Absorbed in her own thoughts, Gaia stared at the clear sky with her nonexistent eyes, thinking about the previous night. She watched some ladybugs fly over her, manouvering through the air as the wind carried them further away into the distance. She didn’t really mind them though, her thoughts were filled with information Wyne had provided last night.

The girl wasn’t here anymore, having returned to her village as soon as the sun began rising instead. She had expressed her fear of staying in the open during the day, so Gaia had sent her off with a small escort consisting of two ants. They had returned about an hour later, so she guessed her new friend had safely reached her destination.

Gaia was still overwhelmed by the fact she had met a real humanoid creature after weeks of nothing happening. True, the Treefolk didn’t exactely look like humans in the slightest, but that didn’t matter to Gaia. All she wanted was some people to talk with and that kind of stuff, like she had back on Earth, and now she finally had someone to do that with.

Even though Wyne was a few years younger than her, Gaia had enjoyed their conversation more than anything in this world so far. The girl was eccentric, nice to her, and overall happy to help her by explaining the mysteries of magic and skills to her. Not to mention she promised to come back tonight with some of the villagers, something Gaia was actually quite nervous about.

She generally disliked big groups, and especially being at the center of one. Things like birthdays were always kind of an annoyance for her back on Earth, apart the cake of course. She just felt uncomfortable with people looking at her all the time, which hadn’t changed since coming to this world.

She sighed deeply as she thought about her past few weeks as a tree. She didn’t really know if she was happy or not about her current circumstances, which were very different from her previous life. It felt as if her heart was itching, as if it was missing something she didn’t know she had. She looked down again as a familiar voice resounded from beneath the earth.

“Are you alright, Mother? Is something troubling you?” Scarlet asked from inside her nest.

“Nah, I was just thinking about some stuff.” Gaia said with a smile. “How are things down there? Still busy I imagine?”

“It’s business as usual,” Scarlet replied. “Things have gotten better after the spider’s attack however. The grubs are well fed, and a new batch of workers is about to be born. On top of that, many ants have evolved already, ensuring our survival even more. I truly can’t thank you enough for allowing us to reside here, Mother,” Scarlet expressed her thanks, but Gaia shook her leaves.

“No, I’m thankful you’re here to help me out as well. You and your colony have been a great help over the past few days, both by helping me and keeping me company.”

“Speaking about company,” Scarlet said, her tone changing slightly. “I heard from a worker that you had a visitor last night. Might I ask who that was?”

Gaia felt bad about not having informed Scarlet about Wyne yet, but the thought had completely slipped her mind. Apologetically, she explained who had unexpectedly visited her under the moonlight.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you about that. That was Wyne, a Treefolk. She said she lives in a village nearby and followed your ants here after the raid on the spiders’ nest. She told me about my skills and magic, isn’t that great? I know the full extent of my abilities now, so it probably won’t be long anymore before I can actually use them,” Gaia said excitedly.

“She knows about your abilities?” Scarlet asked in an ominous voice. “I don’t want to be rude Mother, but I don’t think that was a good idea. You should be more careful about sharing things like that, especially with strangers. She might even be plotting a plan to undermine you at this very moment.”

Gaia very much doubted that. Wyne had seemed like a genuinely nice person, and Gaia was sure her intentions were perfectly alright.

“Don’t be silly, of course she won’t do that. Besides, I can tell if people are genuine or not, I have a skill for that now. It’s the same skill I use to talk to people, only it upgraded when I evolved, so it’s not magic like you thought before. Anyway, I would’ve known if she tried to decieve me, so don’t worry about it too much.”

Scarlet was silent for a while, thinking about Gaia’s words. Then she spoke again.

“There’s a difference between skills and magic?” She finally asked.

---

It took fifteen long and difficult minutes to explain about the difference between skills and magic to Scarlet. Gaia basically tried to explain it the same way Wyne had to her, giving examples and such to help her understand better, but the confused ant queen had a lot more trouble understanding it than she had, which Gaia found strange. She couldn’t be that bad a teacher, right?

“Say, how come you know so much about evolution, but so little about skills and magic? I thought you said your knowledge was based on instinct, so it would make sense if you knew about that too, right?” She asked after Scarlet finally got the basics of how magic worked.

“Like I said before, magic isn’t my strong point,” the ant queen said in a tired voice. “We ants rarely evolve to a high enough level to be able to utilise magic, something that is reserved for higher species alone. I doubt any ant can use more than two or three skills at most. Our strength lays more in our numbers than our individual power.”

“I see,” Gaia replied. “Well anyway, I think I should share my abilities with you now. Some of them are really interesting, and I want to try them out as well. Could you send some ants up as test subjects? I promise it’s all perfectly safe, they won’t be in any form of danger.”

“If you say so. I’ll send some up right away,” Scarlet said after a short silence.

Gaia waited a few seconds until the three heads of the Daredevils popped out of the nest. Smiling, she watched as the trio of massive ant soldiers crawled out of their tunnel, revealing their full size in the soft light of the sun. They swiftly walked over and positioned themselves in front of her, looking at her with their red compound eyes.

The Daredevils were looking deadly as ever, their massive exoskeletons as thick and heavy as armor, held up by their six sturdy legs. They slowly moved their mandibles together as they patiently waited for Gaia to begin. She cleared her throat before adressing her new test subjects.

“Alright, let’s jump into it right away. According to Wyne, who has appraised my abilities last night, there should be something like an aura around me, providing passive effects on all creatures within the area. So, my first question is, have you noticed anything when you were close to me the past few days?”

The Daredevils nodded their heads in sync, the rest of their bodies unmoving through the action.

“I felt it myself too,” Scarlet added from underneath. “I feel strangely comfortable when I’m residing inside my chamber, but the feeling fades when I visit the outer tunnels. I believe this feeling became stronger since you evolved, Mother.”

“Why would you visit the outer tunnels though?” Gaia suddenly asked, interested as to why the queen of all ants would suddenly leave the comfort of her chambers.

“That’s were we store our feces, Mother,” Scarlet said irritably. “I like to keep my nest as clean as possible, if you don’t mind.”

Gaia was silent for a second after her answer before she managed to say something again.

“Right. Anyway, I’m glad my aura seems to have an effect on you guys. It should give off multiple buffs at the same time, some of which are rather interesting. According to Wyne, it should boost your stamina, physical defense, attack power and even regeneration, as well as restoring your fatigue. Most of these effects are rather weak, but hey, at least it’s something, right?”

Gaia waited for Scarlet to make a comment, but the ant queen remained silent. The Daredevils didn’t react either, so Gaia sighed and continued.

“Apart from those buffs, my aura also gives off warmth and reduces people’s will to fight. Noticed anything about that?”

“Not really,” Scarlet admitted. “With the upcoming winter, it’s rather hard to notice such small differences in temperature, and it’s not as if we’ve had the desire to fight anyway. Still, these effects might be useful in the future, especially if they improve through evolution. The warmth boost however might become more of a hinderance, if we want to hibernate at least.”

Gaia was confused for a moment, before she mentally slapped herself on the forehead.

“That’s right, I hadn’t though about that,” she said, stunned she had overlooked such an important detail. Ants weren’t active during the winter at all, hibernating deep underground in their nests instead. During that period, their metabolism would slow down drastically, which meant they didn’t require food to consume.

Gaia’s warmth buff however could prevent the ants from going into hibernation at all, which would pose a problem. As soon as they would leave her aura to search for food, they would freeze to death outside, where the effect wasn’t active. Besides, it was not like there were a lot of creatures to eat during the winter anyway.

“I’ll need to talk to Wyne, maybe I can disable the warmth buff or something,” Gaia said, realizing her seemingly nice ability could lead to some rather nasty consequences.

“It’s okay for now, I think,” Scarlet reassured her. “In the absolute worst case, we’ll need to relocate our nest again, resulting in you being unguarded for a few months. Maybe you could make an arrangement with the Treefolk, so they can look after you during that period?”

“Yeah, I’ll ask if that’s okay for them,” Gaia murmured. “Anyway, it’s not like we can do aything about it now, so let’s just move on, shall we? I have some more skills I would like to test on you,” Gaia said as the Daredevils nodded, waiting patiently for her to begin.

“This one is a buff skill as well, although it isn’t limited to my aura this time. I can apply a single weak buff to a creature, which lasts five minutes. The good thing though, is that I can pick the effect I want to apply myself, meaning the possibilities are practically endless. Isn’t that cool?”

Gaia could barely contain her excitement about this skill. Wyne had told her about how useful this skill could prove to be in the future, especially since it was able to improve through evolutions.

“Congratulations, Mother. It seems like a very nice skill to have,” Scarlet said dryly. Made a sour face, but she didn’t continue on it. The ant queen clearly didn’t know what was useful and not.

“Thanks, I guess. I want to try it out in a minute on the ants, but I first I want to tell you about my last few abilities. Apparently, I recieved a small resistance against poison, probably from that time with large spider.”

Gaia paused for a second, remembering the horrible feeling of being bitten by the Cyclops, before she continued again.

“You’ll remember my healing magic as well, although apparently I’ve only scartched the surface of what I can actually do with it. I only managed to make a simple construct by chance, but with some practice, I should be able to do some more with it, like removing poison and such.”

The Daredevils nodded politely, not understanding any of the importance of the things Gaia just told them. She sighed, a little bit dissapointed by the lack of enthusiasm the ants showed. Wyne had told her that healing magic was an extremely rare school of magic, and a very useful one at that, so she thought at least Scarlet would share her excitement. Disgruntled, Gaia prepared herself for her final trick up her sleeve.

“And finally, I have my ultimate skill. Now this one is a real steal, I can tell you that much.”

She waited for a second for dramatic effect before continuing.

“I can choose one person to become my guardian, binding them to the space within my aura for the rest of their life. In return, they become three times stronger, gainng various skills as well. On top of that, they evolve five times faster than usual.”

All ants sprung up the moment she said “evolve”, but Scarlet remained calm.

“You are planning something, aren’t you Mother? Who have you chosen as your champion?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Gaia said with a develish smile. She dramatically swayed her leaves around once a few times until she bend them to one side in a pointing gesture. The Daredevils all looked at the small flower Gaia was pointing at, growing between the large chunks of dirt next to her.

“I choose Daisy.”