The next week passed in a blur. It didn't feel like it had passed particularly quickly, but everything that happened was all the same every day, so it was difficult for me to feel like much time had passed.

I spent the mornings organizing and leading hunts, most of which passed without any fanfare. Unfortunately, the swarm had grown sufficiently to begin overpredating on the nearby forests, forcing hunting packs to range further and further away than previously. Therefore, there were a couple of deaths of some of the weakest when they had stumbled upon a pair of scaled deer and attacked without forethought, but after the immense casualties suffered in the week prior, it was difficult to muster anything other than a rather faint frustration.

The early afternoon was spent on trying to figure out how to administrate to and govern a group of creatures primarily guided by whatever instinct struck them. It was going about as well as could be expected, but I found it frustrating and generally tiresome whenever the time came to sit down with Sybil, Alaster, and a couple of others to discuss how to more effectively conduct hunts, how many hunts were bringing excess food back to the den, and how to adjust the domestic workload to ensure that preparations were completed and no keelish was left idle for too long. The only part of these meetings that captured my attention was our investigations into how exactly I could influence a keelish to evolve to a khatif of sorts.

This investigation wasn't providing huge results, because at this point, Netre still hadn't evolved, even though she spent quite a lot of time near me and those who had evolved to a khatif, but Shemira had, just two days after the first wave of evolutions. There seemed to be some sort of requirement that the individual had to have completed to qualify for the evolution, but we couldn't pin it down.

Initially I'd thought that it might be something to do with a level of intelligence and the ability to regulate their own emotions, but that wasn't it, at least, not all of it. Whatever it was, it seemed like killing humans had been beneficial towards promoting this growth, as we saw evolutions occurring with greater frequency among those who had been particularly effective in the defense against and massacre of the humans. Eventually, I decided to ask the [System], but got the expected response: [The Administrator has deemed it unnecessary to divulge that information. However, that decision may be rescinded, depending on your future growth.]

Late afternoons were spent in combat training. There wasn't so obvious an effect as there was after the three complete days raging against Wisterl, but overall, I felt myself getting more comfortable in my own skin, and realized that one of my better qualities in a fight (my caution and thoroughness) had begun to overshadow my ability to capitalize on my strengths. I needed to be more aggressive and fearless, to trust in my own ability to react and protect myself while keeping my opponents on their back feet. Thus, while I continued taking a beating from Wisterl, there were an increasing number of occasions where I had pressed the attack and had been able to put her on her back foot.

Finally, in the evenings, I went into the hatchery and exhausted my magic using my thrumming power to invigorate the fetuses. Initially, I had done so simply because I thought there might be some slight benefit to the spawnlings if I did so, but after I had spent several hours over the course of days and weeks doing this same thing, I was beginning to feel that I was on the cusp of discovering how to make this into a Skill. Thus, I deliberately experimented with differing frequencies of undulations in tone, length of time, relative proximity, bursts of power and whatever else crossed my mind. I still wasn't quite sure what it was missing, but I could feel that I was right there. Additionally, I enjoyed the quiet time I had sitting among the mostly interred eggs, so it was a relaxing situation while still also assisting with my Skill development.

That night, sometime after a week of my now monotonous life, I sat in the hatchery practicing my sonilphonic empowerer (the name I had thought of for the Skill that was soon to come). Because the fetuses always started moving in reply to my presence and the influence of my magic, I initially didn't react to the hatching. However, it didn't take too long before I realized that the fetuses weren't long to be fetuses anymore, but spawnlings.

I whistled through my teeth down the hall and Vefir rushed in. "What is it? Is something wrong?"

"No, the eggs are simply hatching. Do we need to help?" I hadn't reacted this way to the hatching of Joral and his generation, but his generation didn't have any spawnlings I cared about before their hatching.

With a shrug, Vefir responded, "Let them hatch. They might need a little help exiting the eggs, but they can't be considered keelish if they can't hatch by their own power." After that, Vefir sat back on his haunches and watched carefully.

I began to sit back on my haunches as well before a thought crossed my mind. Sure, it might be misconstrued as me helping them, but it certainly couldn't be called the spawnlings hatching without their own power.

Having sufficiently justified my actions to myself, I wasted no time in pushing my magic to my throat and beginning to hum my sonilphonic empowerer. I pushed it out again and again, and saw the reactions from the eggs as I did so, but I decided it wasn't enough, then finally decided to speak, not in the shout or excited yells I'd always used before in tandem with my magic, but instead a rhythmic command: "Come out. Rise up. Show us your worth. Come out. Rise up. Show us your worth."

As my humming changed to the mantra, the drain on my magic reserves was more than tripled. Additionally, the eggs began nearly vibrating as the spawnlings began to break out of their protective casings. As the first nose came out of the egg, I was greeted by a [System] notification:

[Skill [Innervating Address] acquired. Quest completed. Growth achieved. Quest board updated. Status Updated.]

But… what about my sonilphonic empowerer?