Chapter 2357: The lifeblood of the earth! (2/2)

Rock worms can swallow up to tens of thousands of the roughest food materials, including minerals containing a large amount of trace elements, and convert them into large amounts of fat and protein, which can provide the energy necessary for human survival in the harshest environment.

The rock worm is full of treasures. It incorporates some special spider and silkworm genes. The silk thread used to wrap food is also a good textile material. Moreover, it peels off once a year. The peeled skin can also be made. It becomes a light and warm leather jacket.

In addition, rock worm's excrement hardly needs to be refined, it is a natural fertilizer, suitable for nourishing most plants, even mushrooms and mosses, and can make wild plants domesticated by humans into crops with skyrocketing yields.

It can be said that as long as humans explore the colonization of unknown areas, as long as they bring rock worms, the two key problems of ”clothing” and ”food” will be solved, and by the way, a solid foundation has been laid for the development of agriculture.

It's just that too many genetic modifications have been made in terms of ”omnivorous” and ”availability.” The consequence of rockworms desperately growing fat and protein is that their mobility and predation ability are greatly weakened, weakened to almost zero.

This is a kind of life born in a laboratory. It is extremely difficult to adapt to the harsh life in the wild under the premise of maintaining the existing traits, and can only stay honestly in the breeding room and be fed and grown by humans.

In the Xinghai Empire 10,000 years ago, when designing these underground refuges, naturally there was a complete set of extremely advanced and sophisticated automated breeding equipment to ensure that this ”meat factory” continuously output energy products, from the very beginning rock worms mating. In the end, it becomes a box of ready-to-eat meat packaged in cans, and the entire process does not require many workers and breeders to manipulate.

But with the erosion of the years, the old automated breeding equipment has long ran out of energy, is fragmented, and no longer exists, and the original knowledge of raising rock worms has long been lost. Today's underground people can only raise them in the most primitive ways. they.

Since rock worms can grow so much meat, their food intake is naturally huge. They cannot go out for food by themselves. They all rely on underground people to gather moss, tear off vines, chop down mushrooms, dig ore, mince and mix them with great effort, and put them into the feed trough. Medium-This is a very heavy manual labor. Three or five strong men work all day long to barely satisfy the appetite of a rock worm.

In order to ensure that so many moss, vines and mushrooms can grow in the underground world, it is necessary to continuously throw rock worm excrement into the crevices of the rock, and then carefully serve various crops. The underground world was originally not suitable for crop growth, even if The smallest cluster of moss was watered by people underground with blood and sweat.

Because the real fully automatic feeding trough has long been destroyed, the rock worms are not adapted to the environment deep in the cave, so people continue to massage their bodies and force them to get up and exercise, otherwise the rock worms will soon grow black. Madara, the flesh and blood in it are all necrotic, so you can't eat it.

These tasks accounted for 99% of the underground people, 99% of the time, it can be said that the entire 10084 district is surrounded by ”rock worms”.

Based on the number of stalagmites, stalactites, and caves on the rock wall, Li Yao quickly calculated the ratio of the number of rock worms to the number of underground residents, and found that the number of rock worms seemed too high compared to the population in District 10084. A little more, even if you kill all the meat, you can't eat so much. If you can raise a few less, wouldn't people be much easier?

Li Jialing shook his head and said that he only knows one thing and does not know the other. As I said earlier, although the underground people have worked so hard to raise so many rock worms, they are usually reluctant to eat large pieces of meat. A small piece of meat can be cut every few days. It's good to mix it into the meat porridge.

The vast majority of rock worms have shed their skins three times, and after they are fully mature, they must be carried to the town above, which is the ”four-digit area” numbered between 1000 and 9999, in exchange for precious energy, civilian treasures and weapons .

The underground residents of the 10084 area are not completely ignorant barbarians after all. They still retain the basic language and culture, and a small part of the magic weapon and the big formation are still in operation, and they are eager to know what the world above looks like. A large number of materials and fuels have to be replaced by rock worms. However, various synthetic foods are popular in the world above. Rock worms cannot sell for a high price, and three or five rock worms may not be able to exchange for a standard crystal box.

Even if they gritted their teeth, they don't need any magic weapon or energy, at least one essential material must be purchased in the town above, that is, fresh compressed air, as well as components for maintaining the air circulation and filtration system.

Towns tens of thousands of meters underground, even if they have the most massive and efficient ventilation system, and the continuous introduction of fresh air on the ground, it is also a very depressive and dull world, full of all kinds of deadly poisonous gases.

Once the exhaust gas exhaled by humans accumulates too much, it will also cause everyone to suffocate.

Therefore, the underground residents can abandon all magic weapons, even without the lighting talisman above their heads, and become ghosts in the dark, but it is absolutely impossible to abandon the air circulation and filtration system.

Once the air circulation and filtration system fails, the ultra-highly compressed fresh air must be released in time to gain valuable maintenance time.

The absence of air is more terrifying than the absence of sunlight, and it is a real catastrophe.

Residents in four-figure towns will suffer from the fatal weakness of the underground people in five-figure towns. The lion opens its mouth wide and sets the price of related magic components and compressed air to extremely high prices. Only dozens of rock worms can be exchanged for one. A small can of compressed air.

Therefore, the residents of the 10084 area work hard every day to grow and raise, not only what they wear and what they eat, but also the vitality. They rely on the air that they can't live without even a second!