Belissar counted once. He counted twice. He counted thrice. He counted with his fingers. He counted with his toes. He counted with the dirt. He counted with some stones. He frowned.
No matter how many times or by what method he counted, he came up with the same answer.
There were three monster bee queens hovering before him. Despite there being four monster bee queen spawners. Belissar would admit he wasn’t the greatest at math, but he figured those numbers should add up, like they did every other day before this.
With no other way to resolve this conundrum, he focused on one of the monster bee queen spawners. The one that hadn’t seemed to work today.
Monster Bee Queen Spawner
Monsters: Monster Bee Queen
Current Monsters Spawned: 4/4
What was a surprise was the current product.
Mana. Magical power. The fuel that granted the Tower Guard powers beyond mortal men. Belissar had heard stories of it but had never encountered it before. No one in his village had. After all, it was a power reserved only for the Tower Guard, granted to them by their lords for the defense of humanity.
It was also stated to be highly dangerous in the wrong hands. It was said a peasant who tried to dabble in such a power could blow apart their entire village, or set themselves on fire, or turn themselves into a frog, or other such horrors. That was why any use of mana was to be reported to the local Tower Lord immediately.
So, of course, Belissar had never heard of bees using it. Much less somehow putting it into honey? What would that even look like? Some kind of magical honey? Would it make him explode? Would it turn him into a bee?
Then, Belissar’s eyes widened as he had a thought.
If the monster bee queen entering the beehive made it produce mana honeycomb...then didn’t that mean it was the monster bees who made mana honey? Didn’t their description say something about them gathering mana?
Description: A honey bee queen that has accumulated enough mana to become something more. Mostly similar to her mundane cousins, but more aggressive, and has slightly magical venom. This one is a queen, and capable of building a hive of monster bees.
Oh. It did.Belissar frowned and his eyes trembled. Didn’t that mean...the honey the monster bee queens had offered to him was mana honey?!
He quickly felt his stomach, searching for anything wrong. But everything was as it should be and as far as he could tell, he hadn’t turned into anything...unnatural.
...ignoring for a moment the part about him being a Tower Lord who didn’t seem to need to eat or drink or even sleep unless he felt like it...
He thought over the moment when he had eaten the honey and furrowed his brow. He couldn’t think of anything strange, besides that sense of warmth filling him that was a lot like the warmth he felt from the Tower itself...
He paused, his eyes going even wider.Wait...was that heat he felt...mana?!
That would....actually make a lot of sense once Belissar thought about it. If the Tower Guards received mana from the Tower Lords...then it just made sense that the Tower itself would have mana in it, right?
And...it would also make sense for the Tower Lord to have mana too. Belissar looked at his hands as he felt the warmth that had suffused his body since the Tower was bound to him.
His first instinct was to report it to the local Tower Guard before remembering that he was, in fact, a Tower Lord now. He focused on the mana, narrowing his eyes and furrowing his brow as he concentrated.
A few minutes later, he shrugged. Well, that was all incredible to think about...but he still didn’t actually know how to use mana or whatever. Not to mention the potential dangers of doing so haphazardly, even if he did figure it out. Maybe the mana honey would make a shade explode if they ate it or something. But beyond that, this revelation didn’t seem to change much. Mostly because Belissar didn’t know how it could actually change things.
“Is there, like, a guide for Tower Lords or something?”
But no one responded to his words, and no strange words appeared before his eyes. He sighed again. The one time he wished there was something there...
But it seemed he was still on his own as he dabbled in these powers he didn’t comprehend. He could only hope it wouldn’t explode in his face...possibly literally...