Level Up The Colony
Chapter 53: Hungry

Chapter 53: Hungry

Timothy stepped back into the room, unconcerned with how exactly he worked his magic.

With no electricity, the heat hung heavy in the air, making it hard to care about much else.

"It’s back to you, Gray," he muttered.

His next task was to test the full range of the new skill.

"A skill that has other skills under it?" Timothy rubbed his chin. "It’s like a master skill? Hmm... no, that doesn’t sound right. Since its growth depends on both me and my companion... it wouldn’t be wrong to call it a parent skill."

Five termites were still in the room, and the little ones seemed oddly fond of his table.

He focused on the first sub-skill and read its description aloud:

---

[Mana Hibernation: Allows a limited number of Termites to enter stasis within your Mana signature, reducing upkeep drastically. Upon re-summoning, they appear in the exact state they were in before dormancy (unless killed).]

---

Mentally, he activated the skill the usual way.

A prompt appeared before his eyes:

[Designate Target]

His eyes shifted between the five termites before landing on the most obvious choice.

[Silverback Termite (Gray) selected]

[Silverback Termite (Gray) has refused to Hibernate]

Timothy blinked.

Then blinked again.

He read the message repeatedly, stunned.

Gray turned his back toward him as if in protest.

"...You’re mocking me now?" Timothy narrowed his eyes at the termite.

"I don’t believe I can’t put you in hibernation," he said and tried again.

[Designate Target]

[Silverback Termite (Gray) selected]

[Silverback Termite (Gray) has refused to Hibernate]

Even worse? The skill consumed no Mana yet all he felt was rejection.

Switching tactics, he designated another termite.

[Designate Target]

[Silverback Termite (---) selected]

A flash of light enveloped the chosen termite.

But instead of dispersing like a typical summoning dismissal, the glow surged toward Timothy, hitting him squarely in the chest right where his heart should be, and vanished.

[Hibernation Successful]

[Two more remainings]

"Oh, that’s neat. I can hibernate three termites," Timothy smiled.

"Now then Gray."

He tried again.

[Designate Target]

[Cannot designate Target. Two more remainings.]

He exhaled.

"You’re such a pain."

The message told him enough, three worker termites or one soldier-tier.

That’s how the limit worked, or at least how he interpreted it.

He had nothing stronger than a soldier termite for now.

He quickly stored two more worker termites.

He didn’t feel drained, but he could now sense their presence like faint pulses tethered to him, confirming their continued existence.

Undoing the hibernation was as simple as a mental command, and they reappeared just as easily.

Strategically, the skill didn’t seem useful at the moment.

In fact, it felt like a liability.

But then a "what if" crossed his mind.

He shrugged it off.

Hopefully, he’d never need to use it.

Next was the second sub-skill, one with a more practical function.

---

[Short-Range Recall: Termites must be within a 30-meter radius to be recalled.]

---

He activated it.

It worked seamlessly.

A mental scan confirmed the radius, it extended slightly outside the house.

As long as they were within range, the termites blinked to his location instantly.

He smirked.

Now that’s useful.

Perfect for his fighting style, even if the termites weren’t yet suited for combat.

Finally, he moved on to the last sub-skill:

---

[Dormant Storage: A small number of Worker Termites can now be stored in inert "Mana hibernation" within the Companions body or your Hybrid trait, reducing maintenance requirements drastically.]

---

"This is basically the same as Mana Hibernation," Timothy commented, unimpressed.

Still, something tugged at his memory, Mana Control.

HE remembered one of the descriptions of the Mana control skill was;

[Provides a chance to counter external Mana manipulation, effective if the opponent’s proficiency is weaker than your own]

A wild idea sparked.

He activated Mana Hibernation again.

[Designate Target]

[Silverback Termite (Gray) selected]

[Silverback Termite (Gray) has refused to Hibernate]

Of course.

"I doubt Gray has more Mana proficiency than I do though," Timothy muttered.

This time, he tried forcing the skill using Mana Control.

He focused, regulating his breath, trying to understand how his Mana flowed when activating a skill.

It was all instinctual up till now.

He channeled his Mana mentally and forcefully toward the skill, directing it at Gray.

A faint glow surrounded the termite.

The light intensified, and Timothy noticed something strange, his MP was draining.

[-20MP]

A blue cocoon formed around Gray, icy and crystalline, locking him in place.

[Hibernation Successful]

Timothy exhaled sharply.

"That... was not what I expected." He said with a pant

"Why did it drain Mana?" he muttered.

"It’s supposed to be free..."

He eyed the cocoon.

"Also, shouldn’t it be inside me? Why is it still here?"

Timothy stepped closer and touched the cocoon.

It was solid, like a Mana crystal.

But different.

It felt more familiar to him, like intimately familiar, than anything else.

He could tweak it how he wanted and there’d be no rejection

It was...

His Mana.

His termite.

His control

"So this is what a Mana signature really is?" Timothy murmured, studying the cocoon that encased Gray.

He had a lot to learn.

The other termites were gathered too, quietly observing.

With a sigh, he unsummoned them, his MP needed time to recover.

He stared at the cocoon for a moment longer.

Leaving Gray like that didn’t sit right with him.

Just as he was about to release the hibernation, a detail in his memory sparked, he had another skill.

Dormant Storage.

It was the third ability unlocked at level two of Colony Genesis.

Without hesitation, he activated it.

The cocoon vanished.

"Oh, that’s cool..." he started, but stopped mid-sentence.

A weight suddenly pressed down on his shoulders.

His eyes darted around.

Nothing had changed in the room.

The pressure wasn’t physical or dangerous, but it was there, unsettling.

Then it clicked.

Timothy quickly pulled Gray’s cocoon out of Dormant Storage.

As the termite reappeared in the room, the weight vanished completely.

Heart racing slightly, Timothy opened the skill description and scanned through it.

Sure enough, the summon was stored either within his Trait or Gray’s own body.

"Quite the luxury," he muttered,

"but not one I can afford right now."

He immediately dispelled the cocoon and released Gray.

The termite wiggled its antennae, clearly disoriented.

But after a few seconds, it let out a soft click of its mandibles, then casually wandered off like nothing had happened.

Timothy sighed.

That was enough experimenting with skills for now.

A part of him kept bracing for something like an ambush, a dungeon alert, anything.

But instead, his stomach grumbled.

"Right, I haven’t eaten." He remembered

Too lazy to cook, he left his room and headed for the living room.

The woodworker still wasn’t back, he’d ghosted.

Timothy didn’t panic.

He doubted the guy would do anything that stupid.

If he did, well, Miebaka could explain.

The sun was still high, probably around noon.

But he wasn’t stepping outside.

He glanced toward the kitchen... then at the sun... then back at the house... and finally at himself.

"Nah," he said, collapsing onto the couch.

"A few hours of waiting won’t starve me to death."

With nothing better to do, he watched people pass by through the windows.

Boredom quickly settled in.

He pulled up his system menu and browsed through the options.

Eight free stat points.

He’d been debating between more stats or a random reward.

Both always seemed to deliver what he needed.

After some thought, he went with the random reward, then impulsively dumped five stat points into Perception.

---

[Status]

Name: Timothy Walter

Title: Goblin Slayer, Mount.

Trait: Hybrid <Unstable>

Level: 27

HP: 9,300

MP: 200

Fatigue: 20

Strength: 60

Stamina: 50

Agility: 60

Intelligence: 100

Perception: 60

Free Stat Points: 2

---

[Skills]

King <Unknown> – Lv. Max

Dash – Lv. 2

Pheromones <Passive> – Lv. 4

Armament <Enhanced> – Lv. 1

Tenacity <Passive> – Lv. 1

Colony Genesis <Active> – Lv. 2

Force <Passive> – Lv. 1

Mana Control <Passive> – Lv. 1

---

[Colony] <5>

Silverback Termite (Gray) – Lv. 27

Scout – Lv. 3

Mind – Lv. 2

Predation – Lv. 1

Trainer – Lv. 1

---

A strange satisfaction bloomed in his chest as he stared at his clean, rounded stats.

Then A shadow fell over him, blocking out the sunlight.

"You didn’t call me," a feminine voice said in front of him.

"Do you want to marry me or something? You’ve been showing up a lot lately," Timothy said, voice tired and laced with mockery as he lounged on the couch.

"You’re clearly out of it," Miriam replied dryly.

"I came to check on your corpse. Thought I’d find you dead. But I guess we’ve both got our own problems."

Timothy didn’t even look at her.

"Don’t you have friends? We’re not friends, you know that, right?"

"I do," she said, her tone calm but pointed.

"Where’s your..." she turned her head searching instead.

She trailed off, unsure what to call Gray.

Pet hadn’t gone well the last time.

The family felt off, too.

"Gray," Timothy said, cutting her off.

"His name is Gray. And he’s not exactly social."

His tone was as dismissive as ever.

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