Chapter 14 - 14 Chapter 13: Disaster_1 (2/2)
Digging and expanding the nest, storing food, feeding the Ant Queen and the larvae, they were swamped with work.
“`
Thank goodness, the hardest days have finally passed.
All ten termite eggs from the second batch hatched successfully, and they metamorphosed into adult insects, instantly giving us ten new forces.
With ten additional worker ants, the productivity and support capabilities of this ant colony would increase by more than threefold.
Qin Niu stood in front of the ant nest, grinning foolishly by himself.
It really hadn’t been easy.
After nearly two months of perseverance, the ant colony was slowly growing stronger, and its ability to survive was substantially improving.
His dream of becoming an Insect Master was gradually coming true.
Although termites couldn’t be used like crickets in fighting matches to win their owner a fortune, nor could they, like the cripple’s rat, help people find lost objects, termites had their unique abilities.
Qin Niu initially raised them to assist with farming.
As his knowledge on being an Insect Master kept growing, he discovered the role of termites was far more significant than that.
As long as he raised them well, they would have great potential in the future.
They could even help their owner in combat.
Guided by Fourth, the ten newly born worker ants quickly learned foraging skills and wilderness survival experience alongside their nestmates.
Watching all this, Qin Niu felt sweeter than honey in his heart.
Tomorrow, the third batch of termite eggs should also metamorphose into adult insects, and this termite colony will enter a rapid expansion period.
The Ant Queen had been continuously accumulating energy these days.
Its body had grown two or three times larger than before.
Chubby and white, it lay lazily in the nest, hardly moving at all.
Its only job was one—to lay eggs.
When Qin Niu returned home, he saw the corn saplings in the field had begun to yield ears of corn.
The saplings grew taller than a person.
Lush and green, he estimated harvesting over a thousand pounds of corn shouldn’t be a problem.
As long as he waited until next month, he could eat his fill every meal and indulge in fine grains without having to endure those hard-to-swallow wild vegetables and tree barks anymore.
In the middle of the night, while Qin Niu was sleeping soundly, a sudden sense of unease pulsed through his heart.
He felt very uneasy.
And was immediately jolted awake.
“Not good, the ant colony has encountered great danger.”
Qin Niu was the Ant Queen’s owner, and the entire ant colony were his pets.
Forming a contract with an Ant Queen or Bee Queen came with its advantages.
Their direct descendants were more like ‘clones’, equally controlled by the owner.
At that moment, the ant colony seemed to be facing a major disaster.
Worker ants had already fallen in battle.
Female Milky White Ant (Ant Queen)
Grade: Grade Two equality-winged insect, upgrade experience 117/1000
Lifespan: 4.2 years
Energy: 2861
Skills: Reproduction level one 0.85/10, Feigning death level one 2/10
Talent: Medium intelligence
Ant Colony: Subordinate Worker Ants 4, lifespan 3 months. Ordinary Worker Ants 9, lifespan 3 years.
One of the newly metamorphosed worker ants had already died.
Qin Niu, burning with anxiety, disregarding the danger, immediately grabbed a firewood knife and a medicine hoe and raced into the mountains in the dark.
This termite colony was the result of nearly two years of his efforts, depleting his family’s wealth on just three low-grade Contract Charms.
It had been a struggle to succeed once, but now, as the ant colony was on the cusp of a snowball-like expansion, it had met with a significant crisis.
It was already worth risking his life to save them.
The most important one was the Ant Queen.
Then came ‘Fourth’.
As long as these two termites were safe, even if all the other worker ants and eggs were lost, it wouldn’t matter.
They could quickly rebuild.
Fortunately, there was a crescent moon in the sky to light the path ahead.
The bright moonlight fell evenly across the earth, casting a mysterious veil over the landscape and making the mountains at night even more eerie and cold.
When Qin Niu arrived at the scene, the entire nest was in disarray.