[Quest Completed. Status Updated.]

I woke up and the flashing [System] notification in the corner of my eye took me by surprise. It had been so much less involved in my daily life that I had almost forgotten about its existence. It had been about a week since we had reentered the jungle, and near as I could figure, we were making reasonable progress of about thirty miles a day. All our scouts showed that we had no humans following us any longer, so we were no longer maintaining our grueling pace. Nonetheless, we continued traveling, ever closer to Nievtra.

The day hadn’t truly begun, so I idly pulled up my [Status].

[Status:

Name: Ashlani

Race: Sonic Khatif Swarm Alpha

Title: Killer of Redael

Current quests:

—QUEST COMPLETE. Have one of your spawn grow to adulthood successfully. Progress: Spawnling. Rewards: Constitution +5, Intelligence +6, Magic +4. NEW QUEST: Establish an alliance with or destroy a species group other than your own. Must be a group of at least 100 individuals. Rewards: Depends upon the results of the quest completion. Whatever the means taken to complete the quest, benefits related to action taken will be given.

--Speak the Keel Words of Power. Rewards: Constitution, Strength, Agility +10, Intelligence, Magic +7. Hidden Rewards also available.

—Establish complete control over a foreign body of keelish. Rewards: Constitution, Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Magic +4.

Stats:

-Constitution: 78+5=83

-Strength: 91

-Agility: 96

-Intelligence: 102+6=108

-Magic: 89+4=93

Skills:

Innate Leadership—cannot evolve

Innervating Address–cannot evolve

Pack Tactics—current evolutionary progress: 5/10

Combatant's Bloodlust—current evolutionary progress: Hidden

True Dominance—current evolutionary progress: 1/10

Improved Vision--current evolutionary progress: 0/18

Improved Sonilphon—current evolutionary progress: Hidden

Evolutionary foresight

-Sonic Keel Alpha—Requirements: Acquire the Keel Words of Power, Receive the Blessing of Nievtala

Other evolutions possible, but not currently foreseen.]

Huh. So, as of today, my children are officially adults?

[“Official adulthood” is a fluid concept, but one of your progeny has reached a state similar enough to sexual maturity to be considered an adult.]

… So what exactly does this mean? One of my children has become an adult, but not necessarily officially so?

[No, sexual maturity is what dictates adulthood. Certain cultures maintain that adulthood is only reached after an arbitrary action, ceremony, or age, but that is biologically untrue.]

… Moving on. This means that these children matured a bit slower than I did. It’s been, what, a month and a half?

[Since the hatching of your offspring, it has been 43 days. In fact, your child, Ishtar, is early to mature, but that is within the bounds of expectation. Her siblings should reach adulthood within the next eleven days, still slightly ahead of the usual age of a khatif keelish’s sexual maturation, 60 days. Again, this is within the bounds of normalcy, their maturation has been expedited by the presence and constant influence of you, their swarm’s Alpha. Your frequent use of [Innervating Address] increased hormone production, bringing the affected to maturity at an accelerated rate.]

Wait, if their maturation was meant to take that much longer, how long is the growth period for a Keel infant?

[The Administrator has deemed it unnecessary to… The Administrator has permitted the acquisition of this information. A clutch of Keel eggs typically is only one, but occasionally two eggs. They will incubate for around two full months before hatching. A Keel infant is much more reliant upon assistance from others, unable to care for itself for two weeks. After two weeks, an infant will progress to a juvenile, and will stay as a juvenile, slowly growing, for the course of 1.5 to 2 years. The average lifespan of a Keel is 65 years.]

Ok, it was pretty easy for me to make them become khatif, so would it be better for me to have a lot of clutches before I evolve to Keel?

[The process of elevating your subordinates to Keel is much more involved than the process of elevating a keelish to a khatif. The khatif is a creature that resides between the bounds of keelish and Keel, but is much closer to a keelish. There will be great difficulty in elevating most individuals to Keel, as the requirements to become that are stringent.]

Alright then. What does “Rewards: Depends upon the results of the quest completion. Whatever the means taken to complete the quest, benefits related to action taken will be given.” mean?

[Exactly what it says. Rewards will vary. If you lead your swarm to destroy a large group of creatures, then the stats that a violent conqueror will benefit from will be received. If you lead a diplomatic mission and prove yourself and your swarm to be valuable allies, the stats related to diplomacy will be the ones to receive benefit.]

Great. Anything else I should know?

[There is much yet for you to learn. I am not a tutor, and cannot answer that question in the way that you clearly desire, but yes, there are many other things that you should know or learn.]

Always the unfeeling sass with you…

[The Administrator laughs at your response.]

I’m sure he does.

[The Administrator says she is not male.]

Oh! That’s some information. Anything else she wants to tell me?

[The Administrator is no longer in direct contact with your personalized [System].]

I sighed, then rolled over and stood up. The day had begun, and I needed to get up with it. I decided to go look for Ishtar.

…

Ishtar was training with Took and Wisterl. They had obviously only recently begun their training, as they were moving slowly and deliberately and were warming up. Took and Wisterl were practicing holds, throws, weak points to exploit, and grappling escapes while Ishtar moved through a variety of forms while watching her two instructors’ bout. I tried to see if there was anything noticeably different about her today, but as far as I could tell, there was nothing. Maybe slightly taller?

At this point, Ishtar stood much taller than her mother’s 1.55m, at about 1.75m herself. She came up to about where my neck joined my head, but was much more lithe than me. I was broad of shoulder and that powerful build continued all the way down, corded with thick muscle, while Ishtar was built thin and quick with lean muscle standing out below her scales. Even her measured, calculated movements as she warmed herself up bespoke her ability to explode into motion at the slightest provocation.

Ishtar seemed to notice my presence and slowly intensified her movements, leaning deeper into her lunges, resetting more quickly into her base position, and beginning to almost blur into motion. She wasn’t as fast as I was, but her bodily control surpassed my own, and I looked on with pride as she snapped through a final series of tail lashes, pantomimed throws, and lunging bites. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, attempting to see my reaction while acting like she didn’t know I was there.

I chuckled and approached before gently elbowing Ishtar in the ribs. “You’ve done well. You must be an imposing force in a fight.”

“Yes, Fa–Alpha. I’ve been training with the two best in the swarm, except yourself.”

“Heh. You all have done well. I can see that you three have all progressed, even you Wisterl.” I turned to her, “Just as formidable a student as a teacher.”

“All I’m good at is fighting. You know that. Figured I should get even better at it if I could.”

I chuckled and turned back to my daughter, “Ishtar, you’ve done well, and I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you, I–”

“What about me? I’ve become quite the fire user myself, Alpha.”

“You fool. Others can be complimented without you being included.”

Iituli’s and Isnanna’s voices began to clamor over each other as I sighed. Another long day ahead of us… I wondered how long it would be before we could settle down and I could get these siblings from competing for my affection at every step of the way…