บท 204: Time passing
Four years later,
As she opened her eyes and looked at Antonia, who was currently holding a thick report in her mandibles, Beatrice, who had just finished transforming her soul for the day couldn't help but smile.
"It seems as though you've finished collecting information on all the other colonies," said Beatrice as she got up and lightly stretched, causing her fingers to slightly touch the ceiling.
Around 2 years ago, back when Beatrice became 32 years old, Beatrice's growth finally slowed to a crawl, reaching a height of 205.62 centimeters
In the end, after another 2 years, at the current moment Beatrice was exactly 205.63 cm.
"Yes mistress, I've personally gone to all 6 sub colonies and tallied up their numbers," said Antonia as she approached Beatrice, causing the latter to pick up the report.
With the new territory that Beatrice had allowed them to occupy, all Earth Ant colonies under the control of Beatrice experienced explosive growth, with the main colony, controlled by Antonia growing the most, from 1.6 to 2.7 million ants in just 4 years.
But although the main colony had the most growth, proportionally, its growth could not be compared to that of the side colonies.
Colony Number 2, Queen Canty grew from 5123 ants 4 years ago to 176,342 ants right now.
As for the rest of the colonies, Beatrice had to read the report in her hands to find out.
'Hmm, the growth of the colonies is going quite well...' thought Beatrice as she slightly smiled.
Although they had different conditions, the populations of the five colonies that had been established 4 years ago stood at around 23 thousand to 54 thousand, with Colony Number 4, which was established in a fertile plain having 54 thousand, whilst Colony Number 5, established in the mountains stood at 23 thousand ants.
As for the rest of the colonies? They stood somewhere between these 2 figures.
Although the population of the mountain colony was a bit small for her liking, overall, the colony creation plan turned out to be quite a large success, allowing Beatrice to expand her power on Golwall Island.
Of course, this 'power', was not the thing that Beatrice had spent most of her time on, as she was much more preoccupied by her own magical prowess.
Sadly though, although Beatrice made consistent progress over the past four years, this progress was still in line with her previous estimates, which meant that Beatrice still had to spend around 35 more years on Transforming her soul.
If this estimate was true, it would mean that Beatrice would finish her transformation around 52 years after first arriving at Golwall Island, or rather, 52 IA, how Beatrice had begun referring to it in her notes.
After noticing that she was about to sink into her thought, Beatrice suddenly turned to Antonia.
"You can go now, you can continue as planned," said Beatrice, causing Antonia to quickly retreat from the room, leaving Beatrice alone.
A few moments after Antonia left the room, Beatrice turned her attention to the Elemental Energy in the air.
Not the elemental energy inside of her home, which had been artificially increased in density by her, instead, the elemental energy in the outside world.
A few moments later, Beatrice let out a faint sigh.
"The growth still is pretty minimal," mumbled Beatrice before shaking her head.
Although she could not predict the growth of elemental energy years in advance, Beatrice knew very well that if an explosion in density was near, signs would be showing.
"Worst case scenario I have at least another decade..." mumbled Beatrice with a faint smile on her face.
A few moments later, Beatrice turned her attention onto Scythia, who had returned 2 years ago, after finishing the mission that Beatrice had given to her.
Interestingly, it was not controlling the royal families, as well as the people in power, that was the thing that had taken the most time, unlike what Scythia had expected.
Instead, the thing that Scythia had spent most of her time was controlling and influencing small people, merchants, weak nobles, City Lords, and making sure that as long as something important happened, information would soon reach her ears, as well as the ears of her teacher.
A moment after Beatrice turned her attention onto Scythia, the apprentice suddenly floated right out of her bed, into the air, before immediately beginning to fly towards Beatrice.
In just a few moments, before Scythia could fully gain her bearings, the teen girl had arrived in front of Beatrice.
"Good morning teacher," said Scythia, who had been suddenly woken up.
Unlike Beatrice, who could now do without sleep entirely, Scythia still needed at least some rest, much to the annoyance of her teacher.
"Scythia have you found out? When are the recruiters of the Academies coming?" asked Beatrice, who had tasked her apprentice with this before beginning to meditate.
The recruiters of the mage academies, much like the ones that had brought Beatrice upon the path of magic, usually visited the Malto Archipelago, which Golwall Island was part of, once every few years.
Although Beatrice was much, much more powerful than these Academy Mages, the Witch had no desire to provoke the major Academies, nor did she have any desire to reveal herself to the outside world.
As such, when she realized that these recruiters had not come for 7 years in a row, Beatrice became a bit curious fearing that the Academy Mages might cause her some issues in completing the mission given to her by her teacher.
Hearing the words of her teacher, Scythia, who had completed the task in just under a day, couldn't help but breathe a faint sigh of relief.
"They'll be coming in around 1 to 2 months, their exact time will depend on the weather out at sea," said Scythia causing Beatrice to nod.
"That's good, a month should be enough time, Scythia, notify me as soon as you find out any other information, I don't want to be surprised by them," said Beatrice before suddenly walking away, leaving Scythia behind her.
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