Marigold – A LitRPG

 

As I occasionally consumed large amounts of [Grand Bougain] pollen to produce significant quantities of hard wax, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was an easier way to handle all this work. It wasn’t particularly complicated, but it was incredibly repetitive. I figured that to streamline this process, I might need to create a brood of [Workers], although I wasn’t entirely ready to embrace the idea of a hive just yet...

Returning home, I began spitting out small balls of hard wax and piled them in a corner. I wondered if there were easier ways to create wax variations like [Hard Wax], [Rough Wax], and [Colored Wax] by using honey in the manufacturing process. I already knew I could mix ingredients to create different types of wax, but I was curious—if I added honey to the mixture, would I end up with a combination of common wax and hard wax, or would I create an improved version of [Hard Wax]?

Thinking about possibilities is pointless without action, so I decided to test my theory. I approached the small jar of honey and drank what was left inside it. Satisfied with the meal, I set out to gather pollen for the experiment. As soon as I reached the peculiar sunflowers and filled the space within my chest with pollen, I focused on producing wax. I imagined it being hard and resilient, hoping that this thought might influence the final product. To my surprise, what emerged from my jaws was indeed [Hard Wax]! And it had some intriguing properties!

 

 

Damn! This is amazing! The wax retains the best qualities of both components and sheds their drawbacks. Ordinary wax was very fragile, as you’d expect, but easy to work with and quick to dry. Meanwhile, Hard Wax was tough to shape but hardened like stone once dry, though it took forever to set. Now, this [Common Hard Wax] can be shaped easily like [Common Wax] and is as durable as [Hard Wax]!

I couldn’t help but notice that the quality remained low, even though I used the same honey that had produced higher-quality wax before. It seems that the very act of combining ingredients lowers the quality of the final product, or maybe the pollen I used wasn’t particularly good.

The only downside is that to produce this [Common Hard Wax], I needed honey—a resource that’s... difficult to make. Also, after creating just one sphere of this new wax, I could only make two more similar spheres with the material I had left in my chest. So, despite its high utility, it comes with a steep production cost. Essentially, I’ve just discovered the equivalent of concrete for bees!

I left my little balls of special wax behind and went off to make more honey, eager to produce more of this miracle wax!

---

 

I may have gone a bit overboard in my creation process and ended up making a lot of special wax balls. Now I had a surplus and needed to find a use for them!

At least, after all that work—making honey, gathering pollen, and producing wax—I gained two skill levels!

 

 

At least these levels made the honey-making process a bit less grueling, and the wax crafting became slightly easier too, though nothing substantial or worth measuring.

Now, in front of me, I had several balls of special wax, and I started thinking about how I could use them efficiently. These small, irregularly shaped balls had already hardened and could now be used as bricks. I could make more [Common Hard Wax] to use as glue to bind them together. My main idea was to create a new honey tank! I seriously needed a larger honey reserve—having to keep going back and forth between tasks was exhausting.

I decided to use half of the hole as a honey storage. If I waxed the walls and then used these blocks to create a dike, I could store a large amount of honey, and I would only need to leave a small opening big enough for me to get in and out.

With an elaborate plan to create my large honey tank, I went out again in search of more materials to create a bit more wax. This time, ordinary wax would suffice. After some hard work, I managed to cover the entire area designated for the tank and started stacking my small wax stones, sticking them together with ordinary wax. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally completed my little personal project!

 

 

Hmm? Can I earn [Traits] like that out of nowhere? I really wasn’t even trying! Well, I guess I shouldn’t look down on something earned for free.

 

 

'Oh, my god! Finally, a good [Trait]! I mean, one that seems useful. I already had the [Trait], {Wise}, which wasn’t bad, but didn’t seem to do much either—it just indicated how I accumulated knowledge in life. But this new trait, Hard Worker, seemed to give me a great advantage in item manufacturing, which would be very useful!'

I was already so tired from today’s work that I couldn’t force myself to fill the tank with honey. I went down to take a quick look at my soldier and then headed to bed.

 

 

 

Damn it! Time flies! Tomorrow, it will be born! I believe it will be a larva like ordinary bees because when I look at the small egg, it no longer has the pure white appearance—it’s now a deep gray color, and the size hasn’t increased at all.

As I went to sleep, I felt anxious about what awaited me when I woke up. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I should react to a tiny bee larva that might call me mama...

---

 

When I woke up in the morning, the first thing I did was rush to the small wax jar containing the soldier's egg to find out what had happened. When I looked inside... A little larva! White with yellow details. I didn’t know how to react, but as I watched it move occasionally inside the jar, like a little lazy kitten, I couldn’t help but think that this little larva was the most adorable thing I had ever seen!!

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH ME?!?

It was a larva! A goddamn maggot, just like any other you can think of! But when I looked at it, all I could think of was how adorable it was.

This had to be the work of the Bee instincts or the [Maternal Connection] skill—maybe a combination of both. But no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that this fat larva was horrifying, my mind could only see how adorable it was! I stood there, staring at the little larva with a conflicted heart, feeling like a first-time mother who had just been hit by the truck of maternal duty.

I looked at this little guy and tried to see its [Status].

 

 

'Damn, this little guy doesn't even have 1 full day of life, and he already has more [Attack] points than me!'

'And this effect—starving??!? The soldier I had invested so much time in was now starving to death!?'

What does this larva eat? Honey? Nectar? Leaves? I have no idea! I think honey should be the best option, especially [Grand Bougain], the description mentioned that it was very nutritious!

After rushing out like a first-time mother reacting to a hungry baby, I quickly returned to the small hole with a chest full of [Grand Bougain] nectar and created honey, which I poured into the small jar containing the tiny larva.

I didn't know if I should feed the honey mouth-to-mouth, but at that moment I let my bee instincts take over, and they were very welcome to help. They told me this way of feeding was the best. The little larva, now almost entirely submerged in [Bougain Honey], had been very quiet but suddenly began to move frantically. For a moment, I thought it might be drowning, but soon it started devouring the honey at an impressive speed! I kept pouring the contents of my chest into the little jar, and soon all the honey I had was gone, yet the larva still showed signs of hunger, and the starving effect was still active.

THIS LARVA EATS A LOT!!

The amount of honey I had in my chest wasn't small, yet the larva devoured it all in an instant!

After repeating the same process of gathering nectar, turning it into honey, and pouring it into the jar with the larva about six times, the little larva finally seemed satisfied! And I just wanted to know where on earth all that absurd amount of honey went! This little larva clearly didn't have room for all that!

After a quick check on its status, I was relieved to see that the starving effect was finally gone, but I was also very surprised to see a new effect had appeared!

 

 

'It's so nice when the system itself recognizes all my hard work!'

This effect of Well Nourished seems to be very good, but it didn't seem to have any noticeable effect... or maybe I just can't see the effect it has? I know things can have affinities, but I've never seen that tab in [Status], and I still remember how I felt when I was exhausted and the description of the effect was shown, but not what the effect itself did.

After ensuring my soldier was well-fed, I set off again in pursuit of my next goal—filling my new honey tank! And while I was at it, I also wanted to find out what would happen if I consumed two or more different types of nectar to create honey. Would it be a 'generic' honey, or would it carry all the advantages of the nectars it was made from?

After a mad dash to gather various types of nectar and returning to my small home to transform the mixture of several different plants into honey, I poured it into the small jar of improvised honey that I still kept inside my house. Upon analyzing it, I discovered that I didn't seem to have the capacity to create a type of miracle honey...