Swarming Sovereignty

Chapter 15: Gathered Magic

As Rose had surmised, there was indeed a “Xylomancer”, and once enough blood had been gathered, Lia was able to confirm that a similar race existed for blood. Oddly enough, it was called “Blood Mage” instead of “Hemamancer” or something similar, but “blood mage” was the far more common term, so she supposed it wasn’t weird.

And that bumped her total number of magic types up to seven. Not all of them had finished converting, so she wasn’t sure if that was enough, but hopefully it would be. She wasn’t quite sure where she would get other magic users, and there were only about three more rat cocoons, so if this didn’t do it, she was out of luck for a bit.

But there was no use worrying over that before it happened. So, while she waited, she took some time to survey the additions Rose had made while Lia was out. She had managed to obtain around twenty foot soldiers and around ten pricklers, and that wasn’t even accounting for the rats made into magic users and still in cocoons.

Lia sent a silent prayer of thanks to the gods for sending Rose to her. Rose was far and away the best thing that had happened to Lia since she was sent to the dungeon, outstripping even Lia’s bumbling into becoming a rat queen. She was just so…efficient, and having her around to help Lia multitask and, more importantly, have someone to talk to, was everything Lia could have asked for and more.

Rose ask, worry evident in her tone.

Lia said, jumping to attention.

Lia paused, unsure what to say, before ultimately deciding to just say what she was thinking.

Rose exclaimed. Lia was sure that, if Rose’s face was humanoid and not completely covered in fur, it would be completely red.

Lia replied.

Rose cast her eyes about, embarrassment clearly mounting. She asked, clearly trying to change the subject.

Rose gave her a shocked stare. sureShe asked. protect

knewsoul

Lia paused.

Rose admitted.

real

Rose said instantly. honor

Lia replied. I’mdo

You’reRose argued. that

Lia said.

Rose replied

There was an awkward pause before Lia spoke up again.

Lia began to meander back towards where she had left the converting rats. Generally, conversions took anywhere from a minute all the way up to five minutes, and she wasn’t quite sure what dictated that. So, out of curiosity, she activated Analysis level three, to see if it had anything helpful to say.

Conversion takes a variable amount of time depending on several factors, including things such as how significant the changes are, the compatibility of the subject with the changes, and others.

That made sense. The mages she was making seem to take longer than foot soldiers, but overall, she had thought that the time for conversion had seemed low. Now that she knew a bit more, though, she realized that was because the rats had particularly high affinity with the changes she was giving them, and because goblins were a highly adaptable species in the first place, so it was easy to change them.

Analysis has leveled up!

Analysis

Level 4: 53/500 EXP

Helps the user draw conclusions on a situation.

Level 1: For 10 Mana, helps the user by supplying relevant information the user knows or once knew and may have been forgotten.

Level 2: For 20 Mana, provides the user information that could reasonably be obtained by deduction using information the user knows or once knew.

Level 3: For 30 Mana, provides the user information that could reasonably be obtained by deduction using information he user knows or once knew and information the user does not know that could be easily learned.

Level 4: Decreases Mana cost for all levels by 5.

That would have been helpful back when she was struggling with Mana, but as things currently stood, that wasn’t really an issue. Well…an upgrade was an upgrade, so she wasn’t going to complain any more than she already had.

She reached the cocoons, choosing to sit down and wait until they all finished converting. The first one, the photomancer she had made, finished only about a minute later, and Lia took the opportunity to look it over, both in terms of stats and physical appearance.

To Lia’s surprise, it was not two rats with their tails tied together, but one singular rat, with a knotted tail much like Lia’s own, albeit with only one other ending instead of the nine Lia had. The rat’s fur was a brilliant yellow, and it was smaller than most rats, but there was no other indication that this rat was capable of using magic. The stats were…almost the same as the druid, but the photomancer had a bit more Magic.

She told it to go ask Rose for a task, then turned her attention back to the cocoon that contained the soon-to-be pyromancer. It finished a moment later, the modeling wax melting into nothingness as the pyromancer emerged. It looked near-identical to the photomancer, save for the color of its fur, which was a reddish-orange hue.

She sent it to follow the photomancer in getting a task, then checked her evolutions again. The information displayed about the unknown race had updated somewhat, giving her a little more understanding of what exactly she was looking at. The race title had changed from “???” to “Lesser Swarm Rat M???”, and the number of different types of magic needed had gone from “???” to “00?”.

That was good. It meant that, even if the remaining three magic types she had converting weren’t enough, she would need at most two more to get the evolution. And then, as she was looking at the window, the terramancer finished its conversion, a slate grey rat appearing from the cocoon. The words in front of her fuzzed, and then more information was displayed.

The name had gone to “Lesser Swarm Rat Mage-???” and the number of magic types needed was revealed to be seven, which was…appropriate. Seven was a very important number in magic theory, for a reason that Lia had never been able to grasp. Amelia had explained it to her once, but Lia hadn’t been able to understand most of the explanation, so she just had to be satisfied with “it’s important”.

Like the others, she sent the terramancer to Rose. She felt kind of bad just…dumping all of them on Rose, but Lia had no clue what to do with them, and she was certain Rose would. Just had Rose been before she had been reincarnated? She mentioned feeling like she had been someone important, and Lia couldn’t help but think she was right. Most people didn’t have skills like that, something made even more impressive when Rose said she didn’t even consciously most of what she knew.

As Lia was contemplating that, the xylomancer and blood mage finished their conversions. She waved away the notification informing her that she had met the requirements for her evolution, choosing instead to look over the new converts before sending them on their way. The xylomancer was a deep brown and the blood mage was…well, blood red.

Once they had left, she turned her attention back to the new evolution.

Lesser Swarm Rat Mage-Queen

A Rat Mage-Queen is a champion evolution of the Rat Queen, available only to the rare few Rat Queens that have taught their subjects how to use many different types of magic. The Swarm Rat Mage-Queen offers a major increase to Magic, Magic Defense, and Mana, and a minor increase to all other stats but Strength compared to a Swarm Rat Queen.

Furthermore, a Swarm Rat Mage-Queen gains the ability to use any type of magic known by rat members of the swarm as easily as she is able to use her mental magic, but loses access to any non-mental magic type gained via this ability if no rat members of her swarm can use it.

Yeah, that wasn’t even a . She was picking that evolution. She may not have been a huge fan of magic when she was a foxkin, but that was because she was at it. If she was just proficiency in it like this, then she wasn’t going to turn her nose up at it.

She really wanted to start the process of evolving right away, but, now that Rose was here, that wasn’t something she could just do willy-nilly. So, she made her way back over to Rose, who was rapidly becoming the centerpiece of a hub of activity. Once it looked like Rose had a free moment, Lia approached.

Rose asked. really

Lia said sheepishly.

totallyLia soothed.anythingway

thatRose said. your

Lia replied, unconvinced. Yeah, the raid was her idea, but could have thought that up.

Rose replied.

Rose felt a deep feeling of satisfaction as she sent the latest messenger back to the thick of things. Unlike her Q – unlike Lia, she wasn’t able to get even vague status reports from the sisters she was commanding if she couldn’t see them. So, she had to use messengers like that one to receive updates on the progress of things or relay orders.

Fortunately, she had received a Skill that helped her get more information from her non-enlightened sisters, so even though they couldn’t speak with her, she still had a pretty good grasp of what they were trying to tell her.

It was almost intoxicating, the feeling of everything just…going well. The swarm was unlike any workforce she’d ever handled; her sisters did everything the moment they were told to, no questions asked, no arguing or resentment, just a shared understanding that everything was for the good of the…for the good of Lia.

She was still trying to get used to calling Lia by her name. Her evolution had, oddly enough, helped to an extent in conversation, but trying to change her thought patterns had proved to be a bit more difficult. Still, she had been told to call Lia by name, and she was going to try her utmost to do so.

It had been almost half an hour since Lia had come to tell Rose about her evolution, and though Lia had said not to worry, Rose couldn’t help but get a little antsy. This was taking a fair bit longer than any of the evolutions Rose had seen, but that had to be expected, right? Going to a champion race was going to be a lot more complicated than just going up a step in her current race.

And it was those thoughts that dominated her mind for the next while, until she was eventually interrupted by Lia’s voice in her head.

Lia asked.

Rose’s breath caught in her throat as she beheld her Queen. She was…captivating, there wasn’t any other word for it. Her fur was a dazzling white that seemed to change colors every time the light caught it from a different angle. While it always remained mostly white, there seemed to be hints of other colors creeping in. One moment is was the blood red of the blood mage’s fur, the next it was the grey of the terramancer’s, and then the deep brown of the xylomancer’s…

Rose snapped back into attention. She replied, still slightly dazed.

Lia asked nervously.

veryRose said firmly.

Rose paused, thinking that over.

then,huge

Lia shook her head. as

Rose replied.

Lia agreed.

Rose said.

Lia agreed.

cannot

Lia said. were

Rose frowned internally.

Lia paused. were

Lia paused once again. especially

Rose replied.

And with that, Lia left, leaving Rose to ponder the new information she had been given.