Marigold – A LitRPG

After waiting a few moments Hans appeared in front of me, he was missing one of his arms and was visibly very injured, several other soldiers who had minor injuries were helping him move and had an expression of pride on their faces.

"What the hell happened to you Hans?!"

Before hecould even speak I activated my healing aura and quickly healed Hans, his wounds healed quickly and his eyes regained their shine.

"...Thank you very much mom, I managed to evolve!" Said Hans as if his wounds meant nothing.

"You're all hurt! And you lost an arm! How did that happen?!"

"It was a hard fight against a big monster, mother ! Hans attacked that thing ferociously and completely alone, and killed it epically after a long fight!" Pronounced an excited soldier.

"It wasn't quite like that... I fought alone against a creature similar to a praying mantis, he was very fast and had bladed arms, but I managed to wear him down in ranged combat, in addition to attacking whenever he was distracted by the soldiers." Hans explained.

"That's right! Hans wanted a one-on-one fight to gain all the XP! So we just stood around preventing the monster from escaping and threatening him from time to time to distract him!" Said another soldier.

"But what about your arm?!"

"I can recover it with evolution!" Hans said simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"How are you so sure, you idiot?! What if you end up with one less arm for the rest of your life!?"

"I just know... We always recover our wounds when we evolve, I could see that in the soldiers." Hans said.

"Ugh.. Do you even have any evolution preferences? I don't think there is much difference between these options."

"Yes! I want to be a champion please!" Hans said confidently.

"Oh? So now you want to become a champion, it seems like a really cool class, and it suits you."

"Yes! I like how champion sounds, I thought about [Guardian] but I prefer a class that can do a lot of damage! I don't like the idea of not being able to fight for my brothers!" Hans said.

"Of course it's ok darling, if it's what you want I don't have a problem with it."

After choosing [Champion], Hans simply fell to the ground like a brick, it was very fast and I could see his body starting to vibrate violently before it tore apart and from inside his body a small chrysalis of gold and white colors came out. . The chrysalis struggled fiercely to free itself from the old body's grip and then stopped calmly on the ground.

"Did that happen too quickly?!"

'-Yes... Maybe it's because of Mother's affinity, this must be influencing Hans' accelerated evolution." Said a beacon.

"Boys, take Hans to the infirmary, and take care of your wounds!"

"Of course mom!" The soldiers said.

---

 

Even though Hans's transformation into a chrysalism was quick, it doesn't mean that his evolution was rapid, 3 days had passed and we still had no news from Hans, and in the meantime the workers began to build new machines with the mill, in addition to creating new mills and improving the machine efficiency.

Now we had a primitive version of a grinding stone, a rolling pin, and a "piston" that kept hitting a pot to knead its contents.

Some young soldiers had evolved, but no class worth mentioning, in addition to several other scouts who also evolved, Trevis was their leader and they were all professionals at walking these plains.

The cooks became a "powerful" group within this hive, everyone respected them and all their requests took priority. The kitchens expanded further and more cooks were created. I had also created a large group of [Healers] and [Spell Casters], but to my surprise the healers needed 1 month to hatch, even with my affinity, and the [Spell Casters] needed 3 weeks.

It seems like I made the right choice in choosing these classes, from my experience classes that take that long either have incredible physical abilities, or are extremely useful.

At that moment I was in my room, which became a "royal" room, the whole place was surrounded with elite soldiers with the best and bravest wariors, the ceiling and walls were filled with immoveable bees that worked proudly like lamps, and I had dozens of "prestigious" workers who took care of me, whether bringing food or fulfilling my orders.

Things got so serious that the nursery no longer bothered to send dozens of employees to get the eggs. They had asked the workers to build a "shelf" for the eggs.

This shelf was more like a palanquin, it had several floors and small spaces to lay eggs, there were 5 of these palanquins, and when I laid eggs a small group of nurses came and organized them in the palanquin, and then the soldiers carried it to the nursery to be emptied.

I became some kind of Buddha statue in a temple or something, I was completely closed, inside the hive, without needing to do anything, since I could see everything that happened through the [Beacons].

And speaking of them, I created a new group of beacons a few days ago and they had hatched by this point, and they had very useful abilities, like being able to sense whenever a member of the hive is injured, or being able to suppress negative feelings, like fear, anger or sadness in a specific target.

This new group joined the first beacons, and now we had a "server" that could house about 40% of the hive, we still needed many more beacons, but these new guys already helped a lot to the rotten 2 beacons who had to do everything themselves , they were weak as hell, so much so that they lived isolated and protected like me, but they seemed to have a "neet" personality, and they liked that seclusion.

The laundry room proved to be the biggest success so far, all my children loved cleaning, and we had groups working in the place 24 hours a day, every day, whether it was washing clothes, putting them out to dry or folding them and putting them away.

Weavers were also gaining work experience, and began to create thicker, stronger and softer cloth, which made its popularity explode even further.

And lastly, the theater, which was the bees favorite place to go at night, they went there to see improv shows created by the bards, music and talent shows, they did theater and games and everyone loved the place, they even managed to create some self-made instruments, those were very "poorly made" and was still a project on paper, but soon we could get really good instruments.

And now we were here, in front of Hans, and waiting for him to emerge. We didn't have to wait long, because soon the cocoon, which was quite large by the way, simply opened in two, and from inside a large, heavily equipped bee emerged.

The bee that was now in front of me was almost half my size, it was tall and robust, with toned muscles and a light armor that covered its entire body, it had small antennae and a small, common bee abdomen, its arms were thick and powerful and had the same hair as my arms, his cub was a crystalline white that resembled snow, but was combed in a way that made you think he was wearing a scarf, his legs were toned and muscular and had large pairs of wings that spread across the ground like a cape. His face was very handsome for a bee and he had large sharp black eyes that intimidated with just one look.

"Hello mom, Hans reporting for duty!"

 

 

'Wow, Hans must be the most "balanced" member of this hive, most have one or two very powerful stats, and the rest are very weak, but Hans is well balanced in everything and has very good skills. Mainly {Thirst for victory} {Encouragement}, with this he becomes a great fighter and defender, a true defender of the people.'

'And this [Blow of Honor] is also very good! Being able to negate an attack that would have rit killed him is really good! But the skill says if you lose all your HP. So if he was 'put to sleep' the skill wouldn't save him? And what can he do with it? I doubt Hans will be able to escape an enemy capable of one-hit killing him...'

"Hans! Are you amazing, how you feel?"

"Great! Besides getting my arm back, I no longer feel any pain in my body! And I feel so light and powerful!" Hans said happily.

"You must be hungry, you can go eat Hans, I'm proud of you dear!"

"Thank you mom! I'll go right away!"

After that Hans simply disappeared from the room running and flying quickly, and I was "alone" again. With that I signaled the workers to bring the large jar that contained [Drops of Life] and for another group to bring me some flowers and plants.

The [Drops of Life] proved to be very useful, hive members could simply drink it and heal wounds, as well gain Xp. I gave some to the cooks, and they mixed it all into the nutrient paste, and from this we discovered that we could slowly but surely increase the colony's level through food.

Another thing was that even though I had created a lot of this essence of life, I still hadn't gained even one skill level, and I spent so much XP that I hadn't even reached level 2 yet.

But it was worth it, there was no point in me being high level, since my troops were low level, I needed all the soldiers to get their 2nd evolution like Hans to start chasing my 2nd evolution.

And with that I became a old lady who takes care of plants.

For the past few days I have been creating [Drops of Life] and giving some to Ken, and the other part went to my flower experiments.

I didn't distribute this essence to everyone because I was afraid that this "dishonest" method of evolving could cause problems with the evolution options, so Ken was a perfect volunteer, I could know if all the evolutions would be "supports" because of the method of evolution, or if he would gain production classes because he is a [Worker].

Ken barely reached level 2 yet, this method was simply too slow, but the plants achieved a lot with it.

I discovered that if I used the essence on seeds, I would only accelerate their growth, if used on adult plants I had a chance of causing a mutation, or simply explosive growth.

The smaller the plants, or rather, the greater the amount of essence for the plant in question. There would be a greater chance of causing a mutation, and these mutations did not turn all plants into healing plants, some gained abilities such as improved resistance, monstrous vitality, some became poisonous, changing colors, developing fruits and some simply died.

I didn't understand why some plants died, but it seemed that trying to flood a plant with the essence wasn't a good idea, it was like overdosing the plant. If I used the essence in small quantities I could cause mutations, and if I used too much I could kill the plant.

And speaking of mutations, my cooks started creating jelly that could cause mutations in the larvae, it was a product that needed a lot of Mp and resources, but it still had its uses. The jelly that the cooks created could grant new skills, or change an existing skill.

Testing showed that it wasn't a big deal, things like [Glow] turned into [Bright Glow], and things like [Precise Cut] turned into [Deep Cut]. And it wasn't always that it worked, some mutations were bad, like a small worker who lost the [Glow] skill and gained the [light up] skill, the skill allowed him to create a small glow in any part of his body, but it was very dim and couldn't light up as much as regular workers, it wasn't a big deal, but that was the final straw for Ken, who demanded that we cancel this project before "defective" bees started to hatch.

I ended up approving this, since I wouldn't have the courage to look into the eyes of one of my children and say that he is defective because of my crazy experiments carried out on him since birth.

---

 

6 weeks later

 

I don't know how to say this...

We have neighbors now, I think?

About 2 weeks ago a small group of mushrooms arrived at us, and when I say arrived, it's because they came walking!

These mushrooms were very cute looking, they had no arms or legs, nothing but 2 small black eyes on their 'bodies' and dozens of little feet that sat at their base. They were not at all threatening, and looked extremely friendly.

They arrived here in a small group of around 10 members, all of them were different sizes, and walked closely together. And they didn't seem to have any objective in mind, they were just passing through the region.

But unfortunately for them, when they entered the soldiers field of vision they were attacked, the soldiers tried to tear them apart and kill them, but they had no blood or sight, they were just walking mushrooms.

And when the message of "invaders" reached me I saw the memories of the soldiers and saw that these "invaders" were not threatening at all, they were so peaceful that they didn't even defend themselves from the soldiers, they just ran around in circles stupidly like chickens without head.

I ended up ordering them to stop the attack, and bring the mushrooms home, they were about 2x the size of a regular soldier, but they were soft and weak. In addition to being quite sweet when they weren't being attacked.

At first, the members of the colony didn't agree to let these creatures get closer, but I was determined, and soon as they arrived in the roots of the tree they began to dig in and form "nests". They seemed to absorb nutrients from the earth to survive, and never caused us any problems.

So much that I personally went up to one of them, who was happily burying himself in the ground while licking another smaller mushroom, and i analyzed them.

 

 

I couldn't see their full stats, but I could still see that they were weak as hell, and they certainly didn't have evil plans with 0.2 Int.

When I healed them all with [Radiant Aura] they looked at me with puppy dog eyes and swayed happily, I decided to leave them here in the care of the farmers, because even though they are creatures that walk, they are practically still plants.

And now 4 weeks later, we had a Wappo Fungling "farm", these guys were spreading all over the place, they grew in the roots, in the trunk and spread all over the place.

It seems that with us ensuring their protection, they didn't need to worry about predators, and their group of 10 easily became a group of 100 in no time. But the farmers weren't angry about it, quite the opposite. Apparently these little guys were very beneficial to the plants around them, they could fertilize the earth and make it super soft, plus they were doing an excellent job with the shells left by the soldiers.

These barks were thrown away, or buried, since when thrown close to the trees where we lived, this stuff not only started to stink and made the environment smell bad, but also attracted other insects. But these beautiful little mushrooms could break these shells into small pieces in a few days, and eat everything, without leaving an unpleasant odor or anything like that.

They became popular as the hive's "trash bin", we could throw anything bio-degradable at them, and they would happily eat it. But this made their numbers explode and now we had to deal with these guys who could be potentially dangerous.

"I suggest we kill them all, it's just not worth keeping other potentially dangerous beings so close to us." Spoke Hans dryly.

"That's too hasty, they're not strong, threatening, or even intelligent to pose a danger to us!" Ken said.

"But until when? We don't know their game, they could be gaining Xp by eating our trash, and just waiting to become powerful enough to eat us all..." Trevis said darkly.

"Oh, stop being dramatic, not everything out there is going to kill us! I'm in favor of keeping them, we can have accommodation and be well developed, but we only will become a real society when we start to explore the resources of others species! We can't achieve everything with bees, these guys are proof of that." Ken said.

"Hmm... How about if we kill just some of them? We don't need to kill them all, but just reduce their number! This way we would ensure that they don't grow too much, and we can gain some Xp with that!" Trouble said.

We all looked at him like he just had a genius idea, it was amazing for Trouble to have ideas like that, I thought he would be in the same camp as Hans about killing everyone.

"T-That could work... We could raise them like cattle, using their abilities to benefit us, and harvesting them to use as food and a source of XP..." Levi said.

"Can we eat these things?" Matt asked.

"I think so! They are mushrooms that walk, when they die they should become just mushrooms, so the cooks could use their bodies for the hive's cooking, but the number of them is so large that I don't know how we could use them all" Said Carl.

"We could use them to create ingredients, we don't just need to use them as they are, we could grind them, knead them and dry them to use in various ways, or also use them as bait or fertilizer." I said through a representative.

"Hmm.. That might work, we could use their bodies to attract some creatures to kill, and they would be good training for the young soldiers." Hans said.

"Then it's decided! We will keep them like cattle! And use them for various purposes!" Said Steve, who was second in command after me.

It seemed cruel to use these creatures like that, but I was never the "save the animals from getting into a frying pan" type, I liked meat, wearing fur clothes, and eating cheese and yogurt, I didn't like how animals were treated , being confined in small environments to quickly fatten, but I wouldn't stop eating a hamburger because the food production system was cruel.

If I can make my hive's life easier by "domesticating" these creatures for harvesting later, then what's the harm in that? I'm not going to lock them in tiny cages and force them to reproduce.

I'm just going to let them reproduce naturally and reduce their numbers when they exceed the limit.

With this we entered the era of farmers and ranchers. The young soldiers were taken to the mushrooms and quickly killed them, cutting their bodies or crushing them. They barely gave Xp, about 0.4 for a large mushroom, but their numbers were high, and they could be a safe source for soldiers and workers. Ken was the first in line, and killed so many mushrooms that he reached level 3.

The cooks then chopped them, dried them or turned them into pastes, which they mixed into food, these guys were not poisonous but could cause a slight numbness in the tongue, which made them very popular in the kitchen, they had a tasty taste and if well processed they could be used in various dishes.

We didn't have stomachs to process complex food, so everything needed to be turned into jelly, honey, candy or paste. But the mushrooms became pastes, powder or small pieces that were mixed into food to give it an "Up".

In the meantime of 5 weeks we also started creating a new windmill project, and my [Spell Casters] were born!

They were weak as hell, but they had a skill called [Enchantment] and a trait called [Magic talent].

And they were!.... Cool.

Spellcasters weren't as amazing as I thought. They are able to use spells! Which defeats my theory that all spells were just [Skills] powered by Mp. But these spell casters are only able to cast a spell called [mana ball] the spell created a small bluish orb the size of a pinhead and launched it 'quickly' forward, and that was it. No explosions, no major impacts, and no lacerations.

We did a test with a wax target, and the ball barely damaged the wax, and worst of all, these "sorcerers" could only use this one magic! Apparently they have a limit on how many spells they can learn, they told me that their current limit is 1 spell, and that they can try and create new spells by observing the world. But they would lose the previous spell.

It looked like shit to be honest. But these guys were good at one thing at least.

They were very curious.

They were interested in absolutely everything, how the rain happened, why the sun was yellow, why the wind flowed, why the plants grew, why magic exists? They asked themselves questions all day long, did research and took notes on their ideas, and tried to discover how the world worked.

So I created the "magic club", they would work together with the research and development club, to create new items, the spell casters were not useful in a fight at that time, but they could still do something with magic that I never could. They could manipulate it! Literally pulling 'Mana' out of they bodies and producing a small blue light between they hands, to me that was a spell, but they told me it was just the result of releasing mana at a single point, like "burning" something.

I wanted to learn how to do this, so I named the oldest one Willow, and asked him to teach me this "trick".

"What the hell am I doing wrong? I can't pull anything out!"

"You're doing well mom! You just have little mana to 'pull' out. Try visualizing a small star in your hand, and think about feeding it with your energy!" Willow said.

'Show off, just because he has more mana than me because of [Magic talent], he thinks he can belittle me! I won't rest until I can use magic! I will learn to use this mysterious force of this strange world!'

The magic was unique, something that many people in my old world dreamed of even touching, and now I had this magic, but I couldn't use it, couldn't I let the opportunity to become a magical girl slip through my grasp? So easily!

Focusing on my desire to use magic I begin to imagine a small spark, like that of a birthday candle, a beautiful, magical glow that can warm the heart and bring joy, I try to remember the feeling of having mana drawn from the body. my body and then I feel a tug. Something that flowed from inside me, passed through my arms and ended up in the palm of my hand, and soon I could see the air above my palm trembling as if something was going to happen, followed by a small glow that shone in rows of colors. different and beautiful, the shine was tiny and insignificant, but it fulfilled its purpose.

That  brought me a lot of joy.