Chapter 96: Unexpected Bee-nefits
Belissar turned his attention to the karnuq hunter group, which was just beginning their descent into the tunnels below. The digging bee surprisingly couldn’t see that far beyond the lights the karnuq carried with them, making Belissar wonder how she would operate underground without such assistance. His question was answered, though, when the bee flew off of Metsaitti’s shoulder and landed on the ground. The moment she touched the ground, a small little pulse of mana shot out from her. Information on the surroundings came streaming back to her, and she could feel the vibrations of all the karnuq moving around her as well. It seemed the digging bees didn’t intend to rely on sight in the first place. After the pulse came back to her, she flew back to Metsaitti’s shoulder. She continued to land and send out pulses at regular intervals, building a steady map of the tunnel they were traversing.
But at that moment, something drew Belissar’s attention away from the hunting group.
New plant detected. Fire Mana Flower is now available.
Belissar’s vision blurred as he whipped his Tower sight around and quickly found the culprit. A new flower had bloomed in the middle of the flame radish node in the Apiary. It was like a mana flower but with a stalk that was a shifting shades of yellow, orange, and red, with bright red petals. The mana surrounding it was not a subtle, slowly pulsing glow like the mana flower or ground mana flower’s, but rather a flickering light that illuminated the flame radish flowers around it. The air around it grew slightly hazy.
Belissar’s eyes widened and then he grinned. He knew Cross-Pollination was working its magic, but this was the first time it produced a flower so different the Tower classified it as separate. And what a flower it was. Belissar could practically feel the heat emanating from it…until he realized that with his Tower senses he actually could feel it if he wanted to.
It felt like it was burning him so he decided to stick with vision alone.
In any case, it seemed like a flower that was practically on fire. And while he could sense the regular mana flowers and Ground mana flowers both held as much mana as this one…there was something impressive about it. The mana and Ground mana flowers, for all the power held within them, didn’t truly appear that different from regular flowers beyond the occasional glow. The Fire mana flower, on the other hand, was very clearly magical even to Belissar’s barely trained eyes.
He grinned as he opened up the menu…
Available Resource Plants for Apiary: