That evening, I finally spent the extra gene points I got on my personal morphotype.
I put them all into venom potency. One day, I wanted to have a venom that would bring down even a giant—even if that required me an unreasonable amount of gene points.
I was also curious where the limit of 'Venom Potency' was. I already had the 15th tier, and most genes went only to 10th!
However, when I raised the gene to the 16th tier, its description showed something unexpected.
Instead of an 800% boost (50% per tier), the numbers suddenly went to 1000%! From 15th tier up, each tier gave me an extra 250% of damage.
And the 21st tier gave me 500% extra damage to the total of 2500% damage. The sting with a power of 25—no, 26—stings!
'System, how the hell does this work? I thought the tiers of genes like these just had linear scaling!'
'Ah, I see you. Are you just saying, "I have no idea where you took this idea from, user, beep-boop"? Is that so?'
I suppressed a desire to punch my head—it won't hurt the system, anyway—and just noted to myself that genes could scale unpredictably and I should always read their descriptions.
Next day, Workharder returned with a thousand of her best Foremen Bees and a report on dismantling progress.
All the flesh was stripped from the giants' bones. The bones themselves were left to the weather for now, and other remains were half-dismantled. Builder Bees of Camp Rich were building new storage cells day and night to fit all the gathered things, and there still wasn't enough space or hands to carry the plunder to other hives.
"We will change that, Father!" Workharder promised, grinning from ear to ear. She rubbed her hands with anticipation. "We will work day and night, until our hands shake from exhaustion, but we will build that road!"
That day was the day of the preliminary phase of Project Hotwheels—planning the route.
Several thousands Researchers, Builders and Commandos scouts worked together to chart the optimal route for the future railroad and all its rest stops.
According to my expectations, the carts will move from Camp Rich to Hive Supremo with a heavy burden of gold and coal, but return with a lighter load of food and other supplies. This meant that if we built the railway in a way that let it roll downhill toward Hive Supremo as much as possible, it would be more effective
Wielding only wax tablets, lengths of string, and long wooden or bone pegs, my bees flew out into the wilderness and charted out the path.
On the first day, they laid out the path all the way to the first fort on the way to Camp Rich.
The night after, a storm wiped out half of their pegs, although the bees placed them with great care.
After hearing this, I could only curse the weather. Although I expected it would interfere, I underestimated just *how much*.
"Then I will give my blood to the lead people who are charting the way. With the perfect memory it will give them, they will keep the path in their memory and show it to the builders later!"
Although the health lost from my previous bloodletting hasn't fully recovered yet, I gave 20 Researcher Bees in charge of the railway planning my blood.
Now, pegs became just a preliminary road sketch tool—the actual way was saved in those bees' memories.
But before the railway was even fully planned, bees near Hive Supremo already began building their part of it!
To prevent the entire construction being brought down by storms, they had to work extremely quickly.
As soon as they dug out a meter of the road ditch, they filled it with gravel, which was plentiful enough near all the pillar mountains. Then the bees jumped on the resulting foundation until it got tapered down, added wooden crossties for the future rails, added some more gravel, and jumped on the result again.
Unluckily for us, there was no bedrock to speak about. The Forager Bees on the digging duty had to dig two meters down just to reach somewhat packed ground. Everything above was soft, black and incredibly fertile—but terrible for making roads on.
"This is nothing that some hard work can't defeat, Father!" Workharder assured me after I voiced my concerns. "If digging deep is what they need, this is what we will do!"
"Do we even have enough gravel?" I wondered.
"We should. And if we don't, there's a lot of sand near our best clay-gathering spots. We will just carry it over!"
Watching bees dig a ditch only to fill it with bags of gravel and sand reminded me of the time of Project Great Flood.
Except this time, the bees worked even faster, thanks to their brass shovels!
Every free meter of the planned road route, as far as the eye could see, was taken by a worker, and another was waiting to take over when the first got tired.
Workharder put as many bees on this as was physically possible, and the results were predictable.
In just two days, they finished building a third of the route!
A gravel and sand road three meters wide was stretching into the distance, easily visible from Camp Rich. It was not comfortable for walking, but it was a solid, water-resistant construction!
Next night, another storm proved me right.
The road became wet, but everything, including the crossties, stayed in place.
In a few more days, the foundation of the railroad was going to be finished.
At the same time, work was underway on the first cart for the railroad. The designs for it weren't completed, but they took a clearer and clearer shape every hour.
Now, all the question was—*when* will Researchina find a way to smith iron?