Creating a paradise in an ant nest

"Should you decide on the group assignments yourselves, or draw lots?"

Wu Shao asked for everyone's opinions.

Pairs can be formed, and partners can be chosen by discussion to avoid conflicts or disagreements between the two.

"Senior Brother Wu, let's discuss this ourselves."

The speaker was Cheng Lei, a newcomer.

After he finished speaking, he looked at Wang Yarong with a big smile and said, "I'd like to be in a group with Wang Yarong, is that okay?"

Wang Yarong rolled her eyes: "I'm too lazy to point it out to you. You should put your dirty little thoughts into cultivation."

"Forehead……"

These blunt and hurtful words left the newlyweds stunned.

Liu He and Li Liangtian, however, knew Wang Yarong's personality and chuckled inwardly: someone else had been humiliated by Wang Yarong again.

Cheng Lei had a good attitude, laughing and saying, "A beautiful lady is sought after by a gentleman, what's so dirty about it? If you don't want to, then forget it."

Then he looked at Song Qian: "Song Qian, would you like to partner with me?"

"..."

Song Qian paused for a moment, her expression strange, and glanced at Wu Shao beside her.

Sure enough, Wu Shao's expression became even more awkward, tinged with annoyance.

"What's wrong?"

Seeing the awkward atmosphere, Cheng Lei didn't know what he had said wrong.

Worried that he might "say something inappropriate again," Li Liangtian leaned closer and whispered, "Um... Song Qian and Senior Brother Wu are Daoist partners."

Just as Cheng Lei realized he had said the wrong thing, Wu Shao broke the awkward atmosphere: "Let's draw lots to divide the group into five forest areas. Whichever forest area you draw, that's which one you'll be in."

Then the ten people drew lots.

Liu He drew number two and was paired with Wang Yarong.

"What a coincidence."

"Yes, we work well together."

Wang Yarong felt that partnering with Liu He was a good thing. The two were already familiar with each other and hadn't caused any trouble or affected each other.

She didn't want to encounter something like Cheng Lei's situation, which would affect her spiritual practice.

Li Liangtian was drawn to be in the same group as Song Qian.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Liu He's forest area has been moved to a different location, and has increased from 30 mu to more than 80 mu.

Following their usual routine, he would work during the day and Wang Yarong would work at night.

day.

Liu He led his ant colony to the new territory.

This is the ant colony's second "relocation".

A vast swarm of ants meandered through the woodland.

They gathered densely together, forming a vast "black snake".

We passed over withered branches and fallen leaves, over earthen pits and rocks, and bypassed the stream.

The ants also carried ant eggs and larvae.

As for the queen ant?

It was gently held in Liu He's palm.

As the queen ant grew larger, it became inconvenient for the worker ants to carry her, so Liu He carried her himself.

After a month of growth and reproduction, Liu He's ant colony now has more than 20,000 ants, more than double the number before.

For the ant colony, this is a long migration.

It took the ant colony a long time to travel a distance of several hundred meters.

"This is the place, let's build our nest here."

The location Liu He chose was in the middle of the forest area he was responsible for protecting.

The location is relatively secluded, and there are several tall bushes around it that can conceal the ant mound.

"Start digging!"

Twenty thousand ants sprang into action, using their mandibles to dig up loose soil and carry away soil particles.

They also use their secreted saliva to reinforce the earthen walls of their tunnels and nest chambers.

Thanks to the ants' hard work, the ant nest was formed at an extremely fast pace.

"Dig deeper."

Liu He instructed the ants to dig deeper, preparing for the subsequent expansion of the ant colony.

The ant mounds on the surface are inconspicuous.

The actual ant nest is located two meters below the ground, with a complex network of tunnels connecting numerous nest chambers.

The queen ant's nest chamber and Liu He's burrow were located deep inside, surrounded by several worker ant colonies, like stars around the moon.

If there is danger, the worker ants nearby will be the first to deal with it.

"Place a few spirit stones for illumination."

"Place two spirit stones in my cave dwelling, and one spirit stone in the ant queen's nest."

Liu He took out three spirit stones and placed them at the entrance of the ant nest, watching the ants carry the spirit stones deeper into the nest.

He received three more spirit stones this month, plus nine more from Feng Zhe, for a total of twelve spirit stones.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Time flies, and another month has passed.

Liu He received three more spirit stones, bringing his total to fifteen spirit stones.

night.

Deep inside the ant nest.

Inside Liu He's cave, two spirit stones emitted a pure white glow, illuminating the cave as brightly as day.

"Fifteen spirit stones now, what should I do with them?"

Now that he had this "huge sum of money," he started thinking about how to spend it.

Should I save up to order a custom-made defensive magical artifact, or buy Qi-boosting pills?

"One is for safety, the other is to quickly improve cultivation. It's a dilemma."

He was helpless; what could he do when he was so short of spirit stones?

The safety of ant nests cannot be ignored.

The ant nest is now two meters underground. If it encounters larger underground animals such as rats or snakes, Liu He will not be able to deal with them quickly, which would be a serious threat to the ant nest.

Improving one's cultivation level is equally important.

With his inferior spiritual root, his cultivation and absorption of spiritual energy were too slow; at a normal pace, it would take him three years to break through to the second level of Qi Refining.

"Let's save them for now. Even if we were to buy Qi-boosting pills together, we wouldn't be able to find reliable people to do it with."

Liu He thought to himself.

It's common for trial cultivators to buy Tongmai Dan (通脉丹) in groups, but buying Yiqi Dan (益气丹) in groups? I've never seen that before.

The reason for the trial of the miscellaneous work was that they lacked spirit stones and had a six-month deadline, so they had no choice but to pool their resources to buy a spirit pill.

Qi-boosting pills are different; there's no need to buy them together with other miscellaneous disciples.

"Once I've saved up twenty spirit stones, I'll go to Ten Thousand Weapons Peak to find out more."

He was making plans in his mind.

They then continued refining the Earth Element Pearl.

He estimated that it would take at least two years to completely refine the enormous earth elemental bead, which was three zhang tall. The refining process was increasing his earth elemental affinity at an extremely slow pace.

Just then, the queen ant emitted a special pheromone.

"What do you mean?"

Liu He was puzzled, as he had never sensed this pheromone before and did not understand its meaning.

He came to the queen ant's chamber.

I saw a worker ant carrying a slightly larger ant egg than usual in its mouth.

The queen ant's pheromones make the worker ants pay special attention to the egg, and then feed it intensively after it hatches.

"Could it be the queen ant?!"

He was excited; a second queen ant was about to be born in his anthill.

In reality, most ant nests are "multiple queen nests," meaning that multiple queen ants share the nest.

A single queen ant is actually quite rare.

The more queen ants there are, the stronger the ant colony is.

Red forest ants are a multi-queen ant colony, with two to five queens being the most common.

Like specialized soldier ants, once the colony has grown to a certain size and food resources are plentiful, the queen will give birth to new queens to continue expanding the colony.

"Great! The second queen ant has been born, and the ant colony will be even larger."

Liu He thought to himself.

The second queen ant is born, and then there will be a third and a fourth.

"Red forest ants are a species of ants capable of producing supercolonies. I want to see the day when the mountains and fields are covered with my queen ants and my ants."

Many ant colonies are "supercommunities".

In other words, they will not attack ants of the same species, and can even communicate with each other normally.

Among ant species, some ants only identify with the ants of their own nest and will attack ants from other nests.

Some ants are species-based; they will not attack ants of the same species, even if they are from different nests. However, they will not coexist with ants from other nests.

There is another type where all the ants are like ants in the same nest, able to communicate and interact with each other, and recognize each other as queens.

In reality, there are super-colony ants that stretch for hundreds of miles, with millions of queen ants and hundreds of millions of worker ants forming an ant empire-like super-colony.