〔Increased Lifespan V: +960 days to lifespan.〕
〔Builder Bee〕: +10% to construction speed. Requirements: none. 10,00%
Almost three years. Three more years to enjoy!
I could weep from joy there and then from the successes of my new family's work.
In just a month, inspired by my return and by victory against humans, the bees have expanded with incredible speed.
Well, inspiration was good and all, but we could only do it thanks to resources we got by dismantling bodies of dead humans: ropes, leather, wood, pillar rock, metals, sinews, meat and even bones.
Thanks to all the working hands in the Bee Empire, as long as we had materials for them, new work camps could be built quickly and prepared for their transition to proper hives, which included building all the utility faculties there.
And thanks to trains, more and more of which traveled through the Empire (none as embellished as the First Train, though), we could transport all these materials to their new places.
This transportation was slow for now, but Researchina was already exploring ways to speed trains up. I have explained to her the principles of a steam engine, which we could build now that we had steel.
As soon as Researchers will smooth out the practicalities.
Until now, the trains often traveled with the railroad being built right in front of them! Other times, bees just carried loads over the air.
The communication between the hives improved when I found several other telepaths among the chaotically evolved bees. Their range of sending messages, by my estimate, was 10 kilometers.
Not much, frankly — not enough to connect the hives without messengers, unless we built some sort of telepathic telegraph system, which required way more telepaths and logistical support. The system wouldn't let me give them a telepathic title, either.
Instead, I ordered to teach them how to deal with our tamed animals: aphids and dragons. Aphids were already simple enough, but dragons…
I needed more black dragons, but they were troublesome to lure and tame. The existing ones were used to being near bees, but others were skittish and wild.
Also, Scourge, Disaster and Woe got territorial when they saw other dragons, and claimed all the food from bees for themselves.
So luring dragons for long enough that telepaths could communicate with them (which often scared dragons shitless instead of helping) was an ordeal in itself.
Another of the many projects of the Bee Empire. Its population was steadily reaching 4 million and growing faster and faster by day, with many new Queens being reared.
Since I named Ambrosia my Purest Empress with the special ability from God of Humanity, the attributes of the new generation of young Queens were 10% higher, and so would be those of their daughters when mature.
Sadly, neither I nor Ambrosia ourselves had the "Purest Bloodline", ironically. So I couldn't share it with Vertical Gene Transfer — it had to be obtained naturally.
Thanks to all the hard work (and population growth), the Empire's development points not only went past 2500 necessary for development level 8, they went a good way past this number!
〔Development points〕: 510 / 3000
Today, an Empire Council gathered in full attendance, with everybody being eager as always to attend the picking of new genes.
When I entered the Council Chamber, I saw it being decorated with bouquets of colorful tree leaves and new banners with art commemorating new trains and colonies. The large table was covered with dishes on wooden plates, as if we were preparing for a dinner party, not for a business meeting.
"Welcome, Father! Everything ready for the Great Ceremony of Picking New Genes!" Worriesgone greeted me cheerfully.
Next to her, other Advisers greeted me, too. Attendants and a couple Oracles waved from the sidelines.
"Bring us something great, Father!"
"We are ready to follow you and become whatever you want us to be!"
"There are all your favorite foods," the words were added by Ambrosia, who gestured at the plates near my seat.
I blinked at the gathered people, feeling like I stumbled into my surprise birthday party. Except it wasn't my birthday.
"Uh… Thank you, everybody—but *what* Great Ceremony? Why is this the first time I hear about it?"
"Great Ceremony of Picking New Genes!" Worriesgone exclaimed. "It felt appropriate to do. I even made plans for a larger ceremony, so that all our sisters can know that our Empire grows again. And we can gather all the Queens together so that they get the blessing of your blood…"
"Not all of them," Tabletina interrupted. "Not if you want it to *work*. Father's blood can't be diluted for a hundred people, and I won't allow anyone to put his health at risk. 30 worthiest Queens should be chosen at once at most."
"I see that you have already decided everything. Well, it's a good idea, regardless. I already thought that we should improve our culture, and creating official celebrations sounds like a great way to start!"
I walked to my seat, sharing headpats on the way, and finished by giving Ambrosia a kiss on the cheek. Then I turned to the Council and smiled.
"Well, let's see what the system brought to me this time. Thanks to Chaotic Evolution, we've discovered a lot of genetic potential that we could unlock with morphotyping and such. Let's try making this potential a more stable part of the Empire."
I hoped that with God of Humanity's involvement in it, the thing might become less biased against me, even if he only gave me a pair of his blessings.
But perhaps there was a way to find out.
I turned to Undecided.
"My dear, you must've seen this in the past… Can you tell me how to cheat the Random Number Generator?"