“Damnit, not here either.” Villin lamented as he looked at the clearing in front of him.

He could see ants standing in a long line, every ant having about five meters in between.

It had nearly been a full day since Villin entered the tile and he still hadn’t managed to escape.

The ants were more organized and patient than he had expected, they seemed to be covering the entire outer ring of the tile, not letting anything slip by. At the very least, Villin had learned that destroying an ant’s antennae did have a great effect. On this last day, he had been forced to kill seven ants when they approached him too closely, every time he was chased by hundreds of ants soon after while they still kept control of the outer section of the tile.

Villin was tired, as was Fang. Even though he hadn’t been carrying Villin, neither of them had slept in the last day.

“It looks like I have no choice,” Villin said to Fang while sighing.

He hadn’t wanted to use mental attacks to get out of the situation as he didn’t want to become reliant on them, but at this point, the risk was getting too high, he could no longer justify not using his mental power.

Before leaving though, Villin wanted to test it out on a sole ant, just to make sure it worked properly and he had a basic idea of a giant ant’s mental space.

Villin snuck around, narrowly passing by two groups of five giant ants before finding one moving on his own. He paused for a bit, making sure no other ants were close before focusing on the ant entirely. He created a bridge of magic power between himself and the giant ant.

Even though the giant ant could feel the foreign magic power touching it, before it could make a move, Villin had already connected to its mind.

Villin found himself on the edge of the ant’s mind, he noticed how dark it was here, he noticed a couple of memories floating around but there was almost nothing.

This confused Villin somewhat as they were clearly capable of organizing themselves, so he penetrated the mind deeper. He didn’t really find anything whatsoever, that was, until he got to the very center.

At the very center of the idiotic ant’s mind, there was a bridge, quite similar to the one Villin had created to enter the ant’s mind. But it was bigger, much bigger.

This bridge created from magic power was rather suspicious, but Villin felt forced to check it out. Thus far he hadn’t seen any weakness, even if he destroyed the ant’s few memories, it was most likely that nothing would change.

And so, Villin entered the mental bridge and he felt his consciousness moving towards the very center of the tile, deep, deep underground.

When Villin’s consciousness arrived in this new mind, he hurriedly took in his surroundings, only to feel shocked.

The mind he was in was ginormous, he was nothing but a tiny little point within this massive mind. It was like the mind of ten-thousand people combined. Or perhaps, the mind of millions of ants combined.

Yet, despite how tiny he was, he was still detected. Foreign magic power moved all around him before taking form, become a massive ant with mandibles made from diamonds, wings of silk, and an unbreakable carapace.

Villin also took his own form, but he only amounted to a fourth of one of the legs of the creature before him.

“You killed my kin. Why?”

A raspy voice entered Villin’s consciousness as he looked at the massive beast before him.

Villin paused as he thought of what was going on. It seemed that all the individual ants were connected to the queen, she controlled each of their bodies to some extent. And now, the queen accused him of killing her kin, something he most certainly did.

After thinking for a few moments, Villin responded, “I thought you all were just beasts, I didn’t realize you were a sentient species.”

Villin mentally bowed his head slightly. If the queen destroyed the magic power he was currently using, he would be seriously harmed, killing the ant when he got back to his body would be hard, leave alone escaping.

Villin could almost hear the queen ant laugh before she spoke, “These morrons aren’t sentient. I am! But I control them, and you killed some of that which was mine, how will you repay me?”

Hearing the queen’s hiss, Villin formed a plan in his head, it seemed that the queen didn’t actually care for her kin, she simply wanted to get benefits.

“What is it that you are looking for?” Villin asked, no longer displaying weakness despite how he was right now.

“Metals!” the queen ant immediately responded “I want metal to eat! Nearly all of the iron in the area has already been eaten, and even though we keep going deeper, the ground is also becoming harder to form. You give me metals, I forgive your crime!”

To the ant’s confusion, Villin stood there with a wide smile on his face as he looked at her mental image leisurely. He believed he might’ve just found a way to profit immensely.

“I agree to give you iron for those I have killed. But, if you allow me to ask, can you easily create more of these ants?”

The queen scoffed as it tried to figure out the human’s angle, but she didn’t know how that species thought, this was the first one she could actually converse with.

“When I am fed I can easily create hundreds of them, why?”

Hearing her response again, Villin’s smile got even wider, “Hearing your earlier words, you must not value them each all too much. How about this, I will pay you for those I killed. And then later, I will trade you more iron and in return, you will let me kill some more ants and take their bodies. How does that sound.”

This request was entirely based on the belief that she didn’t care for her offspring, but Villin had a suspicion she didn’t since she called them morrons before, and she was the only sentient one.

A multitude of cracks came from the queen ant as she thought before finally responding. “Very well, you give me iron ore the size of an ant and you get an ant in return!”

Hearing this, Villin smiled, “That’s a deal.”

And just like that, he was kicked out of the queen ant’s mind as he was sent back into his body.

The queen ant thought she was scamming the human in all honesty, she only needed half of the iron she asked for to create an ant, this meant she would be able to create two for everyone one the human bought.

As for Villin, he was grinning stupidly when he noticed the ant whose mind he had invaded was looking at him without attacking. Even though these ants were large iron ore their size wouldn’t cost all that much. The carapace and meat of the ants would cost a fortune on the other hand.

When Villin approached the border, he found the ants had burrowed their way back underground. Ants weren’t as scheming as humans so the queen ant had never even considered that Villin wouldn’t come back to pay for the ants that he killed.

Arriving at K12 without a hitch, Villin was smiling dumbly as he thought about the deal he had made. Trading with sentient magical beasts may be something he had to look into more, after all, he would be able to converse with them more easily, as long as they were sentient, that was.

Villin could feel that Ashera felt somewhat fearful when Villin thought about making more trades with sentient magical beats, but he wasn’t sure why and since she didn’t say anything, he opted to ignore it.

Now that he made it to K12 though, Villin knew that this was the place he wanted to settle. The strength of the creatures around was high and it was close to the giant ants. Perhaps he would even be able to make a deal with the queen ant and have the people of his guild go there and fight giant ants without actually being in danger.

Of course, he would never tell his people that he made a deal with the ants to help them get combat experience. But they would believe they were bringing back valuable resources and they were working towards getting rid of the ants and making the tile safe again.

If anything, Villin was shocked at The Academy’s selflessness. This massive forest must be full of opportunities like this but The Academy even let students who weren’t completely loyal come here. Then again, it was the ideal tool to increase the loyalty of the students. And most of them would end up working in a guild that mainly worked for The Academy.

While thinking of this, Villin began transfiguring the ground. He was planning to create his tower right here, to get the basics done it would take at least a week, then he would bring some people over to help.