Chapter 186: Chapter 186
The First of the Fifth couldn’t help but tremble as she danced around. Thanks to the King, she had established direct contact with the dangerous karnuq. And despite the danger of doing so, the rewards promised to be unimaginable. The dangerous one held vast knowledge regarding mixing different plants together. Already a single conversation had produced multiple potential processing methods to attempt. If even one of them succeeded, the First of the Fifth might discover a new honey type…and possibly new types of bees as well.
And this success was fortunately timed as the First of the Fifth waited at the entrance of her hive. A group of foragers was just returning…and no normal foragers.
The bees that arrived were large for workers and far fuzzier than normal, more closely resembling the bumblebees than their sisters. Their antennae were fluffy with almost leaf-like hairs, their pollen baskets were large and deep, and their mandibles large with sharp edges. Their proboscis could extend to a surprising length when fully unfurled.
These were the newly evolved gardener bees, back from their first foraging trip. The First of the Fifth watched as they unloaded the nectar and pollen they had gathered, each carrying noticeably more than the other workers. The gardeners then walked up to her.
“Ground mana flower too bright. Wants less sun.”
“Workers taking too much nectar from Slime Flower. Needs break.”
“Gravilion Flower has too much nectar, not enough pollen. Needs more visits.”
Each of the gardeners reported on each of the flowers they had visited. They were optimized to gather data from the plants they visited, with their large antennae sensitive to whatever scents the plants released, the mana that wafted off of them, or even the tiny-lightnings that changed whenever a bee landed on them. As a result, they could identify the health of a flower in a deeper way than the average worker. Information the First of the Fifth now needed if she wanted to take care of the hive of hives as a whole. She turned and danced to a nearby communer.
“I’ll inform King about Grand mana flower. Tell workers slime flower is gardener only now. Will try to raise more gravity bees for Gravilion Flower. Good work.”
It was not long before all four shades were defeated, without a single bee casualty.
Small Purification completed! Please select a reward:
This time Belissar went with the mana. New features were great but not if he lacked the mana to make more, and he still had two room slots to fill. And with that, the celebrations began. Belissar thought about bringing out the mead…but the one time he had fed it to bees in the past…hadn’t gone well. He was still full of regret and guilt for the fate of that worker. So, while he had a feeling his current bees might hold up a bit better, he still wasn’t going to risk it. Besides, he didn’t have enough for all the karnuq hunters that watched each purification, much less all the bees, so he decided to save it up for now. 𝘳âNǒꞖЕ§
And well, he soon learned he had made the right choice.
New mission received: Offer ten jars of mead to the Shrine of Bees.
His eyes widened slightly. He guessed the God of Bees very much appreciated the mead. Would that mean that monster bees could handle it? He could probably speak with the queens to avoid any…incidents as well.
However, Belissar was quickly pulled out of his thoughts.
The God of Fire wishes to offer you a quest. Accept?
Belissar tilted his head. Did the God of Fire still have to ask permission to do that? Even after the blessing? Well, Belissar didn’t see a reason to refuse right now.
New mission received: Make and offer mead from Fire-attribute honey.