Marigold – A LitRPG

All right, stopping to analyze, all the options seem to be very good, bees [Collector] could take over the exhaustive work of collecting resources and let the workers focus totally on something else, [Scouts] seem to be the perfect mappers, if we know the whole region around us we could know about all the dangers of each region and the utilities, these [Poisonous] seem not to be the best fighters, but they would be able to finish fights quickly only with their poison, like professional killers! Now this [Gardener], there really some reaon for me to want it? Of course making the plants grow and produce more food seems incredible, but I don't know if the bonus that these gardener bees Grant is really good, it could be something around a 200% bonus or something like 5%, and I think it's better not to risk it, now these [Pastry], this seem promising! They could take over the work of feeding the colony and let the workers only focus on the task of making honey and building, and there is also the fact that these bees can put various effects on food, in this way she could create a super food capable of not only nourishing but also of putting effects that complement each other!

So the best option would be [Collector] and [Pastry]? So I all food problems would basically disappear! Of course I would need to raise a few more bees for this, but I think giving birth to a few more bees is nothing if I can guarantee our food supply.

But if I chose these 2 would I miss the [Scouts]? Or would they appear again later? I can't take that risk! These scout bees have a huge potential to let them pass!

So [Pastry] and [Scouts] ? The workers would still need to do a little more work, but nothing impossible for them. But what if the [Pastry] need absurd amounts of honey to be able to produce these super sweets?! These candies they produce seem too good to be so easy to make, what if I chose the [Gardener] ones? Of course in the short term they don't look like much, but in enought time I could get a whole field full of flowers of the highest quality...

No, this is not realistic, a gardener alone wouldn't probably be able to create a field of high quality flowers alone so I would end up needing to create several of them, maybe even dozens of them to achieve this goal, and there's no guarantee that they will succeed in this mision, a very heavy rain, or a period of dry season could end all their work.

What about the [Poisonous] ones? They don't seem to be as strong as Hans, but they could still serve as guards for the hive, protecting the workers and me when Hans is away even if them are physically weak. But I don't think a single venomous Bee would do much either, I'd need a swarm of them to put fear in anyone trying to get close.

So the choices are between the [Collector] , [Pastry] and [Scouts], what should I choose?! All the three seem extremely useful in my situation!

"Mom! Is something wrong? You've been staring at the wall for a while..."

"Ken! I'm sorry, I got a level in [Egg laying] and now I'm having some doubts about what I should choose."

In the meantime I was thinking Ken had already collected the eggs and placed each one in a nursery unit, the other boys were busy putting some finishing touches on the honey tank and getting it ready to fill.

"How cool mom! Why don't you tell us what the options are? So we can help!"

"Well... I think you have a the right to tell your opinion, depending on the choice your life can get easier or harder..."

"Hey idiots! Come here! Mommy needs help!"

Soon everyone was around me and waiting for my words, after some time explaining the options I could see that Steve was the only one who really seemed to be worried as me, the boy must be paranoid as me.

"Well, I think [Scouts] and [Collector] are the best options mom!"

"But I would lose the [Pastry] and I don't know if I can have the chance to find that option again in the future..."

"It's not like we need a dedicated Bee to produce food, is it? The crystals you produce are already delicious and manage to feed us with ease."

"I like the idea that if we kept the [Pastry] we could eat even more delicious food!"

"Shut up! You only think about eating, this is a serious business!"

Steve was right about that, the [Pastry] they looked amazing, but did I really need them? Other bees like The [Scouts] and [Collector] would make the workers lives easier, while the [Pastry] would probably make their lives more difficult, if I chose the collectors and the Scouts the workers could full dedicate themselves to other tasks, but what tasks? The house is already almost complete, and the honey tank was already being filled, when they finished this task the only tasks they would have to do may be to build an experiment room and keep the honey tank full.

But if I chose to facilitate the work of the workers they could dedicate themselves solely to the task of pollination! This would make them a viable source of Xp.

What to do? The [Pastry] seemed to have great potential and uses, but in my experience units useful as [Soldiers] had great maintenance costs, so this pastry chef must consume an absurd amount of food to maintain himself and mustn't be able to fight if needed, what would happen if one day started snowing and all honey production be shut down? Soon the [Pastry] would run out of raw material to produce more food and become just a big mouth to feed in a time of need.

"..All right Boys, I'll pick [Scout] and [Collector], and produce some, I think 1 Scout and 2 collectors should do for now..."

"I-isn't that a very low number mom?"

"Shhhh! Hans already told us that mom makes unconventional choices!"

I'm still here you know right?

After deciding and making my choice I see the [Collector] and [Scout] units appearing on my list of possible eggs.

 

 

With the new options I focus on the idea of creating 2 Collector eggs and soon I feel a greater pressure like when I had Hans, and after a little effort two white eggs much larger than traditional eggs appeared.

"Wow, looks like these guys are going to Be Giants! Maybe even bigger than Hans! Do you think we should build bigger nurseries for them mom?"

"Well.. I really have no idea! Maybe it's just the eggs, but just in case create bigger jugs for them."

After Ken gently took the eggs and placed them inside the breeding Combs temporarily while he made new larger Combs, I started to create a single scout egg, this time I tried to focus on the idea of a girl, because I didn't know if the fact that all the operators were boys had something to do with my mental projection or some game of the system, but I think this explorer will answer my questions, I just hope I don't end up creating a bee with gender crisis.

The pressure that the Scout egg gave me was so insignificant that it didn't even feel like I was spawning an egg, and soon a small white egg had been formed, unlike the other eggs this one had a rice grain shape, very different from the round eggs I had until now.

Again after the egg hit the ground Ken quickly picked it up and carefully placed it in the combs, I could see that Ken seemed to care about these eggs and with the general health of everyone on a level that no one else cared about, Hans loved the eggs, I could feel for our link as he was watching the operators eggs before they hatched, but it was like a sense of pride and accomplishment, like when someone gets something they really wanted and treats that thing very carefully, while Ken seemed to feel a kind of responsibility for everyone's health, Ken seemed to have absorbed much of my knowledge about "care", he had a sharp tongue and live fighting with everyone but deep inside him he cared about the well-being of everyone, honestly Ken looked like my mother, she lived yelling and kicking me, but in the worst moments of my life I could firmly count on her support.

Well, until the day she died

Each of the workers had a talent, Steve is a born leader, like a super competent director, Ken is the... Nurse? Levi was a kind of engineer in training, and Carl.... I don't know what Carl is good at? Just like I don't know Matt and Miles talent, the Twins don't seem to have a specific thing they're good at, just like Carl, but they all worked hard and were healthy, I guess this is all that matters right?

I think I'm looking too much like a mother who tries to make excuses for her child who has no goals in life...

'The boys are still discovering their talents, they just need time, they only have 2 days of life, there are human beings who need more than 20 years to be able to find out what they are good at! I'm still in a good situation here!'

"All right boys, now that we're done here, I'm going back to my experiments, Matt, Miles, could you do me a favor and get some water from the river? Just enough to stuff some nuts so I can do my experiments."

"All right!"

"No problem!"

---

 

While the twins were going in search of some water I started kneading and grinding some of the ingredients that the boys found, there was a lot of it and I just kneaded it with my little grinding kit, after I finished the work I analyzed the contents and put it inside one of the wax bowls.

 

 

 

Wow, I had even forgotten about [Analyze], it didn't seem very useful to me but I think that as the level goes up I can achieve better things.

Now that I had leveled up on parsing, I tried parsing the same purple folder again to see if there was any difference.

 

 

Ah! Thank you very much skill [Analyze]! It changed my life!

This didn't release anything useful, just more stuff I already knew, but I think it still had some use in knowing if something was a viable ingredient or just junk.

....

After some time analyzing, preparing and separating the ingredients, I came to the conclusion that analyzing Level 2 was totally useless for this, all the things I had could be used as ingredients, and I didn't even need a skill to know that! Maybe [Analyze] is useful to guide someone without any knowledge, but since I had a notion about what could be used and what not, I didn't need to analyze for that, but I must admit that [Analyze] can be very useful in other matters, without analyzing I wouldn't know that there are affinities, and I couldn't even see the quality of an item, so even if it's not a powerful skill, it still stands out in ultility.

"Mom! We brought your water!"

"Boys! Why did it take so long!? I have finished processing all the materials!"

"Miles was disturbing me! That's why we took so long!"

"What a lie! It was Matt who kept talking a lot of nonsense to make me angry!"

"All right! No fight! Leave the water in the containers and go help Ken and the others do their job!"

"Ok..."

As soon as I separated the twins fight and got my water, I started my crazy plans and put my "cauldron" on top of the fire flower that was still alive like aways, then I threw water, petal paste, some bone powder, purple paste, and nectar from a single flower that grew in the valley, I wanted to start my experiments with rare and unique ingredients, without using things like generic honey, nectar from various flowers and mixed leaves, this time I was using each ingredient separately and trying to figure out their uses.

When the liquid started turning a dark magenta colour I tried to analyse it to find out what I had created.

 

 

This is new, I didn't have this information about [Minor] before, what does it mean? That's mean the potion is small, or that the effect is low? Perhaps it is the effect, since 1 Damage per minute for 2 minutes cannot even be called a real poison.

But why did it become a poison potion? I used a nectar from an ordinary flower that has no poison and the paste of purple petals from the same flower, maybe the bone powder that did it? But why? How?

Now for the next part of my experiment I kept stirring the magenta colored potion, and added a piece of hard sap from the tree we lived in, waited until it melted and mixed with the liquid before analyzing it again

 

 

The poison effect has become more potent now, but why? The sap wasn't poisonous, so is some kindle of catalyst that was making the potion poisonous? Most likely was the bone powder, but shouldn't adding new ingredients into a potion change the nature of the potion? So why adding new ingredients only increasing their effects?

This time I take a small piece of Red Earth and knead it in between my hands before throwing it in the potion, then mixed some more before seeing the result.

 

 

The potion has changed again! Now the time has increased, but the effect has been greatly weakened, why does this happen? Is it necessary to find some kind of harmony between the ingredients? Or does the fact that it's a poison potion mean it's a potion how gone wrong? After all, until now everything I managed to create had negative effects, and this doens't necessarily mean that I succeeded in creating an item with a bad effect, it could only mean that I failed and ended up with an item with a negative effect instead of a positive one. But if poisons were potions that went wrong, then how do you create a poison for specific use? A normal person could take various products and create a poisonous solution with ease, but couldn't create a poison specifically to kill insects with the same ease.

Putting my thoughts aside I start to see that the potion looks like it is burning, as if it has passed the point, I distract myself again, but I could still learn from it and I tried to analyze this liquid that was thickening.

 

 

If it became something useless, it could no longer be a real poison, only if it were to kill bacteria, if the poison spoils, shouldn't it get stronger? After all, spoiled things are toxic...

I try to add a little more water and mix the liquid again until it is in the same consistency as before to see if I can save potions that have passed the point.

 

 

This work in a way? I've recovered some of the potion but it's still much worse than before.

This time I have added more nectar, charcoal powder and a yellow paste made from the leaves of a strange plant, and crushed pieces of a root, then I stirred everything for a while until it started to get a deep brown color.

 

 

Thats! I created something that is not a poison!

It's still not a positive effect, and it's not even very good, but I think I'm on the right track.