A plan is forming in my mind; if everything works as I hope, I’ll be able to create a new leafcutter ant caste. The goal: a new caste of workers who are substantially larger than normal.

If everything works flawlessly, I’d like the new worker caste, which I’ll refer to as dungeon helpers, to be at least 10 cm long. Here’s the problem; it took an absurd quantity of mana for me to create a fungus gnat species triple its natural size. A typical leafcutter worker is approximately 10 millimeters long, with the target size being to a little over 10 cm, I’m looking at a necessary 10x increase in size. Even if I was at full mana capacity, I highly doubt I’d be able to achieve that in a single alteration session.

There’re even more problems. First, insects, ants included, don’t transport oxygen in their blood as vertebrates do. Instead, air is passively transported around their bodies in a body-wide network of empty tubes called “tracheae.” On the outside of their exoskeletons, they have what’s referred to as ‘spiracles’ which are openings to the aforementioned tracheae. The immediate issue? They don’t have lungs to forcefully intake air. Furthermore, they can’t actively pump gasses around their bodies through the use of blood. Why am I explaining this, you ask? Let me introduce you to the tyranny of the Square-Cube Law.

Consider a cube with a side length of 1 m. It has a surface area of 6 square meters and a volume of 1 cubic meter. If we create a new cube with double the side length, its surface area would be equal to the original cube’s surface area multiplied by 2 squared (because we doubled the side length, the number is 2) and be 24 square meters. Its volume would be equal to the original cube’s volume multiplied by 2 cubed and have a volume of 8 cubic meters. The original cube with a side length of 1 m has a surface area to volume ratio of 6:1. The larger cube has a surface area to volume ratio of 3:1. This principle applies to all 3-dimensional solids, including an ant’s body.

As the dimensions increase, the volume will continue to grow faster than the surface area.

This is a problem for insects and other terrestrial arthropods. The reason is that without any means to actively transport gasses as a human can, an insect must rely on diffusion. Consider that a large insect has many cells that need to be supplied with oxygen gas. Because it can’t pump the essential gas, it has no other option but to utilize diffusion, which is itself dependent on surface area. A large insect has more cells that need air but less proportional surface area on its body to obtain it.

Long story short, if an insect is too large, it will suffocate.

This is the very reason why modern arthropods are so small. In Earth’s history when the atmospheric oxygen content was higher, arthropods were also larger.

Can I bypass this limitation? We’ll see…

I wait for my mana capacity to reach its maximum and begin my work.

From prior observation, I’m pleased to report that my leafcutter colony is polygynous, meaning that it has more than 1 active queen. In my case, there are 4.

I select one and wrap it in my sense. In my mind, I spend a fair amount of time forming a perfect image of what I want to happen. I don’t specify a target size, just that it needs to increase. I then begin pouring mana into the queen.

Just as I’m about to run completely out of mana, I cut off the flow. It’s time to wait and see how much larger her offspring have become, assuming it even worked. This is fine, I estimate that it’ll take me about 30 hours to fully recuperate my mana anyway. I instruct her to lay 6 modified eggs. I also will the workers to prioritize feeding these 6 larvae when they hatch. I shift my focus to observing my dungeon and the surface in the meantime.

…

Those 30 hours passed in a flash. My perception of time appears to be highly fluid. Somehow, I was able to pass the time without getting overly agitated. As an update on the surface conditions: nothing’s changed. It’s still just as much of a wasteland as before but at least the rampaging beasts are gone. There’s actually a small river passing by about 200 m from my pinhole that I hadn’t paid much attention to before. Perhaps in the far future, I’ll be able to create a plumbing system or use hydropower for something? Eh. I’m probably getting way ahead of myself…

One of the handy things about ant reproduction is that little to no nutrients and energy are included in the eggs, instead, the larva grows substantially after being fed. The benefit of this arrangement is that a queen can lay countless eggs because they’re so cheap to produce. Ants put on nearly all of their mass after hatching. This works in my favor because it means my selected queen should have no trouble at all with laying the eggs of absurdly large ants. The altered caste’s eggs won’t be any larger than that of a regular ant, it will simply take the larva much longer to grow to their mature size.

The 6 modified eggs have hatched, but the larvae seem far from mature. While they’re still developing faster than what should be normal, I’m unsurprised to see they haven’t pupated yet.

Again, I find the queen I altered earlier and focus my will on her to once more start pouring on the mana. Though I don’t know how large the new workers are going to be, bigger is better, so I begin round two.

As I’ve already done, I cut off the flow of mana just before I’m fully depleted. Once more I instruct her to lay just 6 eggs and command the workers to also prioritize these individuals. The waiting commences.

…

After another 30 hours, I repeat the process.

While I’m still at half capacity and in the process of injecting mana into the queen, I feel a tingling sensation and promptly pass out.

…

And I’m awake! I still haven’t gotten used to how abrupt that is…

Apparently, I hit some sort of limit on my modifications. How unfortunate.

A bit miffed about not having had the opportunity to instruct her to lay 6 new eggs before losing consciousness, I take the moment to do so now. I glance outside and observe the position of the sun, I was only out for 3 hours, so it’s not too much to worry about.

Speaking of the outside world, across the horizon fresh sprigs of wispy young grass are peeking out of the ash! The forest was not a grassland to start with, were there really so many grass plants and/or seeds already in the soil? I suppose there must have been.

I look over at the original 6 modified larvae and see that not only have they already pupated; they’ve also emerged as young adults! Coming in at 5 cm long, they’re a whopping 5x larger than their unmodified kin! Actually, they’re too large to fit in the tunnels of the colony. Oops! I instruct some random workers to excavate a series of new chambers near the surface of the nest to serve as adequately sized housing for the new caste of super workers. I also command them to keep my new dungeon helpers well fed, seeing as they won’t be able to fit through the tunnels leading to the fungus gardens on their own.

The second batch of 6 has yet to pupate but I can already tell that they’re going to be much larger than the first 6. However, I doubt this batch will be a proportional 10x larger than normal workers. Feeling that my 3rd and final batch will most likely meet my target goal of 10x larger or more, I go ahead and instruct the queen to lay 2000 giant worker eggs instead of the initial 6. In addition, I have her lay 4 new juvenile queen eggs, after all, it would be pretty pathetic if she died of something stupid like a cave-in or disease. These 4 queens will serve as backups, with each one presumably carrying the gene for enlarged workers. While I’m at it, I have another queen lay some drone eggs, after all, the new queens will have to be inseminated somehow…

Not feeling like doing any major excavation before my latest dungeon helpers are ready for action, I spend the next two days micromanaging my garden, arranging plants in pleasing patterns, observing the surface, and generally just biding my time.

…

2 days go by, but my newest workers still haven’t pupated. I suppose it’s because they’re larger, taking longer to mature. The 2nd batch of ants matures in this time and I get the opportunity to measure them. They come in at about 9 cm in size, meaning that they’re 9x larger.

Not willing to wait any longer, I begin digging a 2-meter-wide tunnel sloping downwards into the depths. Unlike earlier, I don’t worry too much about smothering my plants in waste stone, they’ll grow back eventually.

…

Yet another two days of mucking about pass while I occasionally work on the tunnel. Progress has slowed because I don’t have anywhere to displace the pile of rhyolite pebbles. Most of my time and mana is spent shifting around material, not cutting it. Needless to say, I’ve been really looking forward to my dungeon helpers eclosing.

Actually, that’s exactly why I’ve stopped right now! As my 2000 precious helpers emerge en masse, I nearly shed a tear. These bruisers are a whopping 11 cm long on average! That’s an 11x size boost! What’s interesting to note is that the first batch exhibited a 5x increase, the second: 9x, and the third: 11x. Or in other words, genetic alterations made with mana express diminishing returns.

Mr. Normal! It’s been so long since I’ve heard your disturbingly average voice! Also, you stole my name!

That was my name, which confirms my suspicions that the system somehow learns from people. I already suspected I was being spied on by the system, but this is definitive proof. How does it work? What is its purpose? If only I knew.

Back to my helpers, it’s time to put them through their paces! I widen my pinhole entrance to about 20 cm in diameter so that they can effortlessly fit through. I then command them to begin dumping the pebbles outside!

Watching my veritable army of almost-tarantula-sized leafcutter ants march to the pile and grasp the loose stones in their mandibles sends shivers down my metaphorical spine!

If you’ve ever watched conveyor belts moving goods through a factory, you’ll know how satisfying this feels.

The ants have no trouble clinging to the mossy walls of my dungeon, but I encounter a problem when they approach the newly enlarged surface passage. As the moss hasn’t had time to spread up the walls of the expanded tunnel, the ants struggle to find purchase and promptly fall back into the dungeon.

Frankly, I didn’t foresee this issue. Regular sized ants would’ve had no trouble climbing along this surface but at their new scale, their relationship with physics has, well, changed… I temporarily halt the transportation operation and begin working on an improved exit tunnel.

Like the previous tunnel, this one is also 20 cm in diameter. The opening into my dungeon is at floor level and it proceeds upwards at an angle of 30 degrees. After a while of digging, I once more breach the surface. Resuming their work, the ants have no trouble moving through this passage and begin to create a large pile of stones outside.

Watching my industrious helpers work so hard kicks me into gear and I resume digging my downwards sloping (also at a 30-degree angle) 2-meter-wide tunnel.

Once my tunnel reached a depth of about 12 m below my core room, a soft ray of purple-tinted light shone into my dungeon through a small opening in the tunnel wall.