ocean-life Chapter 42: The Tree Nest is Completed
Chapter 42: The Tree Nest is Completed
"That's right, I have completed a growth and evolution, and you have become stronger as well." Ye Zhi got up from the stone and sent a mental message to the tree spirit by shaking her tentacles.
"Ye Zhi, is there anything to eat?" Evolution once did not change the nature of "Chimera". It was still as hungry as ever, and even before its insect cage had fully grown, it started begging for food.
"Not now. You should focus on growing. When the sun is about to set, the King Ant will send worker ants to deliver food. By then, you'd better have your insect trap ready." Ye Zhi stood up and landed on a broad leaf of the Chimera, responding slowly.
The tree spirit sent out an excited and affirmative thought, then stopped sending out mental fluctuations and seemed to begin to focus on growing. The main vine was climbing the trellis at a visible speed, spreading in the predetermined direction.
"By the way, Chimera, I'll be moving in with you from now on. It's over there in that big banyan tree. You can move closer to it, but you'd better not extend your insect trap there."
Ye Zhi added that he didn't want his worker ants to accidentally fall into the insect trap and be eaten by the chimera.
The tree spirit had no idea what Ye Zhi was worried about, but it emitted another wave of joy before continuing to grow.
The broad leaves unfold, and the tendrils and traps at the ends gradually swell, eventually forming a huge structure with a diameter of tens of centimeters, larger than a human head.
The divinely bestowed seed can control its own growth, while "Chimera" obviously invests most of its nutrients in the development of its vines and insect traps, making the plant appear somewhat short.
Ye Zhi didn't really care. After all, for him, the primal force nutrients produced by the insect traps after digesting the flesh and blood of other worker ants were almost the only thing he could rely on for his future growth and evolution. Naturally, he hoped that the "Chimera's" insect traps would become more and more advanced.
After another period of waiting, the "Chimera" divine seed was still growing, and Ye Zhi felt that her silk glands could finally secrete ant silk again. She immediately flapped her wings and took off, flying towards the tree nest location she had chosen.
There wasn't much left of the walls, so next was the roof. To take into account drainage, Ye Zhi chose to cut the bamboo in half, lay it at an angle with a semi-circular cross section, and then evenly apply ant glue to it.
To be on the safe side, he found another clump of palm trees and painstakingly cut off the palm-shaped radiating leaf spokes from the broad leaves, bringing them back and laying them flat on the "roof".
The final tree nest looked like a simple small treehouse, a little over a meter long and about half a meter wide. For him and the ant colony, it was big enough and enough for him to advance to the intermediate stage.
The tree nest is also divided into countless chambers of different sizes by the cut branches. Although it is basically just a frame now, the internal parts can be separated with ant silk curtains when there are more larvae and worker ants.
His own nest chamber is located in the very center, while the nest chamber for the queen is located below his own nest chamber. The other nest chambers, large and small, are all prepared for future development as hatching chambers.
Finally, Ye Zhi made a "window" on the sunny side of his nest chamber, the side facing the "Chimera" where it was rooted. He planned to cover it with an ant silk curtain, which would serve both ventilation and observation purposes.
The door is on the side facing the trunk, which connects to a wide branch. Ye Zhi plans to open up the top to make it the main passage for worker ants to enter and exit. In the future, a boardwalk can be built along the trunk, and tree nests can also be opened in other locations on the trunk of the banyan tree and connected by boardwalks.
Having accomplished all this, he slowly walked to the spot where he had previously placed the bamboo section, pierced the ant silk curtain with his mandibles, cut open the bamboo section, and then controlled seven worker ants to carry the larvae and eggs out in a single file.
The number of eggs and larvae exceeded that of worker ants, so they had to move the nest twice more. Ye Zhi also remembered that she had left a queen ant in the old nest. Now that there was nothing else to do, she decided to go back to the old nest and bring the queen ant to the new tree nest.
Compared to carrying worker ants on a bamboo segment, it is more strenuous to fly while holding a single queen ant. Ye Zhi carefully placed the queen ant at the entrance of the nest and then slowly guided her into the core of the nest chamber.
Currently, there are five nest chambers covered with ant silk curtains. The first one is the largest nest chamber where Ye Zhi herself is located, while the remaining one is prepared for the queen ant. The other three are hatching chambers for large worker ant eggs, small worker ant eggs, and breeding ant eggs, respectively.
At this moment, the five worker ants are placing the eggs and larvae into the corresponding nest cells according to their differentiation preparations.
The first to be placed was naturally the second golden egg. In the specially prepared incubation chamber, a soft mat of ant silk brought from the old nest had been temporarily laid out, and the solitary pale golden egg was placed in the center.
The other eggs haven't been placed on ant silk cushions yet. Ye Zhi has only cut off some leaves and laid them flat on the ground as temporary cushions. He himself can only rest on the leaves for now, waiting for the ant silk glands to recover.
But in any case, after a whole day's work, the new tree nest, which conformed to both the habits of the leaf-weaving ant and his retained aesthetic sense from his human days, was completed, and Leafweaving was quite satisfied.
Looking through the "window," the main vine of the "Chimera" has reached a length of about five meters, exceeding the height of the trellis, and has begun to extend horizontally, with long and wide leaves and huge insect traps the size of a human head radiating from the main vine.
The sun was already setting in the west, and at this moment, in the distance, several slender figures carried a hoofed animal leg forward—it was Qingyuan and his worker ants.
"King Qingyuan!"
Upon seeing this, Ye Zhi immediately flapped its wings and took flight, landing in front of the "Chimera" plant, waving its antennae in the direction the other party had come from.
"Little guy, is your ant nest finished?" Qingyuan looked at Yezhi, then at the tree nest, and sent a telepathic message: "You've planted your Divine Seed again? I brought extra meat from the Ant King to feed your Divine Seed."
Two slender worker ants stepped forward, opened and closed their mandibles, and began to skillfully cut flesh and blood. Ye Zhi did not hold back either, immediately grabbed one, flapped its wings and took off, and threw it into the insect trap with the tree spirit's joyful mental power.
The familiar white root-like structures completely enveloped the flesh and blood that had been introduced, and with the help of digestive juices, they began to absorb it. The Chimera tree spirit expressed satisfaction and joy as it absorbed the flesh.
The hoofed leg was quickly torn apart; a portion went into the social stomachs of the leaf weaver and the ant colony, while most was absorbed by the "chimera".
After the food was distributed, Qingyuan led the worker ants carrying the food away. As darkness fell, Yezhi returned to the newly built nest to rest and wait for the next day.