CHAPTER 462: A FAILED ORACLE

Picking genes started with spreading attribute points. Now that my girls actually inherited it, I had to consider which attribute points we needed the most.

Strength and agility were so far the least augmented attributes of bees. With the military conquests becoming more and more important as other species evolved and fought us harder, the lack of these attributes showed more.

It was enough just to compare the strength of a hornet and the strength of a bee.

But strength was also a primitive, past-era thing.

"I’m going to put points into agility! Agility is what our soldiers use to dodge attacks, our Craftsmen use to make precise movements with their tools, and what our rifle-bees use to aim their shots!" I declared. "Undecided, any prophecies?"

She chewed her lip.

"I’m sorry... I didn’t—I didn’t expect you to have a development level already. The chances were—I’m looking through my dreams and..."

Undecided swallowed and went silent, breathing steadily through the nose. I looked at her with concern.

"Gods were involved. Who knew how they could interfere with the probabilities when they wanted to? Relax. We can go blind, as usual."

She shook her head.

"Please, if you wait a week, Father!—"

"You were told to relax and rest, little sister," Tabletina said coolly, but not unkindly. "You can’t predict anything until you do."

Undecided nodded sadly.

I considered actually waiting a week for the prophecies, but... The genes were still a thing dominated by randomness, and predictions weren’t very useful there on the best days.

"Go to the Oracler, Undecided. Take care of your students—you are the one who knows the best way to do it. I don’t know what would be better—to tell them what happened to me and then calm them down or to keep it a secret for their sake."

Undecided nodded, and the new task seemed to give her some extra spirit. I smiled.

Nothing increased the mood of my girls more than a sense of purpose.

She gave her goodbyes and left, and I put an attribute point into agility, since there were no objections.

〔For improving agility, you have a choice of next genes: ’Adrenaline Gland’, ’Quiet Flight I-II (MAX)’, and ’Aerial Dash’.〕

〔Adrenaline Gland: in dangerous situations, an adrenaline gland increases movement speed and stamina consumption by 30% until stamina depletes.〕

〔Quiet Flight I-II (MAX): decreases noise from flying by 100%.〕

〔Aerial Dash: allows spending stamina to increase your flight speed by 50% for a short amount of time.〕

I proudly shared the system’s choice with my Advisers.

"All of these are pretty mid-tier genes... But they aren’t bad. I think this means that my luck will only get better later!" I said with the confidence of a gambling addict.

"Father, don’t two of these do similar things?" Researchina asked.

I frowned.

"You are right. But this isn’t bad—this means they must stack between each other. If we had both, we’d have even more stamina burning for even more speed!"

"But we can only pick one, Father. I propose the ’Aerial Dash’ as the most effective."

This is what the Council chose in the end—it seemed like at least a better choice. Even if we were wrong, the difference couldn’t have been so terrible.

I put another point into agility after this, hoping for something cooler.

The system wasted no time in disappointing me.

〔For improving agility, you have a choice of next genes: ’Runner Legs’, ’Quiet Movement I’, and ’Improved Climbing’.〕

〔Runner Legs: increases running speed by 10%.〕

〔Quiet Movement I: decreases noise from actions (except flying) by 50%.〕

〔Improved Climbing: increases the base climbing speed to the same speed as running. Requires at least Claws II or equivalent climbing gear to work.〕

"Lame. Just lame."

"Lame? Father, the Commandos can use the ’Quiet Movement I’ gene," Bloodhero said in confusion. "They can fly soundlessly, but they still often have to climb or walk. Unless they use astral projections."

"Right. It’s better than all the alternatives, at least."

I waved my hand, and since everybody was nodding in agreement, took the ’Quiet Movement I’ gene.

"Alright, this is going to be the last point into agility today. Probably. Please, system, give me something good... Enhanced agility?"

〔For improving agility, you have a choice of next genes: ’Improved Flexibility I’, ’Lightfooted I’, and ’Improved Climbing’.〕

〔Improved Flexibility I: increases the maximum joint turn angle by 30%.〕

〔Lightfooted I: allows leaving smaller steps when walking on soft surfaces.〕

〔Improved Climbing: increases the base climbing speed to the same speed as running. Requires at least Claws II or equivalent climbing gear to work.〕

I sighed.

After my Advisers listened to the gene descriptions, they looked disappointed, too.

"Some of these genes are so... weird. And the others aren’t much better." I glared at the ’Lightfooted’ gene.

The fact that it had tiers was promising, but the description was anything but.

The other genes weren’t much better.

"I suppose... flexibility will be useful to the engineers, Builder Bees, Craftsmen and so on?" I asked Workharder and Things-Things.

Things-Things shrugged.

"Yeah, but we can already do all sorts of things... Hell, climbing will be more useful. On some jobs, bees don’t have the opportunity to fly! Like inside the mechas."

"I see. Fine, Improved Climbing it is. This is just gene points fuel, I swear..." I grumbled under my breath, taking the gene.

"Nectus, I think this was enough agility points."

I turned toward Amby. Against my will, my lower lip protruded in a pout.

"But what if the *next* agility point gives me something OP? We’ve barely checked out what’s in the agility gene pool yet!"

"So far, there have been very few useful things. You can’t recall any good chaotically evolved genes from the agility pool, either, can’t you?"

I shook my head and swallowed my disappointment together with a honeyed bun I took from the table.

Amby was right.

"If you really want to, you can leave an attribute point to lie down for a week and then ask Oracles what you might get by increasing agility again," she added. "But for now, choose which attribute to increase next."