I had a new project I was working on. I needed to make a crafting room. I thought about names before I started. It is very important to come up with a good name before you make something. You don’t want to be known for stupid names.

The room of crafting? The workshop? The garden? Anything made would actually be grown. Leaving materials laying about would subject them to the mana wasting issue. Woodworking? No. It needed to be tree related. I had a theme going on and I didn’t want to break my streak.

Carpentree. Yes, that was it. Any wood related crafting would be called carpentree. There was no one to stop me. I could do anything I wanted.

I needed the ants to be high in mana. I asked Queen Bitey to select the most suitable ants for the project.

Two blue ants showed up to the chamber I was working on. I made a mana shaping tool. My idea was to use special tools to grow the wood into the desired shape before breaking it off and that would be the finished item.

I wondered how Monte stabilized the items. I was using seed pods. The user of the item would provide mana and the item would grow in power over time. The seed pod would connect with the seed pod I was having my tree sworn ingest. It was a magical key and lock system. I hoped nothing went wrong with it.

I called Monte into the chamber. “What do you think?” I asked him.

He walked around a bit. “These aren’t normal woodworking tools.” He told me.

“No shit Sherlock.” I replied. “You won’t be working with normal wood. You’ll be working on my heavenly wood.”

“I’m not sure I like that.” Monte told me. Monte pointed to the blue ants. “Who are they?” He asked.

“Your assistants.” I told him. “Or maybe you are their assistant. I don’t know yet.”

“Do they have names?” Monte asked.

“I haven’t thought of any yet.” I replied. “I like to watch someone work and play before I bestow a name. I feel like their name is an emergent quality of their personality.”

“That’s cool.” Monte replied. “Are you going to give me a name?”

“Maybe.” I said. “Wanna be my woodmaster?”

“No.” Monte replied. “I changed my mind. Please don’t give me a nickname.”

“Wuss.” I told him.

“So what should I be working on?” Monte asked.

“I was thinking of weapons of some sort.” I told him. “I’m still looking over the sky whales that attacked us. They had some interesting modifications.”

“Oh, really?” Monte asked.

“Yes.” I replied. “They could fly and they had those cool missiles they shot everywhere.”

I turned my attention away from Monte. I really did want to examine those whales. They were so cool. How did they fly? What were they shooting? I wanted to copy it.

I also looked at the progress of rebuilding. Well, it was really regrowing the houses of the outer town. I was tired of directing the work myself.

“Queen Bitey.” I called out.

“Yes, Tree.” She replied.

“I am tired of growing everything myself.” I told her. “Is there anything you can do?”

Queen Bitey shifted in her throne cavern. “What about those mage ants helping that human? Can you make ants that handle the growing?”

“Oh.” I said brightly. “That’s a good idea. I probably need to change their color though. The blue ants are really supposed to be the magic ants.”

I went to my magic pods to figure this out. This was going to be cool.