Morning came and a glance over at Claw indicated she would soon be waking up as well, so he suggested to wait for breakfast until she was done.  It also gave him a perfectly legitimate reason to enjoy the snuggle pile for a while longer.  It also, unfortunately, left his mind free.

In an attempt to focus his thoughts on something useful, he began thinking about Queenie.  She should be ready to evolve soon.  He thought about what all he knew about her since she couldn't really explain to him what kind of path she wanted to take.  She wanted to have a swarm of drones again, she wanted to pay them back for saving her, she wanted personal strength, and she seemed to want to understand things better.  Thinking in that direction, her own swarm of bees should come naturally regardless, paying them back wasn't super important but maybe something like a guard force or honey would count, personal strength would come with time and a good base, and understanding just required her having better mental faculties.  In other words, if he was going to be choosing for her then he needed to look for a good physical base and something that could increase her intelligence potential.

Claw soon cracked her way awake and after waiting for her to get in some good stretching, he let her know they were waiting for her before they had breakfast.  He figured they could all check over her new changes while they ate.  Collecting breakfast was entertaining as she seemed to be excited to test out her new evolution abilities.  She was hopping all over the place to try and grab some from parts of the webs that used to be harder to reach.  He smiled as they gather again and split the breakfast among them.  Even Queenie seemed to have fun flying around and gathering her own breakfast.

As he ate, he looked closer at Claw to check out her changes.  Her legs were a little longer and thicker, her long mantis half was a little longer, her waist was slimmer, and her hair was a little shorter.  The last change he noticed almost made him facepalm.  After all, the natural way for a mantis to jump would be to use their wings as well.  Having slightly larger and stronger wings would only make sense.

Since Claw seemed pretty happy with herself, he turned to Queenie instead.

<So, you ready for your first evolution?>

He received a feeling so he walked back to the evolution spot with Queenie buzzing along next to him.  She shuffled around a little, almost like a dog trying to find the best spot, before finally lying down.  As the options came to him he almost cursed under his breath.

{Child Honey Bee Queen}

{Child Soldier Bee Queen}

{Child Swarm Bee Queen}

{Child Regenerator Bee Queen}

{Child Leader Bee Queen}

{Child Bee Queen Scholar}

{Child Bee Queen Guardian}

{Child Bee Queen Empath}

There were some good options but not in the places he wanted them and the fact that she didn't have any 'Lesser' options meant she likely had evolved shortly before they found her in the dungeon.  Personally he kind of wanted to pick 'Honey' but he was pretty sure there was honey when they found her so it might be something her species naturally has or something from her earlier evolution.  Maybe she would have the option again later but right now it was better to try and help her build a base.  'Leader' would be good for her next one and then 'Scholar' after that.  That left the main choices between 'Swarm' and 'Soldier'.  He wavered back and forth between the two before finally deciding on 'Swarm'.  He didn't want to risk future options of having some variety in her swarm was what the decision came down to. 

He started to tell her the option and realized that he could, in fact, choose the option himself.  It wasn't something he ever paid attention to because he wanted everyone to choose but with her willingly giving the choice to him he could now feel the ability to do it himself.  Well, once she was able to understand more things he wouldn't need to choose for anyone again.  Except the rat.  He mentally made the choice through the link and felt Queenie's consciousness slip.  

He looked across the room to a spot where everyone rarely paid attention to and thought it was about time he considered addressing the elephant in the room.  Or rat, in this case.  The poor stupid thing continued to be useless.  Now that he knew he could choose evolutions, though, maybe he could push evolutions on it to finally be less useless.  Maybe.

For now it was time to go deal with the other big thing he had mostly ignored so far.  His physical abilities.  His strength and stamina had definitely improved beyond what a normal child his appearance was akin to.  The problem was that he should be able to do more than just run really fast for a long time while carrying a log as big as he was.  The only other thing he had really used well so far was his ability to see almost as well in the dark.  

Figuring that one of the best ways to really get himself up to par would be sparring with Scar.  Going purely by species, he should be at least as powerful as she was so it was time really put that to the test.  He found her in her usual morning training spot.

<Hey, Scar.  I've been thinking.  It's about time I finally start reaching my own potential so I'd like you to help, please.>

<Oh?  Sure.  What can I help with?>

<Fight me.>

<Huh?>

<From what I remember of my species, just comparing it to yours, I should technically be stronger.  I'm not, though.  So I think I need to start fighting and try to get myself sorted out and let it happen naturally.>

<Umm.  Okay?  So this is some more of that sparring, right?>

<Kind of.  Feel free to beat me down and really hurt me though.  As long as Conk can heal me.  If I get beaten that badly then it means I needed it.>

<Okay...you're sure?>

He just nodded and stared at her for a bit.  She fidgeted around for a few moments before finally letting out a sigh and nodding back.  Not wanting to let her try and change her mind, he immediately charged forward and tried to throw a punch at her face while jumping.  She didn't even flinch as she backhanded him out of the air like it was just a reflex.  As he stood back up, he saw a look of worry briefly flash across her face.  Ignoring it, he tried attacking again.  The 'fighting practice' continued until lunch, at which point she had to basically drag him back by the arms due to how badly he had gotten beaten down.

Everyone seemed to suddenly throw feelings and questions of worry and such until he managed to send a response back through the link and ask Conk for some healing.  Even though they still weren't calm, they were at least calm enough that he could explain what happened as Conk did her thing.

<It was something I asked for.  I plan to ask Claw to do something similar to me, too.  I should be much stronger than I am.  Remember how hard it's been to accept how knowledge can help because your instincts and natural feelings fought against it?  For me it's the reverse.  Except even more so.  I need to be brought to a state where my natural instincts and abilities can lead me.>

There was still some confusion floating around through the link but at least they could now accept that no unknown enemies had shown up or something.  When he was finally healed later that afternoon he decided to repeat the event with Claw as his opponent this time.  Surprisingly, he did slightly better against her.  He was still beaten down into a broken and somewhat bloody mess but he felt like his natural fighting instincts matched closer to how Claw operated.

Conk healed him up again as everyone started snuggling up to him.  He decided that since he couldn't exactly think perfectly straight in his current condition that they should instead choose the subject and try to ask questions for the teaching time.  Everyone was quiet for a while before Scratches finally spoke up and started asking about some tools.  He decided to go ahead and tell her about a few but only after someone could come up with something they might need or want a tool for.  They ended up learning about baskets, boxes, shovels, swords, knives, and tongs that night.  In return for accepting the subject he asked for two things in return.  First that they start bringing the skeleton rat around with them to do things. 

Secondly, that from now on they try and figure new tools out themselves.  There was technically a tool that could help with any kind of situation so all they had to was ask what they needed help with and how to make whatever help.  As a freebie he told them about something that Scar had already touched on, gloves.  Scar needed to be able to hit things without hurting herself and had wrapped her hands in webbing to do so.  That's the same process they should use for other things with any advice or ideas passed though Scratches since she was most inclined towards crafting.  With that as a finale, he snuggled down to sleep and let them think about what he said by themselves.