Kain entered his dorm room with a takeout cup conspicuously labelled with the Golden Barrel. He got some strange looks of judgement from classmates along the way. Probably thinking that he doesn’t take his rank seriously and is out drinking when they’re all training.
However, Bea’s skills couldn’t be trained in the traditional sense. The best way for her to train is to kill.
Regardless of the looks, Kain jovially looked at his take-away cup. However, instead of drinking the glass as one would expect, he retrieved the Bloom of Ascension from his inventory and placed it in the cup. Replaced the lid and left it on his nightstand.
“Hopefully this works…” The description of the flower’s usage did say that it needed to be consumed in its entirety, Kain just hoped that if given enough time, the flower will dissolve in the liquid and achieve a suitable effect.
While Kain waited for the results of his experiment, he had something else to keep him preoccupied.
After showering and getting ready for bed, Kain received a notice from Eve of her and Queen’s successful advancement. They were one day earlier than he initially predicted, perhaps the effects of their symbiotic relationship also eased the difficulty of breaking through to the next level. If so, that was great news for him.
After the breakthrough Eve had no noticeable changes aside from more potent orange spiritual power. However, Queen had actually realized a new skill.
SS-Essence of Life: The royal jelly produced is a powerful elixir that can heal severe, life-threatening injuries within moments, relieve temporary negative status effects caused by spiritual creatures at and below yellow-grade, and slightly increase the probability of successful breakthroughs in both humans and spiritual creatures to yellow-grade spiritual power.
Kain was shocked by the presence of a new skill. Naturally, Kain had done extensive research on the Vespirae species in the hopes of finding a suitable evolutionary form. However, nowhere in the literature has such a powerful skill being realized ever been reported.
Kain suspected that it was due to Queen’s symbiotic relationship with Eve. After all, Eve has already caused subtle changes within Queen’s body, such as ensuring the production of only female children, increasing her resistance to pathogens and poisons, and increasing her rate of spiritual power condensation.
Kain already knew from Queen that the royal jelly produced must act as a material in her evolution. However, the other evolutionary conditions are unknown.
With the introduction of this new skill, one that uniquely has the life-attribute of Eve rather than Queen’s own wind attribute, perhaps the evolutionary direction Kain could move towards would encompass the life-attribute.
Kain also suspected that whatever evolutionary materials used to evolve Queen would also cause Eve to evolve due to their relationship. Therefore, he was even more certain that the next evolution will encompass the life attribute. Although he will try to maintain the wind-attribute as well so that the guards’ combat effectiveness and style of combat isn’t changed for the worse. freeweɓnvel.com
The Life-attribute, while powerful and can cause miraculous effects, isn’t exactly known for its offensive capabilities.
Speaking of guards, after her breakthrough, Queen immediately laid another egg. Typically, at each level the Vespirae Queen could produce 5 more worker wasps and 1 guard. Therefore, the red-grade Queen had 12 guards, which would have normally been 10 male workers, and 2 female guards, but were instead all female guards due to Eve.
After her breakthrough Queen could now produce 6 more guards for a total of 18, although it will take a while for them all to hatch.
Looking at the cup on his nightstand one more time before turning off the light, he could see that the deep blue colour of the flower’s petals has begun to bleed into the amber beverage, causing it to have a green tint.
“Hopefully, I wake up to a new species of spiritual creature tomorrow morning.”
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After a night of rest Kain turned to cup on the night stand.
The bright sunlight peaking through the window caused the liquid in the cup to glow an almost fluorescent green.
He also no longer saw any remaining parts of the flower floating. Thankfully, the flower seems to dissolve quickly.
‘So how do I know if it worked… unfortunately my System doesn’t allow me to know everything about a spiritual creature at a glance…Ah! Usually a profile of the spiritual creatures I’ve seen or made contact with will appear as an option in the Simulator, but since the yeast used to brew beer is a microbe, I can’t even be sure if what I’m looking at is the real thing.
Maybe…I should stick my finger in it to make contact. Just to be sure.’
Kain then picked up the covered cup and gave it a vigorous shaking, making sure to hold the lid in place, before sticking his finger into the cup.
‘Hopefully this works…System bring me to the Simulator in the Laboratory.’
With nervous anticipation Kain then scrolled through the different options for simulation, to see if there were any new additions. Thankfully, it did allow him to sort the options by the date added rather than alphabetical only, so after adjusting the settings Kain was able to see the new entry at the top.
“Aetherbrew Yeast…It worked!” Kain quickly selected the new addition to see its full profile.
—————–
Species: Aetherbrew Yeast
Aetherbrew Yeast (ABY) evolved from ordinary yeast used in the brewing of spiritual beer. It retains the fundamental characteristics of fermenting beer, but has developed some minor abilities to enhance the resulting product.
Quality: Black-Iron
Type: Microorganism (Yeast)
Attribute: Water
Skills:
B-Stable Infusion: ABY can significantly prolong the minor magical effects imparted to a spiritual beverage based on the spiritual plants used.
D-Flavor Enhancement: ABY can slightly enhance the flavor profile of the beverages to make it more enjoyable for the drinker. The improved taste would not be replicable without ABY.
D-Extended Freshness: ABY can modestly extend the shelf-life of beverages. While the beverage won’t last for centuries, it will stay fresh and enjoyable for a much longer period than typical drinks. This preservation effect is enough to keep spiritual beer in perfect condition for several months.
F-Stable Fermentation: ABY ensures a consistent fermentation process every time, reducing the likelihood of unwanted variations or spoilage. With ABY the quality of each batch will be of a consistently high quality.
——————
Yes! This was what Kain wanted. Not to mention, now that it was a spiritual creature, Kain in the future could also pursue evolving some of his stock of ABY to create new, stronger versions of spiritual beer.
All kinds of business ideas were pinging around in his head, and he even heard the faint illusion of jingling coins.
However, before he could get too caught up in his fantasy, Kain realized that he still greatly lacked two necessary things: a brewer, and a factory with staff to make beer company that can supply the whole empire.
