Every moment the clock ticked every closer to Crossed Antennae’s eventual arrival. Her thoughts were a mix of boredom and excited anticipation. There wasn’t much else for her to do but think and wait, which made everything take longer. All of the energy of the ship was stable, and the purely technological parts came back with no warnings.
The only moment of uncertainty came as the ship crossed the dead zone, the transition between natural energy and ascension energy. Or lower and upper energy, but that was a bit insulting to the lower realms- along with the entire name.
During that time, the ship ran purely on technological means. While there wasn’t <em>much</em> it had to do since it was already elerated as far as it was going to go, remaining in subspace wasn’t something that happened trivially. Not that Crossed Antennae really understood all of those details. Schrs with a century of study didn’t necessarily understand all the details alone, so how could a single ant? Void ants were clever, but they could only learn so much so quickly.
The flushing of natural energy from the systems was both exciting and worrying. While she was happy to be able to freely devour the energy, everything felt <em>empty</em>. There were weeks where the ship drifted through nothingness.
Then she began to sense the ascension energy. She’d been exposed to a small amount from Anton, but it was different when it was just everywhere, floating around like… air. Not that there was actually any air around the ship.
She nibbled on the ascension energy as the ship itself began to slowly absorb some of it, filling its systems. As far as she could tell, it thought things were going fine- not that the ship actually thought anything. It was just a bunch of formations and puter’ systems that measured things. Still, she at least felt it was storing energy fine without any leaks.
Then they finally came to the system. It only took a few hours to reach the from there- but they weren’t immediatelynding. Instead, they curved around the in question, then the star, lowering their momentum greatly. Ultimately that process took several days as they slowed from near lightspeed with subspace multiplication to something resembling sensibleary speeds.
The shipnded itself without any real input from Crossed Antennae, for which she was d. And it seemed to be good except for theck of energy. The itself was… rather disappointing. Barely higher energy levels than the void of space around it. Even if it was ascension energy, it wasn’t much.
But the ship said there was air, and she could see some nts. When it was determined to be safe, she exited the ship herself. Grass stretched from horizon to horizon, providing very little benefit except how it limited soil erosion.
This ce would need a lot of work. Building up natural energy was important. Ascension energy, she corrected herself. And yet, they couldn’t build up too much. After all, it had to look almost the same as it did now. Enough to fool anyone attempting to colonize it forter invasions of the lower realms, at least. That way, they couldunch simultaneous attacks and wipe them all out. That was the n, though of course something would go wrong. No nssted centuries without running into some issues.
But before then, they needed to start nting. Her progeny began waking up from their artificial hibernations, and the queenmanded them, picking out where they should begin nting their seeds. They would need to be conservative with their feeding on the local energy for a while, until it could start building up sufficiently.
Havingnded and immediately be busy, Crossed Antennae forgot about her worries. Her loneliness and fear were set aside as she was filled with purpose. She didn’t forget to signal her arrival, but she wouldn’t hear back for some time- and it would be even longer before any relevant action was taken that would affect her.
Until then, she had her job as a queen to fulfill, to grow her colony and work towards the best results for the void ants and their allies. And at least the dense energy filled her with hope for how they might develop.
-----
As it turned out, it was not so easy to shift the loyalty of groups nted by the Exalted Quadrant. On Ceretos, only a small portion had been willing to fight with the- and many of them made that choice more for practical purposes, betting on them being the winning side. Not that that was necessarily wrong. In fact, if they were to make choices like that in their current situation then all of them would swiftly wish to join up with the Lower Realms Alliance. After all, one side had Assimtion cultivators. And soon enough, more than a single Enrichment cultivator.
Devon didn’t know if he would outpace others. Lev and the Grasping Willow were growing at a steady pace, and he could advance at any time. There were others from Ceretos and around the alliance that had the potential as well. Ty Quigley was somewhat behind in cultivation time, but he also had the talent. Though without conflict, perhaps he would fall a bit behind.
Still, despite the annoying stubbornness of the Hardened Crown Sect… Devon was d to hear that people were at least willing to listen and talk. Nothing hade to blows yet- except with regards to Naamah and the Nidec branch of the Hardened Crown Sect, which really didn’t count. Nobody had ever expected otherwise.
As for the local cultivators of Nidec who weren’t associated with the Exalted Quadrant, they seemed to be eagerly awaiting the results. Joining the Lower Realms Alliance would be good for them with very few downsides- though there were <em>some</em> requirements such as giving up ves. Not that it was easy to have enved cultivators of significant power, so it was ultimately very inefficient to have many ves. And horrid, of course, but Devon understood that people didn’t always consider morality before profit or convenience or the like.
But aside from submitting to the universalws of the Lower Realms Alliance, which weren’t particrly burdensome as such things went, joining the alliance came with so many upsides. Knowledge, not just about cultivation but technology as well as the ability to improve the natural energy ofs. Just that was hard enough to ignore, plus there was the promise to stand together against invasions from the upper realms.
-----
“This timing is terrible,” Aeronained.
“How so?” Devon asked.
“I’m talking about running into this ‘Shining Cooperative’, while we’re still dealing with Nidec. I mean, I don’t feel the need to be personally involved in all of this but… we only have so many people specialized in diplomatic matters. At least Anton proposed a generous time limit, but even then five years is… a bit of a rush.”
“You think they’ll be a problem?”
“Not really,” Aerona said. “Udre joined <em>after</em> everything with Ekict. So we’ve seen exactly one conflict. Just Vrelt. And while that was bad enough to be cautious…” she shrugged. “I’m still optimistic. I doubt this Shining Cooperative would be eager for a war even if they’d normally be the type, given the fact that their first contact was Anton.”
Devon nodded, “It’s hard to want to fight with my grandpa. He’s so nice. And terrifyingly strong.”
“Exactly,” Aerona said. “So worst case, they’ll tell us to stay out of their territory. But if they <em>are</em> friendly, then the process could vary greatly in how smoothly we connect. There could be decades of variability if the situation is approached too timidly. Or too aggressively.”
“And that’s why we have people like you who are passionate about this stuff,” Devon said. “Also I do think we should <em>probably</em> be focused on the location we’re currently at, don’t you think?”
“If I was needed, I probably would,” Aerona shrugged. “But Treloar is doing a good job of talking to the people who don’t need to be headbutted into submission. Naamah is probably going to be sessful with the Hardened Crown Sect, they just have to put up a fight for a decade to make themselves feel good.”
“So in your estimation, Vrelt’s integration will be rtively smooth?”
“I hope so. But I can’t be sure,” Aerona admitted. “But there are no secrets here, and the bnce of power isn’t as strongly for the upper realms individuals. And the alliance is more prepared if something goes wrong.”
“I’m more concerned about that part. Focusing on Vrelt while still having to watch our border with the Shining Cooperative… as if we even knew what that border was… it’s tough.”
“Good,” Aerona said. “It will remind us that protecting the whole of the lower realms against assault is going to be arge task. And that just because we have a few hundred years left doesn’t mean we can ck off. People have to be reminded about such things every once in a while.”
“Grandpa’s pretty good at that. He doesn’t forget what’s important.”
“It’s true,” Aerona admitted. “With his growth ns, everyone would kind of identally end up strong enough to wipe out any and all invaders. Though people focused onbat are still going to be necessary.”
“On that note, how do you feel about being in the same stage of cultivation as this guy?” Devon pulled out hismunicator and showed her a picture.
“Infuriated. Then immediately calmed by his cuteness. That’s Three Squeaks, right? And Meep?”
“Yeah. You should meet them some day.”
“Akrys is pretty tightly closed off,” Aerona reminded Devon.
“If only you were closely tied to some of the few people authorized to enter the system…” Devon shrugged. “And hopefully they’ll achieve some sort of unification or otherwise open up to the gcticmunity through their own will… in a century or so.”
“With those guys working on it, I can’t help but believe they’ll be sessful,” Aerona said. “Also, extremely motivated to break through to Life Transformation sooner rather thanter.”
“Maybe you need something to push you. Like… trying to talk to the Hardened Crown Sect yourself.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Aerona said. She crossed her arms. “Or if it is, I hate it.”
Devon shrugged. “I’m just saying. Perhaps pushing your diplomatic limits will help. Though obviously you have to judge for yourself whether you can be sessful with both your goal and your cultivation. We wouldn’t want topromise either one.”
“Okay, hear me out. Learning a newnguage would be good, right? And there aren’t that manynguage varieties… except what is spoken on Akrys. So I should learn from them.”
“How many clicking, chittering, and squawking noises can you make consistently?” Devon asked, grinning.
“P-probably a lot? I have good control over my voice.”
“The hard part is doing it without embarrassment,” Devon said. “Like Three Squeaks actual name sounds like this.” High pitched noises that didn’t fit Devon’s look at all somehow extracted themselves from his voice box.
“Wow, that’s uh… I kind of knew the names were representative but… they seem pretty cumbersome.”
“Meep isn’t so bad,” Devon said, making a quick noise. “Though it takes the man himself probably five seconds to work up to making that sound.”
“I doubt they’ll actually ever need me,” Aerona said. “But if you’re willing, I <em>would</em> like to learn thenguage.”
“Sure. I mostly speak from the meerkat angle, but thenguage is pretty generous with its sounds. Oh, but there are some nonverbal individuals there as well. The Great Queen taught some stick insects something like void ant sign, but obviously it’s not exactly the same.”
“I know void ant sign,” Aerona said. “I think I can probably pick that up pretty quickly.”
“Let’s just make sure we don’t miss things that are happening here,” Devon grinned. Honestly, speaking the awakened beastnguage of Akrys was rather embarrassing, given how he’d learned it, but Aerona was one of the few people he would feelfortable using it in front of. Everyone else standing around them wouldn’t get anything. Devon wondered what sort of private conversation people thought they were having. They might pick something out from the weird ways his mouth moved, but they’d probably never truly figure it out.