“Damn you!” Experimant yelled as she ducked for cover before a control panel. “There’s no way it can handle this much power!”

“I-I-I think it’s going to explode,” Assistant stuttered as she tried to rush toward the emergency shut down lever, only to be dragged to safety by Experimant latching onto one of her legs.

“That’s what she wants,” Experimant grouched.

“Yesssss. YESSSSS! I see it! I see it all!”

Brilliant cackled madly, standing over her creation, an amorphous blob of flesh, which jumped and flopped on the table as a truly absurd amount of mana and electricity ripped through it.

“Rise! RIIIIIISE!”

The only thing that rose in this instance was the temperature of the room. In fact, it rose rather precipitously as a fireball detonated, blasting the mad ant through the air while reducing her current experiment to loosely associated chunks.

Emergency shutdown routines, the ones that Brilliant hadn’t disabled, cut in quickly, shutting off the flow of power and plunging the chamber into darkness. Experimant waited a few moments, checking for any further explosions, before she rose up to survey the damage.

All in all, it wasn’t too bad, and as the backup systems whirred to life, once more illuminating the lab, she saw Brilliant had already picked herself up from where she had landed against the wall.

“Now THAT was a successful experiment!” she warbled, clearly a little unsteady.

“Was it really?” Experimant replied doubtfully. From her perspective, it looked much the same as the last twelve they’d run. There were so many more promising projects they could be working on, but Brilliant was currently obsessed with Bio-mana and trying to find applications for this new form of energy.

“Of course! The test organism lasted three tenths of a second longer than previous tests! Think of the data!”

She leapt over to a readout station and pulled on her goggles with visible glee. A new invention from Smithant’s shop, they were one-of-a-kind, designed to fit over Brilliant’s eyes precisely with literally thousands of individual displays painstakingly carved on the inside. Brilliant had done a lot of the enchanting work herself, linking the goggles to her own instruments, meaning when she put them on she was able to see thousands of readouts at once.

Experimant had taken a look inside and all she’d gotten was a headache.

“Is it… really alright to explode an organism every time you perform this experiment?” a small scent interjected.

A Brood Tender and two hatchlings had watched the proceedings from behind several layers of safety screens, and now they emerged to survey the chaotic scene.

Brilliant was too busy poring over the results, so Experimant answered for the little one.

“It’s essentially a blob of meat. No brain, no nervous system, no capacity to experience pain. We aren’t actually hurting it. Technically, there isn’t an it to hurt.”

“Still… it seems… bad?”

“Bah!” Brilliant huffed, throwing her goggles off, only for Assistant to dive and catch them before they hit the floor. “I won’t be lectured on ethics by a hatchling! What caste are you anyway?”

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“A… healer,” the hatchling replied.

“Aha! Of course it’s the… wait? A healer? Really?”

The hatchling looked to the Brood Tender for reassurance, who gave her an encouraging nod.

“Yes,” the little one replied, more firmly this time. “I’m a healer.”

“Well that is fascinating. I didn’t expect a healer Champion. They’re so grumpy I can’t tell if they actually like what they do or not. That's beside the point! Has anyone told you about Bio-mana?”

“No… they haven’t.”

“Wait, wait! Do you know what caste I am?” the other hatchling asked, hopping about, her wings buzzing with excitement.

“Scout,” Brilliant replied without turning her head.

“I’m a scout! Wait, how did you know?”

“How did I know?” Brilliant asked, rounding on the winged-ant hurriedly. “You want me to tell you how I knew?”

Experimant sighed.

“I do!”

“Because I’m BRILLIANT!” the ant declared proudly, striking a dramatic pose. “Now, where was I? Bio-mana! Yes. Has anyone explained it to you?”

Back to the second hatchling.

“No?” she said.

“Excellent!” Brilliant leapt forward and seized the little one, dragging her forward to the centre of the lab where the now-exploded experiment table had once stood. “It’s a fascinating new field of study, and I do mean new. It’s the form of mana natively generated on the fifth stratum, which nobody has seen for thousands of years! We’re the first to get to experiment with it on the entire planet!”

“And you’re using it to… blow up meat?”

“What? No! Well… yes. Sort of. But don’t you see, this form of mana is most applicable to the healers! It’s the energy that is used to create monsters in the first place! Mana into flesh! Doesn’t that sound interesting?”

The hatchling looked at her askance. It was interesting, but she had questions.

“Doesn’t healing mana do that already? Create flesh using mana?”

Brilliant hopped with excitement, clacking her mandibles.

“Yes! Good question! You’re completely wrong, but a good question nonetheless. Another smart Champion? It’s about time!”

“Isn’t Solant very smart?” the hatchling said doubtfully.

“Yes, but she’s boring so it doesn’t count. No, healing mana stimulates the body’s natural properties. It isn’t creating new cells, new flesh, but providing the energy to let the cells create new cells. Bio-mana is entirely different, making something out of nothing!”

“And… what can we use it for?” the hatchling enquired.

“I don’t know!” Brilliant cried wildly. “Isn’t it great?!”

“So what are you testing here?”

“Testing the limits and properties we can imbue into the created flesh,” Experimant filled in. “Can we make it armoured? Can we make it resistant to different types of elemental damage? What are the tolerances and how efficiently can we push them? Our work is in the very initial stages, so we’re trying to build a base of knowledge starting from first principles.”

She looked at Brilliant.

“We likely won’t be successful because it’s only a matter of time before someone gets bored.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Brilliant said, waving off her follower, “but then we pass our findings onto someone else and see what they can come up with. At least they get a running start. And that someone could be you, little hatchling!”

An hour later, as they left the lab behind, Demetant looked worriedly at the two hatchlings.

“Was that an interesting experience?” she asked them.

“It wasn’t as fun as flying,” the first hatchling said, wings buzzing. Then she brightened. “But the explosion was fun.”

“It was interesting,” the second hatchling said, thoughtful. “Brilliant seemed… a little… difficult to work with. And probably hurts herself a lot more than necessary.”

“Very tactful.”

“Thank you. But what she said about Bio-mana could have some applications. I might need to investigate some more….” she trailed off, staring blankly into space.

Demetant nodded, feeling well satisfied.

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