Astral Ants

Chapter 11 The Beginning of the Kingdom
The throne of domination is indeed imitating the ant king of the ant tribe.

The 'ant eggs' produced by the ruling throne are exactly the same as the development process of the ant eggs produced by the female ant queen of the ant clan.

The larvae hatched from the ant eggs belong to the "semi-force life form". They can eat and grow, and develop rapidly, changing their appearance every day.

Longbai carved characters on the stone wall to record the time.

The first two ant eggs lasted 38 days, and the larvae grew from a centimeter to a length of two to three centimeters, white and fat.

'Producers' take the lead in spinning silk and forming cocoons.

Two days later, the 'Guardian' also spins silk and cocoons, and enters the final eclosion stage of development.

At the same time, Longbai takes 5 days as a cycle to continuously produce ant eggs through the function of the "messenger" of the ruling throne.

Currently, there are 2 ant eggs and 6 larvae of different sizes in the hatching room.

Cypress stays in the hatching room most of the time, feeding the larvae in turn. At the same time, through vibrating the membrane wings, the body continues to heat up, increasing the temperature of the nest room.

The giant ants like to be wet, and occasionally they need to go out to fetch water and sprinkle it in the hatching room.

Temperature and humidity are the key to the rapid development of ant eggs and larvae.

……

"Long Bai, is another larva cocooning?"

Mo Lan came to the ant nest to report in the middle of the morning, and dropped by to help hunt food, and placed a frog corpse at the entrance of the ant nest.

This season, the frog hibernates in the cave, and I don't know where it turned out.

Mo Lan seems to have a deep resentment towards the frog.

Long Bai has been eating frog meat for more than 50 days.

Long Bai: "Yes. Not surprisingly, it will be a soldier ant dedicated to fighting."

Mo Lan: "Soldier ants? But it looks so small. In my inherited memory, the giant head ants can make soldier ants that are bigger than the king ant."

Long Bai: "Yes..."

Mo Lan: "Then you can use the ant eggs produced by the ruling throne, can you do it?"

Long Bai: "I'm trying it, it seems to be effective."

The giant first ant is the most hierarchically differentiated ant family.

Cypress is currently in its 5th instar, and has awakened 7 inherited memories that use pheromones to control the differentiation of worker ants.

They are small worker ants, medium worker ants, and large worker ants; small soldier ants, medium soldier ants, large soldier ants, and specialized soldier ants.

6 to 9-year-old junior fighters, every time they sleep and evolve, they will wake up and inherit the corresponding memory one after another.

Without the interference of pheromones, medium-sized worker ants or medium-sized soldier ants are cultivated, and the current two cocoons are 'medium-sized'.

Cypress is using pheromone control to try to breed specialized soldier ants and small worker ants.

There is an effect, and there is obvious differentiation in the larval stage.

Specialized soldier ants are huge, so they eat a lot of food. The larvae grow fast, but the development cycle will be prolonged.

Small worker ants are small in size, eat less food, and their larvae grow slowly, but the development cycle will be shortened.

According to preliminary estimates by Long Bai, it takes more than 60 days to grow from an ant egg to a specialized soldier ant.

It may only take about 30 days to cultivate a small worker ant.

……

"Long Bai, when can we go explore the starship?"

Mo Lan asked.

Long Bai has already reaped the benefits, and is also looking forward to exploring the starship.

But there is no rush.

Long Bai thought about it, and said, "The weather has started to warm up recently, and spring is coming. Mo Lan, do you have any life seeds to plant?"

Mo Lan: "Yes. I conceived a Xuelan life seed when I was a junior fighter in the 8th age. It was a bit late and I didn't have time to plant it."

"I also have a cypress seed that I plan to sow this spring."

Long Bai: "Let's plant it early and protect it through the most fragile seedling stage. At that time, it should be almost ready and we can start."

"That's right! We still have to take care of Mingzhong. Spring is very busy..." Mo Lan said in distress, thinking, and said:

"It might not be until summer."

Mo Lan asked again, "What about the caravan?"

Long Bai: "Do we have any goods that we can trade with the caravan?"

"No." Mo Lan: "But, let's go and have a look."

Long Bai readily agreed: "When the time comes, let's go and have a look."

"Great!"

Molan cheered happily.

……

With continuous sunny days, the temperature on the south side of the mountain range kept rising and remained at a relatively comfortable level.

Five days later, the third larva forms a cocoon.

Another 2 days later, the 'medium-sized worker ants' that cocooned first broke out of the cocoon first.

The body length is just over 3 cm.

Without wings!

It is no different from the worker ants cultivated by the female queen ant.

Seeing this, Long Bai felt relieved.

The first worker ants were born, they ate to supplement their physical strength, and after a day of recuperation and development, they immediately went to work: taking care of ant eggs and larvae

Long Bai had his first right-hand man.

Soon, the first 'medium-sized soldier ant' emerged from its cocoon, with a body length of just over 3 centimeters.

Compared with worker ants, the abdomen of soldier ants is much smaller, with a big head and well-developed jaws, which are in the shape of sharp hooks and X staggered after a complete bite.

The small abdomen is for faster running, and the well-developed two jaws are combat weapons.

Long Bai rummaged through the rocks and caught a live cricket.

First wave the tentacles to give the soldier ants a hunting order, and let go of the crickets.

The cricket hopped and fled.

The soldier ant rushed out, locked onto the cricket's landing position, charged suddenly, and the two jaws struck out with lightning, biting the cricket, clamping it firmly, exerting force...

The hunt was easily completed, and the corpse was returned to Long Bai.

Seeing this, Long Bai was very satisfied, his previous worries were completely superfluous.

The soldier ants bred with the help of the ruling throne are exactly the same as the soldier ants bred by the female ant king, with the same appearance, the same combat power, and the same command and control.

Long Bai placed his first soldier ant at the entrance of the cave.

The ant nest has battle guards and worker ants, which is a bit like an ant country.

Within two days, the third small worker ant emerged from its cocoon, only about 1.5 centimeters in length, and was still placed in the hatching room to take care of the eggs and larvae.

The fourth and fifth small worker ants were born one after another, and the work of the hatching room was completely handed over to the three small worker ants. This kind of delicate work is more suitable for them who are small in size.

The second medium-sized worker ants are born.

At present, there are two medium-sized worker ants. After some consideration, Long Bai decided to dig the rocks and open up a second hatching room. The two medium-sized worker ants were responsible for carrying the gravel.

There is also a medium-sized soldier ant, it is not a problem to stand stupidly at the entrance of the cave every day, and it also greets me to help carry the gravel...

……

Large worker ants are born, with a body length of about 5 cm, and Longbai Duo is a good helper.

As expected, the ant eggs hatched into larvae, the larvae grew into pupae, and the pupae emerged. The entire development took a total of 58 days.

At this time, after the larvae of the specialized soldier ant grow to over 10 centimeters in length, they finally spin silk and form cocoons, entering the final stage of eclosion.

"Long Bai!"

"It's dinner time!"

"Wow! What a big cocoon, is your specialized soldier ant about to emerge?"

Mo Lan's amazing spiritual thoughts came from outside the ant nest.

Long Bai stopped working and ran out of the nest.

"Yes, it just cocooned last night. According to my estimation, the eclosion period of specialized soldier ants is about 10 to 15 days."

It was raining outside the cave, and the temperature dropped a little.

Today's food is frog again.

Long Bai shook his tentacles and gave an order to arrange for the three worker ants that came out to decompose the food.

"Mo Lan, you've worked hard."

Long Bai's thoughts were controlled remotely, and the ruling throne placed in the bedroom shrank rapidly and flew out.

Suspended in the air, it swelled up until it was about one meter in diameter before stopping.

Mo Lan jumped lightly and jumped onto the seat first.

Long Bai flapped his wings and flew up.

Immediately, the back and top of the throne of dominion released the original energy, forming a layer of colorless and transparent shield, blocking the rainwater.

This is a new function that was only discovered a few days ago. Both Long Bai and Mo Lan were full of novelty and watched the rain fall in a daze.

Mo Lan came back to her senses and asked, "Long Bai, how high can the ruling throne fly?"

Long Bai: "It seems to be able to fly very high... I don't know, I haven't tried it."

Mo Lan: "Can you fly above the clouds? What's in the clouds?"

Long Bai understood its meaning in seconds.

"There is lightning in the clouds. If it is triggered, we will be struck to death by lightning."

"Can the reigning throne protect us?"

"There is a high probability that they will protect us. But if they don't, or if they can't protect us, why don't we..."

"Then the two of us will be hacked to death. You can't risk your life for nothing."

Mo Lan knew what Long Bai was going to say next, so she rushed to finish the second half of the sentence, changed the subject, and said seriously:
"According to my experience in previous years, this is the first rain in spring, and spring comes after the rain. Long cypress, you can sow seeds."

"My snow orchid seeds have been planted! Hurry up and get them too."

(End of this chapter)