Chapter 524: Of one mind
Until I almost stung myself on the back of the head!
My tail now was so long that I could lift it over my shoulder if I bent my body forward. Although the gravity pulled it down, the reflexive twitches of my muscles caused by rapid growth made it curve upward and swing over my head, causing several gasps from the nearby girls.
My stinger still glead sharply on its end, dripping deadly venom and ready to hit things.
This was a true scorpion’s tail!
“Amazing!” Bloodhero exclaid, rising in her seat. “Father, this will make you so deadly! Will you show us how this tail is used?”
‘This tail is so large and unprotected! And ordinary armour won’t fit it well, no-no!’ Things-Things thought, worrying instead. ‘I’m going to design another one. I will need asurents…’
Worriesgone stared at with wide, shining eyes. ‘Father looks so much different now… We will need to redraw the images of him.’
“All of this can wait,” I told my girls sternly. “Before any of that happens, I want to test the hive mind thing.”
***
This wasn’t as imdiate as I made it sound. While candidates for the first hive mind union were gathered and given my blood for a gene upgrade, three entire days have passed.
I had ti to test my new tail. It was unwieldy at first, but not actually heavier than my previous one. The ability to aim over my shoulder instead of between my legs made able to hit much smaller and faster-moving targets at much larger distances.
I was still far from a true sniper, but hitting sothing of human size was easy enough. For the rest, I could spray and pray.
On the third day, the Council gathered again, but not in the Council Chamber. This ti, we took an empty hall in one of the research buildings.
Fifteen Researcher Bees with baseline morphotype were standing in a row in front of us. All of them were volunteers, but more importantly, all of them were picked for their calm and collected personalities.
I hoped this would improve the abilities of the resulting hive mind and prevent any… incidents.
Even now, this showed in how calmly they looked at the Advisers watching from a distance. Most other bees in their place would be jumping in place from anxiety and need to prove themselves!
Especially since I was around, too.
I stepped out toward them.
“Hi, everybody.”
“Hello, Father.”
“Greetings, Father!”
“Hi, Father.”
“Are you ready for this?”
All the girls unanimously nodded their heads.
I sensed it in their thoughts and emotions. They were almost as calm as they appeared, with only a hint of anticipation. Ever since they got my blood and my genes, they felt an ability to connect with other minds nearby.
These girls only had ‘Telepathy I’, which ant that their range of such connection was only 10 ters. But it was all fine as long as they all stayed in this room.
“Then begin. Good luck, girls!”
They nodded again and looked at each other.
There were no sparks, no explosions, not even a pause—just a quiet ntal connection that felt to , an observer, as natural as a wordless understanding between two forever friends.
Fifteen forever friends in this case.
Outwardly, nothing changed in these bees; but on the telepathic level, where I could hear 15 minds before, now I sensed only one.
But it was a mind that even FELT fifteen tis larger than any other! Sensing it made my eyes turn wide.
And there was a new status panel over these bees. Tabletina saw it too—I heard her suck in a sharp breath.
〔Hive Mind〕 〔Ally〕
〔mbers〕: 15
〔Species〕: Common Honey Bee
> Intelligence: 157,5
〔〕〔〕〔〕
It was a very small status panel, but the original statuses of the bees in the hive mind didn’t go anywhere. However, they now also had 〔Hive Mind〕 written next to the 〔Ally〕.
I stared at the hive mind, the hive mind stared at with fifteen pairs of eyes.
“So… How are you feeling, girls?”
A stupid question, I could already sense telepathically that they were feeling just fine.
“We are feeling well, Father,” one of them said. If I weren’t using telepathy, I wouldn’t be able to tell that sothing was so strange about them.
My Advisers, most of whom didn’t have much telepathy, were watching this with confusion. But those who sensed the sa things I did were just as shocked and, perhaps, awed as I was.
“So you are of one mind now?” Ambrosia asked, walking up to stand next to .
The girls in the hive mind all nodded in perfect, unnatural unison. Now everybody could see that sothing had changed in their behaviour.
“I see. Well, we gathered here to test your capabilities, daughters.” Amby glanced at , then turned to Researchina. “Give them so ntal task.”
“This will be very interesting,” Researchina said. From her belt bag, she pulled out a simple notebook and opened it on a bookmark. “Solve this.”
She passed the book to the hive mind bees. I already knew it was covered in so chemical equations that Researchina solved in her spare ti.
For the low-rank Researchers like those in the hive mind, this was like a Bible with Jesus’s signature on it. Their eyes widened from shock—again, in perfect unison—and one of them reverently took the book from Researchina.
She leafed through the pages. When I was wondering when she—and the hive mind—will actually start reading, the bee put it down.
“This was too simple, Adviser Researchina. The solution is the light-stinging acid. It will be the perfect solvent.”
I turned to Researchina, wondering if this was close to reality and saw her covering her mouth in abject shock. No, wait—this was excitent.
“You are brilliant!” Researchina exclaid. “This would fit perfectly. But I would’ve co up with this myself in another hour. Just doing things faster isn’t good enough; you must do more complex tasks!”
“Wait a second, everybody,” I interrupted her. “Before anything does anything, we must test one more extrely important thing.”
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