Juosiutik waddled over to Belissar and then plopped down on the ground, offloading her bags. She immediately began to rummage through one.
“So, to confirm based on what you said to Leijaliuk, you’re currently limited to flowering plants and trees, right? Any possibility that will change?”
Belissar nodded.
“Yeah, I can get more rooms eventually but…it’ll take a while.”
Juosiutik stopped and rubbed her chin.
“Hm, I see. That does limit us a bit but we should still have a good spread. Let’s see, how about this?”
Juosiutik removed a seed from one of her bags and handed it over to Belissar. He dutifully took it and read the message.
Absorb Sleepy Chamomile seed? Current samples: 0/50
“Hm, I’d need fifty of those.”
Juosiutik frowned.
“I saved up some for when we had a chance to plant surface plants again, but not sure I have that many…”
Belissar rubbed his chin before his eyes widened slightly.
“Ah, you know it doesn’t need to be seeds right? From what I’ve seen, it actually takes less if you have the full plant.”
Juosiutik nodded and pulled out a dried chamomile flower.
“Here, what about this?”
Absorb Sleepy Chamomile? Current samples: 0/5
Belissar nodded.
“Yes, I’d only need five of those.”
Juosiutik crossed her arms and hummed.
“How about a combination? Could you use both seeds and plants?”
Belissar tilted his head.
“Um…I’m not sure.”
Juosiutik rubbed her chin.
“Hm…why don’t you try with that plant and then check again?”
Belissar nodded and absorbed the Sleepy Chamomile. He then looked at the seed and checked its information.
Absorb Sleepy Chamomile seed? Current samples: 10/50
His eyes widened a bit.
“Ah, yeah, that worked. Looks like that counted as ten seeds.”
Juosiutik began to grin.
“We should be able to make this work then. Here.”
She handed to him two more dried sleepy chamomile flowers and a handful of seeds. Belissar absorbed them all as they came. Juosiutik stared at him and held her breath.
Sleepy Chamomile seed absorbed.
Sufficient samples gathered. Sleepy Chamomile now available.
Current applications: Flower Meadow, Apiary.
Belissar smiled.
“It worked.”
Juosiutik let out a shout, her ears waggling about as she pumped her fists.
“YES!”
She then suddenly piped down and glanced around at the bees.
“Um, sorry. It’s just…we’ve been scrounging and scraping for a while now. Having a consistent source of ingredients is going to do wonders for our stockpiles. And it’ll let me experiment more, get my skills up to par.”
Belissar smiled and shook his head.
“It’s alright. It’s exciting for me too.”
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He held out his hand and Niobee, flying around him as always, came and landed on it.
“New flowers makes the bees happy. They can make new types of honey with it, or even new types of bees altogether. It’s pretty exciting for me too.”
Juosiutik froze and went completely silent. She slowly turned her head to look at Belissar.
“Did you say…new types of honey?”
Belissar nodded.
“Yes.”
Juosiutik began to lean in before she caught herself and shook her head.
“Later. Tell me more about that later, ok? For now, let’s continue.”
Belissar grinned and nodded.
----------------------------------------
Gelatinous Heather seed absorbed.
Sufficient samples gathered. Gelatinous Flower now available.
Current applications: Flower Meadow, Apiary.
Snakebane seed absorbed.
Sufficient samples gathered. Snakebane now available.
Current applications: Flower Meadow, Apiary.
Burrowing Stonecrop absorbed.
Sufficient samples gathered. Burrowing Stonecrop now available.
No current applications.
Juosiutik had been excited when she packed but it turned out most of her current stockpile was subterranean in nature, or else too limited to risk Belissar not being able to grow it. They tried a flower she found underground anyways but agreed to hold off on the rest when it turned out Belissar couldn’t make a node for it in any of his current rooms. Still, Juosiutik was practically squealing as the nodes for the new plants appeared.
At that point, Leijaliuk returned with a bunch more bear people.
“Sacred Den Master, could I request a few more nodes? Perhaps two more sweetvetch, one more cloudberry, and one more flax?”
Belissar rubbed his chin and checked over his mana.
Mana: 61/335
He crossed his arms. His mana was starting to dip a bit low…and he also needed to replicate all these nodes in the Flower Meadow and Apiary for his bees. On the other hand, he wasn’t using the mana for anything else right this second and could get more from the purifications.
“I…think that should work, but you’ll need to wait for any more.”
Leijaliuk smiled.
“Wonderful, thank you, Sacred Den Master. You’ve no idea how much this will help us.”
Belissar thought back to his days before the Tower, especially the times he was living on his own. He remembered stumbling across a patch of berry bushes on a particularly tight year. He imagined someone suddenly giving him some more.
“…I think I might, though.”
With that, the bear folk got to work picking the food and flax. With the near automatic harvesting of the resource nodes, they were done almost immediately. Most of them gathered to Leijaliuk who took stock of the haul, while Juosiutik commandeered a few others to help her with the more medicinal plants. Soon, Leijaliuk had split the harvest into three piles, one large and two small. She then walked back over to him.
“Here you are, Sacred Den Master. Please let us know if this is sufficient.”
Belissar turned and looked at the pile, with several sweet vetch roots and a pile of berries, along with several flax flowers. He rubbed his chin.
He received more honey each day than he could consume by far. If that weren’t enough, he had an entire orchard of apple trees. He had plenty to eat even before considering that the Tower magic meant he didn’t even need to. As for the flax flowers…well, Belissar had more of those than he ever wanted to deal with.
So, he wondered what exactly he would do with this stuff. It made sense to get some payment for letting them gather it, but he still had to do something with it all at the end of the day. He could try to give it to the bees, he guessed, but he wasn’t sure what they would do with uprooted flowers or berries. He thought he remembered seeing bees land on a dropped fruit at one point, but it was rare enough he struggled to recall exactly.
It used to be highly rare for Belissar to have more than he knew what to do with, so he didn’t have great ideas. If he was in the village, he could have tried to trade it at least…
Belissar suddenly realized that he was being dumb and knew right away what he should do.
“…actually, that’s a bit much for me. I already have a bunch of flax and food. So, um, would it be possible to trade this for something else? I could use some pots, or some finished cloth.”
Leijaliuk nodded.
“That should be possible. Very well, is it alright if I bring some items tomorrow then?”
Belissar nodded.
“Yeah, that works.”
After that, Juosiutik also finished her gathering and separated her haul into piles as well. This time, Belissar accepted the pile, figuring he could use that stuff once Juosiutik taught him a bit more about potions. Juosiutik and Leijaliuk then arranged for the bear folk to carry the piles for the God of Bees to her shrine, placing it all in the chest. They both knelt in front of the statue, all the gatherers kneeling behind them. Juosiutik and Leijaliuk both whispered in words Belissar still couldn’t hear.
The Shrine of Bees began to glow. Belissar suddenly stumbled back.
“Wha…?”
A moment later, the bear people rose to their feet. Leijaliuk and Juosiutik walked over to him.
“Sacred Den Master, is something the matter?”
Belissar took a moment to acknowledge them, then shook his head.
“Ah, no, it’s…fine. Yes, it’s fine.”
Leijaliuk and Juosiutik glanced at once another before turning back to him.
“If you say so. Thank you again for your generosity, Sacred Den Master.”
Juosiutik nodded her head repeatedly.
“Yes, thank you! Um, would you mind if we delay the lessons for now? I’d like to get all this home and organized.”
Belissar nodded with a distant look in his eyes.
“Ah, yeah, that’s fine.”
With that, the bear people gathered up their shares and departed the Tower, leaving Belissar alone. Alone to again look at the message that had distracted him.
Gained 84 DP.
He got eighty-four DP, more even than Metsaitti’s hunters, just from that offering? Something that took less than an hour of time?
And they were even going to share the bounty with him. He was also receiving an abundance of food, flax, and herbs without lifting a finger. He could then trade the fruits of the bear people’s gathering back to them for more stuff.
Suddenly, all the mana he spent on those resource nodes didn’t seem so expensive after all. Belissar even wondered if he should move the Orchard entrance closer to the main exit so the bear people could gather apples and wood too.
He even cracked a small smile. He had been…apprehensive, to say the least, about the bear people when they first arrived. But at this point, well, they didn’t seem so bad. He was even starting to like having them around.