Q-chan or Emi-chan?

Hana opened her eyes and stretched while yawning. Popping sounds could be heard coming from her limbs. She groggily fetched for her spectacles within the darkness, as it was efficiently passed by someone. She sighed helplessly. Since she was in this magical place, she had unknowingly fainted far too many times. She had actually never fainted in her life before due to her comfortable upbringing and tender-loving-care from her dearest beloved afterward. Heck, she had never even missed a single breakfast since childhood, so no chance of fainting over an hour morning assembly at school.

"Ah, thank you, Sweetie." The aunty placed the spectacles over her eyes and habitually pushed it to the right position on the bridge of her nose with her index finger. She turned to the side to peck her beloved pet but was directly confronted by six large compound eyes the size of a football! In the gloomy atmosphere, the insect head with six eyes looked terrifying!

"Wahhhhhh!" The panicked aunty was so shocked! She immediately jumped up and just realized she was lying on the floor layered with soft, fresh leaves.

"Stop scaring the Mistress!" A white fox dashed over and knocked on the head of the Primordial Queen Mother. The pitiful Queen Mother made a high pitched dual-layered pitiful sound as she whimpered sadly. She didn't understand what the white being was saying, but she knew it was angry with her. She couldn't fathom what was happening. Was it wrong to be helpful to the Mistress? Although she couldn't understand complex words, she could read the Mistress' intent clearly via the newly forged telepathic link between them.

"Sorry, sorry! Mommy was the one who was shocked just now. She didn't do anything at all. Stop hurting her, Shi-chan." Hana pleaded to Shiro guiltily. She had finally regained her bearing after a while.

She hesitantly walked towards the Queen Mother's head to observe her well. The Primordial Queen Mother was nearly translucent white in color, with six emerald green compound eyes, two large main ones on either side and four smaller ones. Surprisingly she didn't have those horrible mandibles. However, the Queen Mother's insect forelegs looked sharp like rows of white sabers. She only had two twirly glowing antennae on her head. The structure of her face was akin to the face of a grasshopper. Carefully, she placed her hands on the Queen Mother's face. It felt smooth, hard and cold as if she was touching on metal.

The Queen Mother was quite wary of Hana's touch, but she endured hard and didn't react. When Hana finally touched her, she realized she was just paranoid. The touch was devoid of malice, as it was only filled with curiosity and warmth. She finally relaxed and started to enjoy Hana's touch.

A low pitch resounded from the Queen Mother, startling Hana as her eyes trailed to Shiro with a questioning look. [Is she saying something? Why can't I understand her? Is there something wrong with the newly forged link? Is she angry or something?]

[It's alright, Mom. The link had manifested correctly, I'm very sure. She can't talk since she was incapable of speech. For insect spiritual beast, their mode of communication was totally different, as it mostly depended on one way telepathic instructions, I think. Not too sure myself. Anyway, she is not a highly developed spiritual beast. Her intelligence is undoubtedly quite low. However, she is not hostile or anything. In fact, she seemed to enjoy it. I think this is equivalent to a purr.] Shiro's reply entered Hana's mind. He too, was quite speechless with the Primordial Queen Mother's chumminess. Just a couple of days ago, she was so unwilling.

Knowing that the giant termite quite liked to be rubbed on the head, Hana enthusiastically rubbed her head well. "Mmmm..what should I call you? Do you have a name?"

The Queen Mother tilted her head to the side and droned a low pitch questioningly.

[Primordial.. Quee.. Queenn.. Motherr..]

Hana could hear the words forming telepathically inside her mind with astonishment. The voice was sweet and child-like, although slightly incoherent. Shiro was just saying that the termite queen was incapable of communicating with them due to her low intelligence. Now, she didn't believe that one bit. It might sound far-fetched, but how unintelligent would someone be if she could manage a hive of a whole hundred and thousands-strong insect bustling with a myriad of activities at the same time? She knew she couldn't. It needed someone with extreme management skills! Most probably nobody had taken the extra mile to get to know the species as a whole better.

Most probably, this poor one hadn't conversed with any spiritual beasts at all. Additionally, since they have an internal telepathic channel, she didn't have to use her own voice to command for something, it can be relayed directly into the hive-mates minds. She resolutely felt that throwing a couple of bidara fruits and a little practice with the others would just remedy the issue perfectly later.

Hana smiled warmly. "That sounded like a title. Let me give you a new name? Would you like that?"

The Queen Mother tilted her massive head to the side in confusion. She was clueless as to what was spoken by the Mistress at the moment. She couldn't gauge at all. In the beginning, wasn't the Mistress was asking for her name? However, since the Mistress was moving her head up and down with enthusiasm, she just copied her movement for testing.

"Primordial Queen Mother... Queen... How about Queenie? I'll call you Q-chan! That sounded lovely and cute!" Queenie was the name of a book character used in her kid's kindie. It was regal yet sweet. However, when Hana's eyes fell on the Elemental Queen Mother's emerald-colored compound eyes, she was very tempted with another name.

"Or is 'Emy' sounds better to you? I think both sounded nice. By the way, I love the color of your eyes." Hana chuckled heartily. The second-best precious stone she likes after ruby was always emerald!

The aunty was now thorned between Q-chan or Em-chan! Oh, so very thorned inside! Both are good names for her. It made her reminisced her first-born's naming discussion between her and Arash. Too many good names out there to choose from. The dilemma was real!

"Q-chan?"

The Primordial Queen Mother nodded vigorously.

"Em-chan?"

The Primordial Queen Mother nodded vigorously again. She perceived through telepathy that the up and down head movement made the Mistress' mood lightened significantly.

Both Hana and Shiro felt so exasperated and comical at the same time. The queen bug was a little too cute. Hana immediately decided on a whim.

"Q-chan then!"

The verdict was given with another flourishing nod. Hana couldn't stand it and laughed out loud. She pointed to herself.

"Mistress Hana."

She pointed to the Primordial Queen Mother.

"Q-chan."

After the third repetition, she received a soft reply, repeating her words in her mind.

[Mis..misstreess..]

[Q-ch..]

A smile bloomed on Hana's face with praise reflected in her eyes. "Good job! Q-chan!" She even generously gave the queen termite a thumbs-up sign, showing her a high degree of appreciation.

The best way to teach a blank-slate was just simple repetition and gestures, like teaching a baby. Or like communicating with locals during vacation. She knew the queen termite had understood her intention. She felt so gratified at the moment. In the beginning, she was worried about how to relay to the queen mother about her request to push everyone on the team to work together to create a map. The request was quite complicated, to the least. She estimated that she might need a couple of weeks to teach the queen termite until she could understand enough to fulfill her request.

Her heart was brimming with positive energy! The day that she could return was near!

She immediately turned into the public channel to make an announcement,

[Everyone, welcome your new sister, Q-chan. Although she can't really talk, Q-chan and her team are already an integral part of our family. She will help Mommy with a lot of things! Before that, I want all of you to be nice to her, talk to her as much as possible to brush up her beast language. Is it understood?]

[Yes, Mom (Mommy) (Mistress)!] Three overlapping sounds reflected back to her mind. Even Q-chan at the side was a little surprised to hear other voices in her head as she turned her head everywhere in an attempt to locate where did those voices came from.

Hana was glad to hear from Ara. She was wondering why Ara hadn't tried to communicate with them remotely before. Unbeknownst to her, it was only the recently elevated mass soul-link that came with the aberration of the cultivation method which had helped her reconnect the premature link between her and her other soul-pets and allow long-distance communication. She now knew what it meant by expending her slave rune-filled blood to others, and she won't so easily do it to others again with a cincai attitude. She knew she had to take responsibility for the multiple lives within her grasp and lived responsibly.

This Aunty has finally matured a little after a few life-threatening experiences…

…

Kuro was outside the nest, observing the surroundings while perching on the largest tree not too far from where his mistress was located deep underground.

From the top of the tree canopy, he could see a vast expense of land filled with a sea of trees, sometimes cleaved off by rivers and a few elevated small hills, and a large mountain range in the background. Besides that, there was nothing else. The vastness was miles and miles into the distance without any significant landmark. However, he knew the boundary of several strong powerhouses not too far into the distance. The worst thing was, all of them were his enemies. The balance of power was a delicate thing. His lovable mistress might tip this balance if her existence was known to all.

The allure of advancement and breakthroughs were real, especially to old fogies who had reached a bottleneck for centuries.

He sighed deeply.

He didn't dare to think about how large an area will they have to explore to chart the supposed map, and how many territories will they have to encroach while offending the local lord at the same time. There were even experts stronger than him present in some obscure corners, unknown to him.

He wished Mommy will grow stronger faster. Then, nobody can stop whatever she wanted to do.

[I need to make Mommy take in more sla.., ehem, companions.] Kuro pondered in silence while he schemed and planned for the future. It's for the greater good after all.

…