As she looked at Antonia, who was now busy at work swapping the souls of humans and Earth Ants around, Beatrice couldn't help but smile before descending through a staircase to a lower level of her home.
Originally, Beatrice's underground abode had 3 floors, each being around 100 by 100 meters.
Back then, the first floor was Beatrice's experimental lab and living quarters.
Below that stood the second floor, which housed the food growing operation as well as her storage space.
Even further than that stood the Mana generating room, as well as Beatrice's more horrifying projects.
Right now, though, this was no longer the case, as Beatrice had the Earth Ants drastically expand both the size of each of the floor and the number of floors that made up her home.
Of course, this renovation also had some other goals, such as making the abode harder to find and increasing its defensive ability.
In the end though, Beatrice and the Earth Ants decided on 9 floors, each being perfect squares, one by one kilometer in size.
As she descended from the third to the fourth floor, which had not finished being decorated, Beatrice couldn't help but let out a faint sigh.
"I'll have to wait for some more time to relax in this place..." mumbled Beatrice as she looked at the huge open space in front of her, which unlike the previous floor, wasn't separated into rooms just yet, and was extremely basic for now.
Just like the previous version, the floors in Beatrice's new base of operations also had specific purposes.
Unlike the previous version though, the first floor of this version was not truly part of Beatrice's home, as it was completely dedicated to defenses, and was meant to serve as the first line of defense in case of an invasion.
If not for the fact that she was the one that created those traps and defenses, Beatrice was certain that even she would be unable to break through that place on short notice.
After that, both the second and third floors were both laboratories, dedicating to Physical and Soul research respectively.
The third floor was actually the place Beatrice was in just now, as all matters regarding the soul would be researched in there.
Of course, Beatrice did not decide this arbitrarily, as she had indeed created some safety measures specifically guarding against souls, which she had placed on that floor.
Following that was the fourth floor, which in the future would become Beatrice's primary residence.
This was actually the floor that Beatrice was on right now, but sadly, Beatrice decided that this floor was of the least importance, and decided to finish more urgent things first.
Below that, near to both Beatrice's residence, and the resource generation floors which were below it, stood the Storage floor, which as the name implied, was the place that Beatrice used to store the most common items and resources that she obtained.
As she descended downwards and looked at the storage floor, which now had many ants moving all around it, both moving the things that were stored inside of it, and building even more storage and sorting, Beatrice couldn't help but faintly smile.
The things Beatrice did with the help of the earth ants, the more her appreciation of them increased.
Not only were the ants cute little bugs, but they were both extremely obedient to her, obeying her every whim without any other thought, but they were also surprisingly competent, especially the smart ants that she had created, which in Beatrice's opinion, were much better than humans.
Unlike what one might expect, the ants were not at all rigid, and could learn new topics and things quite easily, especially thanks to their extreme dedication, which allowed them to completely focus on one thing.
This meant that even though the smart ants were quite a bit dumber than humans, they could actually learn things even faster.
At this moment, Beatrice suddenly stretched out her finger towards a nearby table, causing an ant who was carrying a piece of metal much larger than it to suddenly stop, place it down, and rub its head on her finger.
As she looked at the cute little thing, which held extreme adoration for her, Beatrice couldn't help but suddenly stretch out her hand, causing the ant to suddenly fly upwards, from the fifth floor, to the third floor, where Antonia was creating smart ants.
This also meant that the ant would be one of the lucky few who would be ale to obtain increased intelligence.
A few moments later, after petting some more cute ants, and sending them to the third floor, Beatrice once again began descending lower, and no longer dwelled on the fifth floor.
As she descended to the lower floor, though, Beatrice encountered a row of ants.
'Has the tunnel not been completed just yet?' thought Beatrice as she looked at the endless row of ants that were carrying food into the storage floor.
The ants that Beatrice encountered were carrying crops, including sometimes entire potatoes, on their backs up these stairs, causing Beatrice, who was currently descending to the lower floor to feel a little bit confused, after all, a purpose built channel for this kind of thing was in the designs of the underground world.
As soon as Beatrice arrived at the sixth floor, she was suddenly greeted by a construction site, as well as a small Beatrice, who was currently managing it alongside several significantly larger than average ants, who were helping her.
The moment Beatrice talked to them and realized what happened, she couldn't help but become somewhat speechless.
At first, things went as planned, as food crops were able to smoothly rise up to the higher floor, but just a few days after this floor was finished, the ants, as well as the little Beatrice, discovered something.
The smart earth ants could increase the growth and efficiency of crops with just a tiny bit of Earth Magic.
This not only lowered the growth time of crops, but also increased production whilst decreasing the needs for resources like water.
As one might expect, both little Beatrice, and the Earth Ants, adored efficiency, and could not resist using this new method.
As such, the current scene was born.