NOVEL NEXT Chapter 51 - 46 Grade Two Lightning Worker Ant 1
Chapter 51: Chapter 46 Grade Two Lightning Worker Ant 1
Translator: 549690339
Taming an insect may seem easy, but nurturing it after the fact requires a great deal of effort and time, and one must consider the long-term.
The lifespan of a Queen Bee is generally around three to five years, with the long-lived ones possibly reaching over nine years.
Compared with the Termite Ant Queen, their lifespan is clearly much shorter.
In the Green Demon’s beekeeping manual, there’s hardly any mention of how to extend the life of bees.
He only mentions that Royal Jelly can prolong the lifespan of bees.
The Ant Queen that Qin Niu tamed actually doesn’t have a long life either.
Initially, it even had only a 4.2-year lifespan, which, after being fed bear blood, bear meat, and centipedes, grew to 4.5 years.
Thus, extending its lifespan by 0.3 years.
Its lifespan has increased so much probably because it was initially malnourished and then received dietary supplements.
The lifespan of Fourth actually also increased by three months.
He was considering destroying this beehive and then feeding the Royal Jelly inside it to Fourth and the Ant Queen of the termite swarm.
To see if it could help them extend their lives.
Now that the ant colony is increasing by about 10 new members each day, Qin Niu could no longer treat them equally and had definitely prioritized fostering the outstanding termites in the colony.
If one had to prioritize, the order would be Ant Queen, Fourth, Strong Worker Ants and Strong Soldier Ants, Poisonous Ants, Ordinary Worker Ants, Ordinary Soldier Ants, Young Ants.
That was roughly how it went.
He soon arrived in front of the Ant Nest and sensed that the ant colony seemed to be somewhat agitated.
After checking, no intruders were found.
“Fourth, come out to eat!”
Qin Niu always called for Fourth first whenever there was something good, unless it was something extremely dangerous like Banyan Tree Blood, then he wouldn’t dare let it try it first.
Fourth climbed out nimbly.
Among those that came out with it was a small Worker Ant with a faint green hue to its body.
Moreover, the speed at which this small Worker Ant moved was much faster than Fourth’s.
You should know, Fourth is a composite of Soldier Ant and Worker Ant, its crawling and attack speeds were higher than ordinary Worker Ants.
Its attack speed was even a bit faster than that of a Soldier Ant.
Not to mention its biting force.
Killing that large black stink ant, which was much bigger than itself, was as easy as slicing through vegetables.
But now, there was a Worker Ant that crawled much faster than it.
And it was a very small Young Worker Ant at that.
It was just about two or three days since it had molted into an adult ant.
Fourth was now almost two months old and could be considered a rather mature Worker Ant.
If it wasn’t a secondary Worker Ant, its size would be closer to that of an adult Termite.
Compared to this Young Worker Ant, Fourth was like the difference between a young man and a two or three-year-old toddler.
A toddler running faster than a fifteen or sixteen-year-old youth was quite astonishing.
11
Is this the Young Worker Ant that drank the Banyan Tree Blood?”
Qin Niu was excited.
This morning when he came to check on it, it could only move its antennae nimbly, and Fourth had to drag it in and out.
Unexpectedly, it had now digested the Banyan Tree Blood it had consumed and completed a second evolution of its body.
He quickly checked the ant colony’s attributes.
One Grade Two Lightning Worker Ant, lifespan 13 years, special abilities (agility, ultra-strong biting, ant acid secretion assists plant wound healing).
Qin Niu could hardly believe it.
A little bit of Banyan Tree Blood directly nourished a Grade Two Lightning Worker Ant.
And it had three special abilities.
It was simply terrifying.
Moreover, its lifespan had increased by a full ten years.
What would happen if Fourth also ate the Banyan Tree Blood?
Probably even stronger than this Grade Two Lightning Worker Ant.
But Qin Niu didn’t rush to act; instead, he prepared to experiment on a few more Worker Ants first to confirm it was safe before letting Fourth consume the Banyan Tree Blood.
After all, for him, while a Grade Two Lightning Worker Ant was indeed precious, Fourth was more important in his heart.
And had even greater potential.
So far, no other Termite in the entire ant colony could shake Fourth’s position as ‘Marshal.’
“Just right, tonight you’ll go down the mountain with two Ordinary Soldier Ants and two Ordinary Worker Ants, and we will test your pest control abilities.”
Qin Niu couldn’t contain his joy at the sight of how fierce this Grade Two Lightning Worker Ant was.
The more ‘experts’ the ant colony had, the safer it would become.
Since it was his first time using termites to help with pest control on the crops, he didn’t know whether the Worker Ants or the Soldier Ants were more formidable, so it needed to be tested to be clear.
If it came to fighting, the Soldier Ants would definitely be fiercer.
The Core-Boring Worms they were going to face this time would be easier to handle if they were larvae, but if they were the kind of sturdy, mature bugs that Qin Niu had caught this morning, the termites would probably need to exert some effort to kill them.
Too bad for now, only Fourth had evolved to produce venom; otherwise, with venom to assist, their pest-killing efficiency would be higher.
However, their venom should probably not be inexhaustible.
A single battle could potentially exhaust all the venom.
To replenish the venom reserve might take a day or even longer.
All of these needed to be slowly explored and observed by Qin Niu.
Moreover, its venom was only slightly toxic, so the killing effect was probably not very strong.
Qin Niu planned to bring some Banyan Tree Blood up the mountain tomorrow, and try it on two young worker ants again.
Although the first experiment resulted in the death of one young worker ant, gaining a Grade Two Lightning Worker Ant made the rewards far exceed the cost by a thousand times.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the value of ten thousand ordinary worker ants did not compare to a single Grade Two worker ant.
The Insect Master Association’s standard for recognition was that the tamed insect must be Grade Two, and the owner must be able to interact normally with the insect to be considered a qualified Insect Master.
Qin Niu simply looked down upon the status of a qualified Insect Master.
He harbored much greater ambition, aiming to become an Insect Master in one step.
By then, he would gain many privileges, no longer fearing the oppression from Wang Haikun, even the Yan Family would take the initiative to curry favor with him.
“Fourth, call all the worker ants to eat this poisonous spider!”
His knowledge of insect control was limited and did not know the name of this type of spider.
He only knew that it had white and light green patterns on its body, somewhat resembling a human-face spider, but not quite.
With his jungle survival experience, he was certain that this kind of spider was definitely poisonous, and its toxicity was extremely severe.
Old Man Liu and the other elders in the village had mentioned that in the mountains, one should never touch spiders, snakes, or mushrooms with bright colors. They were all highly poisonous.
Qin Niu had etched this in his memory.
Looking at this spider’s two long, sharp venom fangs, if bitten by it, the consequences could be dire.
“Lightning Ant, can you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes!”
It answered crisply.
A Grade Two insect was much more powerful than Grade One.
It seemed that after evolving from an ordinary Grade One worker ant to a Grade Two lightning worker ant, its spiritual power had increased substantially.
Furthermore, as Qin Niu’s insect language became proficient, his communication with termite would also become more accurate.
Both favorable conditions together naturally allowed Qin Niu to communicate with it unimpeded.
H
Let’s give you a name, shall we call you Fifth?”
“Thank you, Master!”
It appeared quite happy.
Ordinary termites had no right to be named by Qin Niu personally, only special termites like Fourth and Fifth were entitled to this honor.
This was a form of glory.
“You also eat more of the poisonous spider’s body, and see if you can evolve any venom!”
Qin Niu commanded it.
“Okay.”
It could actually understand such a complex command directly.
That made Qin Niu happy again, for as his proficiency in insect language increased, he would no longer have to break a sentence into several parts to communicate with the insects.
One must know that his spiritual power was weak, and the number of times he could talk to the insects within a day was limited.
Fifth had already begun quickly gnawing on the body of the poisonous spider.
It was unexpectedly a go-getter.
One could tell its biting force was extremely surprising, and its gnawing speed was much faster than that of a typical worker ant.
When gnawing on the spider’s poisonous fangs and legs, other worker ants had some trouble chewing them.
Only Fourth and it could gnaw them.
Moreover, its gnawing ability was evidently much stronger than Fourth’s.
Qin Niu noticed that it secreted a liquid while it gnawed, which seemed to have a very strong corrosive effect.
This should be formic acid.
Such strong biting strength was indeed not an empty claim.
After the Lightning Ant had eaten most of it, Qin Niu then led it and two ordinary worker ants, along with two ordinary soldier ants, down the mountain.
To avoid attracting attention and to prevent dropping them on the way, he specially carried them in the small jar that had been used to contain the spider.
Once he had his Insect Master status certified, he would then be able to make his own bamboo containers for keeping insects to hang at his waist.
This type of jar was not suitable, as it did not have air holes on top and could easily suffocate them.
And being confined inside, they would feel very uncomfortable.
Made of pure natural material, bamboo had a natural scent, and bamboo tubes made from it would be pleasing to them.
Arriving at his family’s millet field, he was taken aback.
Where had the several baskets of manure stacked in the middle of the field gone?
The value of humus soil was not high in itself; who would be so foolish? To risk stealing it under the name of theft?
It was broad daylight; someone surely must have seen it.
Wang Furen probably wouldn’t do such a thing.
Nevertheless, a figure in the village, he wouldn’t degrade himself over a few baskets of fertilizer.
Qin Niu decided to ask around..