Chapter 1671 – Shake Your Money Maker

Hatchlings worked their way through the Antcademies believing that the Eldest had a plan in mind for all of the castes. The soldiers were intended to fight on the frontlines, with the thickest carapaces and the strongest mandibles, serving as the swords and shields of the Colony. Generals were intended to be fighting support, the second line of defence, providing auras, tactical know-how and their own formidable fighting prowess. Scouts, naturally, had been designed to move quickly, see everything and engage in a hit-and-run fighting style using their acid and speed. Mages for magic. Queens for egg-laying. Brood Tenders for rearing the young. Core Shapers to research and utilise pets. Healers to keep everyone alive.

Carvers? Well, carvers were intended to make things.

Yet… what to do with a carver who never made anything?

“Do you… feel like working with metal?” the poor Brood Tender asked the hatchling.

The little thing considered for a long moment, showing that unusual level of intelligence and consideration that had caught the attention of the Tenders to start with, then shook her head.

This was a champion, of that they were fairly certain, but so far… they hadn’t had that much of a problem with her. She was relatively quiet, obedient and studious. When they recalled the disastrous time they’d had with Brilliant, even as a grub, this seemed to be an incredibly easy-to-raise champion.

In fact, they had only encountered one difficulty so far in raising her. She said she wanted to make things. That was fine, that was what carvers did all the time. The only problem was, they couldn’t seem to work out what it was that she wanted to make.

“You could carve wood? Lots of things are made from wood,” another of the Brood Tenders suggested helpfully. She started listing things the Colony made from the mana infused and even mundane wood that they harvested, and the little ant listened carefully.

Some of the other Tenders thought it would be an enormous shame to have a champion of the Colony spend their time making furniture, but who knew how these things worked? Every champion seemed to be obsessed with something. Presumably, it was simply a matter of presenting options to the hatchling until she found out what it was she wanted to do.

“No,” the hatchling replied. “I don’t feel all that interested in wood.”

On it went. The Tenders presented option after option, craft after craft, and the hatchling listened, observed, then refused. Convinced they weren’t being thorough enough, they decided to take her on a tour of the many workshops in the Colony.

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From the first stratum, they took her into the mines to see ore being harvested. They took her to the great refineries, where the ores were initially processed and sorted before being smelted in the vast furnace stacks. They followed the ingots as they were delivered to the great smithies, where the pounding of cherry red metal and the ringing of industrial hammers set their antennae to quivering.

The hatchling wasn’t interested.

They took her to the tea fields, showed her the tender care that was given the precious plants, showed her the elaborate methods of harvesting, drying and processing the leaves before they were stored, ready for transport. The milk-processing facilities, where milk was brought in from the Colony-run cattle farms, millions of gallons a month, to be processed into butter, cream and cheese. The bakeries, where biscuits, scones and cakes were created, dozens of tons a day, before being shipped out to every corner of the Colony.