Overlord: Rise of the Zerg

After the second round of expansion, the number of ant colonies began to expand rapidly again, and accordingly, Zero's field of vision became broader.

Roughly taking the branch connecting line formed by the first expansion as the boundary, Zero calls it the first ring, and the new branch created by the second expansion is called the second ring. Within the scope of the first ring, Zero already has the entire field of vision. Outside this range, there are also a large number of sporadic fields of vision.

Time flies by, and in a blink of an eye, the weather has begun to get hotter. More and more ant colonies crawl out of their nests, contributing to the development of the ant colony.

The problem of food is still the main contradiction that plagues the development of ant colonies, but this contradiction is not prominent until the ant colonies completely occupy the viable space.

However, if people don’t worry about the long term, they must worry about the near future. With the rapid development of the ant colony, this problem is bound to gradually come to the fore.

So Zero has been thinking about this problem.

Grazing aphids is undoubtedly a very good direction. Today, aphids have almost spread throughout the sphere of influence occupied by ant colonies, and even the pastures of ant colonies are still expanding outwards.

At its peak, the entire aphid farm can bear more than 80% of the food consumption of the ant colony, and it is the undisputed pillar industry of the ant colony.

Of course, while grazing aphids, the ant colonies are not idle. The ants who have no grazing tasks are still attacking in all directions to hunt for food. So much so that not long after summer has just begun, the ants have almost prepared all the food they need for the winter. , of course, limited to the current population size.

The weather is getting hotter and hotter, and Zero is keen to discover that the production efficiency of aphids has begun to slowly decrease as the temperature rises.

The grass blades are no longer as tender as they were in spring, and the temperature is no longer as suitable as before. Many aphids have begun to hide on the backs of the grass blades, and only a few are still lying on the front to survive.

This caught Zero's attention, and he remembered his idea of ​​artificially adjusting the evolutionary direction of the ant colony. Isn't this a ready-made experimental sample?

It is a good research direction to eliminate the bad and keep the good in aphids. Ant colonies that have been grazing before have already done this. They kill the aphids with low production efficiency for food, and domesticate the aphids that are fat and have extremely high production to reproduce. descendants, and then make the same selection in their next generation.

Of course, the effect of this selection cannot be seen in just a few months, but this experiment does not actually affect the overall output of aphids, because in the entire fixed area, the ant colony needs to remain The number of aphids is fixed.

They are supposed to clean up most of the aphids' offspring to ensure the normal survival of the grass, but they do not kill aphids randomly, but selectively.

It is different to select aphids with heat resistance, because the vast majority of aphids like to live in the shade on the back of the leaves, and only a few can face the hot sunlight.

If these heat-labile aphids are removed, the benefits of ant colony grazing will be greatly lost.

In order not to affect the ants' grazing plans, Zero's experiments on the heat resistance of aphids were only carried out on a small scale. He chose a piece of grass of about one square meter and ordered the ant colony to clean up all the aphids that were afraid of heat, leaving only one Heat-tolerant, and a steady stream of heat-tolerant aphids are transported from other places.

Only in this area, all the offspring of these aphids that do not have heat resistance will be killed, leaving only those that meet zero requirements to reproduce again.

The two selection experiments on aphids can be regarded as a preview before artificial intervention in the evolution of ant colonies. The same is true for the domestication of earthworms, but it is difficult for such experiments to be effective in a short period of time.

If the desired effect can indeed be achieved, then Zero will begin to carry out such experiments among ant colonies to selectively evolve the ant species he needs.

Unless this kind of experiment is a race that reproduces extremely fast, it is absolutely difficult to see results in the short term. The most promising one is aphids, but even under the current environment, they still need about seven days to reproduce one generation.

In addition to aphids, another project that Zero is concerned about - the underground connecting channel between the Second Ring Road and the First Ring Road has also greatly improved the construction progress with the recovery of the number of ant colonies in the First Ring Road and the development of the disposal nests in the Second Ring Road. .

It is expected that by next month, most of the underground passages from the first ring to the second ring will be connected. Among them, the most difficult position is the underground passage connecting the ant nests on the south bank of the river. Due to the river, the ants must first dig enough Only the depth can ensure the solidity of the channel. It is impossible to establish a channel that meets zero requirements in the mud.

This caused a lot of trouble for the worker ants responsible for the work, so that the work progressed very slowly.

But no matter how slow the progress is, with the blessing of the number of ant colonies, as long as it can be realized, it is only a matter of time. Zero is very sure of this.

Except for the channel that communicates with the southern branch nest, everything in other directions is relatively smooth and the progress is normal.

Similar to the first expansion, after being connected to the first ring, these branch nests will also establish underground passages between each other, eventually forming a spider web-like underground structure and becoming the true "second ring".

At present, there is sufficient food. Although there are potential worries in the future, Zero is already planning the next round of expansion. This plan will be launched as soon as the "second ring" is truly formed.

But that should be in the fall.

It is also worth mentioning that under the careful care of the ant colony using earthworms and organic fertilizers, the ten fruit tree seedlings that grew up in the spring have grown into small saplings more than ten centimeters tall. Compared to the generally taller weeds around them, they still looked dwarfed, but this speed already made Zero very satisfied.

The small fruit tree on the mound that came from nowhere has also sprouted new branches and leaves this year. Obviously, it is just a fruit seedling that has just matured and produced fruit, and still has a lot of room for growth.

After a while, it will bloom and bear fruit again, which also means that another batch of fruit tree seeds will be produced.

Zero is happy to do this kind of planting, which can greatly satisfy his desire to transform nature.

Just imagine, in a few years or more than ten years, there will be dozens or hundreds of fruit trees on this land. By then, the fruits that fall every year will be able to support a large number of ants.

Of course, maybe by that time, the ant colonies will no longer need the fruits produced by these fruit trees, but this still does not affect Zero's decision now.

Who can say for sure what will happen in a few years or even more than ten years? Maybe the ant colony will develop very well, or maybe it will encounter unknown risks and decline. No one can predict it. Doing the current things well is the most important thing.