Beero forgot to move her abdomen for breath as she watched the drone lap up swirled honey. The drone paused, Beero watched as the mana from the honey swirled within him. The drone’s antennae glowed slightly, the tell-tale sign he was moving his mana. Beero didn’t dare interrupt. Even as the most experienced battlecaster, she knew the drone experienced mana in a way she didn’t. There was no bee better at mixing and combining manas than he.
The drone turned to her and slowly began to dance.
“Honey is…amazing, incredible. Mana is…different. Like how honey different from nectar.”
Beero’s antennae twitched. She barely brought herself to dance.
She stood completely still as she waited for the drone to resume dancing.
“Think…can. Honey changes mana, think can change drone’s. But, not here. Need to…sleep in cell?”
Beero suddenly burst out into a max speed dance.
“That evolution! Do! Do right away!”
Just a few moments later, for the very first time in all of the hive of hives, a drone crawled back into a cell while the workers sealed it over. Beero danced and circled around the cell until her fellow battlecasters pulled her away for casting practice.
The First of the Fifth clung to the side of a tray, watching over one of her production lines from above. She found it a bit tiring now to hover for long periods of time and her large body might disrupt the production lines if she walked among them, so this was the closest she could get.
She had to admit that she questioned her own decisions recently. It had been…surprisingly difficult watching one of her daughters take command of the hive of hives. Combined with various inconveniences that had arisen as a result of her new body and she could not help but wonder what might have been had she chosen a different route. She couldn’t even fly out and sting the dangerous one for upsetting King, and no longer had the authority to ask other queens to do it for her!
But no longer. Her First Daughter had more than proven herself the right bee for the job. The First of the Fifth had considered the use of communers to monitor the rest of the hives. Her First Daughter had used them to combine the rest of the hives into a single mana link that not only allowed her to contact them all at will but also allowed them to speak with each other while continuing work on their hives. The First of the Fifth had to admit that such an idea had never crossed her mind, she could not be prouder of her First Daughter for such an innovation. It had been the right decision to have her manage the hive of hives.
And as for the First of the Fifth herself? She watched as her foragers brought nectar from an unattributed mana flower to her newest honeypot. The honeypot processed the nectar and passed on swirled digging honey to the hive workers. The First of the Fifth’s new antennae allowed her to closely examine the honey and the mana within it even from this distance. Not only was the honey’s mana expertly swirled, but it had also been converted to Ground mana with hardly any loss in potency. It was equivalent to honey made directly from a Ground mana flower’s nectar and would more than suffice to evolve the Firstborn’s new fighting bees.
Yes, her evolution, as inconvenient as her new body was at times, certainly had some perks. With her honey, her First Daughter could raise as many communers and drones she needed to establish the hive of hives’ link. With her honey, the Firstborn could immediately start raising the powerful new soldier type only her own evolution enabled. With all of them working together, they’d be able to protect King far better than she could have alone. This indeed was the right path for her.
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So, she pushed her doubts aside and focused back on her path. New broodmothers had hatched and were now expanding her foragers and honeypots to meet the urgent demand for her swirled honey. Her Fifth Daughter, who she had previously assigned to honey production, was shifting to coordinating the production lines in her stead as a result. All of this freed up the First of the Fifth to focus not on existing honey, but on unlocking new possibilities.
For instance, the dangerous one’s contributions to the battle in the Beyond. While the dangerous one’s indiscretions towards the King made the First of the Fifth’s wings buzz, there was no denying she had unique uses for honey, and that these uses proved quite potent on the battlefield. It made the First of the Fifth consider if there were alternative ways she could swirl the honey. So far, she had organized the mana within the honey to make it more…perhaps she could organize it to make the honey do more instead?
Additionally…honeypots and broodmothers now opened up possibilities she hadn’t had time to consider back when she was still managing the hive of hives. She had previously applied the dangerous one’s knowledge to raise an antidote monster bee worker by combining medicinal mana honey and snakebane pollen…but neither she nor any of the queens had followed up on that. The antidote type monster bee just hadn’t proven impactful enough to justify raise an antidote queen. Perhaps if they faced adversaries who relied on toxins and possessed toxins that would affect bees they might be needed, but locking an entire hive into the type seemed excessive.
But now…now she had honeypots and broodmothers. She might not be able to justify raising an entire antidote bee hive…but an antidote honeypot to make antidote honey or an antidote broodmother to add some antidote bees to an existing hive? Either of those could add a degree of safety against future possible adversaries without overcommitting.
Additionally…they both now gave her a way to experiment with new combinations she wasn’t sure of. If she could raise even a single new worker type, that worker could then be evolved into a broodmother. And she could then expand the number of the new types to see if they would become more sustainable as they scaled up. For example, the hive of hives had never followed up on the cold mana flowers because they had no place with sufficient temperatures for a new queen to set up. But a single honeypot? A single honeypot could stay by one of the cold mana flowers while converting regular mana nectar to cold honey…which in turn would lower the temperature around her further. If the gathering cold honey managed to affect a large enough area to build a small hive, perhaps then they could raise a broodmother…and so on and so forth until there were enough cold mana flowers and a wide enough cold area to Continue reading more chapters on NovelHub for the best experience.
And, of course, the First of the Fifth knew for a fact that swirled honey itself was not the peak of honey. She would one day seek to surpass it, on and on until she reached as close to the Queen of All Bees’ honey as was possible for her.
All of this meant that there were a great many things for the First of the Fifth to try, a great many possibilities to explore, and a great many more things she could do to strengthen the hive of hives.
So, she got right to work.
The monster bee trapper danced before a group of soldiers. These were her fellow soldiers, some from the Fourth of the Seventh’s hive, and a few originally from the First of the Fifth’s, who had learned the art of weaving stems from the King himself. They had since carved out a place for themselves within the hive of hives, weaving stems that helped soldier bees transport trays of honey across the King’s realm, as well as bigger pollen baskets to help the foragers carry even more pollen.
But the trapper now realized they had only scratched the surface of what was possible. The recent battle in the Beyond had been against a foe who used silk strands like the ones she could now weave…and they used them in far more ways than she had ever imagined. They used them to scout, feeling the vibrations when invaders brushed against them! They used them to catch bees and the small King-thing! They used them to launch stingers like a monster bee archer would! They used them to grab enemies and pull them in stinger range, or to grab wounded allies and pull them away from danger! They even used them to catch stingers and protect themselves!
The trapper’s mind raced with all the possibilities she had seen…but she was but one bee. There was no way she could handle all those things alone. And, fortunately, the hive of hives had realized this as well.
Once the trapper had finished relaying all that she had seen, the soldiers all buzzed and danced about. Then, the brood tenders came and led each and every one of them to their own cell, full of the power new honey the trapper herself had used to evolve. Each and every one of the soldiers curled up inside.
The trapper danced about. Her sisters were about to evolve…and then they could learn to use woven stems in a ways they had never dreamed of. She couldn’t wait!
And so, all across the hive of hives, all of the bees continued to work and grow…