Juggernaut: Rise of the Zerg

Chapter 70 The Darkness Before Dawn
In order to complete the verification of this conjecture, Zero buried a batch of berry seeds in an area where it was impossible to survive in the past, and was closely watched by Zero.

Although it is midsummer now, it does not affect their germination.As long as the land allows them to survive, they will grow tenaciously and show their resilience to this cruel world!
Ten days later, Zero received good news from observers—they had indeed sprouted!

This made him very excited, because it meant that with the help of this sudden storm, he could start to lead the ant colony to cultivate this not-so-broad land again!
Once the cultivation covering the entire island is completed, the ant colony will soon have a sufficient food supply.

In this case, it is very quick for the ant colony to return to its peak!

After experiencing these two natural disasters, Zero had too many ideas to realize, but due to insufficient food, many of them were put on hold, and the only fish farming project that broke ground was still prematurely destroyed by the storm.

However, even if farming is to be resumed, it will have to be next year. In the current season, even if the seeds are planted and can germinate, they will be frozen to death if they are not mature at all.

What matters now is better use of the fish carcasses collected by the ant colonies from the islands so that they can be stored longer.

After all, there will be no sweet potatoes waiting for the ants to harvest this fall, they will have to rely on what they have to survive until next fall!
Of course, in this process, the occasional organisms that appear on the beach after low tide can be used as a supplement, but this harvest cannot afford the daily consumption of the ant colony, and it mainly depends on the current food reserves.

In addition, the fish in the pool might also be able to fill in a certain amount of food gap, but again, this amount is completely unable to bear the burden.

At present, the fish stored in caves and granaries is enough for the current ant colony for a year, but the bad news is that these foods cannot be properly preserved.

Even in a cold and dry underground granary, their storage time will not exceed one month.In other words, this is enough to meet the food reserves needed by the ant clan for a year, and it can only last for a month at most.

By the fall of this year, they will be used up, a small part will be eaten by the colony, and more will be wasted.

Zero had already used the ant nest's food reserves before, and the number of sweet potatoes stored in previous years was running out.

Zero estimates that in the winter when the ant colony is completely dormant, the food should be able to last until next spring.In other words, even if the ant colony has been dormant in a large area, there is still a gap of two full quarters in the current food!
Ling had thought about hoisting the collected fish up for air-drying and storage, but the ant colony had no tools, no technology, and no ability, so it was impossible to talk about it.

Therefore, how to deal with the excess fish in the current granary is also a problem, and they cannot be allowed to rot forever.

An ant colony lacking the tools and technology is unlikely to preserve meat properly unless it has a large refrigerator.

If these foods are harvested in winter or near winter, maybe they can rely on the low temperature in winter to prolong the preservation time of food.

But it's high summer!They just rot faster in this heat!

As for the food shortage, there is no good solution to zero. The only thing that can be thought of at present is to stop all activities and dormant as much as possible to reduce consumption.

But even so, the food consumption can only be extended by one quarter at most, and there will still be a big gap.And next spring, if you want to plant sweet potatoes on a large scale, the ant colony will need the builders to recover and participate in the labor, so that you can get more harvests in autumn, which is another expense.

Where does the food come from?

This is the question that Zero has thought about the most during this period of time.

Seeing that after the storm, the rain has cleared up, and the whole island has been reorganized. Without the trouble of being unable to plant, it seems that they can live a good life again, but the food shortage in front of them makes it difficult for Zero.

It is impossible for him to allow the ant colony to kill each other, for example, let the queen or the builders directly eat the excess combat units to maintain the survival of the colony, or simply use the current surplus food that is destined to rot to hatch the ants flocks, stored as live food.

It's not that they can't be eaten, it's just that in zero's simplest concept, cannibalism is always not allowed.Although the ant colony has no morals, Zero insists on it.

He would never use this method unless it was a real critical moment of life and death.

So, this is not the solution to the problem.

In order to tide over the difficulties, Zero can only lead the ant colony to save food and clothing while trying to find food in every possible way.

The common edible biological zero has all been included in the diet of the ant tribe, but for the sake of the survival of the tribe, he has to try more.

The grass roots preserved in the ground after the storm, the moss living in the crevices of the mountains, and various mushrooms growing in dark corners, etc., were all collected by zero-dispatch builders.

Eventually, after trial and error, mushrooms alone, among several organisms, should be able to provide some of the energy for the ant colony.

However, there are also types of mushrooms.

The ants have little reaction to eating ordinary gray mushrooms, basically no different from eating ordinary food, so they can be used as food for the ant colony.

And those colorful mushrooms, after being eaten by the builders in a small amount, soon they lay down on their nests. Although they didn't die, they almost lost their ability to move.

Zero knew that these mushrooms were poisonous.And the ant colony also showed a very obvious resistance to eating this kind of food, and it was impossible for Zero to force them to eat it.

So, eating poisonous mushrooms to get by is clearly not feasible, ruled out by zero.

In the next period of time, the out-going ant colonies collected a large number of mushrooms in various corners. Fortunately, after the storm, the ground was wet, and there were not a few such creatures growing on the shaded side of the mountain, so they quickly collected them. Plenty of assorted mushrooms.

In order to preserve them better, Ling asked them to place the picked mushrooms in a place on the sunny side of the mountain where they can often be exposed to the sun to dry and air-dry before transporting them into the granary for storage.

In the following time, they will give priority to eating the fish brought by the storm, and consume the food that is not easy to preserve first, and then eat these fungi to prolong the survival time of the ant colony.

In the following time, the ant colonies experienced a period of unbearable years.

All the ant tribes, except some of the builders responsible for transporting food to feed the queen, even the queen eventually began to eat these mushrooms, and quickly fell into hibernation after eating to reduce consumption.

This may sound a little funny, but it is indeed the only way Zero can think of to tide over the difficulties.

"Be patient, it's just the darkness before dawn..." Zero thought.

　Ask for a monthly ticket ㄟ〃77〃ㄏ
　　
　
(End of this chapter)