Overlord: Rise of the Zerg

The autumn wind is bleak and the ground is withered and yellow.

It's the harvest time of the year again, and many logistic ant species swarm to transport many mature sweet potatoes from various places on the island back to their nests for safe storage.

After eight years of development, the ants have re-cultivated the entire island. At present, their number has expanded by orders of magnitude. Compared with one hundred thousand eight years ago, there are now more than one million ant species of various types active in every corner of the island!

This is a very large number, and it is almost the limit that the current ant colony can reach.

Judging from the number, the ants seem to be far from being able to recover to their original maximum number. After all, before that disaster, they had a population of tens of millions!

However, this kind of thing cannot be calculated this way.

The original ant colony, whether in terms of size or fighting strength, was completely different from the current ant species.

Take the most common builder as an example. If it were to compete with the original ant colony, it would not be an exaggeration to say that one is worth a hundred, and it might even be a bit too conservative. After all, it is no longer the little worker ant it was back then. The current builder is more than half the size of a palm!

Millions of these ants are active in various places that can be explored on the island, performing various kinds of labor.

There are guardians covered with thick carapace, standing guard next to the team of builders carrying food, guarding them. There are transporters flying across the sky at high speeds, with a huge sweet potato hooked on their feet. There were also diggers who struggled to turn their bodies underground to push fully ripe sweet potatoes out of the ground for the builders to carry. Of course, there are also combat units in the water. They swim freely in a circle of fish farms around the island, chasing plump fish.

Throughout the autumn, the island is like a huge farm. Each ant species performs its duties and contributes to the development of the ant colony in an orderly manner.

Fish farms have been built one after another in the past few years. Such large-scale projects can be built in just a few years even though the builders have experienced another evolution and have increased in number by orders of magnitude. The breeding farms that almost circle the coast also took a lot of effort.

However, no matter what, they were finally completed within this period of time, and all the hard work was worthwhile. Nowadays, these farms can also take on part of the burden of supporting ant colonies.

After experiencing the initial population growth, in just one year, the ant colony completed the cultivation of all the land on the entire island.

In a short period of time, Zero used the most conservative calculation to determine the total number of ant colonies that could be supported by all the food produced by growing crops on the island. Then, he multiplied the number of ant colonies to this total number. One-half of that, or about one million.

This is not blind expansion. The reason why so many are hatched is mainly because of the need to complete the fish breeding belt around the island as soon as possible. Most of them are logistic ant species, so there are only a few combat units.

Out of vigilance against various disasters, Zero properly stored half of the remaining food. Most of it was hidden inside the mountain, a small amount was deep underground, and special water-proof structures were built. In this case, even if the flood floods the island again, as long as it does not last too long, it is unlikely to threaten the ant colony's food storage.

In the current environment, Zero is not obsessed with expanding the number of ant colonies. Because expansion is meaningless if there is no corresponding demand, and it will only consume food in vain.

All the previous expansions of the ant colony had a clear purpose and they never blindly expanded the colony.

The first few expansions were to obtain a larger living space, thereby obtaining more food and feeding more groups. It was a virtuous cycle.

In the later period, the number increased in order to defeat the termite colony and gain control of the entire island.

After defeating the termites, the huge number of ants immediately became a burden to the colony, and Zero had to let some useless ants enter hibernation to reduce food consumption.

Therefore, pure and purposeless quantitative growth is meaningless to zero. At the current rate of queen ant production, as long as he wants to, he can expand the number of the entire ant colony to three or even ten times within three to five days, but this is not necessary. The current environment of the ant colony determines They simply don't need to be in such huge numbers.

After completing the construction of the aquaculture farm around the island, the ant colonies slowly reduced their consumption of sweet potatoes, because compared to fish that are easily spoiled, the storage time of sweet potatoes is obviously much longer, and the ant colonies naturally give priority to it. Eat foods with a short shelf life and create as little waste as possible.

In addition to aquaculture farms, the ant colony's aquatic combat units also continue to explore and hunt in offshore areas, which also provides a lot of food for the group.

In addition, in order to protect against disasters that may come again, ant colony refuge facilities are almost all over the entire mountain range. There are sporadic ant colonies under all the rocks with stable structures, even between the mountains, and in the inner areas of the mountains. refuge base.

Although each of these refuge bases is small compared to their huge number, the total number of ant colonies that can be sheltered in all bases can still cover the current number of ant colonies!

Because the shelter is not a place to live for a long time, there is no need to consider livability. It is completely possible for the ant colony to squeeze in it.

It is also worth mentioning that as their size increases, this huge group of ants seems to be less afraid of the cold. Although they are still reluctant to go out in winter, this level of cold can no longer threaten them. life.

If it weren't for avoiding the tsunami that followed the earthquake, there would be no need for them to open any shelters inside the mountains.

Now that they have the initial ability to move in cold weather, the nests of the group no longer need much temperature control except for the granary. The direct impact of this on the ant colonies is that they no longer need to hide deep underground and rely on The insulation effect of the earth maintains the temperature in the nest.

They can already come to the ground and survive in caves!

This is undoubtedly a great progress, which means that the ant colony has been initially freed from the influence of regular weather on its activities, and no longer needs to waste too much labor to build too many complex underground structures.

Now, from the offshore to the central mountains, from the sky to the underground, in this area, the ant colony has once again become the sole master!

They have developed new breeding industries, re-planned planting industries, and even expanded marine fisheries.

On the island, the ants do not have any competitors. Except for the unpredictable natural disasters, they are already the well-deserved overlord in this area.

A prosperous and well-fed race once again appeared on the island, and it has become more powerful.

However, Zero was not complacent.

He still can't forget his powerlessness in the face of earthquakes and tsunamis, nor his despair when there was no food source, nor can he forget that he could only hide in a cave when the storm came.

Therefore, He will not be satisfied with this, and will never stop its development because of its current achievements.

Thank you all for reading! ! I asked the editor yesterday and he said that there are more than 200, which is incomparable to those big guys, maybe not even a fraction of others.

But for me, to be honest, I already feel like an author! ! ! (swelling smile with arms akimbo)

In addition, what is it like to be urged by book friends to put it on the shelves? It makes me a little confused...