pertwk Chapter 35: Reproductive Ant Larvae?
Chapter 35: Reproductive Ant Larvae?
After evolving to the second age, Ye Zhi's physical abilities did indeed improve somewhat.
At this moment, he "spit out" two ant eggs that were "cloned" in some special way from his life sac, and only then did he feel the familiar feeling of his body being hollowed out.
After regurgitating some liquid food, Ye Zhi felt even more overwhelmed. Compared to the normal female reproductive ant queen's rapid egg-laying as she ascended to become a Force life form, her pace was far too slow.
Under its control, the newly hatched worker ants slowly walk over, pick up the two eggs one by one, place them on the ant silk pad in the original incubation chamber, and continue to use pheromones to suppress them, allowing them to develop into the same miniature worker ants.
He flew out of the nest to check the sky. There was still some time before sunset. He stretched a bit, then returned to the nest to continue practicing controlling the ant silk, striving for his failed ant dream.
They practiced until dusk, when Qingyuan led the combat worker ants back to the nest carrying a freshly hunted animal carcass. There they found Yezhi waiting at the entrance with the newborn worker ant on its head.
"Hey, little guy, your worker ant has emerged?" Qingyuan noticed the little worker ant being carried on Ye Zhi's back and asked curiously, "Your little worker ant doesn't seem to have any other reaction at all?"
Ye Zhi tapped her antennae, simultaneously controlling the worker ants on her back to tap their antennae in sync with her: "Qingyuan Zuo Wang, I've discovered that my control over the worker ants is stronger than I imagined; I can restrain them."
"That's interesting. Little guy, if you lay more worker ants, you can help take care of the abandoned forest after the old Qingzhi ant king leaves," Qingyuan said with some surprise.
As the commander ant, it naturally knew what such control over the worker ants meant. More control meant that whether it was troop deployment on the battlefield or the management of its territory, it could be more efficient and efficient.
Of course, it didn't know that Ye Zhi's control over the worker ants was truly, without exaggeration, "as easy as using one's own arm." Ye Zhi, considering that it couldn't be explained in a few words, didn't expend much mental energy; as long as the meaning was conveyed, that was enough.
Ye Zhi vaguely remembered that in her previous life, more than a thousand years ago, there were records of using yellow weaver ants for biological control in orchards. Her identity as a weaver ant really made her a good helper in taking care of the forest.
In this world where the yield of Force food after the birth of life forms is directly related to growth and evolution, planting trees is incredibly promising. Even disregarding Force, my "racial talent" has great potential.
While it was thinking, the citron had already divided the food. It ate some with the fighting worker ants, left some for the leaf weaver, and the rest was carried by several worker ants to the larval hatching chamber to feed the hungry larvae.
After filling her social stomach, Ye Zhi led the worker ants, whose social stomachs were also full, back to her "Spider Cave" ant nest. She then laboriously "nurtured" an ant egg before falling asleep, exhausted.
The following days were uneventful. The only noteworthy event was that the larvae that emerged from the golden egg, after reaching about four centimeters in length—only slightly smaller than the current early second instar larvae—finally showed signs of pupating.
Its appetite began to decrease, and its body stopped wriggling so lively. Its originally plump, comma-shaped body gradually took on a gourd shape as the nodular parts began to shrink under the influence of the adult disc.
However, given the size of this enormous larva, Ye Zhi muttered to herself again, "It doesn't look like it's going to develop into a worker ant at all."
About a week after entering the pre-pupa stage, the ant pupa's form gradually became fixed, which made Ye Zhi feel even stranger.
Compared to the slender body of ordinary leaf weaver ants, the middle section of the ant pupa that hatches from the golden egg is still swollen, unlike ordinary worker ants. Instead, the leaf weaver looks more and more like... a female reproductive ant!
Once this thought appeared, it lingered in Ye Zhi's mind for a long time - if this really was the larva of a female reproductive ant, then everything would make sense.
Whether it's the excessively large size, the excessively long development time, the still-swollen thoracic segments, or even the three black dots on the top of the head that look like a single eye... if this were a larva found in a nest of ordinary leaf ants, Leaf Weaver would say without hesitation that it is the pupa of a female reproductive ant.
However, this is the output of the leaf ant at the Force Life level. The ant queen cannot directly produce reproductive ants at the Force Life level anymore; she can only produce worker ants through a process similar to self-cloning.
Could it be because of my chimera body again? Ye Zhi wondered. Even if I really am a chimera, how could I have all sorts of random things chimeras embedded in my body?
The unusual situation made Ye Zhi wonder if this was just a "specialized chemical ant" that was all show and no substance. But as she watched the golden eggs and larvae that were emerging from the wing buds, which looked more and more like female reproductive ants every day, she still held a glimmer of hope in her heart.
He still remembered that as soon as the larvae in the golden egg hatched, they were connected to him with a faint trace of primal force, which was a natural phenomenon and extraordinary.
At first, I only felt that this connection was somewhat like a connection with the seed of destiny, but now I feel that it seems more like the connection I have with that worker ant now, that wonderful feeling of a sacred primal force connecting the consciousness of every worker ant.
So many unusual events have happened to her that Ye Zhi is at a loss for what to do. She can only continue her current life, "spitting out" one egg every morning and evening, and slowly waiting for the pupae of the golden egg larvae to change.
As Ye Zhi had predicted, after the wing buds of the golden egg larva appeared, three single eyes, independent of the compound eyes, grew on its forehead in an inverted "品" (pin) shape, further confirming its identity.
......
While Ye Zhi watched the golden egg larvae pupate every day, the Cinnamon Ant King and the Red Cinnamon Ant remained at the newly discovered small raw stone vein, guarding against another attack from the Great Toothed Ant Kingdom.
Large bags of newly mined raw stones are frequently transported back from the newly occupied land and piled up in the ant nest's special raw stone "warehouse." Hundreds of large spider silk bags have already accumulated, and the total number has reached several thousand, approaching the ten thousand mark.
Clearly, the Black Ant King's plan was to quickly mine everything and pile all the raw stones into the warehouse at the core of his territory, lest things get complicated and attract the covetous eyes of other ant kingdoms.
However, Ye Zhi was somewhat anxious - the Cinnamon Ant King had not returned for a long time, so his growth and evolution had temporarily stalled. He had no choice but to continue laying eggs, practicing, and checking the growth of the golden egg larvae every day without fail, waiting for the Cinnamon Ant King to return and arrange his growth and evolution.
Finally, several days later, when Ye Zhi was working with the worker ants to care for the golden eggs in the nest, she received an excited telepathic signal from Qing Yuan - the Black Yuan Ant King had returned!