"Mom! What happened, are you okay?!' Asked Ken
"Wait! Be quiet!"
Before doing anything I started to feel a monstrously hungry, as if there was a hole in my stomach, and I started walking to the storeroom.
Halfway there I could see that everything had gotten smaller, or in reality, I had gotten bigger, the workers seemed to be 1/5 the size of me. And the soldiers were only 2/5 my size, I had become gigantic, and my bee abdomen had become even bigger.
My bee abdomen was previously only 1/3 the size of my body, but now it was even larger than my entire body alone, and there were many small colored lights shining inside it.
I knew that moving to the warehouse was a tedious task, and extremely uncomfortable, but I was so hungry that when I finally arrived I started emptying the bins like a crazy bitch.
When I finally finished I could finally start thinking about my situation.
'What is all this? Why has my status changed so much?! Why did my body change so much?!! I've only had access to a limited version of the system so far?! So the version I have now is the full version or just an enhancement?
These skills are so strange, and the culprit of all this seems to be my new [Affinity].
Who the fuck has an affinity with [Life]?! Isn't that too abstract? I thought I would gain some affinity with fire, light, plants or something else, but life? Why the hell life?!
What does someone do with a life affinity?!
Apparently you become a support, because I don't see any other answer with these skills {Healing Radiance}, {Radiant Renewal}, {Queen's blessing} all were support/healing skills. My only way of dealing damage was {Life Echo} which didn't really seem to do so much, why would someone summon a bubble to deal damage, really? Don't you just neet to blow this thing up and it's over for me?!
And without mentioning {Resilient Vitality}, It seems to be one of those skills that makes you poison yourself on purpose to get a bonus, but I don't even know what vitality does! Could it be the "strength" of my body, or something like that?
{Radiant wings} it's not a big deal either, being able to regenerate my wings, couldn't I achieve this with a potion? Unless potions can't regenerate lost limbs, then I can see the value of this skill. But why did this thing have to be limited to the wings? Why not the whole body?!
And what the hell were these [Life Drops] that i can create with {Life exchange} what's the use of this thing?! This skill seems dangerous, being able to exchange my life and Xp points for these mysterious drops.
"Mom! Are you okay?" Ken asked again.
"Y-Yes, I was just a little shocked with my evolution..."
"How do you feel? What did you gain?" Hans said.
"I feel... Good? My body feels lighter, it's easier to breathe, and I feel stronger. I gained several strange skills related to my... affinity."
"Ohh!!! That's incredible, what's your affinity mom!?" Miles asked.
"....Life."
"What a incredible thing, mom! It looks great!" Trouble exclaimed.
"Do any of you even know if this affinity is good or not?"
"I have no idea, but I think an affinity specific as [Life] can't be bad, you literally have an affinity with all living things! Doesn't that kind of make you a super mage who can control life?" Matt said.
"Not exactly.... I'm a support apparently.... I can heal you guys and grant temporary bonuses, but that's it."
"But have you forgotten that you are a queen? Your powers with [Life] affinity may not have appeared very clearly now, but they may appear when you create new drones!" Steve said happily.
'That's true, I've always been a unit focused on producing other units, but now that I have this strange affinity can I pass it on to my descendants? Would that make them strong? I just hope I don't end up creating a legion of bees that can only heal their enemies...'
"Ken, how many creation units do we have available, I want to try creating new units."
"We have all the units cleaned and ready mom!" Ken said excitedly.
"Um? What happened to the soldiers I created?"
"T-They've already emerged mom! You were gone for 7 days!" Ken replied nervously.
7 days!??! Why my evolution took so long?! Everyone only took 1 day, and it took me a week?! Was this because of my class, or the new species? Or a mix of both?!
"...Alright, nothing happened in the meantime right?"
"No! The new soldiers are being trained, and our house is being expanded, the theater has been finished, and they probably going to put on a show today in your honor." Ken said disinterestedly.
"Ughh.. I don't even want to think about it, let's try to produce some common workers."
"Clear!" Ken replied
After leaving everyone behind I went to the nursery with Ken, my movements were slow, and I felt very heavy, but not uncomfortable at all. Everyone around us looked at me with a mix of admiration and adoration, and I felt a little uncomfortable about it, but at the same time happy to be appreciated, the bards were playing a light melody in the background and soon we arrived at the nursery. When we arrived at the nursery I had a big problem to deal with, I couldn't fit there anymore. I simply just can't fit into the nursery anymore.
"What are we going to do now?"
"W-We'll looks like we will have to expand the nursery, and all the buildings to accommodate you, but for now why don't you raise some eggs and let us move them to the nursery?" Ken said nervously.
"Alright, let's try."
I focused on the idea of creating some worker eggs, and to my surprise nothing happened, at least it didn't seem to have happened, because when I went to look down to warn Ken about this matter I could only see the little Ken collecting small light yellow's eggs directly from my bee abdomen.
'This easily? Did I really become an egg factory after all?!'
[Status] Name:N/A Species: Radiant Sunbee Level: 0 Class: Worker Mana: N/D + Information
[Effects]
Incubating - 3 hours
This individual is still in incubation, at the end of the timer will emerge.
The small eggs were all the same, but they were shaped differently from the traditional worker eggs from before. These eggs had a texture reminiscent of rubber and small marks all over the body, in addition to emitting a slight natural shine.
And most importantly, they only took 3 hours to hatch.
'So this is what the affinity of [Life] does?! Does it accelerate the development of life? With this we could grow like weeds after rain.'
Another thing that was very glaring to me was that the [Status] of this egg was limited like it was before, I didn't have access to a 'full' status like mine, and I tried analyzing one of the workers just to find out that I actually really can see a this new version of the complex status.
I couldn't see this status on the eggs, but I could see it on the other drones, I don't know exactly why, maybe the eggs are not developed enough to have a complex status, or maybe I need something more to see the status of eggs.
"I will create some gatherers, farmers, bards, cooks and beacons for us to test. The rest of the honeycombs will be filled with soldiers."
"Sure, no problem!" Ken exclaimed happily.
After a long time I managed to produce around 150 new drones, and I didn't feel tired at all, it seemed that the affinity for [Life] helped me in any action related to create life.
These eggs that I created had various shades of yellow, and shapes that changed according to the [Class], all of them had their creation time extremely reduced, collectors that previously took 5 days now only needed 7 and a half hours, the time-consuming beacons took just 22 hours, that was a reduction of over 90% of the entire time.
Soon all the eggs were taken into the nursery, and the whole place lit up with the glow of the eggs. The whole scene was extremely beautiful and I was excited about what I would get with these new puppies.
'Call a group of soldiers to my position please boys. Preferably some how are injured.'
'-Got it!' One of the beacons responded.
Soon a small group made up of soldiers and workers arrived and they greeted me.
"Hello Mom! How can we be of help?" Said a soldier ahead
"Hello dears, I just want to test some skills, and I ask you to please help me."
"Clear!" Everyone responded.
I focused on my {Healing Radiance} skill but nothing happened, as always I needed to focus on the action of the skill itself, not the skill, but I didn't know how to use it.
It took a while, but after imagining a saint from a generic RPG healing a group of people I finally felt a tug, as if something was being taken away from me, and I could see a faint golden light emanating from me.
Light came from my limbs, mane, head and abdomen, from everywhere, the light came from small bright spots and had a comforting warmth, like being by a campfire on a super cold day.
Soon I could see from they status that the Hp was healing realy fast.
After a while most of the group had been healed and I tried another skill {Radiant Renewal} on the still injured members, this time I tried to imagine giving something to the soldier, and somehow worked. Since I felt a huge tug on my mana.
"Wow! I feel powerful! This is incredible mom!" Shouted the little soldier who had a golden aura surrounding himself.
'Wrong skill, apparently i ended up using [Queen's blessing], but it's still worth the intention.'
Turning off the skill quickly I focused on the idea of quickly healing a soldier's health, I had to think a lot until the idea of filling a leaky bucket seemed to work.
I felt a big punch on my body, and I soon became weak, but the soldier had regenerated very well, something I noticed was that he still had some scars. When I healed the boys with {Healing Radiance} all the marks on their bodies disappeared along with the light, but this guy still had some scratches, the skill seemed to be able to save someone between life and death quickly, but it was not able to heal 100% someone. The skill always left a part without being healed.
"Mom are you okay?!" asked a worried soldier.
"Yes... It seems like I just used too much mana, it's a little uncomfortable, but it's not painful."
"Let's take her to the infirmary!" said the soldiers.
"No need boys, I'll just go back to my room, thanks for your help."
"...If you say so, no mother! We are the ones who thank you for the cure! It is much appreciated!" Said the apparent leader of this group.´
When I arrived at the door of my room I had the same problem as before, I was too big. I was tired, sleepy, and I really wanted to throw myself in my bed, but I just discovered that I'm too big for my own house.
'Oh! Come on!?'
----------------------------------------
Half a day later, my new drones had hatched, and started created their cocoons. The [Radiant Sunbee] larvae were not that different from an ordinary larva, they were white with small golden dots, and slightly larger.
The larvae also had a lot of life and vitality, I didn't know the real use of [Vitality], because it was a stat I didn't even know I had, but all bees had a great vitality stats, and I don't know exactly why.
We also had the new [Dexterity] stat, something I didn't know exactly what it was, but it seemed to be a stat that helped us think faster.
But now, on the bee cocoons, that had changed from the comom cocoons. The once ordinary white cocoons had become cocoons of slightly yellow and shiny silk. The entire cocoon seemed to be covered in glitter and had much better resistance than the previous cocoons.
My room had been modified, and was currently the only place capable of "containing" me. I had become gigantic and I was very curious to know what I looked like. Something my [Beacons] helped me with.
They could share memories, which was basically a way to send videos and images via the link, but it was dangerous, unlike videos and images that cannot be easily edited or lose their "coherence". Memories could vary and diverge.
One soldier might remember seeing a blue flower, but another soldier might remember seeing the same flower and swear it was purple.
But this was still a great help to use some kind of "Mirror", I just needed a drone looking directly at me and then connect with it through the beacons to receive its memories of me.
With this method I was able to "See" myself clearly for the first time.
I was huge, very big indeed, at least from the point of view of an ordinary worker, my body was all yellow and without any chitin armor, I had a large mane of white hair with golden stripes. Big, black eyes with 2 small antennas on the head, 4 pairs of giant wings that gave off a slight glow, 4 long slender arms, and a large bee-like abdomen that was easily much larger than my own body.
My entire abdomen was very large and heavy, this "member" looked a lot like the abdomen of a queen termite, but it was much more beautiful, the entire inside was a mixture of golden colors, red, white, and blue sparkles that were in constant movement. .
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My arms, legs and forearms had hair that matched my mane and I had 2 large legs that looked very strong.
I wasn't ugly, or disgusting. But my body felt like it had become an egg factory. I didn't need many nutrients to create new drones, and I needed little time to create them, I don't know if this is because of my affinity with life, or my queen class. But it seemed to be a balance between the two.
I couldn't fight enemies, and now I was too slow to run. Even though my speed was great, I was still very slow. Which showed that there is a balance between size and speed, being too big makes you slower, and being small makes you faster.
And most importantly, I couldn't walk all over my own house anymore! All the rooms were too small, I bumped into everything wherever I went and just got in the way of everyone's work.
So much that I had to confine myself to my newly expanded room, and limit myself to sharing memory and vision with the [Beacons], I couldn't receive the information I wanted quickly as being there in person, perhaps because it was only possible to send memories through the link. So I had a "delay", the workers had to see something, store it in memory, the beacons picked up this information, and only then did it reach me. The delay was 5 seconds at maximum, but it still seemed very annoying.
Now 'I' was keeping an eye on the cocoons of the first workers that would emerge, while seeing everything through a worker. These new workers would show me the advantages that other classes of bees could get from [Life] affinity and what the hell this new species can do.
Soon the first workers began to emerge, bringing with them the beginning of a new cycle of life. These guys resembled common factory workers, they had pure white manes, big black eyes, and 6 limbs. But the similarities ended there, these new units had small antennae that glowed at the tip, golden colors instead of the dull yellow, and bright markings all over the body, in addition to being smaller than a common worker, and having 6 pairs of slightly shiny wings. .
As I couldn't analyze them through the link, I had to ask them to come to my room and there I could finally analyze these new drones.
[Status] [Information] Attributes Name: N/A Species: Radiant Sunbee Life: 12.2 Def: 0.2 Level: 1 Class: Worker Vit: 7.3 Int: 9.3 Sex: Male Stamina: 35/35 Dex: 1 Wis: 10.2 Mana: 1 Affinity: ------ Spr: 9.5 Str: 0.3
[Skills]
{Wax making} lv 1
{Create Honey} lv 1
{Maternal Connection} - locked
{Perfect wax re-use}
When you eat material of the type [wax]. You can re-use all the Wax consumed with no loss.
{Emergency care} Lv1
Take care of your allies with incredible mastery, speeding up their natural recovery and granting them temporary health bonuses.
{Unshakeble Will}
{Quick Recovery} Lv1
Your natural regeneration is multiplied in 5x
{Quick flight} Lv1
Fly much more quickly and much more skillfully than others
{Glow} Lv1
Consumes 0.1 Mp per minute to make your abdomen glow brightly
[Traces] [Craftsman]
{Affectionate}
You are not afraid to express your love and affection for those you care about, allowing you to create stronger, lasting bonds.
{Pollinator}
'They don't have affinity?! Why? Can't affinities be inherited? But their appearance suggests that they have an affinity for light or something like this. What happened to them to don't have an affinity?'
'-I think we have an idea." The beacons said.
'Serious? What could it be?'
'-We believe that [Affinities] can only be achieved through evolution, another theory is that [Life] affinity is very complex, and cannot be inherited.' One of the beacons responded.
'Theories? I guess it's still better than nothing... But couldn't they at least have gained a smaller version of my affinity? I don't know, something like dirth, or water. Things that represent life.'
'-We believe that they did benefit from your affinity mom, but not so much to the point of gaining an individual affinity.' Said another Beacon.
'How?'
'-They still have skills like {Quick Recovery}, {Emergency care}, as well high vitality and life, which seems to be due to your influence.' Said the beacon.
'Hmm That's true, even if they don't have their own affinities, my affinity influences them, perhaps through birth, or through the [Maternal Connection] link. Whatever it is seems to help a lot.'
After that I sent the new drones to work and waited for the new cooks to hatch, I really wanted to know what they could earn. In the meantime, I could only remain still and motionless in my room while I "saw" the world outside through my children, it wasn't bad to tell the truth, it was like watching several live screens. There was a small delay, I could send comments, and even chat with these "steamers".
----------------------------------------
Now in front of me there was a group of new cook bees, these bees were even taller than the average cook, they had wings! And they gained a strangely shaped head. They all looked really good, all of them had just a little of hair, and none of them had a stinger, their arms seemed stronger than those of a normal cook, and they had small "saws" on their forearms, which I don't know what they could use them for.
[Status] [Information] Attributes Name: N/A Species: Radiant Sunbee Life: 15.2 Def: 1.2 Level: 1 Class: Royal Cooks Vit: 8.3 Int: 21.3 Sex: Male Stamina: 6/6 Dex: 1 Wis: 15.2 Mana: 1.8 Affinity: ------ Spr: 1.5 Str: 0.3
[Skills]
{Royal Jelly Mastery} Lv 2
{Flavor Fusion} Lv 3
{Maternal Connection} - locked
{Efficient Gland Harvesting} Lv 1
{Weather call} Lv 1
You always know what the ambient temperature, climate and season you are in. Ensuring perfect production of food no matter the situation.
{Confectioner} Lv1
You can create sweets with unique effects depending on the material used.
{Unshakeble Will}
{Flawless palate} Lv 1
You can tell exactly every ingredient in the food you are consuming.
{Advanced jelly creation} Lv 1
You can create large quantities of jelly with small amounts of resources, always maintaining the high quality of the final product.
{Food Creation} Lv 1
You can create various types of food depending on the resource used. The [Food creation] skill is limited by the user's [Species].
{Sticky Situation Mastery} Lv 1
[Traces] {Nurturing Provider}
{Meticulous Artisan}
You have an unparalleled attention to detail in its culinary endeavors. Every step of the cooking process is executed with precision and care, reflecting a commitment to perfection.
{Demanding chef}
You want perfection in your kitchen, and you won't accept anything less than that.
'These guys are very good, they seem like professionals in the art of creating food, none of them have any affinity, but they all seem much more 'capable' than the average cook.'
These new units seem to be very useful, and if I could continue creating more of them without limits, I would be able to expand our domain even further.
We didn't have natural enemies around us, from time to time the soldiers encountered creatures that tried to eat them, but because they always walked in groups they could help each other and run when necessary.
But if we could make even the big creatures stay away, we could develop without worry. We could start expanding this little wax 'village' and create a real city crowded with all my children, we could create all the comforts of a developed society and live in peace, just growing plants and keeping enemies away.
I ended up sending them all to the kitchen, and fter that I just stayed in my room watching everything through my personal steaming service while watching everyone work hard and watching the soldiers fight.
When I stopped to see what the soldiers were doing, I realized how cruel and merciless they can be.
I was now seeing the memories of one of the members of Hans group, they were hiding in some leaves watching a hole in a large tree.
Until a big bird that looked like a guinea fowl, but had vibrant colors of orange and blue, flew out of the hole, then another guinea fowl came out of the hole and just looked at everything from the hole, different from the other colorful hen, This one had dull brown feathers and a larger, more muscular body.
It was clearly a nest, I didn't know who was the male or the female. After all, in some species of birds the male and female take turns to incubate the eggs, but it could be that the colorful hen that flew away was a father looking for food for his muscular wife.
The soldiers remained hidden for a long time, until the muscular chicken also flew away, leaving the nest unprotected. After a few moments of waiting, the soldiers quickly ran into the nest and there I could see 4 small bald creatures, all hugging each other and 2 eggs that were on their sides, the chicks slept peacefully and couldn't even open their eyes yet.
But the soldiers didn't hesitate, the moment they entered they attacked the puppies without a hint of pity, they stung, cut and beat the little babies. The cubs could do nothing but struggle and start screaming, but the soldiers grabbed their beaks to silence them and continued to attack.
They continued to beat the cubs until everyone was dead, not even the eggs were spared, leaving behind a pile of dead bodies and vices, of what were once small baby birds.
The XP I gained from this was pretty good, but I felt like throwing up at the scene, and just thinking about what the poor mother bird would think when she came back from a long hunt to feed her precious babies and ended up finding a bunch of meat and viceras.
The soldiers were cruel, very cruel, and showed no remorse.
I thought about stopping them, about forbidding them from hunting, at least hunting defenseless cubs, but the beacons stopped me. Their argument was "What if it were us?", the same thing that happened to the baby birds could happen to us, if the nest was left unprotected for even a single moment we could receive an attack. And if we were too weak we wouldn't be able to stop an attack, even if we were prepared.
All this XP was bathed in blood and death. But we still had to swallow it, without it we would never become powerful.
----------------------------------------
About 2 days passed, many new drones had hatched, the collectors had improved collection skills, as well great vitality and health, but they were slower than common collectors.
The new bards had the ability to strengthen their allies with just their voice, they could kind of do that before, but now they didn't need to sing, or create music for it. They could just do an "enchantment" and apply temporary effects to allies without any negative effects at the cost of MP.
And now I was having to deal with a new, big problem.
Apparently the new members were in a... Conflict. With the older ones, the new cooks wanted supremacy over the kitchen. The new workers wanted to take over the work in the nursery, since they could do more than the other workers, the new collectors wanted to become the new leaders of the collectors group, and the bards wanted to become the "conductors", they wanted control over the other bards and to be able to choose the music in addition to the performances.
This generated a lot of conflict, no one wanted to give up their positions to beginners, and the beginners didn't want to leave the work in "unqualified" hands, they justified that they were "newer and better" and could do the work with greater perfection.
It may be true, but older workers have something that these soft-shelled babies don't have: Experience and knowledge.
The cooks knew exactly the preferences of each member of the colony, they created eating routines that strengthened collective immunity and nourished everyone, in addition to working with agility and impressive coordination.
The collectors knew exactly which regions were exhausted and which flowers were worth collecting and which were not worth the effort, Matt was also one of the only members of the colony who had experience as a shepherd, when he said it was time to leave, it meant that it was time to leave. He didn't want to have to re-educate a young group of stubborn collectors.
The bards knew the colony's preferences, in addition to being able to coordinate with each other to create complex music and even more powerful effects. They could put on a little show for a large group of bees and make them more energetic, excited or happy.
And Ken, I don't think I need to say it. He almost attacked the new workers himself when they said, "I think we can do a better job than your mediocre job."
Ken simply refused to accept these new workers into his work zone. According to him they were "Presumptuous, Disrespectful and arrogant".
I never had to deal with a conflict between my children, they all resolved themselves very well, but it seemed that the new workers simply thought everyone else was "inferior". I think this is because of the difference in [Species]. The {Radiant Sunbee} thought they were superior to the {Solitary honeybee}, and wanted me to "put them in their place."
'What the hell is this? What are they thinking?'
'-We believe it is a natural development... The young want to replace the "outdated" species in the colony. We never had this problem before because younger bees didn't think they were better than the olders, and everyone believed that only the best should take leadership. But these new drones have a superior [Species], so they believe it's only natural to let them take on the most important jobs.' Said a beacon
'...Call everyone back here.'
'-Immediately.' Another beacon responded
Soon my room was filled again with the news bees and all of them where looking at me with adoration. I think they thought I was on their side in the story, but they were very mistaken. The {Solitary honeybee} came before them, and are the foundation that built this society, I will not allow these children to disrespect them like this.
"I will only say it once, once and I hope it never happens again."
"OBEY. YOUR. OLDER. BROTHERS!"
Some were surprised by my statement but when they tried to say something, they realized they couldn't speak, move or even blink.
"YOU. WILL BE RESPECTFUL. IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER."
I had never used [Maternal Connection] masterfully. But this topic made me so angry with these boys that I just snapped at them.
And the effects of the connection were frightening.
Everyone was crying as if they were in front of a monster that was going to kill them, they were shaking and couldn't utter a single word. The workers lost their shine, the strong spirit of the cooks was extinguished, the collectors no longer seemed so tough, and the bards spirits plummeted.
They were all scared of me, scared of having provoked my wrath, and none of them seemed to understand what they had done wrong. For them it was only natural that the new and better drones should take the lead, they would gladly hand over their duties to young {Radiant Sunbee} if needed.
But I doubt they would be happy to be disrespected and replaced by a "superior" species that has just arrived.