Juggernaut: Rise of the Zerg

Chapter 3 Expansion
As time passed, everything in the ant colony was done step by step. During the day, a large number of worker ants took a few soldier ants out to look for food, and Ling still occasionally helped them.

The rest of the worker ants are responsible for expanding the ant nest, feeding the larvae and No. [-]. Narrow passages expand from the cave where No. [-] is located, and small rooms with functional attributes are opened in the ant nest.

Everything seems to be in order, but Zero feels that their efficiency is still a bit low.

First of all, the treatment of the food returned by the worker ants when they go out is very unreasonable in Zero's view.Throwing away those small food that can directly enter the ant nest, large food like beetle carcasses must be dismembered outside the ant nest before it can be transported into the ant nest.

This is actually very unsafe. The efficiency of ants dismembering insect corpses is not high in Zero’s opinion. The strength and size of their pliers are not suitable for cutting hard objects such as beetle shells. Even with the aid of formic acid, they cannot speed up .

In this regard, even the soldier ants with relatively well-developed mandibles can speed up nothing. Usually, it takes a whole day for a corpse to decompose outside the cave, which means a huge risk.

For example, once, Zero observed that when the worker ants were painstakingly cutting food, a strange-looking bird flew over, swallowed the corpse of the insect effortlessly, and took away ten more at the same time. A few worker ants and soldier ants who had no time to escape.

Regarding this point, Zero thought about it, and finally found a solution that could barely meet the current needs of the ant colony.

First, He found No. [-] and asked her to order the worker ants to find a small raised soil bag about half a meter around the nest, and then the worker ants began to move the earth and rocks from the side of the soil bag to open a new entrance.

Different from the previous hidden ant nest entrance, this new ant nest "portal" is opened obliquely upward from the lower part of the middle of the soil bag, and the entrance is also quite large, enough for food like beetle carcasses to enter.

After a slanting passage of about [-] centimeters, there is a larger cave, where the worker ants will cut food, and at the same time transport the cut food into the ant nest through a passage that becomes narrow again The "grain storage room" is stored.

In addition, because the hole is not opened on the top of the mound, and it is wider, this channel has also been waterproofed.

The worker ants dug a downward passage in the middle of this wide and inclined passage. This passage directly leads to a huge cave below. This is the "garbage dump" of the ant nest. The garbage will be transported here, and at the same time, it will also take into account the functions of water storage and water seepage.

In order to ensure the concealment of the cave, the worker ants carried a lot of withered and yellow weeds to cover the wide entrance.In this way, the concealment can be completed as much as possible while ensuring smoothness.

In addition to the newly built "slaughterhouse", Zero also commanded No. [-] to expand the "grain storage room" in the cave. Regarding this point, the ant colony has already had very mature experience.

They dug on the side of the main passage of the cave, and built a granary the size of a palm. There were also densely packed small holes dug on the wall inside the granary, where small pieces of food were stored.

Zero instructed them to build a new spare granary. He didn't know the current location of the ant nest. In case of extreme weather, the original granary might be flooded by rain.

So the worker ants built a new granary twice the size above the original granary.

In addition, the "royal family" where No. [-] and several male ants are located has also been rebuilt.

The worker ants built narrower, longer and more rugged passages below the original location.The place where the original "royal family" was located was converted into an incubation room, where the eggs produced by No. [-] will be hatched. After the larvae are born, they will be transported by the worker ants to a new large nursery room for feeding.

Compared with the hatching room, the nurturing room is closer to the granary, which can greatly improve the efficiency of worker ants.

Regarding the ventilation of the ant nest, Zero also put forward his opinion.

The original air outlet was located on the top of a small mound, and a small mound was formed using the mound in the hole.In this way, when the wind blows quickly, the pressure near the hole will decrease, so that the air in the ant nest can be pumped out by using the atmospheric pressure, and the air can flow from the air inlet to the air outlet.

Zero observed the field of view of different worker ants, and finally determined the direction of the monsoon based on the direction the grass swayed in the wind, and asked No. [-] commander worker ants to re-build the air outlet between the two weeds facing the wind direction.

With this design, when the wind passes over the grass, a fast flow area will be formed in the middle due to the cover of weeds, thereby reducing the pressure above the air outlet to a greater extent, achieving better ventilation effect, and taking into account Concealment.

Zero didn't know why he knew this, but naturally, whenever he thought of something, this kind of relevant information would pop up in his mind naturally, and he gradually got used to his This kind of "ability" can be regarded as one's own ability.

Zero is immersed in this novel experience of directing the ants to expand their homes. Every time he sees that his design strengthens the original functions of the ant nest, he has a special sense of accomplishment.

Of course, His suggestions are not always better than the original design of the ant colony. Sometimes the unconstrained ideas cannot achieve the desired effect, but will have the opposite effect.

For example, regarding the waterproof design of the main entrance of the ant nest, the ant colony uses saliva to bind fine soil and gravel at the entrance of the cave to form a slightly inclined cylindrical structure, which can largely avoid the intrusion of rainwater, and at the same time, the fine soil at the entrance of the cave can also protect the water. to absorb water.

Zero thought that such a design destroyed the advantage of the ant nest located at the root of the weeds. Anyway, it is covered by grass, and the rainwater is unlikely to be directly poured into the ant nest, so he ordered the ant colony to make the hole smooth and redone it. Covert handling.

The ant colony faithfully carried out Zero's orders as always, but when a light rain fell, Zero found that a lot of rainwater had flowed into the ant nest.

It turned out that the sheltering effect of the weeds was completely destroyed by the wind and rain. In addition, the position of the grass roots was slightly low, and the grass blades responsible for the concealment absorbed a lot of rainwater that would have flowed away, resulting in a large amount of rainwater flowing into the ants. hole result.

If it weren't for the ant colony's drainage work is quite good, a large amount of influent water is introduced into the seepage pool hidden deep in the ground, zero mistakes may cause some losses to the ant colony.

Of course, such a huge renovation project inevitably delayed the foraging of the ant colony. In order to ensure the supply of food, No. [-] hatched more than [-] worker ants. Of course, this also caused the death of another male ant.

(End of this chapter)