bookbashuk Chapter 78: The Golden Egg Assists the King?
Chapter 78: The Golden Egg Assists the King?
In the intermediate stage, the hatching time of ordinary ant eggs is fifteen to twenty days, the hatching time of semi-force queen golden eggs is about one month, and the hatching time of external life sac golden eggs is basically the same as that of ordinary worker ants.
With nothing to do at night, Ye Zhi silently sorted through the inherited memories she had acquired during the intermediate stage of the second age - intermediate evolution. In addition to the ever-present addition of knowledge about plants and animals, the newly awakened inherited memories finally contained some different content.
The most abundant knowledge was the combat knowledge of the Weaver Ant tribe, which allowed them to command worker ants to deploy their troops and deal with various battle situations. Ye Zhi comprehended this knowledge in her mind while comparing it with her limited knowledge from her previous life.
However, one crucial piece of information caught Ye Zhi's attention: a cultivation method for a special differentiated species called the "Royal Guardian Ant."
The cultivation of the Royal Guard Worker Ant requires the larvae to consume Force food. Undoubtedly, this is the Assistant King of the Weaver Ant clan, who plays the role of assisting the Ant King in commanding ordinary Force life level ant colonies.
However, Ye Zhi has the ability related to space, which allows her to directly manipulate and command the ant colony like an extension of her limbs, so she doesn't really need a normal Zoro.
However, after learning about Zoro's breeding method and pheromone ratio, he had a bold idea - if he fed his own half-force ant queen with force food during the larval stage and cultivated her in the direction of Zoro, could he cultivate a half-force ant queen that could grow and evolve with him?
The spatial energy within her body had been completely consumed by the two external life-sac golden eggs. Ye Zhi silently absorbed the natural primal force, transforming it into a special primal energy related to space, which she then stored within her body.
A faint, invisible vortex of primal force appeared on Ye Zhi's body. Ye Zhi lay still on the ant silk mat, motionless as if asleep, but in reality, she was continuously absorbing the primal force of nature in a way similar to "meditation".
The night passed in such "meditation". As the sky began to lighten, the spatial energy within Ye Zhi's body was almost fully accumulated, enough to produce a half-force ant queen golden egg.
With a thought, all her primal and biological energy converged in her life sac, nurturing and transforming. A moment later, a golden egg with a pale white shell and a faint golden luster was sandwiched between Ye Zhi's jaws.
A small worker ant stepped forward, took the golden egg, and placed it in a temporarily empty incubation chamber. Ye Zhi then controlled a large worker ant to come forward and feed him to replenish his energy. Afterward, he personally stepped forward and entered the incubation chamber.
The cultivation of the King Ant requires stimulation from the King Ant's own special pheromones. Ye Zhi extends her soft lower jaw, which functions like a tongue, and gently licks the pale white eggshell of the golden egg with a light golden luster.
......
Time passed slowly as Ye Zhi nurtured the ant colony and trained himself. The semi-primal force queen ant, in the intermediate stage of the first instar, had already emerged and could lay ten ordinary ant eggs every day without any problem, thus the ant colony continued to expand.
Ant eggs and larvae gradually filled the hatching chamber, but the ant nest left by the Qingzhi Ant King, an elder she had never met, was enough for the king-level ant colony to use. Ye Zhi only needed to clear out another large nest chamber that had once been there, and use ant silk to weave a curtain in it to divide the hatching chamber.
The size of the ant colony in the intermediate stage will soon reach 100, with more than three-quarters of them being large worker ants. This ratio is unreasonable. It is only because there are currently large worker ants in the primary stage that are being used as small worker ants in the intermediate stage, which makes the proportion of large worker ants in the intermediate stage too high.
The current number of large worker ants is enough to assist Leafweaver in some hard labor. Leafweaver is also gradually increasing the proportion of small worker ants, while also breeding medium-sized worker ants, or core worker ants, to perform more auxiliary work in the nest.
Based on the contents of the inherited memories, it is speculated that after the evolutionary level reaches the intermediate level or even higher, the role of the core worker ants will gradually become apparent.
Compared to the large worker ants, whose body structure shifts towards combat after intermediate evolution and differentiates into soldier ants, the core worker ants, though smaller in size, are better suited for labor and also play another important role.
The newly acquired combat-related inherited memories record that the core worker ants in the intermediate stage will have a larger social stomach structure, undertaking the important task of storing and transporting food, and can be used as a supply unit.
Now, Ye Zhi doesn't need to worry about combat. Before the Mountain Lord level, a large number of core worker ants can take on the role of transporting food resources between the main nest and the branch nests of the cross-realm passage, and even assist in exploring to the other side of the cross-realm passage.
......
Twenty days passed quickly, and the two external life sac larvae hatched from the golden eggs one after another, wriggling their plump white bodies. They sent signals through the spatial energy in their brains, allowing Ye Zhi to know immediately.
Upon returning to the nest, Ye Zhi immediately untied the spider silk bag that was tied to the "bedside" of the ant silk cushion, untangled the ant silk wrapped around the bag's opening, and then tore open the original opening with a ripping sound to take out the pitcher plant's divinely bestowed seed inside.
The second-instar intermediate stage larvae, with their external life sacs, are nearly two centimeters long at birth. The external life sacs, which fill most of their abdomen, are large enough to contain this divinely bestowed seed.
Ye Zhi gently twisted her forelimbs and placed it in front of the external life sac larva. The spatial energy in her brain commanded the larva to open its mouth and take the divinely bestowed seed into the life sac. Immediately, the mouth of the life sac closed, and strands of natural primal energy began to gather.
An invisible vortex of primal force emerged from the larva's body, concentrating all the gathered natural primal force into the external life sac structure, allowing the already extraordinary divinely bestowed seed to further transform and sublimate.
Because of the divinely bestowed seed, the larvae absorb natural primal forces exceptionally fiercely. An invisible vortex of primal force almost affects the entire hatching chamber, causing even the concentration of primal force in the large nest chamber to decrease.
Fortunately, Ye Zhi had previously made a special trip to the nest chamber where the Black Ant King was located and asked for twenty raw stones for backup, which she temporarily placed in her own nest chamber.
At this moment, he flapped his wings and took off, took a small spider silk bag from the side, picked up a raw stone with his two forelimbs, came to the larva, injected his primal energy into his mandibles, and his sharp mandibles cut, bursts of pure natural primal force exploded, replenishing the larva's consumption.
After some effort, using two Primal Stones, the Force consumption of the external life sac larva stabilized until the next day, when it fluctuated significantly again – it seems that using two Primal Stones daily to replenish the natural Force is sufficient.
The growth and development of ants is dominated by the egg and pupal stages, while the larval stage is relatively short. With sufficient food supply, the larvae can grow to a size of 30 centimeters in just about two weeks and enter the prepupal stage.
It seems that around thirty-four Primogems will be needed for this external life sac larva to successfully pupate. But compared to the benefits of a single Divine Seed, it's undoubtedly worthwhile.