Marigold – A LitRPG

The next day, my laboratory was 'Completed.' And I could go back to conducting my experiments. I had ordered the cooks to abandon the plan of creating a jelly capable of helping the weremen and asked them to focus solely on rations for the colony. I requested them to create rations specifically tailored for the [Soldier] class, and to no one's surprise, creating a large quantity of this jelly was very difficult since the cooks were stuck at level 1, something that seriously concerned me. If some classes that were not combat-oriented didn't have the [Pollinator] trait, then how on earth could they level up?!

I was very worried about the idea of needing to send the cooks to the battlefield, but for now, the food production problem was being solved with a greater number of cooks and a significant reduction in the quality of the jelly created for the soldiers.

 

 

I had gotten some new ingredients, well, a lot of new ingredients, in the search for [Ruby Cherries] to help the cooks refill their MP, the scouts found a lot of unique ingredients, they even found a bush of Ruby Cherries, but it was too far away, and a Bush was too hard to plow off the ground when you're a bee.

Among the new ingredients were resins, sap, nuts, flowers, nectar, bones, leaves, roots, pollen and even things like blood!

The bees found bloodstains, probably from creatures that had hurt themselves, and some of them brought small amounts to me!

Now I had my 'stove' which was a big structure made of mud around a fire Rose, the whole rose had been sealed and the only way out fot the heat was a small circle that was near the core.

All over the room I had large jars of wax, the jars contained powders of different ingredients, essences, resin, dried pieces, honey and even royal jelly!

In the biggest pot in the whole room there was a lot of water, and if I needed to empty it all out I could just throw it out the door and it would fall out of the tree down a small drain made of wax.

The big difference this time was that I had 2 workers who served as my 'lab assistants'. I resolve to call them Albert, and Isaac, I didn't mean to make any jokes with that, but I think having these 2 guys as my lab assistants is pretty cool! They helped in the tasks of processing ingredients, move large pots, or simply organize everything.

'Hmm, alright, my attempts to create potions weren't exactly 'successful', I think I'd better try creating other substances before trying to create new potions..'

For my first attempt I tried throwing 'oily' substances into the pot, such as flower resin, common wax and Chestnut oil.

After letting everything heat up for a while in my makeshift' cauldron', I began to stir until everything turned into a single strange connection.

 

 

Did I create an oil machine for bees? What could I do with it? Prevent a door from making noise?

"Isaac, Albert, please put half the contents of the cauldron in a jar, and leave the rest so I can use it again!"

"Yes mother!"

'Or can i make real machines? In theory there's nothing to stop me from creating machines and gears and things like that, and the creation of this oil shows me that it is really possible to create materials for machinery.'

'If I could create gears, I could make water pumps, treadmills, or even a mechanical grinder!'

'But it's not that simple... I could try to make some gears with hard wax, but even Hard Wax would not withstand hight pressures, or the heat generated by stress, of course I could dip the parts in oil to keep friction at a minimum, but that is not definitive, I would need a tougher alloy Than Hard Wax'

Wood is not ideal either, we could make some wooden gears, but it would be very difficult to maintain these gears, it would rot over time and could swell if dipped in oil, Stone is very difficult to cut, and Hard Wax is very soft.

Leaving the thought aside I start to throw a small amount of pollen from various flowers into the mix, and soon as I see that nothing has changed I start to throw more pollen until the liquid began to peel off from the 'cauldron'.

 

 

'This is incredible! I just created some kind of rubber! A variation for the bees, but it is still like rubber, it seems to be less resistant than ordinary rubber, but if I can melt used pieces and re-use those pieces, then it would already a very good material!'

Enthusiastic about this rubber, I ask for the workers to sprink the ground with pollen to serve as an ant-adherent and then threw all the thick liquid on the ground, as the liquid hardened I sintered some branches and rolled small rubber balls on branches to try to make small rubber balls later.

In the end I had a big rubber plate, and 3 sticks with rubber balls on the point, after waiting the plate to dry and making some tests I realized that this 'rubber' plate was very difficult to cut, but very sturdy to any kind of impact damage

 

 

As a test I tried to throw the rubber sticks back into the cauldron, and I was relieved to see that the rubber was again a liquid, leaving behind only the wooden sticks.

'This is very good! This rubber can be used for several things! I can create rubber stoppers, seals and even things like belts! This could change everyone's life! We could make an automatic hive! Or become steam-punk bees, I just need to find a good enough material to make gears, and think of a power source!'

Leaving everything aside I tried mixing things like wax, bone powder, clay, ash, Earth and SAP to create a tough material, but I ended up with something bad.

"Boys! Think about a material how is resistent, easy to mold, and cheap for us!"

"Hard wax?"

"No! More resistent!"

"How about we use clay? It's easy to find and shape, and it's tough when it dries!"

"No.. Even if we created ceramics with it, it would not be very resistant."

'How about we try to make an 'alloy', we can use things like wax, sap, pollen and stuff like that to try and create something sturdy!'

"This could work, but we would need to find a perfect materia..."

"Well, it's not like we have an appointment, is it?"

After listening to the opinion of my assistants, I started to make a great mixture with various liquids and solids with the intuition of creating a solid alloy, I used things like deretinated hard wax, clay, pollen, dry grass and bone powder.

 

 

That's not what I wanted! This turned into something like crayons, I can't use this shit to build, and not even like regular crayons!.

Throwing everything away we continued my Experiments until it started to get dark, i tried so many combinations and materials, and failed in each of them, the process was slow and challenging, creating a new material is not simple as it seems and most of the time you end up with useless substances.

After a long time, and spending much of my materials, I managed to create an alloy from tree resin, wax, Ash, Clay and 'rubber' that could actually be used for my purposes.

 

 

'Yes! that's perfect! If I can make gear molds I could put us in an industrial age!'

"Boys! bring a very large plate for me to use as a mold!"

"Yes mother!"

After my helpers brought the plate, I poured all the material inside and waited until it dried, I honestly was very excited about all this, if I could create useful materials, and industrialize all our production, then we could focus solely on leveling up, while only a small number of workers would need to operate the machines!

If only I could find a way to produce energy for all those machinery's.

'I need an engine! Something that makes everything move, how do I create electricity?! I should have focused more on that, and read less Shoujo and Shounen ai novels when I was a human!'

'All right, Remember, remember, how an engine works... a flammable gas is placed inside a piston, which then compresses the gas, then a small flame 'explodes' everything making the piston move, the new gas produced by the reaction is expelled, and the process repeats.'

BUT HOW THE HELL DO I MAKE A PISTON?!

'Damn it! Do any of the workers have that knowledge?! I'm sure I must have seen this at some point in my life, I just have to find this knowledge'

"do you guys by any chance know how to create an engine?"

"An engine?"

"HMm.. I think not? What else is this engine for?"

"An engine makes things spin using some kind of fuel."

"Then... Can't we just make something like a windmill? He could stir the gears and make everything move..."

This can work!! I don't need electricity, this is a very difficult thing for a simple bee to create, but kinetic energy is another story! I could do a lot of things with it! Of course it's not useful as electric power, but I could still create a great grinder, a treadmill, blenders, mixers and anything that can be stirred solely with Gears!

"Good Job Isaac! That's a great idea!"

"Thank you mom! Always good to help!"

"Ugh.."

It seemed that Isaac and Albert had a kind of' friendly competition for my approval, it was not like the relationship of Matt and Milles, who Lived fighting, but they looked a lot like 2 students competing for the attention of the teacher and some extra credits.

After a while waiting the wax alloy that we had put on the plate finally dried and after analyzing it I could say that it would definitely be useful for my plans!

 

 

'That shit is really hard.. If I were an ordinary Bee this would be useless to me, but with my knowledge, this material will be the beginning of my empire!'

"KU Ku ku ku... Ha hahahaha! HAHAHAH!!"

"Mom why are you laughing like that?"

"She must not even be listening to you, she must have gone crazy for good..."

"Have more respect for our own mother!"

---

 

The next day, I had requested my assistants to make various molds of gears, rods, and plates. I sent the scouts after more materials to create the wax alloy. Now I was talking to Levi, the shy head of the construction team, and found out that building a windmill wouldn't be as easy as I thought.

"W-Well, mother... To start with, we don't have fabric or anything to use for the blades. We could try making them with a thin layer of hard wax, but it might end up being too heavy to turn. We could attempt to make a water wheel, but we also don't have materials other than hard wax, which is not ideal. The only truly functional option I see is... Creating a steam generator... But it would be very dangerous!"

Levi was right about that. Besides not having materials, we also weren't in a suitable place for it. The treetop had a lot of wind; we were protected by the leaves and branches, but if we put a windmill on top of the tree, we could generate good kinetic energy.

The main problem with this idea was that the windmill would be too far from our house. We would have to send the workers and some soldiers whenever the place needed maintenance. For me, it didn't seem like a problem; windmills are usually really far from homes, and we would also end up reaching the top of the tree anyway sooner or later, as there's always something more to build.

The water wheel was discarded for this reason, it would be too far away to justify the sacrifice. Other options Levi suggested were a "wheel" where the workers would run to generate kinetic energy, which was basically a hamster wheel. Another option was a stone wheel with a vertical shaft that the workers would turn to generate energy, something I also dismissed. Doing that with a donkey was one thing, but putting my children to turn that wheel? We might as well make a drum and give them rags to wear.

And then we came to the final option.

A steam generator. This had real potential, it would be very laborious to create one, but it would be very useful! We could create a simple steam generator, where we fill a closed container with water, boil it until it turns to steam, and then put a 'chimney' where the steam would push a blade. But by making a generator in this style, we would be losing a lot of "energy," and we would have to refill it with water all the time.

The best way would be to try to create a closed system, but when your main building material is wax, you must know that working with high temperatures is not really viable.

Which brought me back to windmills since I wouldn't be enslaving my children to turn a wheel for me.

"Do you think the [Weavers] bees can help you with this? We could make fabrics and ropes, and you could use the hard wax to make the entire casing of the windmill, and you could use the alloy I created for important parts, using some branches as beams or whatever you need."

"Hmm... Th-That might work! I'll discuss this with the other workers to see if they have better ideas, but overall, I don't see how to improve this strange project you have without new resources."

"Thank you, Levi~"

After each went their own way, I headed to the kitchen to check on how the cooks were doing, but halfway there, I received a notification.

 

'Hells?! He didn't even let me see the options?!'