Overlord: Rise of the Zerg

After having enough food, Zero was not in a hurry to expand the number of ant colonies - because winter was coming soon!

There is nothing to do to increase the number of ant colonies at this time, and it is not cost-effective to bear more food consumption for the ant colony in winter.

Zero planned everything he had to do and waited until next spring to implement it. Including the expansion of the ant colony, how far it will be expanded, what tasks will be completed after the expansion of the ant colony, etc., He has already made plans in his mind, just waiting for the winter to pass.

In hibernation, time passes quickly, the ice and snow recede, and spring comes again.

The water does not freeze in the winter, except for a thin layer of ice near the coast. After the temperature rose, even this thin layer of ice melted quickly.

Because the weather was still a little cold, the builders who climbed out of the cave were not in a hurry to plant crops. Instead, they headed toward the northern cliff under Zero's command.

There are a large number of pebbles on the beach there. During this free time, they will be responsible for collecting a sufficient number of stones to provide raw materials for the establishment of an aquaculture farm in the future.

In addition, last year, Zero put down his experimental sample there, and he also wanted to see through the builder how this sample had changed after a winter.

It’s a long way from the mountainside to the coast. The builders usually went all the way north over mountains and ridges. Although their speed was not slow due to their increased size, this distance still took them a lot of time.

By the time they arrived, it was almost noon.

Zero once again felt a little annoyed about the drastic reduction of his sphere of influence. If in the past, this kind of thing would naturally mobilize the ant colony closest to the cliff, and it would not take so much time at all.

At the same time, He gradually became dissatisfied with the crawling speed of the builders. However, there is nothing that can be done about it. Now that the entire island is in dire need of development, even if you dig a few feet into the ground, you will definitely not be able to gather the supplies for the evolution of the queen ant.

If anything is faster, it's air units. But they have no way of picking up pebbles directly, so they can only be builders.

Therefore, after this departure, they will not return to the cave in a short period of time. They will dig a temporary camp on the seashore, and transporters will provide them with food supplies.

Otherwise, it would be dark if they walked back and forth.

After the builders arrived at the beach, the first thing Zero saw was the experimental sample placed on the beach last year.

Contrary to his expectations, this clay-bonded and air-dried pebble sample did not scatter directly into a pile of indistinguishable stones as Zero expected. It still retained an overall shape, but the cobblestones were connected. A lot of clay has fallen away, and the clay that originally filled the entire surface of the sample is now only a little bit left in the gaps between the stones.

Even so, Zero is quite satisfied with the result.

In his original expectation, this kind of clay should not be able to withstand the erosion of sea water for many years, and would most likely turn into a pile of gravel again as time goes by.

But they didn't, which means that this idea is actually quite feasible, but it still needs to be used in conjunction with stupid methods.

On the coast, the builders are still busy moving pebbles of suitable sizes towards the grassland. In the ant nest, many sweet potatoes have been moved to the queen ant as food by the remaining ant colony.

The time has come to expand the ant colony.

In one day, the queen ants frantically produced tens of thousands of eggs.

A small part of them will hatch into more queen ants, and the vast majority will be builders who will take on construction tasks.

Based on the total amount of food stored in the cave and granary, this number of ant colonies is far from reaching the upper limit of support, so the queens did not stop there.

It wasn't until nearly 30,000 eggs were laid that Zero finally stopped the queen ants from producing. When the number of ant colonies reached this number, it was almost done.

After having enough food again, Zero learned the painful lessons from the past and decided to build a strategic granary inside the mountains. This strategic granary will store enough food to meet the annual consumption of about 10,000 ant colonies all year round. The food in this granary can only be replaced by new food unless there are special circumstances, and will not be easily replaced. consumption.

The number of 30,000 is roughly calculated by Zero. The current food storage of the ant colony can support the maximum number of the entire ant colony until the autumn harvest. If it is more, the food in the strategic granary will be consumed.

However, in the early stages of construction, this number of ant colonies is roughly enough. The fish farm under zero conception is destined to be an extremely huge project even for the ant colony that has evolved many times.

First of all, if you want to have enough harvest, then the scale of this farm will not be too small. For ants, this will not be too small. In fact, it is huge, because this scale must be at least seven meters in diameter. Eight meters, as for the depth, it will be at least two or three meters.

Zero still hadn't thought about how good it would be to catch fish in the end, or in other words, none of the methods he could think of were very feasible with the Ant Tribe's current capabilities.

The only available method is a completely stupid method, that is, by releasing a large amount of water and letting the truth come to light to achieve the final goal of capture.

This is of course very difficult and quite unreliable, but at the moment this is the only thing he can think of.

Although the method is a bit stupid, there is still a slight possibility of implementation. This did not prevent Him from starting to prepare for the construction of this facility. He believed that there would be a way to reach the mountain. At the same time, He also had reasons for having to do this.

Because it is foreseeable that in a short period of time, there will be only so much land that can provide crops for ant colonies, and it will be difficult to increase it.

This means that if the sweet potato yield does not suddenly increase, the food that the ant colony can harvest every year is actually about the same.

This year we can harvest enough food to feed 30,000 ants for a year, and the amount will be the same next year without much fluctuation.

This means that if new food sources cannot be developed, then the number of ant colonies is destined to never exceed 30,000, and this is something that Zero, who has just experienced the painful lesson of the disaster, absolutely cannot accept!

Under such a natural disaster, even an ant tribe that numbered tens of millions was almost completely wiped out, let alone 30,000 ants, which would have no ability to withstand a disaster of this level.

Although Zero also knows that even if the ant colony returns to its previous size, it will definitely not be able to withstand such natural disasters. However, other than continuously increasing the number of ant colonies, he currently has no good solution.

After all, only when the number is large, it is more likely to leave more survivors. This is the simplest truth.

Therefore, the existing land on the island is destined to be unable to meet Zero's needs, and he must develop new food sources.

And those who rely on the mountains eat the mountains, and those who rely on the sea eat the sea. Is there anything on this island that is more likely to achieve Zero's goal than farming fish?

If this plan ultimately proves feasible, then the Ant Tribe may be able to use this method to return to its peak size.

Of course, it's too early to tell, and the builders haven't even collected the cobblestones yet.

The road ahead is long.