Even knowing that these floating boxes were for my benefit, it was all still weird. I wanted to question every part of this that didn't make sense to me, but I didn't know where to start. Besides, this involved Essences meaning It didn't necessarily have to make sense to me yet. I would figure this stuff out as I moved forward.

System Assistance progress Used to familiarize Essences with their capabilities Used to give new Essences advice Used to manipulate and view information of your domain

Ok, just take this one step at a time. Assistance should give me advice on basic stuff, and system should allow me to do... something helpful hopefully, probably something specific to me rather than general advice. I have no clue what the progress option means when it says I can 'manipulate' information, but I'll find out when I reach that point. For now, I need to know what the heck I'm doing.

I focus on the assistance 'tab' knowing almost by instinct how to interact with this system. Focusing on the tab feeling like I was downloading an abridged rundown of what I would find inside directly to my mind. Satisfied with what I found, my focus honed in on the tab with a subtle feeling of acceptance and desire to move forward.

Communication Basic Information Contact fellow Essences for advice or other matters of import Gain a better understanding of the apparatus used to assist you

Relatively simple, thankfully. I should probably contact Crecur in case there is more information they were going to tell me that I can't find in basic information. It would probably also be good to apologize for skipping on their introduction in a panic.

To: Subject: Misc: Message:

I could tell the setup of the communication page was familiar to some of my past lives, but the most I could make out of those memories was a stirring in my supressed conciousness. Luckily I retained enough information to understand what each section was meant for, excluding miscellaneous which I ignored as I cared only for getting help.

To: Crecur Further Information and Apology Misc: Sorry for interrupting your walkthrough, I was worried the little yellow things were going to ruin my hive by the time you finished. I would still like to hear the rest of what you were going to tell me if possible.

While I'm waiting on that, I should probably find some more nutrition for my bees. I could select consume on the Anklebiters, but It says it will turn them into carnivores. How would that even work? They already got nutrition from killing things, doesn't that count? Normal Apis Florea, and most bees for that matter, don't eat meat. Those that do have to turn the meat into a type of honey like substance before they can eat it. If I feed the bees the Anklebiters will they still be able to get normal honey or would they be stuck killing for their food? I need Crecur if I want to get anywhere with this.

I decided that instead of doing nothing while I waited for a response I would secure some more normal food for the bees I was now in charge of. Luckily, I could tell from my small amount of time outside of the hive there were plenty of plants my new hive would no doubt appreciate.

"Find any flowers or crops that look like they may have pollen, Harvest and spread the pollen as much as possible before bringing back as much as you can."

While there was still a shortage of food, we no longer had dead weight siphoning what little we had. Hopefully the nutrition from the larvae would last until we had enough honey to feed the hive, or I decided to consume the Anklebiters for nutrients. I still wasn't sure how much was in a single 'nutrition' but I figured assuming the bees didn't have enough was a safe bet currently.

I could look at 'basic information' it might help a bit, although there might be holes in what it tells me that I need crecur to fill. Which puts me right back to square one. At this rate I might as well check on the queen, I'd be accomplishing just as much.

...Actually, that might not be such a bad idea.

"Hello there, uhm, your highness. Are you feeling better?"

"...Do you mean me? I am a simple breeder, the workers are the ones who risked their lives. They are much more deserving of your concern."

This caught me off guard, though in retrospect it shouldn't have. On earth queen bees were nothing like queens in human society. Their job was merely breed to keep their hive going with a successive group of workers and those who could one day take their role should they die.

Ok, not like the historically important queens at least. When I think about it that way, however, it makes sense that the queen bee wouldn't have a bloated sense of importance. They view themselves as just another part of the hive, if a very critically important one. Though this queen seems not to realize the importance of being the lone breeder.

"While you may be a breeder, you are the only breeder. This alone makes you vastly more important than you give yourself credit for. Without you the hive cannot function."

"I wouldn't agree on being that important, there are others who could take my place. I do appreciate the compliment though, and the concern. To answer the question, I am well but very tired, I will need to rest soon but until then I intend to be as productive as possible."

Before I could continue arguing a realization struck me.

Why am I even trying to convince a bee of her importance? it's not like any of us matter all that much in the grand scheme. I'm not even an exception to that rule, just another of many Essences. All working towards the same goal, like a bee. Huh, kind of poetic when I think about it. Maybe the queen has the right idea, just do what I can while I can. Though it's going to be a lot longer for me since I no longer live or die. I wonder how that will affect my ability to form meaningful connections-

Wait, I'm getting philisophical over a bee. I didn't even do anything while I was asking myself these questions. I should be... doing something. Maybe talking to a bee was a bad-

Message from: Crecur

Oh thank whatever-Essences-believe-in, finally I can get some answers. Now get me out of here.

"Well, I am glad to hear you are healthy. I have to talk to someone real quick so don't mind if I leave for a second!"

"That is fine, a good day to you."

I quickly left the area where the queen was and found myself outside of the hive. I opened the message hoping not to find Crecur too upset at my rude early departure.

From: Crecur Further Information and Formal Apology Misc:

Hello Essence (we should probably find a name for you soon). I would like to say I understand why you behaved in the manner you did. However, I believe some of the blame should go to me as well. There was information that, had I been more forthcoming with it, would most likely have allowed us to avoid such circumstances. Simply put: This is not a pass or fail test. The purpose of this test was to give you some time to acclimate to your abilities and show me what you needed assistance with. However, you have shown to be unusually capable. Considering I hadn't even considered you would be able to adapt fast enough to stop both threats to the hive. Although you have exceeded expectations, your test is not over. I shall return to give you further information on this subject at a later date. Just know that most of what you need should be revealed by the system. The system is an adaptive intellect allowing it to be more aware of how you should handle your unique abilities than I ever could be.

Until I see you again,

Crecur

Wow, ok that is a Long message. Guess when you deal with creativity brevity isn't a high priority. I suppose having a name would make my conversations with Crecur just that little bit shorter. Maybe I could combine my roles into one word and make that my name as it did? Wait that wouldn't work unless I used 'Essence' since I only have one domain. Eussess? no. Esseus? nah, not my cup of tea. maybe If I shorten it. Eus, still not feeling it. Esseu?

... That could work, not like I'll be using it alot or anything. From what I've seen so far Being an essence is very hands off in terms of interacting with others outside of emergencies.

Now, onto more important matters. Crecur said the system had all I would need, time to finally check it out. Rather than evading the inevitable, like I've been doing.

System Assistance Progress Used to familiarize Essences with their capabilities Used to give new Essences advice Used to manipulate and view information of your domain Communication Basic Information Contact fellow Essences for advice or other matters of import Gain a better understanding of the apperatus used to assist you

After Selected the Assistance tab, I chose basic information. I immediately regretted the decision as easily over a million things were shoved into my awareness at once. My entire mental capacity had been almost totally overwhelmed from the sheer volume and diversity of what was happening in my mind. Worst of all, it seemed like none of it was what I needed.

Why do I even need to know about basic etiquette for 'civilized races', I'm not a person anymore! There has to be something useful in all this junk knowledge.

"This is getting me nowhere! It's been an hour and I haven't found anything useful, isn't there some way I can condense or at least reduce all of this stuff?"

Lo and behold, as I made my request there were a multitude of things ranging from each menu and it's specific use to instructions on how the system can be modified to an Essence's preference. The latter of which I was keen to delve into.

Ok, I can't even be mad. That was on me. Considering the entire system is based around adapting to fit my needs and already behaves to follow my intent, this should have been the first thing I tried.

I mentally huffed at myself and the now less confusing menu I had been given. I was still frustrated at having wasted.... well not a lot of time, but certainly more than neccessary. The bees were still collecting honey, due to the already small colony being in even shorter supply of workers to carry 'nutrition' back home.

I know there's not much I can do just yet to affect the outcome.... but that doesn't make me any less upset at how unsure I am of their ability to bounce back from this.

I took a few moments to center myself, re-entering the calm state I preferred when not dealing with souls, alternate realities, and changes to my status quo like I had never known. After a few moments I was mostly calm, and ready to understand.... all of this

"Menu, remove all prompts that are not related to understanding basic Domain manipulation."

Speaking was much the same as 'thinking' in this state, but it helped to further impress my desires and intentions. I wasn't sure if it was going to be super helpful when dealing with the system, but I was sure it wouldn't hurt to differentiate between passive observation and active manipulation. The system complied with my request suprisingly fast, leaving me with little over a few hundred bits and pieces of fragmented information surrounding the subject of Maintaining the 'Domain of One's Influence' which was apparantly just long winded way of saying the area of expertise I would have as an essence. I read on the various pieces I saw in no particular order, merely absorbing what information I could.

The bees can spend a little more time without supervision, surely.

I began to understand the basics of what I needed to know for expansion. Find a subject, modify the non-eusocial individual to fit inside my domain or subjugate an actually eusocial organism, and then further modify them to meet whatever needs I wanted them to fulfill. I also learned found to my immense pleasure that creatures more inclined to social behaviors were much easier to gain control of, not to mention the apparant reduction in 'cost' of Influence. I was going to need a more in depth explanation on what exactly 'influence' was. But for now I knew as much as stricly necessary. I even found some tailor made information that explained how nutrition worked.

Nutrition gain is based on the relative edible mass of a slain creature or harvested product compared to the amount of the resource is consumed per day by the entity under your control (Note: due to your influence being focused on collectives of individuals, your Nutrition treats each 'collective' as a singular entity). Each Nutrition is equivalant to a single day of sustenance. Some extraneous systems alter the nutrition gained by your Creatures, such as the tutorial granting 5 nutrition for each slain creature or the System of the current reality under the jurisdiction of Essence "Crecur" granting nutrition double the experience gained through the System.

It's a lot to take in at once, but at least now I know my bees aren't going to start immediately.

So far the apis florea have yet to earn any nutrition from foraging as most are travelling fairly far away to get their nectar. The nutrition they have was all from killing the anklebiters and parasites which amounted to 20 nutrition most of which came from the four anklebiters. This amounted to 20 days worth of food. I was set until I managed to get a consistent source of nutrition.

With not much to do and no sure direction to expand my knowledge, I began searching for more creatures to lay claim to. I reached out through my awareness, much like when I had after I found myself in the form of a developing infant, to find 2 main groups of creatures.

Oh, what do we have here? Heterocephalus glaber and anelosimus eximius, or I guess mole rats and social spiders in laymans terms. These two species are already acclimated to social behavior. Now that is suspiciously lucky to have both, but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. Although the sand puppy is more durable, I think I want to start small with what I control. I don't exactly have a large amount of experience to draw on in dealing with either of these creatures. Better to have something that doesn't need as much to eat but doesn't compete for the same resources as my other creatures.

"Now then: Let's put you little guys to work, shall we?"