" Wait wait wait, You were an ant? " Anna asked shockingly as she could not grasp the contents of Max's story.
Jhonny looked at her sadly as he pretended to snort coke off his empty finger as he tried to imply that Max was on drugs and probably hallucinating to Anna.
Anna looked at Max wide eyed after that, forcing him to clarify the meaning behind his words.
" So I had this ancient turtle master, the god of cowardice and he trained me and Sebastian to become top notch cowards.
A part of his training was to turn us into ants to make us experience the world in its most primal form.
To be honest, at first I thought I was going to change the ant culture with my human knowledge.
Help them eat food sources that were richer in nutrition, help them live in places that were safer from windstorms and change their society from an role based equalist culture to a private democracy, but I was naive " Max said as Anna made a blank expression before asking " Why did you wanna do all that?
Why not live your life and let other ants live theirs? "
Max coughed violently when he heard Anna's question as it was precisely what Kremeth taught him.
Sebastian patted Anna on the back as he said " Turtle Hermit Way Rule Number 8 - Don't fix anything that's not broken, Don't save anyone that doesn't want to be saved ".
Max and Sebastian continued by saying together " May the cowardice always be with you, Amen "
" Amen " Jhonny said for no reason at all as he took a break from puffing his cigar.
" Yes so, I was an ant and I tried to create a lot of changes within the society of ants but the very people I wanted to help turned against me putting my life in danger.
If we humans see someone old suffering we admit them to hospitals and want them to continue living after operations even though they might never be the same again.
Ants don't do so, in the ant community the moment an ant feels that it will no longer be able to continue at its peak performance it stops eating and makes its way towards the graveyard built in every colony and buries itself with the other dead ants even though it's alive.
Waiting for death to eventually arrive.
I was baffled by this narrative thinking why do they do so, but apparently not one old ant had reservations to dying, rather they feared being a freeloader in the colony more.
When I proposed some revolutionary ideas to the queen ant, well, she tried to eat me and after that the whole colony turned against me as I had to fight and run for my life.
For the chance to mate the queen, male ants would kill each other and still the same male ants that fought yesterday against each other, would team up against a praying mantis if a threat arose.
I thought that ants were not as social as humans, not as intelligent, not as complex, but I realised that was not true.
Ants are just as intelligent as humans with the only difference being that they don't lie or deceive and are hardworking.
Becoming an ant I realised that ideals like saving the universe, helping others and creating a utopia were all pointless.
That there were only 2 things worth striving for in the universe
1)Survival
2) Personal Power.
We never know what's truly best for someone else, so one should never truly judge or help others.
Maybe the ant does not want to be saved, maybe the colony doesn't want to move and why would they?
They have survived for millions of years as a species relying on these same principles.
While to us humans it's disgraceful to be compared to an ant, the ants really don't care that they are ants and on average they are ACTUALLY HAPPIER!
To us it's disgraceful to not have ambition of become the emperor of the world.
But for ants they just want to be useful to the colony.
They have no ambitions of universal domination.
Hence, I learnt my lesson from being an ant and I got rid of a lot of my useless ambitions that involved external things and truly embraced the cowards way.
Now, I want to change nothing in the universe, only eliminate things that may harm me or my loved ones.
I don't want to be a hero, I don't want fame, I don't want awards or recognition. I only want to be a coward.
Because a coward values his life over everything else and a coward never takes rest and continuously grows stronger because he doesn't know when the next attempt on his life will be made.
May the cowardice always be with you! " Max said
" May the cowardice always be with you! " The other three people in the room replied together.
Jhonny did not understand one bit of the story that Max narrated but he liked the last line a lot.
" Your other master, is he truly an old man? " Jhonny asked curiously as Anna looked at Jhonny and thought
' Wow, of all the things that Max said, that's what he picked up?
I wonder what truly goes inside the head of men '.
" Yes, he's about as old as old gets. He's been a god before the birth of the universal queen. So like ancient old " Max replied, as Jhonny nodded his head and said "Then he's just a fledgeling, nothing compared to this old man"
Sebastian instantly began coughing violently, why was Jhonny competing with Kremeth over who was older? And was there even a competition?
Kremeth was ancient, Jhonny was barely in his mid fifties or early sixties. Yet he confidently said that Kremeth was a fledgeling.
If Kremeth was a fledgeling then what were they? Sperms in their father's ballsacks?
" So how exactly did you become half-dragon? " Anna asked as Max went back to narrating his story as he said
" So the only reason I became an ant was because my master was unsure of my temperament, but after realising my insignificant place in this universe I was finally ready to ascend.
So what happened was ....
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/// A/N - Bonus chapter for hitting the GT target, good job everyone!
Important Notice - I will be on a break for 13-16 January.
I will try to give at least 1 chapter a day, but may not be able to fulfil it all days.
I might be able to give more but I can't gaurantee it.
So no bonuses will be given during those 4 days.
Sorry for the inconvenience///