Chapter 394: Bee-turning to Battle |
After converting the room to a Farm, the rest of the work went quickly. Tarwantrad and the green elves no longer needed to prepare the fields, so all efforts went into sowing the seeds. More and more humans joined the work and they managed to get the full field sowed by the end of the day.
After the fair folk left, Belissar himself returned to the shortcut Orchard, where the gardener bees were evaluating the great tree seeds…as well as counting them. Belissar picked one up and thought about absorbing it, just to see if he had misread the Tower’s earlier message…
Absorb Great Tree Seed? Current samples: 0/100,000
…unfortunately, he had read it correctly after all. He would have to absorb a number of seeds he could scarcely fathom to unlock their trees. The bees were helping him count the sack the green elves had given him by having one worker bee pick up a seed each and then having their queen evaluate how many workers had joined the effort. A gardener and a communer flew to him and the communer reported.
“King…sorry, not enough seeds.”
Belissar shook his head.
“It’s fine, we don’t have enough mana to add them through the Tower even if there were enough. Let’s plant them and let them grow naturally instead. Do you know where we should plant them?”
The gardener began zipping about.
“Ok! Should plant in bumblebee meadow, light forest, and fairy groves!”
“Not the orchards?”
The gardener danced the negative.
“Not enough mana.”
Belissar considered that for a moment. The bumblebee meadow shouldn’t have that much mana either…but he guessed that the divine bumbledryad and Heart of the Forest would help out instead? They were already making the flowers grow to tree-like heights already, after all. If anything, planting great trees by the Heart of the Forest seemed like a good idea.
“That makes sense. What about outside the Tower?”
The gardener paused before dancing slowly.
“Sorry…didn’t check Beyond…”
Belissar gave her a smile.
“That’s fine, we’ll keep them in the Tower for now. Go ahead and plant them where you think is best for now.”
The gardener danced a salute and relayed the order to the others. Soon, gardener bees were carrying seeds through the shortcuts to locations that fit.
The karnuq were responsible for the midday purification that day. And this time, Metsaitti did not take charge.
This time, Chief Rohsuak was leading herself.
Not a single karnuq was focused today. All of them had their eyes on her, not on the gate where their enemy would appear. Chief Rohsuak knew she should berate them for it, but she decided to cut them some slack today. After all, she was tapping her own foot, eagerly awaiting the battle to come. The battle she never thought she’d experience again.
“Here it comes!”
So, she couldn’t help a big grin when Tower Keeper Belissar finally spoke and the purification began. A simple wolf shade formed and howled. Chief Rohsuak held up her hand to stop the other karnuq from attacking and then pounced on her prey with a roar of her own.
She tackled the shade to the ground and grabbed its neck, then lifted it up into the air with one hand. Her smile grew as the shade clawed at her arm, the pain only emphasizing her newfound strength. Fire mana filled with divine blessing burned away the Hunger the shade left on her body, letting her hold the deadly adversary like a pup.
She saw the shade take a deep breath and gathered her mana to her other hand. She punched the wolf in the face, knocking its head up and away from her as it unleashed its breath. She unleashed her own blast of fire from the fist, burning the monster’s head away.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
She sighed and shook her head with a smile as the shade dissipated. She had just played around with a shade of the Hunger. That was stupid and indulgent of her and the karnuq’s discipline would suffer for it. And yet, she could not help the joyful laugh building in her chest.
It was truly good to be back.
That night, the Fourth of the Fifth was curled up inside a cell full of swirled Ground-mana honey courtesy of the hive of hives.
She awoke to find herself standing before the Queen of All Bees, as queens who had evolved before her had told her would occur. She was thus ready and managed to dance a salute. The Queen of All Bees acknowledged her salute and began to show her possible evolutions.
She could become a queen of bees capable of manipulating dirt and stone, able to build vast hives of tunnels and towering structures that could resist any predator. She declined this, though, for the Third of the Third had already started on that path and was better at it than any other queen.
She could become a queen of bees that could eat bits of stone and take Ground mana into their bodies. Her children’s chitin would become as hard and tough as stone and they would become strong beyond the limits of their bodies. That appealed to her more than the first, but it was not exactly what she was looking for either. Besides, her own First Daughter, the thermal mining queen, could already eat stone and metal. An evolution like this would suit her more than her mother.
What the Fourth of the Fifth desired most, the reason she was evolving in the first place, was to support Vinoi. Vinoi was her greatest contribution to the hive of hives, a bee that could do the work of an entire formation of soldier bees when defending the King’s realm. A bee that could bring down even the greatest of predators and hive-burners, a bee who had earned a name from King by her deeds. A bee so great the Fourth of the Fifth had to evolve to keep her in her hive.
So, the Fourth of the Fifth wanted an evolution that would make Vinoi even better at her job, one that hopefully would let her entire hive follow Vinoi’s path. She was proud of Vinoi, but she did not want the giantkiller to be the only bee in her hive contributing to the hive of hives. She wanted her whole hive to be able to fight like Vinoi did.
The Queen of All Bees showed her a new vision. A bee that could not only dig into the ground, but that could merge with it. It could hide in the ground or turn itself into stone. Predators couldn’t sense it because it was part of the ground and stone, indistinguishable from the terrain all around.
Until the predator approached and the bee separated from the ground, stinging the predator’s foot.
The Fourth of the Fifth immediately began a max speed dance. The vision faded and then she fell asleep once more…
The next day, Belissar awoke to a pleasant surprise.
A monster has evolved!
Monster Bee Groundmelder Queen now available!
He smiled and searched for the new queen. The Fourth of the Fifth was crawling out of her cell in her subterranean hive…though with a twist. She did not chew through the wax cap like all the others, she crawled straight through it! Somehow, she did not even break the cap in the process, leaving it whole!
She still bore the brown colors of a digging monster bee queen…but she had somehow grown a bit smaller than she had been before. Her mandibles had shrunk even more, back to the same size as a base monster bee queen’s compared to the size of her body. Belissar tilted his head, then brought up the Tower’s description for answers.
Groundmelder Monster Bee Queen
Vitality: Minimal+
Strength: Minor+
Speed: Average
Magic: Below Average
Defense: Below Average
Resistance: Below Average
Special: Above Average
Notable Skills: Dig, Poison Sting, Ground Meld, Ground Sensing, Stone Hibernation, Brood Mother, Command Offspring
Description: A Ground-type monster bee that has evolved to hide beneath the ground. The groundmelder bees do not merely dig through ground, they become one with it. Their mana and bodies blend into all Ground-based materials, becoming indistinguishable from it to all but the most finely-tuned senses. This also allows them to move through the ground, stone, or even structures made of Ground-type materials at the same speed as their flight and without disturbing the medium, though they are easier to notice when in motion. They additionally have the ability to sense things in contact with the same medium as themselves, this ability grows more powerful when they are melded with the medium.
Additionally, if a groundmelder bee wishes to hide above the surface, they may encase themselves in stone and then meld into their covering. Entering into a state of pseudo-hibernation, they become nearly impossible to distinguish from the stone, as well as highly resilient to damage. They remain aware of their surroundings and so can ambush enemies that draw near to them, but it does take a moment for them to become active again.
The groundmelder bee does retain some ability to dig and utilize Ground mana, but they are not as good at physical tunneling as other Ground-type bees. Additionally, as they rely on melding for their defense, they are not as resilient as other evolve Ground-type bee species.
This one is a queen who can raise a hive of groundmelder bees. She is able to lay eggs that are melded into a medium, safely hidden until they are ready to hatch. As an evolved monster bee queen, the groundmelder monster bee queen has a superior ability to raise evolved bee types and can lay monster bee types in her evolution lineage in addition to groundmelder monster bees. As a stealth and infiltration focused evolution, she may also raise monster bee assassins even if they are not unlocked, and can raise and evolve them more easily than other monster bee queens.
Belissar smiled. Even though he had lots to focus on with all the prisoners and negotiations, the bees kept working hard and growing. He couldn’t wait to see the new bees in action!
