Overlord: Rise of the Zerg

Time passed little by little, and everything in the ant colony went according to plan. During the day, a large number of worker ants took a few soldier ants out to forage, and Zero still occasionally provided help to them.

The remaining worker ants are responsible for expanding the ant nest and feeding the larvae and No. 1. Long and narrow passages extend outward from the cave where No. 1 is located, and small chambers with functional attributes are opened in the ant nest.

Everything seemed in order, but Zero felt that their efficiency was still a bit low.

First of all, the treatment of food that the worker ants retrieved when they went out was very unreasonable in Zero's opinion. Except for those small foods that can directly enter the ant nest, large foods such as beetle carcasses must be dismembered outside the ant nest before being transported into the ant nest.

This is actually very unsafe. The efficiency of ants in dismembering insect corpses is not high in Zero's opinion. The strength and size of their pliers are not suitable for cutting hard objects like beetle carapace. Even with the help of formic acid, it cannot be done quickly. .

Even the speed that soldier ants with relatively developed upper jaws can speed up is lackluster. It usually takes a whole day for an insect corpse to decompose outside the cave, which means a huge risk.

For example, once, Zero observed that while the worker ants were painstakingly cutting food, a strange-looking bird flew over and effortlessly swallowed the insect carcasses into its belly, taking away ten more ants at the same time. A few worker ants and soldier ants were unable to escape in time.

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

First, He found No. 1 and asked her to order the worker ants to find a small raised earth bag about half a meter around the nest. Then the worker ants began to move earth and rocks from the side of the earth bag to open a new entrance.

Different from the previous hidden ant nest entrance, this new ant nest "portal" was opened diagonally upward from the middle of the earth bag, and the entrance was also opened quite large, enough for food such as beetle corpses to enter.

After a passage about thirty centimeters diagonally upward, there is a larger cave where the worker ants will cut food and transport the cut food into the ant nest through a passage that becomes narrower again. stored in the "grain storage room".

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

The worker ants dug a downward passage in the middle of this wide diagonally upward passage, which leads directly to a huge cave below. This is the "garbage dump" of the ant nest, and is dismembered in the "slaughterhouse". The garbage will be transported here, and it also has the functions of water storage and water seepage.

In order to ensure the concealment of the cave, the worker ants also moved many withered and yellow weeds to cover the wide entrance. In this way, it can be concealed as much as possible while ensuring unobstructed access.

In addition to the new "slaughterhouse", Zero also directed No. 1 to expand the "grain storage room" in the cave. In fact, the ant colony already has very mature experience in this regard.

They dug upwards on the side of the main passage of the cave and built a palm-sized granary. The walls inside the granary were also dug into densely packed small holes where small pieces of food were stored.

Zero guided them to build a new backup granary. He did not know the current location of the ant nest. If there was extreme weather, the original granary might be flooded by rain.

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

In addition, the "royal house" where No. 1 and several male ants are located has also been rebuilt.

The worker ants built a narrower and more rugged passage downwards where they originally were. The original "royal house" was converted into an incubation room. The eggs laid on the 1st will be hatched here. After the larvae are born, they will be carried by the worker ants to the new large nursery room for feeding.

Compared with the incubation room, the nursery 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 opinions.

The original air outlet was located on the top of a small mound, and the dirt in the hole was used to build a small mound. In this way, when the wind blows quickly, the pressure near the hole entrance will become smaller, thereby using atmospheric pressure to extract the air from the ant nest and realize the flow of air 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 wind in this season based on the direction of the grass swinging in the wind, and asked the No. 1 command worker ants to re-build the air outlet between 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 obstruction of the weeds, thereby reducing the pressure above the air outlet to a greater extent, achieving better ventilation effects, and taking into account both of concealment.

Zero didn't know why he knew this, but naturally, whenever he thought of something, this kind of relevant information would naturally pop up directly in his mind, and he gradually got used to it. This "ability" can be considered as my own ability for the time being.

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

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

For example, regarding the waterproof design of the main entrance of the ant nest, the ants use saliva to bind fine soil and gravel at the entrance of the hole to form a slightly inclined cylindrical structure. This can largely avoid the infiltration of rainwater, and at the same time, the fine soil at the entrance of the hole can also to absorb water.

Zero believed that this design destroyed the original hidden advantage of the ant nest at the root of the weeds. Since it was covered by grass, it was unlikely that rainwater would flow directly into the ant nest, so he directed the ant colony through No. 1 to smooth the entrance of the hole and redo it. Covert processing.

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

It turns out that the shielding effect of weeds has been completely destroyed by wind and rain. In addition, the grass roots are located slightly low, and the grass blades responsible for concealment absorb a lot of rainwater that would otherwise run away, resulting in a large amount of rainwater flowing into the ant colony. The result of the hole.

If the drainage work of the ant colony is not very good, a large amount of water will be directed into the seepage pool hidden deep underground, and zero mistakes may cause some losses to the ant colony.

Of course, such a huge renovation project inevitably delayed the ant colony's foraging. In order to ensure the supply of food, more than two hundred additional worker ants were hatched on No. 1. Of course, this also caused the death of another male ant.