Force Astral Plane: Starting with the Chimera Ants

Chapter 21: The Golden Egg Hatches

The larvae that have just emerged from ordinary eggs are very small, and their bodies are shaped like a comma. The front of their white and plump bodies, which is the tail of the "comma", is a slender "neck", which is currently wriggling and emitting pheromones that are eager for food.

Seeing this, Ye Zhi opened her pair of mandibles, and extended her soft, tongue-like lower jaw to meet the slightly opening and closing mouthparts of the newborn larva. The nutrients that had just been ingested in the social stomach flowed into the larva's mouth through a process known as feeding.

Ants undergo complete metamorphosis. The larvae are white and tender worm-like creatures without legs. They have almost no self-care ability and rely entirely on the adults, that is, the worker ants, for care.

Now that Ye Zhi is the only one in the nest who can take care of the larva, he can't help but feel a bit of a headache. He has also made up his mind that he will first raise this newborn larva into the smallest worker ant so that it can help him share the responsibility of taking care of the other larvae as soon as possible.

Once the larvae emitted pheromone signals indicating they were full, Ye Zhi retracted her mouthparts, wiggled her antennae, and looked at the golden egg beside her, which emitted a pale golden luster and force-like patterns.

At this moment, a small black dot could be faintly seen at one end inside the golden egg. Ye Zhi knew that this was a sign that the ant egg was about to hatch.

Sensing the life force within the golden egg, Ye Zhi pondered that this golden egg was indeed different from ordinary ant eggs. If she wanted to use pheromones to stimulate the larvae hatched from ordinary ant eggs to develop into the smallest miniature worker ants, she had to be careful not to let the golden egg "mix with other pheromones".

This is not a joke, but a fact. Ye Zhi knows about a kind of chimera-like abnormal intermediate that appears when pheromones are "crossed over" during development.

Ye Zhi didn't want the golden egg, which had emptied her body, to hatch into a deformed creature. After thinking it over, she decided to add a curtain made of ant silk to the original cushion and weave a separate cushion to place the golden egg.

Without further ado, Ye Zhi's ant silk glands have now been intentionally strengthened, and the amount of ant silk in his abdomen may already be comparable to that of a normal spider that needs to spin a web. This output is nothing to worry about.

He skillfully pulled out a thread of ant silk, adjusted its position between his mandibles, and his abdomen tumbled up and down, easily covering the original hatching mat with a sloping white curtain built against the stone wall of the nest chamber.

The second incubation mat was placed diagonally across from the nest chamber by Ye Zhi, near the mat where he usually lived. He gently placed the golden egg in the center of the mat and then wove another identical curtain to surround the golden egg.

Having come this far, he decided to go all the way and added two more curtains to the soft cushions where he usually lived.

Looking at the scene before her, Ye Zhi couldn't help but recall some people she knew in her previous life who were raising weaver ants in artificial environments. It seemed that they often complained that these little ants were spinning silk and building structures every day, turning their perfectly good artificial ant nests into something like a spider's web.

Looking at the temporary nest in front of her, which seemed to resemble the Spider Cave in some ways, Ye Zhi felt a strange urge to laugh. She then lifted the ant silk curtain and crawled onto her soft cushion to rest.

......

This time, Ye Zhi was awakened by a faint rustling sound. After evolving to the second age, his sensory acuity had improved considerably. In addition, the sound seemed to be coming from the nest chamber. He heard it clearly and immediately crawled out of the ant silk curtain to look.

The sound seemed to come from the cushion where he had placed the golden eggs the night before. He hurried forward, lifted the curtain of the golden egg incubation chamber, his antennae twitched, and his compound eyes stared at the spot where the golden eggs had been.

But then, a hole appeared on the golden egg, and a round little head poked out. The soft neck attached to the back swayed, and the tiny mouthparts opened and closed, circling and gnawing at the eggshell near the head.

The luster on the eggshell had faded, and the subtle Force patterns on the little larva were faintly visible. As it gnawed at the golden egg, the patterns seemed to gradually become more solid.

Looking at the little creature in front of him, Ye Zhi knew that the golden egg had also hatched. He did not disturb it, but quietly watched the newborn larvae eat its own eggshell bit by bit until the eggshell was completely eaten.

Ye Zhi also felt that she had established a faint connection with the little larva in front of her.

It wasn't the same feeling of sharing life and death with the divinely bestowed seed of the pitcher plant, but rather as if a faint wisp of primal energy was building an invisible primal "bridge" between him and the larva in the golden egg.

The semi-primal force life forms recorded in the inherited memories did not have this connection between worker ants and the ant king, and he was certain that there was no such connection between the worm king and his worker ants either, which was quite strange.

But this further confirms the extraordinary nature of the golden egg and its larva. Ye Zhi quietly waited for the newly hatched golden egg larva to finish gnawing on the dull eggshell, its antennae slapping against the other, before it opened its mandibles, preparing to feed the other.

It seemed that the eggshell was not enough to satisfy its appetite, and the larva's tiny head immediately came closer, sucking the liquid nutrients regurgitated from the leaf's mouth, and soon emitted a satisfied pheromone signal.

After feeding the special golden egg larva, Ye Zhi briefly fed the ordinary larva and supplemented it with pheromones to regulate its development before heading out of the nest.

With a flap of its wings, Ye Zhi flew out of the enormous nest carved out by the Lord-level slender ants and headed straight for its two-toothed pitcher plant divine seed, wanting to see how its divine seed would grow overnight.

Flying over the earthen path carved out by worker ants year-round, carrying the fresh scent of grass and moisture, Ye Zhi could see from afar the gentle slope where the divinely bestowed seed of the pitcher plant was planted, and the climbing frame standing on the slope.

The scene that came into view immediately startled Ye Zhi – the vine of the two-toothed pitcher plant, which had been given a divine gift, had already grown to a height of one meter, and the roots even seemed to show signs of lignification.

The plant in front of me, except for the lack of an elongated inflorescence stalk to keep it away from the pitcher, is similar in size to its mother plant, the pitcher plant where Ye Zhi once lived. From a distance, its long and broad leaves are exceptionally green.

The dark red Force patterns on the petiole no longer shone with an overly conspicuous light; only the insect trap still emitted a faint glow from the inside out. In particular, the tooth-like protrusions under the trap lids were now as red as blood, resembling blood-stained fangs.

As expected of a divinely bestowed seed, it is indeed powerful. Ye Zhi was secretly delighted. It had grown so well in just one day and one night. As the one who nurtured the divinely bestowed seed, he was naturally proud as well.

Just then, a strange yet familiar mental force came into Ye Zhi's mind, which made him happy again!