Tuzai crawled out of the water and lay down next to Fuyo.

"Tuzai-chan, why are they all so small like you? Are they a different breed of bee?"

Tuzai shook her head. "This is a poor district similar to our own. They haven't had much food growing up so their growth has been stunted by malnutrition."

"Wait, malnutrition? How is that possible?" This seemed a bit unlikely, how can bees starve when they drink nectar and eat honey?

"It was due to the war 13 years ago, the fighters were normal villagers just like you and me. Many of them picked up weapons and took a stand to protect their families from the invaders. A lot of them were injured and had their wings cut off, limbs severed and lives taken. We won the war in the end but we paid a heavy price. Our villagers aren't warriors like the invaders so we were vastly outmatched in every way. No one expected our village to get attacked because we are not a village with a lot of resources. The wars are usually only held between the larger Bee kingdoms and cities."

Fuyo nodded his head, remembering the scene that he saw it was indeed a one sided battle until Kaguya arrived.

"Fortunately, the Lord of the village was Kaguya. But she went missing 3 years before, so the Blood Demon Bees took a risk and attacked. The army fought back against the attackers with all their strength but even then they were fighting a losing battle. Then your mother returned, it was like a miracle arrived. She single handedly slaughtered the entire army, just her and her sword. But she was caught in a trap and had to freeze her body. Most people believe she is dead only a select few know she is still alive."

"I can understand that, but why are all these bees so malnourished?"

"You can eat leaves and grass, flowers and roots so it doesn't matter to you but it takes over 1,000 flowers to gather enough nectar to make honey for the larvae. Due to their senior generations injuries they find it extremely difficult just visiting 100 plants let alone the 1,000 they need to make honey."

"The ones without wings are even worse off. They can only gather nectar from flowers on the ground but there are so little flowers on the ground that they can barely gather nectar from 10 flowers. Instead they choose to work for other people instead of gathering nectar. They make money and buy honey to feed themselves and their kids. The market price for honey in our village is quite expensive so they are only able to buy a little. This is what caused an entire generation of malnourished Larva."

"Ah, so the reason you are so small is due to your being malnourished?"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Tuzai shook her head, "I don't know why but I am different. Father is a powerful crowbee; he could visit 10,000 flowers easily let alone 1,000. Growing up I had so much honey that I should have been a big strong and powerful bee. But no matter how much I ate, I never got bigger. Papa said there's nothing wrong with me and that I'm a late bloomer but I..."

"Don't worry about it, I'm sure he's right." Fuyo nodded his head.

Fuyo is a heartless person like his Grand Father Pietra Fredda. The malnourished bees struggle wasn't any of his concern but Tuzai was, he held his family members very close. In his eyes, they were the only people worth protecting. The rest were merely filler characters.

For someone who wanted to conquer the world, it was only natural to accustom yourself to the harsh realities of life. When he started his quest for world domination, who knows how many people would die?

He wouldn't lend people a hand without gaining anything, but that didn't mean he would help people at all. By treating people well you can win their loyalty, and loyalty is worth more than mere pennies. You needed loyal servants in order to conquer the world. If people treated you like a God then no one could change their opinion. That's the power of religion!

"This is good for us; it means there is a market for flowers. If we grow flowers we can hire the disabled bees to work for us in return for nectar."

"Grow flowers?" Tuzai scrunched her eyebrows, just for one bee they would need to grow 1,000 flowers, it was a viable plan.

"Yeah, are you saying bees don't grow flowers?"

"No, it's not that. It's true that most bees only grow herbs and special plants that they can sell to other cities but flowers are big, they take up a lot of space and you still need flying bees to collect the nectar. Besides, flowers take a long time to grow and you need a thousand just to refine enough honey for one larva."

"That's not a problem, I have a plan to cover all of that. Just trust in Fuyo." He smiled at her and then felt him stomach rumble.

"Grr....''

"Was that your stomach?"

"Yeah, I think I'm hungry. Shall we cook some meat?"

"I guess we can give it a try."

They found stones and piled them up. They then laid a large flat stone over the top. Underneath the put in sticks, dry leaves and dried out bark that they found on the side of the river trees.

"Do we have a flint to start the fire?"

"No but I can start it."

Tuzai twisted her hands in the air and released some qi. The qi twisted and turned, rubbing against the sticks until they burst into fire.

"You can control fire and water?" Fuyo was amazed at her abilities.

"No, I'm in the true spirit realm so my true qi is quite strong. I can use the qi to create friction between the sticks to heat them up until they combust and burst into flames. Only Earth realm cultivators have the ability to manipulate the earth qi but I doubt I'd ever reach that level, even with my awesome talent."

"Even you won't be able to reach that level?" Fuyo was shocked, she was indeed a genius but even she couldn't reach such heights?

She rubbed her head "Yeah, our village Lord is an Earth warrior and he's already 800 years old."

"800? How can he live so long?"

"The higher your cultivation, the longer your life. It's because your body is refined more and more, the higher you climb."

Two words popped into Fuyo's head.

"Immortal Cultivation!"

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