Well, look at that. If one told me in my first life that I would be enjoying my time with a bunch of bees the size of my head, I would have... well, not call them crazy since the whole otaku culture is stranger than fiction at times, but I would just shrug and go on with my day, filing their thought as a wild idea.

Now though, while I wouldn't say that I enjoy enjoy being with them as Best Friends Forever, I liked them a lot.

It had been five days since I met them, and thus, officially, a week had passed since my reincarnation. And so far, I found the bees' presence rather adorable.

The Worker Bees were quite sweet when they didn't plan on killing some poor animal, clearly,. In fact, they were more like kittens, if kittens looked like large bees instead and had the tendency to gang up on the poor carnivorous animals that end up in their ways, a death by a dozen stingers. Clearly not the best way to die when it comes to the nature's ecosystem.

So far, the dynamic between me and them was simple; friendship/partnership made from mutual benefits.

I give them some healing and natural nectar, and in return they give me some food in the form of some prey they had captured (and the bodies of the Worker Bees who died during their march to my area).

It wasn't really that much deeper for now, but hey, baby steps!

There is also the part where I realized, thanks to their nods and the way they acted when I asked that their colony was quite close to my destination, only a couple hundred meters away, though I decided to stay in my place for the time being.

While I'd like to see the Queen Bee, who from what I understand is beyond Normal-ranked beasts (though the bees didn't have enough intelligence and sapience to tell me what level and rank she is, but I believed she was at most Gold-ranked, seeing that said rank is the highest rank a beast can naturally have in the Soaring Dragon Continent), I was admittedly rather busy trying to fully comprehend how my body works.

And on a completely related note about my body's workings, I had evolved!

It happened sometime while I was asleep. My body had finished digesting the many bodies I had consumed, the animals, that pesky Black Wolf, the bodies of the generously-given dead Worker Bees, a couple of Normal-ranked Level 2 Poisonous Snakes that followed the Worker Bees, and died when I strangled them with my vines and poison. My body, having similar conditions to the Thorny Flower in the original novel thanks to the "Corpse Feeding" skill, had undergone an evolution process.

I had now turned from a Normal-ranked Level 1 Thorny Alraune into a Bronze-ranked Level 2 Large Bloody Tongued Thorny Alraune! Instead of just an increase in level, I got a rank upgrade as well! Something that is rather more preferable than just a simple raise in levels.

While my upper half didn't change much, nor did I grow 'older' physically-wise, my tongue became blood-red, and I now have a red rose flower sprouting from below my breasts and above my abdomen. Its purpose was to use the "Parasitic Spores" and the "Seed Spread" skills , but sadly, I still was not able to use the Parasitic Spores one yet, since I am still too low-leveled for that. Instead, I could use the Seed Spread ability to basically create seeds full of nutrients and qi and have them stay in the soil, and basically acting like a high-grade fertilizer to the earth to balance the act of me taking nutrients via my roots.

Since I know for certain that the area I am in doesn't have unlimited nutrients, nor does any area really, and that at some point this place will be barren if I didn't give something, that skill fixes the issue easily. Since I can generate more qi and nutrients than I can absorb at any given moment, the cycle of give-and-take will be unharmed. Hooray to me!

My lower half had changed a bit more than that, though. First thing; it became bigger, nearly twice the previous size, which was impressive since even before, it was large enough to fit multiple large animals like zebras and gazelles together. Now though, it was so large it can fit two dozen entities with each the size of my upper body, so somewhere around twenty-four teenage humans.

That was a huge difference, indeed. And if that wasn't enough, while it kept the green color it had before, there were multiple red rose flowers on various spots as well, like on my upper body, and the number of my oversized leaves, along with the layers of the red petals that close around my upper half when I sleep, had also increased.

Vines and roots grew more numerous and thicker, and I also had branches alongside them as well, and I also gained access to an ability called "Division Propagation" which basically creates lower-ranked or lower-leveled versions of myself thanks to the branches. Kinda like how actual plants can do the same if their branches had roots, stems, crowns and all that. Though in my current state it is still rather costly and I would only be able to create two lower versions of myself before it gets too much.

Still, that was awesome! I now have a more varied arsenal, and it would help a lot.

Another thing is that I can now generate stronger nectars, particularly the poison and healing ones thanks to the snakes and bees I had consumed, along with the plants I naturally ate. Their deaths won't be in vain.

My Qi had grown by at least six times larger than before as well, and I could now control and condense my nectars and harden them a bit, thanks to the sacrifices of the Worker Bees. I really can't overstate how fun it is to try creating shapes using the nectars. And if I made a ball purely made of highly concentrated healing nectars, that thing can keep healing those who consume it for a while.

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I had basically created a 'pill' that gives temporary rapid healing for the consumer! Isn't that fun?

Of course, I had kept some of them with me, while others were given to the Worker Bees, since they loved visiting me sometimes.

I also tested the same with my poison nectar, and I did also create a highly dense poisonous orb. It is rather small, all things considered, barely the size of my palm, but it was so toxic that I was certain it could kill the same Normal-ranked Level 4 Black Wolf in seconds if it ate it without thinking. Naturally, I put some of them with me too. I don't know whether to give them to the Worker Bees though. They don't seem to be smart enough not to eat it, at least right now.

And thus, life continued.

Currently, I was cultivating my Natura Aeterna Nirvana technique. According to the information that I had managed to gleam from meditating, the technique was composed of multiple stages, I couldn't see how many, but there was more than four, from what little I could see.

Currently, I was practising the first stage of the technique. Unlocking all my 108 meridians, and then linking their pathways in a certain way.

I had, during my second day, unlocked one of these points in my body, but that number? 108?

I will be honest; I am rather surprised that I had that many in the first place, since it didn't match what I had expected when I realized that I had to unlock my meridians.

Now, I won't declare myself as an expert in everything chinese novels, and cultivation stories, and all that. Nor am I fully understanding of chinese myths and their ideas about Samsara and such.

I know some of the tropes, a couple things about the "obvious" cultivation levels, but nothing really profound, but I also know some trivia about xianxia stories and their terminologies, and some of the chinese folklore though not much, and I had read a bit about meridians and acupuncture points, partly because I wanted to know what these stories are even talking about, but I didn't really think about them all that much really.

I knew for certain though, that the numbers of meridians is usually 12 if you only count the regular ones, and maybe 20 at most if one was including the extraordinary ones as well.

But apparently, my body has 108 meridians!

When I cultivate, I could practically feel as if my mind expands inward, as bizarre as that is, and I just get an instinctual understanding of what is going on inside of my body. So, I know for certain that I wasn't wrong in the number.

108 meridians. No more, no less. A lot larger than what I predicted, yet, it was the truth.

Though I don't know how my body has that many meridians, and why 108 specifically. I think it's because it embodies the imprities in human soul, and since I am a beast trying to cultivate, I am automatically impure, since I am not a human or human-like enough?

That was the only explanation I could think of.

After all, the Path of Dao (or whatever it is called in this world), according to what I remember from the lore of this world, follows the humanocentric perspective, declaring humans, and those in their likelihood when it comes to appearances to be the closest thing to a 'pure' entity, which is why they have a smaller amount of meridians, so that they can grow in power faster to be able to win against the beasts who are usually naturally born with power.

Meanwhile, beasts, usually beings that only depend on instinct and usually lack any sapience -not sentience, for all beings are sentient to a degree or another- , and whose usual method of growing stronger is by feasting on their prey, didn't need to cultivate, or more precisely, they couldn't cultivate because they lacked sapience, and therefore, since they are fundamentally different than humans (or whatever the Heaven identifies as human-like), their path to grow into a more human-like entity and therefore, there are even more blocks to halt their progress, and thus, a lot more meridians.

Man, that is seriously unfair. Unfair, I say!

I mean, even back when I was a japanese woman and a human, I knew for sure that many people had a brain as big as mine, but I was equally sure that they weren't using it as much.

We literally had a woman having to shave her hair as an 'apology' for being an idol who was seen together with another man. A voice actor got her work like in danger just because she confessed that she has a sex life, and her fans denounced her and burned whatever merchandise they had bought related to her. Does that look like one who has a brain or using one? I think not.

It's also why most isekai stories, and most harems don't ever reach the point where sex happens, even in light novels and manga, because the ones making money know that despite humans counting as the 'most clever' race, many of them are so self-absorbed and so selfish that they can't handle the idea of their waifus having sex. Ever.

They won't be able to see Mt. Tai even if it was right in front of them.

Anyways, my rant about the stupidity of human race (or the idol culture if one wanted to be specific) and them being gifted solely due to being humans aside, I had just now unlocked the fifth meridian point in my body.

My body taking the same meditation pose I used before, my qi always gently flowing through my veins had removed the "knot" that stood in the way of moving my qi "properly."

I was glowing with a soft green tone, fully aware of the Worker Bees that stayed with me even after I gave them the nectars. Honestly, I feel they are enjoying the show, and I decided to let them have their fun.

They're a cool company, that much is clear.

"Phew!" I breathed, shuddering slightly as my qi retreated back, the calm flow becoming even calmer and more relaxed.

Another meridian unlocked, and more qi becoming denser and purer. But I still have a long way to go.

At this point it will take me a couple of months to unlock all of them and finish the first stage of my Natura Aeterna Nirvana technique, assuming that everything goes well, I mean. But again, baby steps! Taking things slow and steady is better than rushed and crumbling like a house of cards.

And thus, my morning routine had finished. My body feels fresher, and my energy is slowly growing just a tiny bit by the day, and I have some sweet companions/partners with benefits.

Life for an Alraune can be fun, huh.

"Still..." I thought as my roots started to move, my destination clear.

I planned to go deeper into the forest. Not by much, of course, but more than I had done so far.

As much as I like being here, I would have to see other places at some point, and there's no time like the present!

"Let's go~!" I talked to no one, though the Worker Bees were still following me. It seems that this bunch want to be my bodyguards, from the way their bodies move closer to me.

I honestly wonder about that really. Am I really that important? I would honestly blush if I wasn't a mature woman in my previous life, and I would also have made a remark about lilies from how overprotective they are, since I knew that most Worker Bees are female, including the Queen Bee.

Though if I found a lily flower, I might clone it and give the bees some lily crowns and maybe give some extra so they will deliver for the queen! That would be fun!

With that, I marched towards a new, and uncharted territory for me.