Chapter 127: Bees

Ethan shrugged, walked up to a bare Frost Orange tree, and held out his hand, Growth Acceleration, Soil Fortification.

The effects layered on top of the greenhouse’s warmth, the bare tree burst into bloom, white petals unfolding in a rush.

Clap, clap, clap.

Liora clapped her hands in amazement. Ethan felt a bit embarrassed under her wide eyed stare and reached out to poke her round cheek. "This is just my ability, nothing worth making a fuss over, now then—"

He noticed Liora raising both hands. "What are you trying to do?"

Hummmmm...!!

Pollen drifted free from the Frost Orange blossoms and danced through the air, to Ethan and Pearl’s astonishment, each grain landed with pinpoint accuracy on a female flower.

"She’s... pollinating them?"

After the display, Liora lowered her hands and fell quiet, expression perfectly blank.

Ethan smiled and patted her head. "This is a huge help."

Artificial pollination had always been the most tedious task in the greenhouse, self pollinating crops were manageable enough — they mostly took care of themselves, but cross pollinating ones required a tiny brush and painstaking, flower by flower effort.

Ethan had spent countless hours doing it by hand, hunched over each blossom with a brush barely wider than a hair, with Liora’s ability, that entire problem vanished in an instant.

"You’ll have to help out a lot from now on." Liora expressionlessly held up two fingers in a V-sign.

...

"Liora can do that?" Back in the cabin, Ethan told the others what had happened.

Zharok patted Liora’s head in surprise.

"Truly amazing, then we’ll leave all the pollination work to her from now on."

Pollination was delicate work — especially for someone built like Zharok, gently brushing flowers with a tiny tool was not his forte, he hadn’t expected Liora to handle it so effortlessly.

"Looks like I’m on heavy lifting duty from now on," he said happily.

"Is it magic? If it’s some sort of telekinesis..."

"It’s not magic, meow~" Pearl, nestled in Liora’s arms, shook her head, if it were telekinesis, she would have sensed it. But Liora’s control was far more precise than anything telekinesis could achieve — perfectly transferring every grain of pollen to every flower on an entire tree, even Lady Witch might not be able to manage that.

"I didn’t detect any mana fluctuation, meow~" That was the most telling part.

Zharok looked at Ethan. "Is it similar to the abilities you have?"

"Perhaps. Maybe this is one of the World Tree’s powers."

No more manual pollination, that alone was a blessing.

Zharok rubbed his hands together and returned to the chessboard, Liora seemed interested, she ran over to the table, climbed onto a chair, and watched the game intently.

"Oh! Liora, do you like chess?"

She nodded happily.

Zharok and Walter immediately cleared the board. They were always generous with beginners — not to mention, they couldn’t ask for anything better than fresh blood joining their game, Zharok patiently lined up the pieces and began showing Liora how each one moved.

"I’ll go busy myself." While the others focused on chess, Ethan began sorting through the items he had brought back from the Elven Kingdom, spices, spice seeds, various odds and ends.

He noticed a book placed beside a bracelet, fundamentals of Beekeeping.

’Perfect for learning the Beekeeping skill.’ Fortunately, the book was written in the common language rather than Elvish, Ethan slipped the Bee Queen’s Bracelet onto his wrist and opened the book, the contents covered all the basic knowledge of beekeeping — hive construction, queen management, honey harvesting.

"Hmm..."

"What are you reading, meow?"

"Learning about beekeeping. First step — find a place with plenty of flowers."

"There aren’t any flower fields nearby, meow~" He would need to find a suitable one.

Just as Ethan was mulling this over, Zharok walked up. "How’s the teaching going?"

"I showed her the basic moves, she learns fast — she’s playing a match against Walter right now."

"Is that so?"

"You look like something’s bothering you, what’s wrong?" Zharok asked.

"I want to start beekeeping, but I can’t find a flower field nearby."

"Flower fields?" Zharok thought for a moment. "I think there’s one out west."

"The west?" Ethan hadn’t been that way yet, he looked at Pearl, she pondered for a moment and flicked her tail.

"Ah, are you talking about that place?"

"Yeah, that place."

"Where is that place?" Zharok asked, thoroughly confused.

"Flame Canyon, meow, there are a lot of Fire Bees and flames everywhere... I’m not sure if it’s right for beekeeping, meow," Pearl explained.

"We’ll know once we look, if there are Fire Bees, even better." Since he needed to figure out how to get royal jelly anyway, the bees were a welcome bonus.

Pearl shook her head. "Controlling Fire Bees isn’t easy, meow~"

"I have the Bee Queen’s Bracelet, it should be fine."

"Alright then, we’ll go check it out tomorrow, meow~"

...

Early the next morning, Ethan got up to prepare breakfast, fragrant baked bread, paired with cheese from the Elven Kingdom and minced mutton sandwiches.

"Meow~!" Pearl was the first to wake, she stumbled groggily out of her room, stretched lazily, and washed her face before ambling over to the table.

The door opened and Liora walked out as well, her long hair was a tangled mess of bedhead, and her oversized dress hung loose and crooked.

"I can’t believe your terrible sewing actually managed to turn a shirt into a dress, you’re amazing at everything else — why is your needlework so awful, meow?"

"Never learned how to sew, when we get the chance, I’ll ask Miss Elara to help make some proper clothes." Until then, Liora would have to make do.

Barefoot, Liora padded over to Ethan’s side, then accompanied Pearl down to the river to wash up.

"You must be hungry. Come and eat."

"Yaaaawn~! A beautiful day begins with breakfast..."

Zharok was still half-asleep, he rubbed his eyes and dropped into his chair at the table.

Ethan smiled and handed him a cup of coffee.

"What is this?"

"Coffee."

"Oh~! You brought this back too?"

"Found it in a shop at the royal capital."

He hadn’t expected to find coffee beans there, Ethan ground the beans he had roasted earlier, brewed a pot, and poured himself a cup as well. For Liora and Pearl, he prepared juice instead, he hadn’t found any tea bushes — it would have been even better if he had some tea.

"Let’s talk while we eat, today we’re heading west to check out that flower field."

"Really, meow?"

"You’re not planning to just build the apiary right there, are you?"

"Haven’t decided yet. We need to scout the area first — see how far it is, and whether we can find a Fire Bee queen."

"Yeah, that makes sense."

In other words, today was just a scouting trip, Zharok devoured a large sandwich in a few bites and nodded. "Be careful when you get to Flame Canyon, whatever you do, don’t provoke the flame monsters there."

"Flame monsters?"

"They’re monsters with bodies engulfed in fire, meow, as long as you don’t provoke them, they won’t attack you on their own, it’s best just to ignore them, meow~"

"So they’re passive monsters. Good to know."