Marigold – A LitRPG

2 Week Later.

 

In these last few days we have expanded tremendously, our numbers have increased dramatically, reaching several hundreds and bordering on thousands. Our 'village' had grown a lot, being expanded up, down and to the sides, with the great increase in our numbers the bedrooms, canteen and kitchen had to be tremendously expanded, when we no longer had the means to expand them we built more facilities in different places. If I had to describe it, we were kind of creating a tower, looking like a yellow tree that grew next to the big begonia

Now we had 3 small kitchens and a main kitchen, 6 huge bedrooms, 2 gigantic dining rooms with several floors, dozens of warehouses full of honey silos. A gigantic general quateu, with proportional accommodation for the large number of soldiers, a large sewing room that had dozens of weavers, a laundry that was always in operation.

In addition to entire sheds where the scouts stored their items on shelves and boxes, barns built on tree roots for farmers and a gigantic theater that served as a house for the bards/performance hall.

The whole place became so busy that it seemed like a city. Another thing was that we finally got lights! The workers had a skill that allowed them to literally be living lamps, so they were all over the nest, they were on the streets, in the corridors, in the rooms and even in my room, all serving as living lamps.

It seemed to be evil, but they were very happy to be so useful, it seemed that being a live lamp was a very prestigious job in the hive, everyone wanted to work with it.

Maybe because I always wanted lamps, and when I saw them shining for the first time I was so happy that I almost jumped with joy.

This left a mark on my children, and everyone who worked as lamp are happy, the smile on their faces says "I'm more useful than you" to the other workers.

And talking about markings on the drones, my beacons stored that... "conversation" that I had with the newcomers, and used it as a "warning" for all new drones, so no one got out of line or was disrespectful, and to talk The truth was actually quite scary when seen from others' point of view.

For me it was just a peaceful "warning", but from the workers' point of view it was something like "Do what I say when I say otherwise...". And the whole thing about memories being able to diverge didn't help me much either, the beacons took the worst parts of each version of the drones' memories and put it all together as if it were the "real event", painting me as a scary shrew.

According to them, it wasn't bad, it was good, without fear there is no respect, without respect there is no coexistence, and without coexistence there is no society. I had to be painted as a "brave" and "loud" person to create an "appropriate" image for the colony, and the fact that only the elite could enter my quarters generated even more doubts. Most of the new drones have never seen me in person, only the 1st generation, and they didn't have a friendly impression of me.

They weren't afraid that I would hurt or kill them, they were afraid that I would declare them as "useless or flawed", they don't mind being criticized or getting into conflicts with their brothers, but it is absolutely unimaginable to be "discarded " for me.

These lights allowed us to become a civilization that worked 24 hours a day, everyone just changing shifts and keeping the base always working.

In the meantime I gained a lot of XP from the soldiers, but I didn't gain a single level, the new soldiers created also had more life and resistance, but were slower and "Passive". They didn't like starting fights, and would only attack if something got too close, but they preferred to avoid fights at all costs, unlike the first soldiers who are hungry for fights.

The old soldiers still haven't evolved again, but they were still the main source of Xp for me, if it depended on the new soldiers or gaining Xp through pollination I would die of old age.

In the last few days my room had been seriously redesigned and redone, and it was now the only room in the hive that I could stay and walk around in comfortably, the place contained a huge bed in the middle of the room, which was entirely made of soft and smooth silk, with lots of pillows and flower embroidery.

The place was heavily guarded by Hans best men and I just stayed in bed all day in a "buddha" position, when I laid eggs a large group of workers came and picked everything up to bring to the nursery, and most of the time I just stayed in the my room being served by my private entourage and observing life through the eyes of my boys. It didn't seem healthy, of course, like a person who lives in a room just watching lives. But neither my instincts nor my children saw any problem with that, so I continued.

This continued for several days, until our house was huge and busy as hell, soldiers were flying everywhere, workers were lighting the streets made of wax, and a huge wax dome produced by the carpenters was being erected around our house.

This 'dome' just surrounded the entire tree, and was being built from the ground to the top of the tree, leaving nothing exposed. I thought this might kill the tree, but the gardeners said the tree would probably survive on the light from the workers and the nutrients they could provide.

The nursery had been expanded greatly to meet our demands and new members were sent to the infirmary as Ken refused to accept them into the nursery. Everyone was working at full steam. And a few days ago the boys put on a great show at the theater to celebrate our prosperity.

I also ended up using my [Life Exchange] skill and with a lot of difficulty I managed to create a [Life Drop] and I finally found out what this thing is.

When I tried to create this thing I asked for a few pots of wax, and some healing jelly, after all you never know. But I needed to know what this [Life Drop] was, if it was some kind of super healing potion, liquid XP, or some other shit.

I auso tried  using the [Life eco] skill, just to find out what it did, and I discovered after a long time of trying, that this skill made me spit out a small and strange bubble, that looked like a colorful soap bubble, and depending on how much mana I used, the bubble would get bigger or smaller. This bubble could touch beings that I considered "allies", and soon as they touched the ally, they would burst and provide a small cure. Now if they touched things that were "enemies", they did a strange kind of damage.

I tested this by throwing the bubble at a flower that I wanted to die, and when the bubble touched the flower it gained several rotten spots very quickly, but it didn't die. It was only minor damage and the plant wouldn't die from it.

The bubble seemed pretty useless to be honest. Okay, it was a skill that could cause damage and heal at the same time, but it was so weak and expensive, that it was better to just use my mana to heal and buff the soldiers, rather than trying to kill someone with those bubbles.

And now here we were, I had managed to use the skill after several failed attempts and when the skill activated I felt myself getting weaker and a sudden pain as if I had been stabbed.

And soon I spat a shiny golden liquid into the pot, it was just a small amount, little more than a drop, but for that I seemed to have lost a lot of XP and life.

 

 

'I don't seem to have lost Xp... But I don't have an Xp bar to know how much I lost, but I still needed 8 life points for that little drop of nothing? What the fuck is this thing?'

 

 

'What the hell!? This shit is too broken, can I share XP using this? And can I strengthen the colony as a whole?'

'Call Ken here!'

'-Understood' Said one of the beacons.

Soon Ken walked through the door and walked up to me with a face that clearly said "What do you want, huh?"

"Ken! Look at this! I created a substance capable of healing and granting XP!"

"Really?! Let me see!" Ken said excitedly.

After giving the small jug to Ken, he looks at the liquid in wonder for a few moments before pouring the entire contents of the jug into his mouth, as if it were a large mug of beer.

"KEN!"

After a few moments Ken simply finished drinking everything and left the jug on the floor, the soldiers were looking at him dirty, as if he had just done something very wrong. He really did, I didn't want him to drink, just to see and give me some ideas. But it's not like I can't create more of that.

"Hmm... It tastes pretty bad, and it leaves your mouth bitter, but I actually gained Xp! And I feel much more refreshed than before!" Ken said.

"You weren't supposed to turn everything over like a beer can!"

"But we had to test it, didn't we? And I give it my seal of approval! I'll even volunteer to be the first member to have access to all this essence." Ken replied.

"Why do you want this so much Ken?"

"Honestly? I'm tired of being at level 1, I want to evolve! But I don't want to do the same job that Matt did, I don't like pollonizing flowers." Ken replied angrily.

"I know, this was something that was high on my list of problems, I was seriously in need of a way to get Xp for all of you."

"Some of us like Steve, Carl and several workers who sometimes go out to do a little polishing and earn some Xp, but there are several of us who don't like this work, like Levi, myself and several other members." Ken said.

"Do you think if we mixed this into food, we could grant everyone some Xp, slowly increasing everyone's levels?"

"I guess so? But why don't you start creating a large quantity of this stuff and make it available to those who haven't leveled up for a long time, hmm?" Ken said with a small smile.

"...I think it could work, I would need ways to recover my own HP, as well more XP from the soldiers, but I would still be able to create good amounts of it. Not to mention that I'm still at level 1 skill, so as i gain more levels it will be easier to produce more of this thing."

"That sounds like a good plan!" Ken replied.

"Hmm, Hmm. I think I'll dedicate myself to creating more of this, it seems very useful after all, I just miss my-"

My laboratory!

I was so distracted by my progress and the treats from my entourage that I completely forgot about my laboratory.

When I look up, everyone in the room seems to have gotten super nervous out of nowhere, like I've just remembered something they want me to forget, and Ken tries to look away.

"You bunch of brats! You deliberately kept quiet about the subject of my lab, and expect me to just forget about it!?"

"...Well.... The place isn't safe, especially now that you're even bigger and slower, if the same thing happened again you wouldn't be able to run, and the explosion would probably be bigger..." He said Ken trying to close the matter.

"I told you how important that lab was to me! And you just erased it?!"

"Of course not, mom! We know how important the place is to you, so we completely renovated it and left Isaac and Albert in charge of the area." said a worker.

"What??"

"The two of them are conducting their crazy experiments, they stay there all day mixing random things in a cauldron and marking everything on wax tablets, unlike you they don't go around messing with dangerous things." Ken said.

"Really? They followed my... Legacy?"

"Yes Mom! They are responsible for creating soap for the laundry, yeast for the cooks and paint for the workers! They work all day every day to keep your desire alive!" Said another worker.

Now I feel bad for yelling at them, no one said anything to me because they were afraid I would put myself in danger again, but my assistants had continued my research. They even succeeded and created materials that were being used by the colony

"Boys, I'm sorry for yelling at you, I'm really proud of you all, if it weren't for everyone's help I would still be living in a dark hole."

"Don't worry about it mom! We're all very happy to be able to help you!" One of the soldiers said while everyone agreed with him."

"What about my potions? Is anyone trying to create new potions too?"

"That... No. Your 'potions' are very dangerous, sometimes our researchers create things similar to potions, but we don't have anyone who has really been interested in them. Some cooks liked the idea, but that was it. Nobody went ahead with this project because it seemed, according to popular opinions, to be a "waste of resources, since we can create similar bonuses with bards."

"I understand..."

I felt a little bad about the situation. This whole place was developing more and more, and yet my collaboration was minimal, I mean, I created each member of this society, it is also because of me that they have so much knowledge, in addition to having created the first experiments that gave rise to [Nutrient paste] and various other substances. But I still didn't like the idea of sitting around all day just laying eggs without doing anything else, I want to discover more things. If I could develop more as a support, I could become this hive's trump card, even if an enemy hurts the soldiers, I could heal them.

Just because I'm a support class doesn't mean I can't fight, I just have to find the right way to be useful in a fight.

Which brought me back to my [Life] affinity.

Can I create real life without using skills?

In theory it would be possible, unless my affinity can only be used with skills, but why couldn't I just bring inanimate things to life with life affinity?

I ended up thinking for a few hours, trying to bring my pillows to life, or something, but nothing helped, so I had an idea.

What if I used [Drop of Life] on other things that aren't alive?

I ended up creating more of this essence of life, and ate some healing jelly at the end, now I had the bottom of a small jar full of [Drop of Life] and a curiosity to be satisfied.

I had my children bring me 3 things, a small rock, a twig, and a small piece of moss from the tree.

One thing was inanimate, another was once alive, and another was alive.

I wanted to test to find out the uses of this glowing liquid, whether I could just increase the drones levels with it, or whether it was used to bring things to life.

When I dropped a small drop on the stone, nothing happened, it was like pouring water on a stone, it got wet, but nothing happened, I tried to analyze the stone, but it was still a stone.

'So it can't bring inanimate things to life, what a shame, it would be pretty cool to be able to create a house where all things are alive, Well, until those things start to get annoying at least, if I had to deal with a riot of spoons, I don't even know what I would do.'

After moving to the branch I poured a single drop on it and nothing happened again, it seemed like none of this would work, but I still left the rock and the branch separate, I was going to wait and see if something would happen over time. And then I went to the moss.

The moss still had earth in it and was green and healthy, it was clearly alive and healthy, and so I decided to use everything that was left of [Drop of life] in this moss.

I poured all the liquid into a wax dish, and then placed the moss gently over the puddle. The moss quickly 'drank' all the liquid and small golden flowers began to sprout from its leaves, the moss began to spread and grow slowly, but still visible to the eye. And after a few minutes it stopped growing, but it had fused intensely to the wax dish and even created roots that were unusual for a moss.

It had small pink flowers and other golden flowers, its leaves turned bluish and vibrant tones and small roots that seemed to belong to a tree sprouted from it and surrounded the plate.

The moss seemed to have changed, or simply "matured", I can't say exactly, but it looked much healthier and stronger than before.

 

 

"Wow, this thing changed [species] simply by drinking a little essence?! These plants have a very easy life, don't they?!'

But that's still a good thing, I can create new plants with regenerative abilities! Maybe even other effects, and most importantly, I could increase your vitality, with this we could create gardens of super powerful flowers!

But now my HP was finished...

'I think my crazy plans will wait for another day...'

---

 

About 2 days passed, and in these 2 days many things happened, the first thing was that I discovered something incredible. Some scouts reached level 5, and evolved, becoming [Stormcaller], [Trackers] and [Trailblazer].

These classes were, respectively, a bee capable of knowing the weather, saying when it will rain or if we will go through a drought. They could also literally do a "Rain Dance", which used Mp to increase the chance of raining.

The trackers were the same old trackers, but these new trackers could sense living things around them, as well being more resistant and faster.

The Trailblazer were bees that could simply run around aimlessly and then find their way back, I don't know why anyone would want this class, but they had skills to move super fast and could suppress their presence while they moved.

And what was special about these guys? It was that they were all [Solitary Honey Bees] that when they evolved into [Radiant Sunbee].

This was a relief for me, knowing that my older children could become [Radiant Sunbee] if they evolved. Now I wouldn't have to see them dying like ordinary bees and being replaced by other bees, I could lengthen their lives.

I don't know if I'm actually lengthening your lives, but if the [Life] affinity doesn't give you more lifespan, then whoever created this shit might get fired. If I could continue to evolve, and make my children evolve with me, I could ensure that we were always together, and no one would die of old age anytime soon around here.

Another thing that happened was that I started the project ''Like weeds", which consisted of creating many drones for us to expand quickly. I had completely lost my fear of laying eggs, and now I had a body that was an expert at doing so. It was so easy that I didn't even feel the eggs coming out anymore, I just got hungry and tired over time.

This led to the ultimate nursery expansion project, the idea was to create dozens of new drones that would serve as nurses, and increase the nursery's capacity to the maximum.

We have no predators, no ratels, bears or prawns. All we had were the oxen that were eating peacefully and some insects and animals in the region, no one came looking for problems with us.

We went after the problems.

It may sound silly, but as we grew up I became more and more frightened by the idea of being attacked out of nowhere one day, by an alien bear or creature that likes honey. That's why I now wanted a house armed to the teeth.

I wanted soldiers everywhere, workers working, cooks cooking, and everyone happy and safe.

And this dream was possible, because we had no predators, we could expand peacefully, and without fear of being attacked. Farmers tended the land around us, preparing it for planting large quantities of flowers.

Carpenters worked like the elite of workers, manufacturing super resistant materials or cutting branches that hindered construction.

The expansion was so great that one day I created so many eggs that I gained the next level in [Lay eggs]

 

 

At first I was very excited about the options, even more so with [Spellcaster] and [Healer]. But the other options also seemed incredible, so I did the same as always, picked the classes that soldiers or workers would have difficulty evolving into.

Someday my boys might evolve into [Darts] [Toxics] or [Shieldbearer], but I think [Spellcaster] and [Healer] are much more unique or much rarer classes.

After that i went to analyze the materials that I had soaked with [Drop of life] and I saw that this thing is more powerful than it seems.

The stone had created a very thin layer of moss, the branch gained some small roots and green shoots coming out of its ends, while the moss had grown even more, so much that it was transferred to a jar.

'So this thing can accelerate life hum? The stone didn't gain anything, but it seems that there were spores from some plant in this stone, and these spores benefited from the stone's bath of life. The branch basically became a seedling, this could help us bring plants like [Ruby berry] to this region, we could just take a branch and plants here.

Now, this moss is scaring me, won't this thing stop growing? The moss had grown even larger, so muchthat we had to put it in a jar. It had lost all of its pink flowers, and now there were only small golden flowers that grew on top of it, it had leaves colored in various shades of green and blue, and "branches" that grew in the shape of ferns.

I let the cooks take some of the moss to try to use it in food, so far I haven't had any results, but I refuse to accept that this moss is useless. It seems to have weaker healing properties than [A Saint's Tears], but it could still speed up healing.

The liquid of life seemed very useful, but I couldn't create it in large quantities, and I still needed to sacrifice Hp and Xp for it, I can regenerate my Hp, but I'll soon i will run out of Xp.

So since I didn't have the 'funds' to continue this project, I started doing something I had wanted for a long time.

A windmill.

Now that we had a lot of members we could afford to create new things, I sent the project to Levi a few days ago and now the project was almost finished.

The carpenters created wooden frames that were covered with the weavers cloth, these would be the mill propellers. And the workers built a large structure to serve as a mill. The helix was connected to a wooden beam that ran from the helix to a toothed gear made of wood. The gear at the end of this beam was connected to another gear connected to another vertical beam. This way we got an axle that could rotate with the force of the wind.

When the boys completed the work and unlocked the propeller, it began to move super slowly with the force of the wind, like a weather vane, only much slower.

It was to be expected to tell the truth, the workers needed to learn as they did things, so asking them to get it right on the first try was asking a lot, the mill seemed to be too heavy, or had simply been poorly made, because it moved too much. slower than a common mill.

But it still worked.

And the first thing this mill did was move a 'mortar', the boys had done some experiments with the gears and created this simple mortar.

As the shaft moved it turned a gear connected to another gear. This gear then moved 2 large toothed wooden rollers, which sat above a pot. Workers could throw things on top of these rollers, and slowly the noise would be crushed and thrown into the container below.

With this we were able to break small stones, nut shells, seeds and bones.

It wasn't perfect, and we couldn't create flour out of it, just grind things into smaller pieces. But it was still the big start for us.

This got the workers so excited, that soon a group that loved this type of construction appeared, they were thinking about several different machines, and trying to plan and test new ideas.

They used wax alloy gears, wood and belts to create unique designs and tried all the time to create new things, now they wanted to create a machine to create pastes, something that could help cooks tremendously.

It was a kind of pestle, bigger and stronger, but it was still a pestle, and it could help cooks process hard ingredients.

I was relaxing peacefully in my quarters when I received the news from Hans, be very happy for him for a moment but when I took a look at his memory I could see that he had fought alone against a creature that looked like a praying mantis, the fight was fierce, and it seemed that the praying mantis was the one who would win, but in the end Hans managed to distract the praying mantis and take away your head.

But Hans did not go unpunished, he lost an arm, and had several wounds all over his body, and was now being quickly carried back home by the other soldiers.

'Damn Hans! Why didn't you fight safely like I told you?! You almost died and I only found out now!?!'