Experiment

'Big sister, did something happen?' asked Number 5 with a confused look on her tiny ant face, causing Canty, who was in a corner of the chamber, to shake her head.

'It's nothing, I'm just a little tired,' said Canty as she used the corner of her eyes to look at Antonia, who was standing with her eyes closed in the middle of the chamber.

At the same time, Canty still stared at the cute innocent little and standing in front of her, causing the latter to appear rather confused now.

'Even though she seems to be sleeping, I bet she'll open her eyes as soon as I try to escape my punishment, she wouldn't let me off so easily in a million years,' thought Canty.

'I understand Big Sister Canty, you can just rest here, I need to go on my way,' said Number 5 before quickly moved her legs in an exaggerated way, leaving Canty and Antonia alone inside the chamber.

After looked at Number 5's departing back, Canty turned her attention back onto Antonia, who was still standing with her eyes closed.

As she saw this, Canty couldn't help but become a little bit confused, as she had just checked out her mental connection to Antonia.

As it turned out, Canty felt no mental fluctuations coming from Antonia, meaning the latter was not conscious at the moment.

Canty did not know if this meant that Antonia was sleeping or doing something else, but what she did know was that she now had an opportunity to escape her punishment.

Seemingly unaware of the logistics of sneaking away unnoticed inside a huge colony full of ants, Canty suddenly moved on of her legs.

But just a moment after doing that, Canty instantly returned her leg to its original position, as she then closed her eyes and began sleeping.

At that very moment, Antonia suddenly opened her eyes and stared at Canty, causing a faint frown to appear on her face.

As she looked at Canty, who was seemingly taking her punishment, as well as the fact that she can't help with any work right now very well, that frown increased in size.

'She's... sleeping?!' thought Antonia with an extremely confused look on her face, other than the times when she truly needed to rest, Canty nearly never slept, as she would much rather work and help the colony in some way or the other.

Because of this, the fact that Canty seemed to be sleeping made Antonia very confused.

Even though the possibility that Canty had somehow managed to trick her appeared in Antonia's mind, she dismissed it soon after, as the little ant couldn't possibly hope to match her extended experience, no matter how smart she was.

Of course, Antonia was not aware of the fact that Canty, had in fact planned all of this, and to prepare, she did not sleep for an extremely extended period of time.

Because of this, as soon as she let go of her concentration, Canty was instantly able to fall asleep and escape Antonia's vision.

Even so, Antonia did not care much about the fact that her little trap had not worked, as she didn't really care much for it in the first place.

Antonia felt like although catching Canty trying to escape her punishment would be quite good, not doing so didn't annoy her.

...

Unaware of the silent, and extremely petty battle between two intelligent ants that was happening not far away from her, at this moment, Beatrice could be seen standing over an operating table with a mask on her face, staring at the man in front of her.

As she stretched out her scalpel and touched the man's fragile flesh, a faint frown appeared on her face, as Beatrice then let out a small sigh.

But even though she had discovered the fact that her plan did not, in fact, change anything, Beatrice still went through with it.

A moment later, Beatrice suddenly made a small cut into the flesh of the man before pouring some mana into it.

As this was an extremely delicate process, where one mistake might ruin everything, Beatrice was as gentle as she could be whilst pouting mana into him.

But even though Beatrice had done everything perfectly, and had not made any mistake, after around three minutes, some extremely familiar symptoms then began happening.

In just a few seconds, the flesh of the man became black, as it then spread around his body like a disease, and then after around five seconds, it then began uncontrollably growing, transforming him from a pretty normal looking human being to an eldritch looking monstrosity in only an instant.

As she stared at this scene, Beatrice couldn't help but shaking her head whilst letting out a sigh.

"It seems as though protecting his soul, as well as helping him become slightly more adjusted to mana did not do anything," mumbled Beatrice as she suddenly stretched out her hand towards the 'head' of the monstrosity.

The only reason why Beatrice was able to learn where the head of this thing was located was the fact that she could still see the soul of the former man inside of it.

But just like his body, the soul of the man had also been irreversibly warped by Beatrice's mana, causing her to click her teeth.

At first, after seeing this happen with another experimental subject, Beatrice had then tried protecting the soul of her next subject.

But even though Beatrice did not use the 'Dark Corruption' spell, and had put up some defenses around the soul of the man, and had tried to control her mana to not touch it, the soul of the man had still managed to become affected by it.

Although Beatrice was unaware of the reason for this, but as she took out the soul of the man, Beatrice couldn't help but fall into thought.

Now that Beatrice had seen that trying to preserve the past humanity of the experimental subjects was useless, she couldn't help but want to turn to the other end of the spectrum, and truly see just how far she could take a human with just her pure mana.