The next day we continued heading for this preferred location the queen wanted. It was late afternoon when I finally saw what we were walking towards in the distance, almost directly in front of us was a mountain. I suppose that would satisfy the need for stone and ore. Will need to find a spot as close as possible that still has deep enough dirt to dig a room into and still close-ish to the forest to hunt easily. We set camp pretty much the same way as last night except Victoria easily dug the divots in no time.

Just a few hours into the next day and Fighter had to leave us, we reached the end of the queen's area and she was ordered to return when she got here. Claimed area is about how far a worker could go in one day if she ran as fast as she could. It's not an offcial area but just a thing the queens have agreed to follow to ensure room for all of them. A little after lunch we entered to the foothills and started slowly going upward, the hills still being fully forested is good news, means we could probably go further up the mountain without hunting or wood supply issues.

It's about mid afternoon when I suddenly heard a squeal from directly behind us, I grabbed Victoria and jump to the side with her and just managed to avoid a boar's charge. I spun around as soon as we land and gripped my spear in both hands and kept the tip between me and it, I signaled for V to do the same thing I was. With two spears up and us being wary of it there should be no way it could win, but magic means anything could happen so i refused to drop my guard. Luckily it had no surprises, it soon got fed up with waiting and charged right at us, thrusting my spear at the last moment i almost shove the spear up one of it's nostrils, but I went a little high and it slams right into it's skull.

Our combined momentums easily forced the rock tip into it's brain, killing it instantly while i suffer some recoil due to hitting something flying towards me. I had to breathe slowly and evenly for almost a minute to let my adrenaline flush out, then decided this was somewhat fortuitous because extra food. I pulled out some bark strips i saved from when I was making the shelters last night and Victoria carried it up a tree and tied it to a branch by it's ankles. I got to work, cut the the head off so it will drain of blood, then skinned it as well as i could with the steel knife that used to me part of my swiss one. It's razor sharp but much too small ro be a weapon, in spite of being a bit bigger then before the change.

While I cut it into chunks Victoria gathered some wood and started assembly of a fire. Once we were both done our tasks i showed her how i planned to get a fire going without a fire bow, flint and steel, it caught the tinder easily enough and we had a great big roast. Course we had to pack up all we could and leave the area after cooking because all the blood and guts would absolutely attract something more dangerous.

It's nearly sundown when we heard water, a lot of water, meaning this mountain just became an even better location. I explained to Victoria that we should wait till morning so we have plenty of light so we don't fall to some silent river beast. She agreed that it would be dangerous right now so we started camp early and had to take two shifts in a 4 rotation watch since there are only two of us. But the night passed without incident and so we are only a little tired in the morning. We made it to the river quite soon after, and it was fairly wide and fast, following it up stream it clearly goes through a side of the mountain and into the range beyond it, so it has tributaries from several mountain caps.

After several hours of walking along the river Victoria stopped us and her antenna started wiggling, she looked around confused for a moment then lead me away from the river and back into the forest. We eventually reached a clearing and she dropped down to her hands and knees and started crawling around, her antenna tapping the ground rapidly. She suddenly stopped at one spot, tapped it several extra times with her antenna and started digging. She was like a machine, blowing her previous dig rate out of the water, while I did my best with keeping the dirt from piling up around her. She was digging in a diagonal direction downward and towards the mountain.

She dug like that for over four hours, when she broke into the side of a cave about a half a meter off the floor. It seems she detected an optimal location and knew this would be here, is some dirt on the floor that peeled away from the dirt wall but is has three sides made of stone and a stone roof about two and a half meters up. One big thing i can say about it is, unnatural, caves don't form like this on earth, seen caves like this in minecraft, but that doesn't count. Victoria doesn't seem to notice how odd it is and instead touched all the sides with her antenna and confirmed something about it i couldn't see before suddenly her manic energy left her and she had to sit down.

"I'll be fine, just give me a minute" she said while breathing raggidly.

I gave her a bit to get her breath under control before i asked "so what did you detect?"

"Everything, i just suddenly knew this spot was here and i could feel how good it would be, i can tell there are many metals around me, this stone is good and there is even stronger stone nearby, the plants on the surface were lush and the animal population was good. I can't feel any of that now though, except that this is nice stone i'm sitting on." She patted the ground for emphasis.

"Well that sounds great, so we should clean up a little and get this one" i tap the celestial ant on my head"on the roof or something, and get started on a bed and-" i'm interrupted from my musing when Victoria grabs my hand and pulls me down so i fall on top of her.

"Or we can" she takes the ant off my head and places them to the side "do the fun part of starting a hive" she gives me a coy smile before kissing me deeply. The dam of my willpower holding back my lust shatters into a million pieces.

I woke up first after we fell asleep together, i have no idea what time it is, but i see light shining down the entrance hole so it must be the next day. I look down at her sleeping form and feel myself grinning like a loon. I untangle my legs from her's and grab my pants before getting out some food, i eat my share and lay some out on my shirt for when she wakes up. While stretching i notice a strange blue light in the corner of my eye that is slowly fading in and out of existance. I turn around trying to figure out what it is, but when i focus on it suddenly blue box appears, it must have entered blink mode to not draw attention.

You have consummated your marriage to an ant queen(Victoria) your class has been changed automatically to

"Duke Consort"

A very rare variant of "Consort" due to

Having no class already set

Having a relationship value of at least 80

Having the trait "approval of 5 queens" or better

Please see your class status to see more details

Huh, well that is certainly a class i guess. Maybe if there is someone that can detect classes they will read it and not know who's consort i am and just assume i am high ranking human royalty. That would be a fun trick, have them finance an ant hive with human money. I reached for the celestial while thinking about the best place she could hang to light the room when she suddenly turns on. I stopped mid grab and looked back to see if Victoria was awake and messing with me, she appeared to be still asleep so i turned back to the little ant and tested thinking things at her. It worked, i was able to commune with her mentally, the only thing that changed recently was my class. 'Status check'

Name: Kadi Janson Class: Duke Consort Level: 2

Str: 18

Vit: 12 Dex: 11 Int: 10 Wis: 10 Cha: 12

That is a huge jump in stats, I know it's very rare but this seems like a crazy amount of stats for being level 2. 'class status'

"Duke consort"

Gives trait "linked stats"

Gives trait "ant speech"

Gives trait "darkvision"

Gain .3 to all stats per level

Gain .7 points to cha per level

Level 2 bonus "earth magic: dirt control"

Okay that says where i got the Cha from, i must assume the rest came from the linked stats. Was odd that it had darkvision listed, but when i looked over to the celestial's light i realized i just didn't really notice the because the room is rather small. It also said why i can use the mental communication ability, but now i wonder what parts would be chopped off if i got the regular version. No box opened to tell me anything so I will just need to not worry about it, for now i can test that magic. I approach the dirt wall away from the tunnel and focus on it, i imagine a ball of dirt peeling away from the wall and floating into my hand. Nothing happens for several minutes so I decided to try saying aloud "earth magic: dirt control" and suddenly I FELT the magic kick in and the ball of dirt floated over.

After that first use i could easily toggle it on and off with a mental command, I got started widening and hardening the walls of the entrance, I could make very hard and compact dirt but i could not force it to harden into stone like a workers compression. Most interesting thing was about halfway up the tunnel it started working faster. There was no level up notification or description change but I could tell it got better in some way. So practice can still make skills better, I bet another issue of this world is people take stats and skills as absolutes so think practice is pointless.

I dragged some of the excess dirt from the pile outside and use it to make a squat table to put stuff on. I was working on a little side table when Victoria started waking up.

"Uuuugh, i feel sore" she sat up and looked at me with a smile "not that i regret it. But i really should have let my body relax for a bit after that digging frenzy instead of jumping into another strenuous activity right away."

"Yeah, that was a little foolish, but i also don't regret it. Is there anything we need to do now or do you want to just relax all day?" I asked

"Hmmm, right now we need to.... gather food so that we can feed the first generation of workers, and... oh i can do soldiers already, i'll do one soldier and three workers as the first batch." She got a look of intense concentration for a couple seconds "there we go, four eggs moved into position to start growing."

"You can control that?" I am constantly surprised around her, which is a good thing.

"Yes, it is odd, mother could vaguely suggest which ones she wanted more of but not the exact amount." She has a thoughtful look

"It could be blue box, with the blessing and class stuff" i suggested

"Oh yeah, now that you mention it i can see a notification" she stated reading what blue box had to tell her, i still couldn't see her boxes. "My class has changed from Queen to Greater Queen, which gives me a stat link, egg control+, and bonus buildup, along with one str, vit, and point five dex per level. My level two bonus is normal with access to soldier eggs."

I told her my status changes next. Seems normal consort only had darkvision trait and the level two bonus is a weaker magic that can only move dirt instead of full control of it. Is nothing else to do for now except let her rest up and for me to go out and gather food.