Chapter 50: Chapter 45 A Scheme, a Honeybee i
Translator: 549690339
Although he had only just begun to understand Bee Language, any skill, once initiated and the method grasped, could be practiced repeatedly and become more and more proficient.
Learning Bee Language immediately added 10 points to his fluency in the language of insects, indicating a certain degree of intercommunication among the languages used by insects.
It’s like human languages where a country might have many different regional dialects, but the written language is universal.
The ways insects communicate are also limited to a few: either by releasing chemical signals, by body movements, or by creating sounds through wing vibrations or friction of their tegmina.
At this point, Qin Niu’s proficiency in the insect language had advanced from beginner to skilled.
Insect Language Fluency 13.51/100.
To advance to the next level, he needed to reach 100 fluency points, and an effective communication with an insect could only increase the fluency by 0.01 points. He would need to communicate with them more than eight thousand six hundred times to level up.
Of course, that was the conventional method of leveling up.
There must be some shortcuts for a quick enhancement, such as the 10-point direct increase he just earned from comprehending Bee Language.
Based on this experience, learning several more insect languages should allow for rapid advancement in insect language skills.
Or, once his spiritual power became stronger, if he could communicate with insects thousands of times a day, the pace of progress would be equally terrifying.
Now he could communicate with termites roughly forty to fifty times a day, increasing his fluency by about 0.4 to 0.5 daily.
In fact, that wasn’t too slow.
At least much faster than the average Insect Master’s progress.
Many Insect Masters might take three years, five years, or even longer to advance from beginner to skilled in the insect language.
Those with talent progress quickly.
Qin Niu was different, his fluency increased by a stable 0.01 each time.
It seemed slow, but in fact, as long as he practiced diligently, he could make steady progress.
At this moment, the honeybee trapped in the spider web was still struggling nonstop, emitting bursts of calls for help.
“Save me…”
“I’m trapped!”
“Can you hear me?”
Whether its calls for help could be heard by its companions was unknown.
However, the human in front of it could hear them loud and clear and had successfully translated quite a bit of it.
“Little guy, don’t be afraid!”
Qin Niu looked at the newbie honeybee and communicated with it using his spiritual power.
Though a day had passed, his spiritual power had only recovered by about half. It seemed that only through sleep or practicing the Everlasting Spring Technique could his spiritual power be recovered more quickly.
“Who are you?”
The honeybee was vigilantly rotating its head, both its compound eyes and three ocelli serving their purpose.
Its eyes were quite peculiar, quite different from human eyes in terms of forming an image.
Its compound eye was made up of more than five thousand hexagonally arranged ommatidia, giving it a wide viewing range and the ability to see distant objects.
This helped them locate flowers or detect enemies in advance.
If they only had compound eyes, they would be distinctly farsighted.
Theoretically speaking, the more ommatidia in the compound eyes, the clearer the vision. That’s because each ommatidium can see only a pinpoint, and then the five thousand points viewed by the ommatidia, like a scanner, form the image of objects.
Furthermore, the images formed by the honeybee’s eyes are upright, while human images are inverted.
Its simple eyes could sense light and see objects up close, though the images were quite rough.
Probably just a bit better than pixelated.
“I can save you!”
After a day, Qin Niu’s spiritual power had recovered by about half. Based on usual experience, he could communicate about 20 sentences with the honeybee, definitely no more than 25.
In fact, unless there were special circumstances, he would definitely reserve some spiritual power.
Becoming severely overdrawn would lead to him falling asleep in the mountains.
And that was a terrifying prospect.
Especially now that dusk was setting in, with nightfall soon upon them.
If his spiritual power was exhausted to the point of passing out in these mountains, by tomorrow there might not even be a skeleton left of him.
The wild animals and insects in the mountains would dispose of his body completely.
However, after communicating with the bee for a couple of sentences, Qin Niu was surprised to discover that the consumption of his spiritual power seemed to have decreased a lot. This must be a benefit of his increased proficiency in Bee Language.
Because now his Bee Language had reached proficiency, communication with them was more accurate and much more effortless.
The loss of spiritual power naturally decreased accordingly.
This is just like conversing with foreign friends in a foreign language, which at the beginning can feel especially taxing. You might even end up talking at cross purposes. But once you’re proficient, communication becomes smooth.
At this moment, communicating with this bee, the consumption of spiritual power had roughly halved.
This meant that he could communicate with it 50 times now, as opposed to only 25 times before.
“You are very big!”
“Save me!”
It was pleading for Qin Niu’s help, but there were no pleasantries in its language.
In the world of insects, perhaps directness is preferred over complex formalities.
“Does your colony have a new Queen Bee?”
Qin Niu started to probe the situation of that beehive.
“Cannot say.”
It refused to answer.
Information about the Queen Bee is the highest level of secret within a bee colony, a core matter concerning the life and death of the colony. Therefore, each bee instinctively protects this secret.
Qin Niu guessed that even if he killed it, it wouldn’t reveal anything.
“Is your colony planning to swarm soon?”
Qin Niu changed his line of questioning.
The intelligence of bees is limited; with a little trickery, one could find out what they know.
“Yes!”
It was indeed tricked by this cunning human into revealing the situation of the bee colony.
If a bee colony wants to swarm, it definitely needs to breed a new Queen Bee.
The number of bees in that colony was staggering. Qin Niu had in fact guessed some of it, and with this confirmation, he could further plan his arrangements. “How long until the swarm?”
“Soon, after the yellow ball in the sky falls down three or four times.”
It must have been referring to the sun.
Bee eyes cannot see red; to us humans, the sun sometimes appears red, like a giant burning fireball.
But to bee eyes, red is just a dark shadow, equivalent to a blind spot in their vision.
Their favorite flowers for nectar gathering are yellow or white.
In fact, yellow or white flowers often have the greatest nectar storage capacity, allowing them to reap plentifully.
Through countless years of evolution, their vision also underwent significant changes, all for finding more nectar sources, all for survival.
In fact, yellow, orange, green, in the eyes of bees, are all the same color.
When collecting nectar, they do not confuse flowers with leaves because they can distinguish them by the fragrance of the flowers for a second time.
When it mentioned the sun falling three or four times, it likely meant three or four days.
Qin Niu was curious, if there was no sun on rainy days, how did they calculate time?
Maybe for these short-lived insects, there was no need to make it so complicated.
From the moment of maturity, each bee starts working hard, learning the basic skills for survival.
Each bee lives solely so that their species may continue.
“Next time, be careful of this kind of web; they are spun in open areas close to the ground.”
Qin Niu didn’t attempt to pry any more information from it but simply let it go.
After it was freed, it quickly fled into the distance.
Watching it fly awkwardly, much like a human staggering along, it seemed to have been badly frightened.
Being timid was its correct way to survive.
With a load of humus on his back, Qin Niu quickly headed toward the Ant Nest, but his mind was already considering a plan to deal with the pests in the cornfield. As for whether to tame a bee Queen Bee, he still needed to give it some thought..
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