the translucent layer in my core dissappear.
So basically, the mana used doesn't comes directly from the core, but the core release small amount of mana and condense it into this translucent form and this one was the one i use for mana output.
I imagined it as I collect energy directly from the core but it doesn't work, it's like I am not in control of the core but just able to borrow some of it for my use. I don't know what's the difference with the condensed mana or the pure mana inside the core but nonetheless, I think the output is still powerful. Maybe with few practice, I would be able to use pure mana directly from my core.
Next, I imagined it growing tentacles. It might be dangerous but I want to empower my whole body with mana if it's possible. Of course, a translucent layer formed around my core and that's where the tentacles grew. First, I made eight for my six limbs and my translucent wings and elytra. I visualise a translucent frame of my beetle body. And gave a lot of concentration to aligned those thread like tentacles on the limbs. For the wings and elytra, I made the thread grow more tentacles on it, it's like I'm making root to cover the hard shell of the elytra. I did the same in the wings.
After that, I remained focused on detailing the image in my mind and memorise it as I maintain it like that inside my body. I could feel tense and warm sensation in my legs and back. It lasted almost 1 hour and a rustling sound ruined my concentration. I focused on retracting the thread like mana back on my core before it could do damage in my inner body. I opened my eyes and saw my siblings waking up one by one. At least I've memorised the sensation and the visual layout of my body.
"Brother? You wake early?"
The first one who noticed my huge figure was Kiro. He wiggled his back and vibrated his elytra as if stretching.
"Yeah, we will leave now."
"What? Already? "
"I thought we live here? "
"Alot of food!"
Everyone said. It's like their against it. But it's the ant's den.
"We don't live here and we don't belong here too. We need to build our own home."
Kaisa and Krono gave an understanding look while the others are grumpy about it. Still they agreed. And with that, we walked out of the chamber and I told them to say bye on every ant they pass. As usual, many of them ignored us and continued working but some lesser and greater ants nodded to us as we passed by them. We arrived at the huge entrance which is now just a head taller than me and in the opening, Edona was waiting.
"I came by to see you out. I hope you enjoy our accommodation. "
"Yes we did. We are truly grateful for you and your Kingdom for taking us under your care. I am also happy that we worked together to save this forest. I also had a huge gain."
Edona giggled at my last statement and chatted with me for a moment. I don't know how my siblings got up on my back when I was asleep yesterday but they are struggling to climb up on my back now. It's hard but slippery after all, they're claw couldn't penetrate it now that they don't have any thing to hold on to as my elytra is a plain black hard exoskeleton.
Annoyed by Their grunt every time they fall, I scooped them up one by one by my foreleg and placed them above my scutellum while still conversing with Edona. After giving me few advices and directions towards safe route and place. We bid farewell in each other.
"Before you leave, let me do something for you."
Edona said before I could pass by her. She raised her forelegs and a golden brownish aura emitted from her. The aura launched a thread on my siblings and me and we could see a translucent sphere covering us. Edona retracted her aura and both the thread and sphere vanish.
"This shield is one time use only. It can take a huge amount of damage from normal beast and insects but it can't withstand a divine beast's attack. I hope this will help you out when in dire situation and I also hope you won't encounter a predator divine beast."
"Thank you queen Edona! We really appreciate it. "
"Thank you!"
"Thank you!"
....
....
...
"Thank you! "
We all thanked consecutively. The Queen gave us a cheerful smile. And with that, we head out of the kingdom and traverses the Gashnor forest once again. Today is windy, the rustling of the leaves above the tree tops and on the ground relaxes my sense and gave us a good mood while I walked and my siblings playing and sightseeing from on top of me. Now, I am confident that I can't knock down a tree with my size. The greater ant's legs are as big as the leaning tree's branches while mine was just few inches smaller than the whole width of the tree trunk. My siblings enjoyed talking with their voices now and still keep inquiring me about everything they see and they are not familiar with. We travelled for almost 4 hours already and the sun is high. I picked up leaves and berries along the way and my siblings manage to catch some falling leaves. Another 4 hours passed and we arrived at a mossy cave. Above it was an unusual tree which doesn't match with the leaning trees. It has thicker and wider trunk just half of my width. And it has dense leaves. It's root was covering the giant rock cave. It's perfect to be our den. But I am hundred percent that this is already inhabited.
"Huff!" A loud snort can be heard echoing inside the cave we heard heavy footstep coming from inside.
"Kaisa lead your siblings further back for now."
I commanded Kaisa. She didn't replied to me but I can hear her shushing Kaitron whose still protesting that he's not afraid. I felt all of them slide down from my back and I focused my attention on the beast coming out of the cave. From its silhouette, I figured out it was a bear.
It's 2 times bigger than me and it's long canine teeth and glimmering silver eyes added into its already intimidating figure. It completely showed itself out of the cave and I could see that it's fur is silver in color. It's claws and teeth are unusually sharp and shiny. It's like they were actual blades. It menacingly stared at me like he is treating me not just a prey but an opponent. I lowered my head and pointed my dual sharp end of my trunk. As if he was triggered by my action, he clawed his talon on the ground.
Both of us waiting for the first move just glared at each other observing our opponent. He finally decided to do the first attack and he dashed at an unusual speed for his body size and in just a blink of an eye, he's already in front of me with his talon raised ready to slash.