Juggernaut: Rise of the Zerg

Chapter 43 Experiment Failed (Favorites!!)

Time passed day by day, and it was midsummer in a blink of an eye.

The builders lived up to Zero's expectations. After testing, they were unable to complete the handling of objects similar in size and quality to sweet potatoes, which meant that they also could not completely transport and store the plants that Zero planted on the grassland.

This disappointed Zero. Of course, after Zero Snow hid the mutated soldier ants, the food reserves of the current ant colony continued to increase. As long as he did not plan to increase the number of ant colonies, there would be no food crisis in the short term.

However, as the ant colony completely takes over the entire island and drives away or even eliminates all existing threats, the original ecosystem has been destroyed.

Zero can clearly feel that the number of insects on the entire island is rapidly decreasing. Although the ants are still carrying food to the ant nest, the difficulty of finding food has been increasing.

It is undeniable that the mass reproduction of ant colonies has endangered the ecological environment of the entire island, and it is impossible for Zero to reduce the number of ant colonies for the safety of the ant colonies and itself, so this situation will not improve, but will continue Get worse.

It is foreseeable that one day, all insects on this island will gradually disappear, and even the plants on the island may be affected by the disappearance of insects.

Of course, this point is not certain, but what is certain is that the ant colony has not reached the point when they have enough food and clothing to sit back and relax, and the threat of survival is still hanging above their heads.

This situation will never improve unless they return to their primitive state to survive in a daze.

From the time when Zero led them to carry out large-scale reproduction and expansion, it was doomed to today's results, and it was also doomed that they could only continue to move forward in the future.

Zero's original plan was to use the builder's larger size and greater load to try to carry the plant roots that Zero called "sweet potatoes" but were not exactly the same as sweet potatoes. Take the burden of food for the ant colony.

As the ant colony mutated and grew in size, Ling keenly discovered the shortcomings of the original earthworm farm and aphid pasture.

Earthworms are okay, after all, they are larger, and they are good food for the mutated soldier ants, but the aphids, which are only the size of gravel, can't satisfy the appetite of the mutated ants at all.

After the ant colony occupied the entire island, the aphids were also brought to every corner of the island. In order to maintain the survival of grasses, the ants had to reduce the number of aphids. In this way, there was an upper limit for the output of aphids. Although it has not been fully achieved yet, it is only a matter of time.

Although Ling currently has no plans to reproduce mutated ants on a large scale, it is foreseeable that mutated ants will replace the current ant colony in the future, and he has to make preparations for this.

The output of aphids has indeed gradually become tasteless. At present, ordinary worker ants can still have a surplus in grazing aphids. After they are eliminated in the future, it is impossible to send ant tribes that are several times or even ten times the size of worker ants to do this. The aphid herding thing - it's so inefficient, it's a job that doesn't make ends meet.

Therefore, how to provide food sources for the mutated ant colony was also put on the agenda by Zero, and this experiment with the builder was an attempt, but unfortunately it failed.

However, although the sweet potato roots that have been cut into pieces cannot be stored for a long time, they can also provide an energy source for the ant colony in the short term.However, this also means that this source is cut off during the season when sweet potatoes cannot grow.

As for another existence called "berry" by Zero, builders and even ordinary soldier ants can easily move it.

But at the same time, this kind of water-rich fruit is more difficult to preserve than sweet potatoes. Once it falls, it will decay extremely quickly, and it cannot be used as a long-term food source.

Even so, Zero still ordered the ant colony to grow these two plants as much as possible. Before the autumn harvest season, they could fully meet the needs of the ant colony.

However, misfortunes never come singly.

Following the failure of the builder's experiment, bad news came again from the cave laboratory.

Zero's second ant queen mutation experiment failed!

In the spring, Zero assembled a large number of first-order mutant queens and second-order mutant queens in the cave, preparing to start the experiment again, and even prepared a large number of control groups, hoping to control variables more accurately in the future, to achieve The variation effect you want.

However, the result also disappointed Zero.

Whether it is the first-order mutated queen mutated from a common queen, or the second-order mutated queen who ate the corpse of a mutated soldier ant in the termite colony and then ate the termite queen again for the second mutation, in the In this experiment, no matter how much termite queen meat was fed to them, they did not change at all.

At first, Zero One thought it was the temperature. After all, the last time they mutated was in early winter, when the temperature was dropping rapidly, even approaching below zero at one point.

But he soon discovered that was not the case.

After the arrival of spring, several spring rains fell, during which there was still a cold spring, and even a thin snow fell again. This kind of weather lasted for several days, and the temperature in the cave was almost the same as that in early winter.

However, the colony of queens still showed no signs of mutation.

Zero guessed that it might be because the time was not long enough. Based on the idea of ​​bold guessing and careful verification, he continued to feed this group of ant queens the insect meat of termite queens. At the same time, he set up a large number of control groups according to environmental changes.

However, until midsummer, this group of queen ants still ate and drank without any change.

Zero knew in his heart that it should not be due to time.More than three months have passed without any movement. If it takes longer to mutate, Zero will not have the patience to wait any longer.

He removed a large number of control groups, leaving only five first-order mutated ant queens and five second-order mutated ant queens to continue eating insect meat in the cave, to verify the conjecture whether it would take longer to change, and turned to Turned his attention to the problem of food for the ant colony.

Since there is no answer and no new ideas in a short period of time, it is better to think from another angle.

"Since this colorful glazed gemstone can mutate termites and ants, maybe it can also mutate aphids and even earthworms?" Zero speculated boldly.

"If aphids can also get bigger, then it's not impossible for them to be a food source later..."

Thinking of zero and denying his own thoughts.A larger body size means a greater food intake. The plants on the grassland cannot withstand such rushing. The upper limit of aphids has been strictly limited by the environment. Even if there is a mutation, it is impossible to take on this important task.

"Perhaps earthworms are a good choice?"

　The thing about gems is not completely metaphysical. This will be explained later, so I will explain it here to avoid misunderstanding.At the same time, in order to avoid spoilers, I will not explain in depth.Sorry for the misunderstanding.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)