On that day, the Bee Empire entered a new wave of expansion, larger than the ones we had before.
Humans, despite my fears, didn''t try to act out again. The gifts of gold must''ve been more than valuable to calm people down and make them eager to trade more.
I couldn''t be there, watching their every move, so I passed this to Explanatory, who was studying humans anyway. B568-114 took a semi-permanent position under Explanatory''s wing. There, she was going to learn how to sneak around Commando-style, and then spy on humans and their thoughts, while also transferring my trade requests.
She also finally chose herself a name, which she proudly announced when I came to see her off.
"I liked to make beasts listen to me, but it feels better, more right, to carry other''s voices. It''s hard to have my own voice—I don''t want it. I''d rather be Carries-Voices instead, and I hope this will stay with Researcher Explanatory."
"That''s a good name, Carries-Voices." I smiled at her reassuringly. "It''s alright to not want responsibility, or to think hard… Oh, believe me, I know just *how* hard responsibility is! Good luck, and do what Explanatory says. She''s a smart girl—she won''t let you get in trouble. Especially after you learn how to sneak around well!"
"I will, Father!"
I knew that having a beast-tamer in my hive would be a great thing, but if there was one bee born with a telepathy gene, it was only a matter of time until there were more.
Although it was a wonder that we had one telepath, but four Oracles.
The lack of telepaths made working with dragons over the next three days complicated, and our connection with the human village was unreliable.
But three days later, the wild scavengers and my girls have finally finished clearing the last piece of rotten meat from the skeletons lying near Hive Supremo like a morbid reminder of our victory.
We all could breathe easier, and the dragons finally returned to their regular working agreement with bees. I also hoped that the onslaught of infections that hit the hive after these few days would go down.
At least we already had soap invented—somewhere in the Early Bronze Age pack. (I wondered when we would reach Iron Age, considering that we had iron *and* trains…)
With dragons carrying iron and news from humans, we were ready to expand further than ever before!
Although the war killed many of my progeny, it was a drop in the ocean compared with how many we still had. There were plenty of bees to build new hives farther and farther away, and plenty of materials to build a railroad toward them and send trains running!
Well, more like walking. But still.
As she promised, Researchina finished researching the secret of steel-making, alongside several others, which we now could implement since we had a decent amount of materials.
〔Steel Refinement〕
Brainpower requirement: 35000
Allows refining steel from iron or iron ore.
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〔Improved Metalsmithing〕
Brainpower requirement: 30000
Allows creating items from more hard to work with metals.
〔〕〔〕〔〕
〔Iron Weapons and Tools〕
Brainpower requirement: 20000
Workpower: +30 per 1 thousand affected workers.
Military: +30 per 1 thousand affected soldiers.
〔〕〔〕〔〕
〔Steel Weapons and Tools〕
Brainpower requirement: 30000
Workpower: +40 per 1 thousand affected workers.
Military: +40 per 1 thousand affected soldiers. Sёar?h the n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.
〔〕〔〕〔〕
These technologies, besides being great on their own, gave me 400 development points together—but it was still not enough to reach the development level 8.
So one of my first orders was to prepare the founding of new hives all the way to the borders of humans. Of course, the closest hives will have to be well-fortified, just in case.
I didn''t plan to mix with humans at this stage—just be close enough to conveniently transport their items.
Hundreds of thousands of bees began building work camps that would lately become waypoints for the railroad or their own hives. One of them would be Rulia''s new hive, while the rest belonged to Queens that I and Ambrosia made together.
The old-fashioned way, of course, which meant they would have to spend a month growing and learning.
Undecided and her Oracles were an unexpected source of help with establishing new hives. Their probability assessment—or finding the most solid points in dreams, as they called it—helped immensely with finding best and worst spots.
It felt very much like cheating—I basically stole knowledge from myself from the future, thanks to them! The time fuckery involved... I didn''t want to even think about it.
They also could make weather forecasts now—about as reliable as weather forecasts on Earth. This was useful, too, since work had to slow down or stop during storms.
In just two weeks since the humans accepted my ultimatum, twenty large new camps have been built, and Worker Bees eager to work for the Empire or explore new grounds have settled in there.
During this time, a few humans from the village took horses left from Zash''s people and rode toward distant human lands. I''d be worried about it, if Carries-Voices didn''t read the thoughts of humans beforehand and told them to me.
A few days later, the humans returned without all their horses but one; instead, they had an entire cart of foodstuffs. The villagers won''t go hungry this season. I was sure that my gold had bought a notable part of this cart.
(By now, I really wanted to get one human and interrogate him about their culture and politics, but despite working with us, they still prayed in their temple so that their gods would protect them from spirits'' ill temper. The more mysterious and knowledgeable we appeared, the safer it was for us.)
Craftsmen, besides iron rails, were making iron tools, too. Steel tools would be even better, but iron tools were cheaper to make. With more Craftsmen Bees being trained than ever before, they could smith hundreds of thousands in record time!
And with each created tool, the development level 8 approached.
But it wasn''t until two more weeks passed that I got it at last…