After Cana calmed down enough to realize how hungry she was, she started to scarf down the food in front of her. Apparently although she was hungry she still wanted to tell more people about what happened so as she finished eating she ran off to tell her story again to anyone who would listen. I was glad she felt so unburdened and that everything had worked out for her, but now that I wasn't distracted by how the trials were going I could dive back into my research. Levy thought that I should take my three dimensional spells and try to make more complicated shapes, but I wanted to go in a different direction. Instead of messing with the stability of my spells I would treat it kind of like an engine and have different moving parts. Usually when spell circles moved they would do so in one direction, like spinning, growing, or moving through space in some way. Sometimes they would even do all three, but I wanted each component of the spell circle to move independently. That way I could bring out the most potential of my current spells without increasing their cost exponentially.
Even though my reserves were growing every day I would never have the monstrous capacity that Cana could throw around. The only problem with my idea was the difficulty, it was insanely hard to have each part move but not cause the spell to collapse. Every part of a magic circle was connected to every other part in a myriad of ways and if even one connection was broken then the spell would fall apart. It would be a long road but I was confident, after all I had pioneered a new kind of magic and it's not like I would need it anytime soon. I had only recently completed the three dimensional spells and my monsters had a long way to go before reaching their limits. But it was good to start now anyway and hopefully by the time I needed them I would be ready. Time continued to pass and life was as normal as it could be as a member of Fairy Tail, the year after Cana passed the trail Mest passed as well. Of course once he disappeared everyone forgot about him, including me. Even the memories I had of him from my old world had disappeared as well. It would cause some panic a few years from now when I discovered the gaps in my memory, but that's a story for another time.
During the year my magic slowly grew but I did not make any breakthroughs in the next step of my magic circles. I also started taking A-class quests but I hadn't been nominated for the exams yet. When I asked around I was told that the jump between A-class and S-class was about the same difficulty as the jump between F-class and A-class. When I heard that I was stunned but after thinking about it for a minute it made sense, we had about 30 A-class mages but only a few were nominated for the exams each year. And it was rare for someone to actually pass and become S-class, but that just increased my determination. So I decided to take one of the harder A-class quests, clearing out The Hive. The Hive was a restricted area that was dominated by insect type magical beasts. There were many types of insects that lived there and they needed to be hunted every so often, if it was left alone the continent would be overrun and countless deaths would follow. It couldn't be destroyed entirely as eliminating the Queen was currently a century quest and hadn't been completed in over three centuries. There were also many valuable magical regents that were sourced from there.
So nowadays even if someone was powerful enough to take out the queen certain people would keep them from messing with their profits. When I took the quest to the master he hesitated before giving me permission, "Be careful and do not venture too deeply into the hive. I want to be able to see you come out." I smiled and nodded, "I know master but I kind of want to see how close I am to S-class, I know I still have a long way to go but I'm unsure how far exactly." He seemed to understand and gave the flier his stamp of approval. Once he signed off I took the flier and made my way back home to pack before making my way to the train station. This would be the farthest I traveled to go on a job and it would take over a week to get there so I had to pack for a long trip. While I rode the train I had plenty of down time to work on my pokedex, all of my pokemon had second forms but a couple were still getting fleshed out. I got a little lost in my work and the week flew by, the food served on the train made me long for the home cooked meals the guild served. I also made sure to summon my smaller monsters to keep increasing my magic capacity but I had to forgo my physical exercises, every little bit counted.
When I stepped off the train I was surprised to see a bustling city. I had expected to see some tents, maybe a small town at most but instead a city stretched across my view. It didn't make sense for so many people to be so close to The Hive, weren't they afraid of being killed by a sudden rampaging horde of monsters? I walked around town and listened to the conversations around me, slowly I understood why there were so many people here. It seemed like the materials that could be gathered from the various insects had been so profitable that some adventurers decided to stay. Over the years more people decided to settle down and eventually the small group of people grew into a town and then eventually into a city. I found a cafe to sit down in and tried to dig up more information, so when the waitress came to get my order I asked a few questions "Hey, are you a local?" I waited until she nodded, "I'm new to town. Do you think you could tell me a little more about this place? Like the different types of bugs from the hive or why so many people live here? Or even some of the regents to look out for?"
She looked a little hesitant as the cafe was busy so I slipped her a few jewels to sweeten the deal, "I'll have to ask my boss but I'll be back in a minute." She walked off and I waited for a few minutes before she came back with my drink and a smile, "I got the go ahead, what do you want to know first?" I gave that some thought, I wasn't in any sort of rush so first I asked about the history of the city. She tilted her head in thought "Well when the hive first started to be a problem multiple teams were sent to try and obliterate it, thanks to the queen they were all wiped out after making their way to the core. It took a few rounds of no survivors for the king of that time to accept that the queen wouldn't be dealt with any time soon. So he started to focus on containment instead, he regularly sent teams to cut back the population. Not long after that one of the teams discovered an interesting substance that could absorb different magical effects. They called it Dazzling Honey, it came in a multitude of colors and each one had a different effect. More teams were sent to collect the honey and they also tried to see if there was anything else that could be gathered from The Hive."
My eyes widened when I heard her mention Dazzling Honey. I had heard about it before but I wasn't aware this was where it came from. "And that was when the first explorers started to discover that many of the insects produced valuable magical regents or parts of their bodies were magical regents themselves. So more and more explorers started to be drawn here, lured by the profits that were by no means easy to acquire, but were still immensely abundant. Eventually some people made so much money that they just didn't want to leave and a few scattered tents turned into a town and then into the sprawling city you see today." Her chest puffed up and her shoulders drew back as she sat straighter in her chair, I could see she was proud of what her home had become. Meanwhile I was astonished that people had built an economy based on the hive, "Wait so if there is so much money to be made, why is there still a century quest to take out the queen?"
The way she smiled told me that she had been asked this question many times, "You want the simple answer or the complicated one?" I thought it over before asking for the complicated one, her explanation before had given me a lot of information and I was curious to learn some more. "Ok then, well let's dive into the hierarchy of the hive. On the bottom level we have the Scouts, they are the most numerous and provide 90% of the magical regents sold in town. They are not weak, most are equivalent to a B-rank monster but it is very rare to meet a single scout as they always travel in groups. Really the only way you could meet just one is if it was the lone survivor of an attack and was heading back to regroup at The Hive. Above them are the Captains, they make up another 9% of the regents on the market. Their byproducts are highly sought after and for every equivalent regent not sourced from here, there will be 5 more that are from here. So it is much easier to find such regents here than to try and hunt for them anywhere else, after all this is the safest place where high level regents can be collected with consistency."
My eyes widened as I thought about that, if that was true I could see why this town had grown so much in such a short period. "A Captain's strength is a little harder to judge but they can be anywhere from low A-class to high S-class. They tend to specialize in one or more areas; speed, strength, defense, poison, or even strange aspects that don't actually seem to be strong. Don't be fooled, the natives of The Hive truly live by survival of the fitness, any insect that has made it to Captain level has earned that title. They can also have some pretty strange abilities, new ones are still being discovered every so often. Some will travel in groups if they have the ability to command Scouts, those are usually of the stronger variety as they have a higher chance to become a General. Taking out the Generals is a constant S-class quest, if you take one out you can show up at any guild with proof and get the reward. However do not try to double dip as to get the reward you have to register the regent you harvested from it. The regent can be anything from a poison sac, stinger, or even its antennae. It all depends on what the insect specialized in when it was a Captain, each insect will instinctively concentrate their magic on a specific part of their body."
"To make matters worse when an insect changes into a General it will gain the ability to command weaker insects." I thought I couldn't be any more surprised but now I was wondering why the continent hadn't been overrun. As if she could read my mind she continued to explain. "While Generals can command insects it mostly amounts to 'charge'. Most aren't very smart and ones that are, lack strength instead. All Generals have to lean into their specialization, luckily for us that makes them easier to keep under control. No, the real threat of The Hive are the Queens." When I went to interrupt her she held up her hand to stop me, "Yes I said Queens. Each Queen specializes in giving birth to a specific type of insect and the century quest is to take out the Queen that births other Queens." She stopped and let me digest that, I was thankful as after that I wasn't really paying attention. Her statement kept bouncing around in my head, a Queen that made Queens that made an uncountable amount of insects. Once I recovered from my bout of existential dread I looked up from my lap, my head felt heavy as I recovered from that discovery. "You ok now?" I nodded and she took a breath before continuing.
"Now I am sure you are uneasy about the Queen that makes other Queens, but don't worry. One of the duties of a wizard saint is to drop by and cut down any queens that the magic council deems exceedingly dangerous. It used to be the royal family that decided which Queens to take out but about 120 years ago they wanted to keep a Queen that produced insects whose shells were made from valuable gems. Of course that backfired when it was discovered that some of the insects could absorb different types of magic and the city was almost overrun and the continent would have soon followed. So now they keep the hive from overrunning Fiore but still allow the less dangerous but still valuable insects to live and let us help to boost the economy. Thankfully it takes a while for the High Queen to give birth to another Queen, so we are not in constant danger." I waited to ask my next question as she left to get a glass of water, but while I was left alone I started to realize just how valuable this place could be in developing my magic.
I was creating a whole new branch of magic and now I had plenty of examples, what worked best and what didn't work at all. When she came back I had a question on the tip of my tongue but before I could ask she jumped right back into the thick of it. "I'm sure your next question is going to be about the different kinds of bugs out there and that will be another long conversation. Hence to soothe my throat." She raised her glass of water and I rubbed the back of my head before nodding. I was a little embarrassed that she could see through me so easily. "Oh don't look so down, I could tell you were very interested in the fact there were multiple Queens that each gave birth to a different kind of insect. And I'm not even gonna ask if you want the short answer, I'm just going to give you the long one." I waited for her to start as she looked me in the eye for a second to confirm that was what I wanted. "Ok, first let's start with the least complicated type, the Bruisers. These insects are heavily armored and very strong, they have hard shells that are both magically and physically resistant. The only way to get past their defenses is to have a magic that can overwhelm them, for instance a high enough heat will literally cook them from the inside."
"Luckily their armor makes it very heavy and therefore they are extremely slow, if you don't have such a high powered spell you can usually just run away and they won't be able to catch you. The next type are called Speedsters and they come in two varieties, the Assassin and the Poisoner. The Assassin will blur past you and either pierce right through you with their horn and slice through you with their claws, you won't even know how you died. The Poisoner uses subtle methods, it'll still blur past but that is due to the combination of its coloring and immense speed. As it sneaks past it will poison you in whatever way it can, some inject through stingers the width of a human hair, others just have to brush up against your skin. The most dangerous ones release a gas that kills you after you inhale a single breath. The worst part is that you will never know if you have already been poisoned. They can take days to work their way through your system until you just collapse, most however will kill you quickly as they don't want their next meal to escape."
A shiver ran down my spine and I was sure she was upping the fear factor, trying to get a rise out of me. I will deny to my grave that I sqeaked when someone brushed against me trying to get by my chair. After she got her laughter under control she explained more, "You can relax, the most deadly Poisoners are at least Captain level as if the poison is too deadly then it will die from it. Most Poisoners on the Scout level will cause minor discomfort like itching from a rash or a mild fever. The worst you'll get is some pretty intense diarrhea, but if you're lucky you'll run into a Chemist, they can give you some pretty interesting hallucinations. There's a whole market out there for people looking to trip off of their byproducts. I heard of this one guy that took out a General level dealer, the poison collected could give people visions of the future." I raised an eyebrow and scoffed, "Yeah right." She smirked right back, "You can look it up if you don't believe me. There's a request that pays ten times the amount for the poison from the specific insect." I was less sure that she was blowing smoke now but I still shook my head, that was a problem for another day. I was barely ready to take on Scouts, much less a General.
She saw that I was still skeptical but moved on anyway, "The next type are called Elementals, unlike actual Elementals most of these insects aren't completely made out of their corresponding element. They just usually specialize in a single element, however once in a while you will come across one with a metal shell or legs made out of actual lightning. It's even rarer to come by something that has a combination element, like fire that burns cold or one that controls metal sand. Of course there have been a few instances of insects that are completely made out of a single element, but they don't usually last long as their weaknesses are very obvious. But for the most part an Elemental will sit back and attack you from a distance with a specific element. The regents that come from these make up at least fifty percent of the market as you can make a ton of magical items from them." She took another drink of water and when she put her glass down a serious look took over her face, it was so intense that I even sat up straighter.
"The most dangerous type of insect is the Wild Card. These insects account for 75% of the deaths here, everyone that lives here knows at least one person that has died from a WIld Card." I was shocked when I heard that statistic, I wanted to reach out to give my condolences but I thought it would be taken as pity and I knew from experience that it wouldn't help. Even if I did know what it was like to lose someone, "The thing that makes them so dangerous is that they are just so unpredictable, they can have any ability from instantaneous teleportation to just a really bad smell. But they really prove the adage, there are no weak magics just weak mages. The one with a bad smell could literally overload your senses and paralyze you, imagine being unable to move because of a smell so bad and you're forced to watch as they eat you alive." I just waited as she worked her way through what I was sure was a flashback. Once she snapped out of it her head rose back up and I tried to look sympathetic, I think it worked as she gave me a sad smile before visibly shaking off her bad mood. "So, any more questions?"