Aurum - Year 2       {2 Weeks later}

 

We were all inside my room, and in front of me was a large table filled with dozens of bottles full of mysterious liquids and some strange items.

This was something orchestrated by the alchemy club, some time ago they had fragmented into the alchemy club, artifice club and potions club, but they were all still sub-categories of the alchemy club.

Because of this, I now had individuals working in all areas, some achemists evolved into [Elixirist], classes capable of creating unique compounds with their bodies and even creating low-level potions using their mana.

We had [Artifices] Classes that granted greater precision when manufacturing items, and greater mana control. And a few [Potion Artisan] Classes that allowed the boys to create stronger potions.

Because of this, we now had a lot of cool potions, most of them were useless, or without much value. But the alchemy club also created many other things, such as new materials, everyday items, and some cool mixtures, such as ointments, medicines, shampoos, conditioners, soap, cream and things like that.

Everyone in the hive was very obsessed with personal cleanliness, so these products were in high demand, and a community washroom was even built in the 3rd ring, where everyone would go to wash, do their hair, and get a skin care.

The most useful potions we obtained, and most precious items produced by the alchemists were here in front of me, and they wanted to present their discoveries directly to me. It seems that I am the one who determines whether a department will gain more or less "resources" to stay active. Everyone knew that the magic department was in full swing, gaining a lot of resources and priorities, so all the other clubs started making plans to get a solid position in the "pyramid".

"Look mother! This potion can stop the heart of anyone who consumes it! This one can open a hole in your stomach, and this one can blind someone if thrown directly into the eyes!! And this one is my favorite! It can do something rot from the inside out!! By the time our victim realizes he was poisoned, it would be too late!!"

The problem with the alchemy club was that they got too involved with Aldy, the leader of the poisonous bees. Because of this, they created many lethal poisons in collaboration with Aldy, and left other things aside. I don't know how to feel about this, it's always nice to know I have some poison or other things in stock if I need it, but I wish they focused more on magic and stuff like that.

Each club had its preferences, the alchemy club clearly liked weapons, poisons and cleaning items more. The sewing club loved creating cloth items, from fabrics, blankets, and pillows, to plushies, filters, and bags. The cooking club loved creating new recipes, and they kept adding more and more pages to a huge recipe book they had in their possession. Fight Club loved... Well, fighting. And the communication club liked organization, keeping everything in perfect order, creating schedules, agendas, appointments and boring office things.

I wanted everyone to focus on magic, because it was something I liked, but I think I can't force them to follow my wishes, if I just focused on one thing I would end up running out of other things. The fight club was really strong, because they fought all the time, and they specialized in fighting. If I had them learn combat magic, and things like that. They would completely lose their efficiency, just like if I put the magic club to fight, they wouldn't know what to do.

Each club has its specialties, and I need to respect that. I may not like it, and I may even have my favorites, but I can't just erase they dreams and desires to fulfill my own desires.

"...Incredible boys... But you only have poisons there? Nothing more... Significant?"

"Oh!! We have other things mom! This potion here is our test for the alchemical mixture that Max requested!" Said one of the alchemists while showing a pot with a blue label.

"Oh!!!! Is that the mana insulator that Max had asked for?! You guys actually managed to create that?"

"Yes and no! Creating something so specific takes time, but we are on the right track, we managed to create an alchemical mixture that regulates mana, it tries at all costs to remain separate from the ambient mana, and does not let it pass easily." Replied Jasper, the leader of the alchemists.

"How does that work? I thought everything in the world had mana, so how could something that repels mana exist?"

"Well... It's not exactly "Repelling" mana, it's just not mixing with the ambient mana, like water and oil, the problem with this alchemical mixture is that it "corrupts" the mana, if it stays in contact for a long time. with mana, it begins to "dirty" the mana, making it dangerous, and even poisonous." Jasper said.

“Whata shit, huh”

"Yes, to solve this we have to make this mixture more stable, or make it not harmful, the biggest problem with this is that according to Max's tests, this "corrupted" energy can contaminate someone's mana reserves, rendering that person unable to use mana." Jasper said darkly.

"This happened to some of the mages!?!?! Are they okay!?"

"Don't worry, the tests were done with a battery of living mana, and this turned the battery into a broken battery, we still don't have ways to store pure magical energy from the world in crystals, they all always acquire an affinity, or break the items, so all experiments were done with your living mana." replied Jasper.

This was shit, corrupting your mana reserve was a serious matter, our mana reserves were like a cup or jar inside us, which naturally filled over time with magical energy. We could pull energy from this jar to use as we pleased, but if we "corrupted" the mana pool, everything was over. Corrupting the mana reserve was like throwing mud into the jar, as it filled up the energy you accumulated would be "stained" and your reserves would be lower than before.

I once corrupted my mana pool when I tried to absorb too many mana crystals filled with life energy with traces of fire mana. It made my chest burn for days, but just like mud in a jar, if you keep filling it with water for a long time soon the mud will disappear, the problem is that you needed a lot of time for this, and never again could say that the "water" in your "jug" was totaly pure.

"Thank God, I don't want anyone putting themselves in that kind of danger, we don't know if I managed to reverse the corruption in my mana reserves due to my affinity with [Life] or if everyone can cleanse their mana source over time. But I don't want anyone taking risks"

"Of course mom! No problem." Jasper said.

"The next item is incredible, it's a hardening potion!" Jasper said, pulling out a small avocado-shaped fruit gourd.

"What can it do? Well... Apart from the obvious of course."

“This can be used to fortify the tower’s foundations!!” Jasper said proudly.

"Holy shit, I can't believe this!!"

We were having a lot of problems with the tower expansion recently. It had already reached 30 meters in height and 25 meters in radius, this created a lot of weight at the base of the tower, and so we used wooden pillars, stones, roots, and various things at our disposal, but it was still not strong enough, so we started to expand to the sides.

The tower now looked like the beginning of a maze, with a super tower in the middle, and several walls erected around it, all of these walls were being closed and leaving the tower with a stranger appearance. We had 5, 10, 15 and 20 meter towers attached to the main tower, making the whole place look like a set of towers stuck together. And around all of this we had a wall to keep unwanted visitors away.

Most of these new towers were empty, but some even gained owners, the main towers that were closest to the main tower were taken over by the magic club, which took a 10 meter tower to serve as a "magic tower", the 20 meter tower meters became exclusively the place for dormitories. And another 17 meter tower was operated by Steve and the entire communications club.

The main Tower was still the biggest of all, and had some rings inside separating everything, but now everyone was moving and occupying these new towers. Making the main tower my personal property, full of gardens, infirmaries, nurseries, kitchen, sewing room, and more essential things.

The theater, headquarters, lavatory, laundry and storage were all moved to other towers, separating everything according to priorities and accessibility.

And of course, each tower had at least 2 rings, 1 for the proper use of the tower and another ring that was specifically for the soldiers. Every tower was still packed with soldiers, and that wasn't going to change any time soon. The problem was that the towers were very unstable, even becoming dangerous, and Levi did not approve some larger projects due to lack of stability. This mainly affected the tower where all the machines and researchers were, because the machines used to be very heavy, which created a lot of instability in the towers, and researchers used to play with dangerous items, which could expode or corrode the floor. Leaving the tower without stability.

If that happened everything would collapse like a domino, so we are desperately trying to find ways to create stronger, more resilient structures. Building with wax bricks wasn't exactly very good, wax was a light and malleable material, but even [Hard Wax] couldn't resist the pressure of an entire building on top of them, so we used branches, rocks, beams and roots to support everything, and now Jasper came up with a new solution, which was "If we can't make everything out of wood, let's just strengthen the wood we already have." I could make roots grow all over the walls with [Wild Growth] and Jasper potion could reinforce the roots, making them super strong and durable, basically gluing and fixing everything together.

"Incredible! But does this potion have a permanent effect? Or does it only last for a short time?"

"A short time! But!!! We discovered after research with the development department that if we water a plant with a potion, for a long time, and inject small doses of life energy daily, that plant would gain the property of that potion! And it was like that that we created this plant....Here!!” Jasper said happily, leaving the jar on the table, and picking up a flower vase that was given to him by another alchemist.

Inside the flower pot was a small tree, with gray leaves and gray gain, it wasn't silver or sparkly, just dull, dull gray, like concrete. Soon Jasper placed the plant on the ground and looked at one of my royal guards and waved.

Soon the guard took the lead, the guard in question wielded a war hammer, made from bones, roots and stones, and it looked like he was going to crush the plant. Soon he raised his big hammer as if it were nothing and dropped it at once on the strange little plant, but to my surprise after the blow from the royal guard, which easily made the wax jar where the plant grew burst from the pressure, the plant remained firm and strong, with only a few crushed leaves and small broken branches, for it the blow was nothing.

"This plant is called [Metallifolia] and it is the first plant created with this new method! It is very healthy, and if we can spread its branches throughout the base we will have a "skeleton" for the tower!" Jasper said pompously.

"Impressive! But what if we need to prune this shit? What will we do?!"

"Easy, easy mommy!" Said Jasper, who after hearing my question, took a strange jar that contained several layers, and poured a black liquid on one of the branches of the small tree, then a gray and smelly smoke began to rise, and the tree branch gave way in seconds.

"It is highly resistant to physical blows, but it is very weak against acids, and similar things, so it will be perfect for building the base, it will be resistant to storms, blows, accidents and weight. And we can prune it whenever necessary with acid." Jasper replied.

"But what if acid rain happens one day?! Won't everything melt!?"

"W-Well, I think in that case not even the wax walls would help us..." Jasper said

"I see, that's incredible Jasper, congratulations, to you and your club. I will dedicate more resources to you, and if you want you can move to a tower of your own."

The alchemy club shared the tower with the magic club, the two of them collaborated all the time, so it was normal for them to be so close.

"There are no towers near the magic club available, so I would like to wait until a new tower is erected!" replied Jasper.

"Sure, do whatever you want darling, keep up the good work~~"

Soon everyone packed their things and left the room, and I was left alone with my delegation.

"Is it time to start producing more members again? We are expanding a lot, and more labor would be welcome... No, food production has been falling, if I want more members I need to solve the food problem , but for that I need more mana, or evolve all the farmers."

Food production was falling, but not because of a lack of flowers, it was because of a lack of nectar, the flowers only produced a little nectar, and even the farmers couldn't make flowers spout nectar around, so I would need to use the spell [Growth wild] which would use a lot of mana, (something I don't have). Or evolve my farmers, even more. I already had some farmers who had evolved, some became [Floriculturists] and [Floral Farmers] but nothing that would explode food production.

"I seriously need a vacation. When was the last time I left the tower?"

---

 

I was in front of Hans's cocoon, and within moments the cocoon opened to reveal a large, imposing-looking bee. The bee that came out was easily the most intimidating bee I had ever seen.

Possessing complete natural armor across his entire body, four strong and powerful arms, and a slender, well-toned body. The bee had a scarf made of pure white hair and large, piercing black eyes. All of his armor looked like the armor of a knight in stories, but unlike common armor, this was part of Hans body, his head was surrounded by a fully closed and protected helmet, and he had a pure white ponytail falling in his back.

His hands were adorned with super powerful chitin gloves and there were no exposed parts of the armor, his entire body was made in shades of yellow and black and had a large pair of wings that fell to the ground, the wings looked like a large cloak of a knight, with jet black colors and furry shoulder pads.

"Hello Mom, thank you for being here to witness my evolution." Hans said in a deep voice that was somewhat muffled due to the helmet.

 

'SHIT! Hans is strong as hell!! He have more mana than me, and he doesn't even specialize himself in magic!!'

"Wow Hans! You look incredible!! You have become a powerful boss!"

"Thanks mom. If you'll excuse me, I'm hungry and I need something to eat." Hans said respectfully, not letting his hunger show.

"Oh, sure honey, I should have brought some food here, make yourself my guest, and remember you're on vacation now!!"

"...Of course..." Hans said dejectedly.

When Hans quietly left the room, I turned my attention to the easily forgettable Trevis, he was circling the kobold base, and he was basically my eyes out of the house. All important information came from the exploration club, of which Trevis was the leader.

Some time ago he evolved into an [Infiltrator], a very unique class, which allowed Trevis to literally disappear, disappear from the map. He was inconspicuous, and people naturally found it difficult to see him or even remember him. He could walk next to you and you wouldn't notice, which led to a few mini heart attacks in the hive.

The kobolds were doing very well, Hilda and Ciel began to interact more with the village, and the hive began to walk among them, the place was just an settlement with wooden barricades, and poorly made houses. But they had lots of food and farms, they raised animals, grew seeds and built, everything you would expect from a village.

They didn't have specialized people, like blacksmiths or carpenters, it seemed like all the members who didn't know how to fight had died during the trip here, and the ones that were left weren't very good at doing that kind of thing.

The houses were poorly built, the fences poorly tied, and the clothes poorly sewn, but they were alive, and they were grateful for that. The women of the village were looking after the babies, and the males could be seen patrolling, hunting or tending the fields. Their total number didn't even reach 30, including the babies, so it was really impressive that they had survived to this day.

Before I thought about letting them die, throwing them to fate and letting nature take its course, but now I decided that I would help them, I wouldn't let them die if it were up to me, I wouldn't sacrifice my children for them, but still I would protect them as if they were my own... Subjects.

I could take over everything and make houses, fields, farms, walls and clothes for them, but then our theater of "stupid animals" will end, so we are limited to flying calmly around the village, and listening to their conversations. With this and the translator Ciel, we ended up discovering that everyone in the village was very excited and hopeful about the future, to the point of allowing themselves to have children. Apparently kobolds are not the type to make babies when they have the chance to make babies, they only make children when their numbers are very small and the conditions are favorable.

The problem was that they were not in favorable conditions, it was dangerous to live here, and you ran the risk of waking up only to discover that your baby had been eaten by a forest creature. And yet the kobolds believed in us so much and had so much faith that they allowed themselves to have children. The most notable to me were the 3 children of the village leader, Onix. Each cub had the iconic black Onyx fur, and couldn't be confused, they all came from different mothers, but the kobolds didn't seem to care about monogamy.

The first child was a boy with black fur with brown spots, who was called Route, the second was a small boy with gray fur and black spots, he was called Pinup, and the last was a little girl, with brown fur and a large black spot on eyes and back. The little girl was called Maple, and Onix seemed very attached to them, always taking care of them, cleaning them, feeding them or watching over them.

Now they are the size of a 2-3 year old child, which showed me how quickly kobolds grow, and my bees could see them crawling around, while being watched over by older people, or pregnant women.

I had been learning the kobold language. Well, I myself didn't learn nothing. But i would give all the homework to a historian and then just download the content he had learned, but even so I managed to learn part of their language, all in preparation for when I evolved, because I had already decided that after i evolved I would go and speak in person with this Onix guy! From leader to leader.

Or would it be more like from a father to a mother?