Four hour after his victory he had been digesting the Queen's memories and had learnt every thing about her, from the moment she hatched to this very moment .
All together she should be around five to six years old,and throughout her life she had plunderer and massacred over two large scale colonies fourteen medium sized colonies and over forty small size, from different species. Some from ants, termite or others.... She had even raided both bee and hornet nest during her younger days, though both almost became the end of her colony and for that reason she had a blood grudge with both the queen of the southern bees and the queen of the western hornets.
She had abandon thought's of revenge against them after almost being eradicate at their nest and being continuously raided in her own nest.
She was very helpless and fearful of her empires future till one of her workers discover the magic lake.
One day one of her workers was going to throw a termite queen's remains at a remain storage room only for it to discover this glowing magic lake and reported to her, afterwards she came and inspected the room. The queen didn't know such a room existed till that point, even though she had very clear data about everything in her nest from the number of ants to the number of rooms.
While she was inspecting the water attracted her and she couldn't help but take a few sips, not long after her abdomen swell greatly and she started producing eggs at fast speed. This eggs were of soldier ants cast yet this egg's were bigger and so was the soldier ants that it produced, very quickly she started using the water from the lake instead of the food provided by the ants as birth fuel.
Yet the water suddenly started losing its power over time. When she first used it she was able to produce over two hundred larger and stronger soldier ant's yet after she used it for too long it's would only make her produce forty to fifty ants yet even then they were still smaller and weaker than the first ones she produced.
Afterwards she tried everything she could possibly think of with her ant brain to come up with a way to make the lake power stronger again, from dropping dirt to other random things.
Yet the only thing that somehow works was throwing living organism or parts of living organisms inside, which she learned after throwing all the worker whom were assisting her in her experiment into the lake in anger.
Yet it only increase it's power slightly. Later on she started throwing in only body parts of Queens or those of similar classes to them into it after defeating their colonies, this work better than expected as the lake not only regained it's power but also became stronger.
And with the help of the lake she had somehow unknowingly evolved herself, gaining intelligence beyond what an ant should have.
Not only that she had gain the ability to shape her ants into stronger and much more different forms, which are both the false queens and the doorhead ants.
As for the spider like horneypot?The queen had sent out few of her ants to test the direct effects of the lake water on other ant's.
The results were like this;
Workers— abdominal explosion
Soldier's— head detachment
Drones– instant death
Princess— ninety seven percent death by swelling abdomen and three percent chances of a evolved and stronger queen more prompt to lay better eggs.
Though she would immediately execute any and all princess that survived and mutated.
As for the honeypots? From the hundred or so of the ant cast only this one survived and evolved as a result.
And with the help of the lake power did she grow from a simple large colony to a supercolony in less than two years.
'this lake.... It's truly a marvelous tool to have. But I could somehow guess why the other ants died, it's probably because they tried to digest the lake water and it's effect was simply too great for them. But for the queen and this honeypot, the took a different approach. The queen was simply focused on laying eggs so instead of digesting the lake water she would use it to create a batch of eggs or a single false queen and that would decrease it's power allowing her to digest the leftovers while the main portion was used to make the eggs'
'and as for the honeypot? It's still a guess but from what I know honeypots store honey and use it to feed the workers, so they is a large probability that the honeypot simply did what it did best which is to store instead of digest. As for the other honeypots that died? There probably digested some before their bodies could adjust to the water and died from the backlash' he thought as he started walking towards the lake. (Note: it's only a lake to the ants and not an actual lake, try seeing things from the ants point of view from now on to understand)
Half way they his soul gaze could see the greenish particles gathering, dancing and separating in the air, when he reach the lake and look at it with his normal view what he say was a large body of glowing and green water. All the parts throw in the water had been dissolved already leaving the water clear and beautiful.
'according to the Queen's memories the water is extremely sweet yet this water can and would kill a drone like myself in an instant. Seems as though I still have to continue with my original plans though, ill make use of this lake water later' he thought
'From the geography of this place and the routes I followed here, this place should be right beside my new aboard and I could probably make a passage leading straight from here to there making my lab a single large space comparable to the ancestral nest if not larger' he thought
Then he ordered the queen to send out an command to the false queens to make a tunnel leading to his hideout.
And in less than two hour a strong and stable passage was completed. He had learnt from the Queen's memories that the false queen were model after the combination of the soldier cast,drone cast and worker cast of ant. The soldier part takes seventy to eighty percent of the ratio, the drone part being only it's wings and the worker part which it inherently made it a great constructor of structure, which adding to their size made every single one of them a better working force than a fifty ant work force.
During that time he had been observing the water up close and had dip one of his legs/hands into it, discovering it was warm yet not something that hot enough to melt the tough exoskeleton of the insects throw into it.
'except it has special compounds that reacts and break down the tissue of organism when they have stayed in it for too long' was the only explanation he could think of.
'ill take my time studying you once I have more....time' he thought as he headed straight towards his original hideout.
In his hideout he had changed the guards and the caretakers of the crickets for the second time as the former ones had starved themselves to death carrying out his others. Well you couldn't blame them as the puppet master simply had little experience in his mind control abilities then, now he could make them perform the actions without turning them to idiots that would starve themselves to death.
Upon reaching his hideout he order the general to send away all ants that were not puppets and then sent his soul force into seven ants, including the general.
Then he made them carry the cricket towards a certain corner. Afterwards he made the ants tear the cricket open and drag out the horsehair worms without harming them, then he wipe out the parasite worms consciousness's.
Using his experience as a reference from his scientists days, he controlled the ants to cut open some part of the worms body and started removing their reproductive organs, their Spermatic
duct and some parts of the pseudocoel.
He removed the stomach so it'll not be able to digest the food and the tail/anus.
After he made the ands cut open some of his body and opening small area in his thorax, exposing his digestive tract and connected the cut of area of the parasite worm to it.
Making some ants hold himself and the worm body in place, then he opened his nervous system and used some of the worms body cutoff parts to make a vain connecting the nervous system to the worms Ventral cord.
The ventral nerve cord is a major structure of the invertebrate central nervous system. It is a most to add it for the worm body to truly become part of him.
It's the functional equivalent of the vertebrate spinal cord. The ventral nerve cord coordinates neural signaling from the brain to the body and vice versa, so having it would give him another set of brains though not truly a brain.
But adding two flesh together would make it stick would it?
At that moment he sent a mental message and a spider like ant appeared and started walking towards them.
Original he didn't want to mind control the spider honeypot but he had to as it had become a special factor in his plan.
The spider ant poured a tiny drop of the water into the connected parts of both the puppet master and the worm and their flesh started moving immediately afterwards and merging their flesh together.
Afterwards the spider like ant put another drop on the other injured parts and they started healing.
Theirs body connection and became one at that moment.
After half a minutes without one moving, the puppet master started moving and stood up, though he was unbalanced thanks to the added weight.
With difficulty he made the the worm now tentacles move slowly.
'good... And now the final step' he thought as he sent his soul force to extract the worms memories and experience, quickly learning how to use his extra limb from the experience.
Not only that, he had also learnt how to turn the nutrients of the hosts of parasite to life force like nutrient, the secret lay in their unique intestine which helps them break down the sucked nutrients into different parts with the life sustaining nutrients and the reproduction supporting nutrients as their most popular pair of created nutrients.
Though he only needed the life sustaining nutrient and not the other ones.
'ill have to try it out' he thought as he looked around for a good test subject. Quickly he spotted the two worker ands that were caretaking the cricket and made them come towards himself, then he sent out his 'life suck tentacle' to attach to one and started sucking immediately.
He quickly felt a sticky yet warm substance going down his tentacles throat, then it went down his intestine and quickly started breaking down.
Not long after a cold feeling entered his body as he absorbed the life force nutrient of the worker.
This all happened around four second's, and quickly stopped afterwards as the nutrient of a flimsy worker was simply to little, especially when it was only the life nutrient that was taken.
'that was amazing.... So thats what absorbing life force feels like. But the amount of a worker is simply too little, I think I'll need over fifty workers just to feel satisfied. But what about the other ant cast? How much life force can they produce? ' he thought as he quickly finished the second worker and started absorbing from a soldier puppet.
The soldier were almost as twice as many as the worker's. Meaning he'll need at least twenty to thirty soldiers to be satisfied.
Afterwards he tried a false queen and was surprised to find out a false queen was equivalent to forty workers.
He was surprised by this as he didn't expect much, but it seems as though seventy percent of the nutrients in the false queen's body were infact of life nutrient with a mixture of the other nutrients making up the remaining thirty percent.
This seems like great news, till he thought of something and quickly walk towards one of the cover doors in the many door headed ant tunnels.
After taking the Queen's memories he had learnt that behind each door was a living, breathing queen be it of ant or termite.
After the door head opened its tunnel and he entered,then saw a queen ant being feed by a few worker ants while others were carrying her newly laid eggs and arranging them at a corner close to the entrance.
When the door opened, the worker quickly started taking all the eggs outside. The eggs were being kept in the nursing room were they would hatch and become new members of the colony, never knowing about the existence of their true queen whom was lock behind and forced to lay eggs for a colony that's not even her's.
The supreme queen had made such a system, directly increasing her colonies numbers without being the ones laying the eggs. She did this so she could concentrate on laying the false queens ants and creating an army of them to sweep over both land and sky.
And exacting revenge on both the hornet queen and bee queen.
'that water is simply too scary, Being able to evolve an insect to have such level of intellect...I can't even see the limits of it's potentials' he thought as he wiped out the Queen's consciousness and started absorbing her life force nutrient.
After some time he had finished absorbing and was staring straight at the dieng queen ant, while in deep thoughts.
'its only about twenty four to twenty five workers... It seems as though the normal ant queens have less vitality than a false ant queen or is because the false queens were made of that lakes water?' he thought remembering the glowing lake.
'ill have to get my mind out of that lake first.... Or as I am now I'll probably die upon drinking water from it' he thought as he returned to the hideout.
'I've now truly gotten the hang of this now' he thought as he sent the tentacle forward,grabbing and wrapping around a young worker ant. He didn't absorb it's life force, as his abdomen is currently blotted from both the queen and false queens life nutrients. He had forced himself to go beyond his own estimated limits.
Instead of absorbing the ant worker, he simply added pressure with his tentacle and strangle the ant to death.
'I can use this as arms and weapon too. I finally have a way to defend myself physically but it's reduces my speed in return. after adding the remaining two I'll be immobilize and would need my puppets to carry me around' he thought as he looked at the two struggling horsehair worms.
Two days after, he had done nothing but digest the absorb life force and had sleep for hours on end each day.
He had grown in size by now, becoming as large as a young false queen but calling it grows would be wrong. It would be more accurate to say he had fatten up, he didn't know if it was because his lifespan was coming to an end or if it's because of the life force but his wings had fallen off and he had almost gone crazy from the desire to mate.
Mating was the reason drones were made and currently he was fighting against that genetically programmed order.