[Ding! You have established soulbound with Aetheris race, Elvira Seraphina Valora.]
Soulbound: when one of you die, the other will die.
[Ding! You have gained control over Six-Legged Cartels.]
[Kingdom function unlocked.]
It had been three days since his meeting with Elvira. He was now in the room where he first saw Elvira meeting with the four royal guards.
Utilizing his new crafting skill, Ben modified it into his personal room and workshop. To his surprise, the craft didn't work like in the game, where he needed to get a recipe and then gather enough material to craft it.
Instead, he needed to imagine what he wanted to make in his brain and ensure he had enough material. For example, one stone cube had one cubic meter of volume.
He could utilize all this without wasting any resources. The only caveat was that he needed to use mana to create the item.
For example, a single creation of a sharp sword would cost him 50 mana, while he only had 250. To completely regenerate, he needed to rest for a whole day.
"To think I spent all my mana fixing this place."
Ben then took out his kingdom interface. For an ant kingdom, the stats were very bad.
Based on what Elvira had told him, they had just finished a territorial war with another ant kingdom. The reason was to capture their queen.
Despite taking over the queen's ability, Elvira couldn't spawn ant eggs. She was more like a parasite, absorbing nutrients and abilities.
Hence, she needed to find another queen to fill the role. Fighting without the ability to replenish her forces had resulted in many losses.
[Six-Legged CartelsForces:Queen: 0Princess: 0Drones: 0Knight: 0Soldier: 4Worker: 25]
The queen's role was clear—laying eggs to create new ants. The princess was a queen candidate, acting as a replacement or used to create a new colony.
Drones were male ants that existed only to breed and clean up after the queen. The knight was the one Ben had killed, a special ant that existed to protect the queen.
'This arrangement doesn't look good at all. I will need to implement more changes.'
Ben thought the process wasn't very effective. It would be better if the queen was replaced by a real breeding machine, where workers just needed to put biomass in.
Biomass x 50:Type: MaterialUse: Evolution fuel, crafting materialUnderstanding: 5.60%Max Stack: 9999Rarity: Uncommon
A malleable organic substance absorbed from defeated creatures.
Can be used to enhance physical attributes or craft organic-based things. Suitable for merging with living tissue for transformations.
With this, Ben should be able to create the thing he had in mind. 'It's even better if I can make a new type of army…'
Ben then remembered the notification he had received after the transformation.
[Ding! Recovery completed. In the process, host has evolved from human to Hive Sovereign.]
Unfortunately, there wasn't much information on Hive Sovereign, but he somehow suspected he should have the ability of hive mind.
A skill that allowed him to control all his creations using biomass.
"My beloved, I have gathered all you asked." Elvira opened the door, entering with a smile.
Ben's lips twitched. Becoming a Hive Sovereign may have altered his personality, but this didn't make him a forgiving person.
"I told you, don't call me that. Do you think I forgot? You literally tore my arm and tried to kill me a few days ago."
"Hehe, come on, it's all in the past, and it's an arm, not like you died. I already told you the reason, asked for forgiveness, and even did the oath."
"Yeah, you say that, but you were the one forcing it…"
Remembering what had happened made Ben annoyed. Honestly, if not for how they had met, he might have been attracted to Elvira's current appearance.
Her personality was also to his taste, but she was too sly.
"Hei, you cannot be like that. You are the only one who took my virginity in my three lives, so be responsible," Elvira said in a half-teasing, half-shy tone.
Ben let out a heavy sigh. "Forget it. I don't want to have this debate again."
The virginity Elvira meant wasn't even the same as in his dictionary. It was an oath done by the Aetheris clan when they got married.
They would bite their lips until blood seeped out, then kiss their mate. This had happened after Ben had let down his guard and removed his mask.
In his defense, he had only done this after he was sure Elvira no longer posed a threat to his life.
As a Hive Sovereign, his regeneration was off the charts. As long as part of his body survived, he would be able to completely regenerate.
This would consume biomass, but it could be said that as long as he had it, he was almost immortal.
But this didn't mean he could go at things recklessly. He still had many weaknesses.
For example, fire damage was fatal to his body. If it hit his armor, it was fine, but if it reached his flesh, the damage would be catastrophic.
Ben stood up and walked to exit the room. Elvira let out a chuckle and held his hand.
"Come on, stop sulking, my beloved. You know I can tell if you feel like that. You should be happy."
"In total, I have gathered a lot of ant corpses. This should be more than enough for you to master the biomass."
They walked through a large hallway with many curves and traps. "We still need to look for the queen. Did you find her?"
"Not yet, but one of the soldiers reported they had found her tracks."
Ben paused in his step, looking at Elvira. "Why, my beloved? Is something on my face?"
Ben wondered how Elvira could talk with the ants. Did she gain his hive mind ability?
But then he remembered Elvira had absorbed the ant queen's ability. It should include the hive mind; otherwise, how could she have controlled them all this time?
They then reached a room that had been allocated as a warehouse. Right now, the kingdom had multiple rooms.
The queen's chamber, the place where Ben stayed and turned into his personal room. A rest area for worker and soldier ants to rest.
A warehouse to store food and materials. And a trash chamber where they dumped all their trash.
Looking at the rows of ant corpses stacked on top of each other, Ben's eyes lit up.
"Alright, I will start my work now."