IMPERIUM INSECTUM

I looked up from the blood stain. Regret and shame filled my mind, but I had to ignore it and push forward. I made a promise to him. So, let’s do our best to keep it. I moved into the centre of the clearing and opened my ability list. We are in a tricky position, and the only solution is to grow my hive. Thankfully, I recently evolved, so there should be many new abilities available to me.

 

Ooh, there is so much I want here, but sadly, not enough points to spend. I have 96 points to spend so let’s do some shopping. Firstly, frugal feeding is a must. Reducing my hive's food consumption is just too useful to pass up. Things are fine now, but we must think about the future. The less food they eat, the fewer workers I have to dedicate to food, leaving more room for construction and offence. Additionally, this lowers the bar for every single unit type going forward. I wonder, can I.... I shook my head. It’s an idea for later, but it's one that, if it works, will change the game.

The next skill is, of course, Enhanced Growth Accelerant. No-brainer, really, anything to help with making children a must-buy.

Biofuel looked interesting, but it is not necessary right now. If my healing magic was a lot better, I could, in theory, convert my mana into biomass through healing myself and then converting the HP into biomass, but that sounds tedious (and painful).

The other 2 were off the table due to price. I want them both, but as of right now, I need to focus on the fundamentals. But these will be definite purchases in the future.

 

Of course,

 

Warmth spread across my stomach as my body changed and adapted to the ability. I wasted no time opening the hive management screen. I started specialising 60 eggs, 30 more workers, and 30 more combat units, costing me around 22,500 biomass, leaving me with 32,500 biomass available for me to use.

Yes, of course…

 

What?! No, very wasteful. The combat units already gestate quickly, only taking a day. What we need now is workers, and a lot of them.

I selected no, and the system brought up another menu, allowing me to choose how the growth accelerant would be used. Due to the new ability, I only need 10 mls of accelerant per egg instead of 20, and the gestation time reduction has gone up from 12 hours to 24 hours. Meaning if I apply the accelerant twice. I can bring the gestation time from 3 days to 1. The same amount as the combat units.

<Looks like everything is going my way>

I confirmed the specialisation and closed the menu, and soon, a blisteringly hot warmth rocketed through my body as the accelerant got to work in my body. Now, usually, this is the time when I would go and grab one of my walking wombs and impregnate, but I have a different plan.

 

There was always an option in the hive management screen that existed, but I always ignored it. Whilst I can impregnate other people, I can also impregnate myself. I always ignored this option because it always felt pointless to me. Why impregnate myself when it is more fun to do it to others. However, this time, I want to do it to myself. This is mainly due to curiosity, and the other is the 30-egg limit. 30 eggs is the limit I can put into a host, whilst there is nothing stopping me from putting more; my instincts have always screamed at me any time I've wanted to. If I had to guess it, it’s probably due to the host probably not surviving till they reach birth and causing the eggs to die with the host. However, when I think about impregnating myself, my instincts don’t kick in at all. Giving me the idea that I can give birth to more than 30 children in one sitting.

<60 eggs at once....> My spine shook with excitement at the thought; maybe my instincts weren't as quiet as I thought they were.

I Pressed the self-impregnation button, and suddenly, another burst of heat exploded in my abdomen. My stomach felt like a volcano as massive amounts of heat was produced. I placed my hand on my stomach, and what was usually cold to the touch was now as hot as a frying pan. Suddenly, my stomach moved. The plates stretched outwards slightly as they made room for hastily growing eggs.

<MMMphh so warmmm>

I rubbed my stomach as an immense pleasure wafted through my body,

 I sat and enjoyed the heat and pleasure for the moment. My body always makes sure to reward me in some way when I make more children, and this time, it isn’t any different. I looked up to the sky and watched as the clouds blocked the view of the moon and stars.

<And now we wait>

And wait, I did soon. Night turned into day, and the hive resumed its usual operation. The combat units I laid in the girls earlier finally arrived today. Luckily, there were only 20 of them, so we weren't as busy as I thought we would be.

<I’m so excited, mother! You’re pregnant!>

<Sally, it’s not that much diff->

<IT IS!>

Sally has been running around making sure everything is perfect for when I finally give birth. As for me, well, my stomach has grown a bit larger in the hours since self-impregnation. It's not too large, mind you. I'm not as big as the girls when I impregnate them, but I did have a noticeable bump on me.

<move this here. Tidy that there. It has to be perfect.>

I rolled my eyes as I got back to reading the book I was entrusted with by the old healer, Deckard. I meant to give it a good read earlier, but due to the chaos of my house being invaded, my evolution and the preparations to leave, I haven’t had the time to read, which is a shame. There are a lot of interesting spells and knowledge here.

I flicked over the old page to the 1^st section about basic healing.

 I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I will approach combat from now on. Realistically, I should be nowhere near the frontline. My role is to create and lead; however, just sitting back and doing nothing but breeding does sound fun. It’s not something that sits well with me, so I want to move into a more supportive role. That doesn’t mean I’m going to neglect my ability to fight; The urge to feel blood on my claws and pincers is too much to ignore. It is literally part of me and besides, I need to be able to defend myself.

Going forward, I plan to practice and learn more healing skills to be able to heal my children and keep them in the fight longer. It will be useful, especially in battles where we will be outnumbered.

<Let’s see here.” There are several aspects of healing magic that make it different from regular offensive magic. While in regular offensive magic, you can increase the power by just pumping in more mana, healing magic does not respond in the same way. Instead, the strength of a spell can be improved through keeping a steady stream of mana. Think of a water pipe; sure, you can increase the power and push a whole load of water through, but it will come out choppy and uncontrollable on the other end. Instead, you should aim for a smooth, seamless flow with no disruptions. The smoothness of the flow will improve the stability and allow for improved healing”>

I snapped the book closed. It was a bit wordy but it Makes sense to me. Aim for a steady flow of mana. It seems simple enough. I held out my hand, and suddenly, black and green mana began to swirl out of my hands. This is the usual healing spell I use it's simple and quite weak. The book said to work on the smoothness of the flow, so does that mean I have to….

I focused on the mana in my hands. The books said I have to focus on flow, but how? My mana feels smooth, but I am still limited to the minor heal spell. When I was making my null spiral spell, I got it to work by changing the speed of how that mana flowed, but this was different. It was talking about the smoothness of the flow, not the speed. Could he mean….

I held my hand out and let the man flow again. The same black and green swirl came out, but now, instead of trying to adjust the speed, I focused more on the consistency of the mana. Deckard mentioned water in his explanation, so if we treat the mana like a liquid, mine right now is like water. Water in motion isn’t very smooth; it sloshes back and forth and can form and can have ripples in it. However, if I were to try and change the consistency to something like syrup or honey, something that, when flowing, is quite smooth, then maybe, maybe. it may work. Easier said than done because I have no fucking clue how to do that

The black and green mana swirled out my hands as I tried to match the consistency in my mind.

<Come on…come on…please work>

However, The green and black Mana swirled around my fingertips, unchanging from its original form. I adjusted the flow through my body by adding and subtracting power. I could feel the mana morph with every adjustment I made. I’m close; I can feel it. The black and green mana started to shape and morph with my changes. Suddenly, there was a bright green surge illuminating the clearing with green mana.

<WHAT WAS THAT MOTHER> Sally said. Her pincers and blades shot out of her body.

<Hahah. I have no idea.>

 

 

 

Well, well, well. This is quite the development. The fact that the system has merged the spells into one was not something I expected or knew it could do. How interesting. Haha, now I need to experiment more with magic. I looked towards my hands. Gone was the swirling black mana now; there was a steady black and green glow to my hands. I sent more mana to my arm, causing the glow to grow brighter and deeper.

I wanted to test this new heal out, but sadly, no one was injured around that I could use it on.

*Sigh*

“What's the long sigh for?”

I turned around just in time to see Penn come from behind me.

“I'm bored.”

“If you're bored, go do something.”

“I can't. I am with child.”

“With child….”

Her head snapped between me and the cave multiple times.

“Don’t tell me that guy knocked you up?”

“What? HAHAHAHAHAA. No Penn! It's not possible, and even if it was, I wouldn’t let myself get knocked up by vermin. I have standards.”

“Then how did you…..Yaknow.”

“I did it to myself.”

“You… impregnated.. yourself…”

Penn stared at me like I was a crazy person before placing her palm on her head.

“I wanna say I'm surprised, but thinking about it, this should be logically possible for you. What I do want to know is where you are keeping them?! Besides the bump, you are no where near as large as the others.”

That is true. Honestly, there is a lot to my body that I don’t understand. Then again, it was crafted by a literal god. My instincts don’t help either. Sometimes, I know what my body does, whilst at other times, I'm left in the dark.

“My body was made for this purpose, so naturally, it can handle it a lot better than your average human.”

“That isn’t an answer, diva.”

“Well, it’s the one you're going to just have to deal with.”

She rolled her eyes as she left me alone to talk with Sally. It's nice to see them get along. I laid back on the grass and stared up to the sky, nothing to do but wait.  

Diva status