Laws of the Insect Hive

System found that the energy fluctuations escaping from his eyeballs seemed to be similar to his [Teleportation] and [Sensing] powers.

When System tried to use this power to make contact with the eyeball, System received some blue images strangely in his mind.

It was the picture that the eyeball was facing, the picture was blurry, and there was no other color.

But even in this dim mouse hole it is possible to recognize things around it.

Obviously, this eyeball is obviously a magic item with utility, which can be regarded as a windfall.

Not only that, System found that this magical prosthetic eye seemed to have a wonderful effect on the map in the leather bag, when looking at the map with this prosthetic eye.

There will be many lines and words that have never appeared on the map, some of which are like a treasure map.

It was a pity that neither the function of the treasure map nor the ability to see things clearly in the dark was this prosthetic eye of any obvious use to System.

It can only be used as a toy for Shava who likes shiny things.

...

After entering the foul-smelling mouse hole to search for nearly an hour, although not enough mice were caught, System still gained something, and got a leather bag and two gadgets with magical functions.

Compared to harvesting in the rat cave, it took System a lot of time to wait for the rat man's paralyzing poison.

Maybe it's the Rat Man's acting skills, or maybe it's the effect of the paralyzing poison needle of the little meatball is too good.

After five full hours, the Rat Man moved its slightly stiff body to try to escape, and was killed by the impatient System who had been waiting, and then was dismembered by System and Shava into some suitable pieces. chunks of meat.

System also tasted the blood and some pieces of meat from the Rat Man, as he had always been.

In general, the meat on the Rat Man tastes slightly better than ordinary mice, but the taste is very limited, and it is still the sweetness of milk.

Still not as good as some insects.

...

Using the leather bag and some smooth tree branches, System once again used human wisdom to recreate a sled puller that can be towed. The leather bag was filled with pieces of Rat Man meat, and some ant worm pupae were on it. .

Because of the sturdy leather bag, System's sled trailer was very successful this time.

But after just over three days of use, System had to give up the sled trailer.

Not because the sleigh trailer was damaged, but because the snow and ice on the ground became thinner and the temperature gradually increased as System and his ant people gradually moved away from the Lilte Forest.

With volcanic ash acting as a snow-melting agent, after three days of walking, System’s simple sled could no longer walk on the muddy snow.

However, during these three days, System saw many small animals such as mice in the Warren Plain one after another, and System also selectively discarded some pieces of rat-man meat because of the abundant food sources.

Basically every 100 meters or so, there will be a litter of mice or a litter of rabbits, and System has once again found a rat man in these three days.

This brown rat man was discovered when System was patrolling the sky, about two kilometers away from him.

When System discovered the Rat Man, the Rat Man was dragging a bird corpse with a dozen mice.

When the rat man looked at a group of more than a dozen gnolls in the distance, he panicked and took ordinary mice to hide in the rat hole, never showing his face again.

It seems that these wise rat people should not do well in Warren Plains.

It is very likely that he was the target of being enslaved and hunted by gnolls, just like the goblins before the Glacier Lord returned.

However, because the rat people liked the way of burrowing, System estimated that it was unlikely that he would be captured and enslaved by the gnolls, but he might occasionally be hunted by the gnolls as snacks.

System didn't go all the way to trouble the rat man either.

After observing the direction of the gnoll's travel, System also adjusted his route selection to avoid the gnoll.

It wasn't to say that System couldn't defeat these gnolls, but it was unnecessary.

After all, gnolls are also powerful beings, just like the gnoll who used a spear to penetrate System's abdomen, the strength should not be underestimated.

...

...

System and his ant team went all the way. After 20 days, System finally chose a location near the stream to start building a new nest.

It's not that System's speed is too slow. In fact, System has moved away from the ice and snow world on the border of Warren Plain a few days ago, and has entered the warm-climate plain area.

Although some black ash formed by the volcano has fallen, there are not too many traces on the overgrown grassland.

In a month, these volcanic black ash have been basically purified by weeds.

The environment of the grassland is suitable, and System found some of his grasshopper clan on the grassland, as well as some other insects such as crickets and flies.

However, System had not yet decided where to place the lair. After all, System had already decided to live here for a long time, so he had to be careful in choosing the location of the underground lair.

Water, food, and safety are all carefully considered.

In fact, the easiest way, as long as System directly selects a Rat Man's cave to snatch, the Rat Man's cave is extremely wide and extends in all directions, and it will undoubtedly become a good nest with a little modification.

However, the Rat Man's lair is too messy, and it is obviously not a good idea to remodel it. *******Tum even found a rat in the process of hunting a Rat Man in the climatic Warren Plains. The disgusting practice of feeding maggots in manure for food.

This practice made System feel disgusting, but what was even more disgusting was that the maggots that System had just seen were subconsciously sensing with their tentacles, and then they ate a live maggot.

It still tastes good...

Since then, System has resisted diving into the Rat Man's cave.

Using the Rat Man's lair for transformation, System had a little idea in the past, but now he has completely ignored it.

Although his spirit is almost accustomed to the way of thinking of bugs, and he is more inclined to bugs, some things are still completely unacceptable.

...

In 20 days, System's ant knights once again added two new members, which took about a month longer than ordinary worker ants, and the two soldier ant knights emerged from the chrysalis.

One of the soldier ant knights seems to have acquired a talent similar to [Strong Body] by listening to the voice of the world.

With a body of more than ten centimeters and a weight of less than 200 grams, it can lift a large stone of 100 kilograms, and there is no problem with the exoskeleton on its body.

The other soldier ant, like most of the ants who have pupated twice, still doesn't know what kind of ability he has acquired.

Including the two soldier ant knights who emerged one after another, there are only five ants who can master and use the ability to hear the sound of the world.

Among them, there is also a large worker ant that does not belong to the Knights of Worker Ants, but is just an ordinary secondary pupation.

This big worker ant was nicknamed The Excavator by System.

Although its intelligence is lower than that of ordinary worker ant knights, it is naturally good at digging and carrying.

After listening to the sound of the world, it gained an ability to manipulate dirt and sand, and its ability was dozens of times stronger than the hook's power generation ability.

With this ability, the worker ants, who are good at digging themselves, are better at building ant nests.

It can be said that the excavator alone is more useful than all the ant teams in System combined.

Chapter 98 Settlement (Part 2)

The choice of where to build a new nest not only depends on System's subjective assumptions, but more importantly, it depends on the excavators of experienced geologists.

Although the excavator is not even very coherent in the transmission of spiritual information, it has an innate understanding of the site selection and structure of the nest.

Of course, if you ask the excavator why it chose this address, the excavator will never answer, it just thinks it is good, but it can't explain the specific good point.

...

The forelimbs of the worker ants touched the soil on the ground, but they didn't see any special movements. The soil began to come alive like System's [Corrosive Slime], and gradually wriggled and formed a diameter of about half a meter and a depth of about ten centimeters. circular pothole.

There were some incompletely rotted plant stems and some other soil impurities left in the pothole. The other ant teams acted quickly under the instructions of System and Black to clean up and transport these impurities.

The excavator has certain limitations on the manipulation of sand, or its intelligence is not ideal for the manipulation of this ability.

It can control the movement of sand and small pieces of gravel, but it cannot move with some dead branches and leaves wrapped in the gel of [Corrosive Slime] like System.

Therefore, when the excavator controls the soil and gravel fragments, a lot of dead branches and leaves and soil impurities will fall down. Other ants need to clean up these things before the excavator can continue to use its ability.

With the ability of an excavator, a circular tunnel with a diameter of half a meter like this can be excavated about three meters in one day.

After all, the body of the excavator needs proper rest and eating to restore this energy. Otherwise, if the excavator is allowed to dig without stopping, it can create a tunnel of more than ten meters in a day.

Because the excavator has the ability to manipulate the sand and gravel, it can force the scattered sand and gravel together with the outer wall of the tunnel.

Not only can the inner wall of the tunnel be made firm and strong, but also the trouble of carrying the excess sand and gravel generated by the tunnel excavation is eliminated.

It only needs to be transported and cleaned up of the soil impurities that other ant people excavators cannot control.

As the big worker ants continuously displayed their abilities, an hour later, a pit nearly half a meter deep appeared in front of System.

Because of the increase in depth, the rotting grass stems and soil impurities below the grassland have been reduced a lot, and the speed of the excavator has been further accelerated. However, System estimates that after digging for about half a meter, the energy of the excavator will be exhausted, and it will take a few hours to rest. to fully recover.

Unlike System, which absorbs the free energy in the air from time to time, the excavator’s way of replenishing energy is simple and direct. It stretches its legs, allowing its body to touch the ground as much as possible, and absorb the power that appears in the ground.

While watching the digging progress of the big worker ants, System stretched out his tentacles and used the ability of [Growing Plants] near the newly built nest to catalyze some vine plants.

In the past few days, System has completely understood the ability of [Growing Plants], a Druid.

In the snow, the effect of [Growing Plants] is not ideal. There are reasons for his lack of power, but it is more related to the climate. Even if you have the ability to [Give Plants], you must meet the growth conditions of the plants.

Appropriate temperature, water, soil, and sunlight that plants need are indispensable. If some of them are lacking, the effect of [growing plants] will be greatly reduced.

...

The five vines gradually grew under the power of System [Growing Plant], growing one centimeter every ten seconds, gradually disguising the potholes dug by the excavator.

After these days in the grasslands, System had basically figured out the food chain near the junction of Warren Plain and Liert Forest.

The ones at the absolute top of the food chain are the gnoll and the pig-headed man, but these days, System has only seen a pig-headed man dozens of kilometers away from a distance. What is the specific status of the pig-headed man, he will go further in the future Observed.

The status of the gnoll in this grassland is equivalent to the human in the previous world of System. It can be said that it exists beyond all species in the grassland, and other creatures in the grassland are under the rule of the gnoll.

On the next level of the food chain of gnolls and pig-headed people are the wolves that appear from time to time in the grasslands, the black eagles in the sky, and the wise rat people.

System was in such a hurry to catalyze the formation of vines from plants, so that he was prepared to prevent the black eagles in the sky from falling and attacking.

It wasn't that System was afraid of these eagles, but that these eagles kept circling in the sky, not knowing when they would fall, making System very irritable.

Compared with the eagles, which have no natural enemies in the air, the rat people and the wolves fight each other.

Just like the rat people and the mice they control, the wolves on the grassland are like the pets of the gnolls. When the wolves in the grasslands meet the gnolls, they will roll around in front of the gnolls as if to please them.

It was precisely because of the relationship between the wolves and the gnolls that System put the wolves and the rat people on the same level of the food chain. Otherwise, with the intelligence and strength of the rat people, they could be the upper level of the wolf pack.

Further down the food chain are the one-horned sheep and some snakes on the grasslands, followed by some small rodents such as rabbits and mice, and some poisonous arthropods such as scorpions and centipedes.

In terms of species, the food chain on the steppe is much simpler than that in the Liert forest.

...

But these days, after System observed nearly ten Rat Men and killed three of them, System found that the more he knew about the Rat Man, the more intelligent creature he knew, the more he felt that he understood it. less.

Although the rat people are below the gnolls in the food chain, they are not as unresisted as the goblins of the past.

Although the living habits are extremely dirty, the rat people are obviously not low in intelligence, and they can make some simple tools and weapons.

System was even hit in the body by a simple bone bolt made by the Rat Man.

The bone arrows were stained with the feces of some rat people, with some plague-like germs attached.

If System hadn't possessed the ability of [Teleportation], and could sense the emotions of fungi and bacteria, he might have suffered a lot of damage from the Rat Man's arrow crossbow.

Not only that, but after constant inspections in the sky, System discovered that there seemed to be a Ratman settlement more than 100 kilometers south of him.

There are hundreds of rat burrows camouflaged in the grass there, where at least hundreds of rat people and tens of thousands of ordinary mice live together, it seems to form an underground rat-man village, or rat-man city.

Skaven attacks by wolves that stray into it are common.

...

System’s nesting location was also influenced by the Rat Man underground city.

Although the wintering nest built in the Lierte Forest was five meters deep, with three forks, and more than a hundred empty rooms, System felt that it was too small.

He decided to follow the example of the Rat Man and build his underground lair a little bigger.

Perhaps in a short period of time, the size of his lair will not be comparable to that of the city.

But as time passed, System felt that he could take his ant people to build an underground city suitable for them to live here and live a comfortable life.