I Am the Swarm

I don't know how long it has passed, and Luo Wen has long been too lazy to count.

The long-term peace in the territory has prevented many worker ants from going to the battlefield since they hatched. And this also gives them a chance to die of old age.

A batch of worker ants died, and new worker ants were added immediately, without any impact on the operation of the swarm.

The advance direction of the army on the North Road has always been along the river, and has experienced various changes in the middle, but the general direction has not changed.

Just a few days ago, news came from their army ant queen that the army was stopped by a very wide river. The navy that has been following along the river went to explore this river and suffered heavy losses. But it seemed that he had not encountered any enemies, and the news was somewhat contradictory and unclear, so Luo Wen decided to go and see for himself.

As we continue to advance north, the temperature is getting colder and colder.

However, because the planet has a large temperature difference between day and night, like a desert above a cliff, it even freezes at night.

Therefore, the plants and insects here are very resistant to cold, and all kinds of resistance are standard in the genes of the swarm, so there will be no problems due to low temperature.

The plants on the road have also gradually changed, from large-leaf plants to coniferous plants.

The temperature was getting lower and lower, and Rowan even encountered a sudden snowstorm on the road. Although the duration was very short, the snow cleared in about half an hour.

But in just half an hour, the thickness of the snow on the ground reached about 20 centimeters.

Compared with Rowan, who has long legs, this thickness has basically no effect. But for small insects, although they also have a certain ability to resist cold, if they are sealed in ice and snow, they are still very deadly.

After dozens of days of trekking, Luo Wen finally reached the so-called "river".

This is "by the river"?

Looking at the endless water surface, the ice layer that occasionally drifts over it, and the salty taste. Although the army ant queen has little knowledge, for Luo Wen, who has been bombarded by information and even saw it with his own eyes, this is clearly an ocean.

The swarm army has already reached the seaside?

This is Rowan's first question? For him who eats and sleeps all day, wakes up and eats, he can't remember how long it has been.

Does this planet even have an ocean?

This is Rowan's second question. After all, to him, this is a strange planet.

Then he became excited. There are many species hidden in the ocean, and he may be able to harvest good genes.

Not long after that, he found the army of the North Road.

And the trick to quickly find them after running thousands of kilometers. It's because Rowan has been following the river on the side of the old nest. After several turns, this river merged into a larger river and then extended to here.

And the army of the North Road is stationed here, and their pheromones are left everywhere by the river, guiding Luo Wen in the correct direction.

When Rowan arrived at the station, a large underground base had already been dug out and mushrooms had been planted. Here, where the temperature is very low, the heat emitted by the mushrooms acts like a radiator, making the cave as warm as spring.

Unfortunately, they seem to have forgotten to build a passage for Rowan to enter and exit. So that Rowan can only suffer from the cold outside.

The people stationed in this base are actually just a small team, with a number of about five or six million.

And the army of the North Road has already left. After all, it takes hundreds of days and nights for information to be transmitted back and forth. With the size of the army on the North Road, it is impossible to be stationed somewhere for a long time. They need to keep moving forward to obtain food supplements.

This team stayed here to wait for Rowan, and cooperate with some of his actions and experiments by the way.

The moment Luo Wen saw the sea, he almost understood why the description of the army ant queen was inconsistent.

Those sampan bugs and diving bugs did not encounter enemies, but they only had fresh water templates, and did not load the components for filtering salt. Therefore, when they enter the seawater, there is a high probability that they will be killed.

Since we didn't encounter an enemy, the next step is to explore.

During the period of waiting for Luo Wen, the small team also had some gains.

They hunted several species of crustaceans much like crabs, hermit crabs, and green shrimp along the coast.

And these are exactly what Rowan needs most before exploring the ocean.

After eating some of each, they dug a hole by themselves, and then asked the stationed digging ants to dig a cooling channel from the plantation in the base to the hole to install "heating" in the room.

Then he lay down comfortably.

After waking up again, seeing that there were no carapaces in the cave, Luo Wen was a little puzzled.

After carefully inspecting the whole body, there seems to be no change, no crab's book gills, and no other strange things.

Rowan scratched his head with difficulty.

"Strange? Why didn't new respiratory organs grow?"

Then it occurred to me that the existing organs might have mutated, and this needs to be tested in the field to know.

Fortunately, this place is not far from the beach. With long legs, Luo Wen came to the beach in a while.

After thinking about it, I feel that it is not safe. After all, I am using myself as a test subject. What if he couldn't be too salty too?

In fact, the safest way is to return to the brood and check the genes. But it took too long to go back and forth, and Luo Wen didn't want to wait so long before revealing the answer.

So, he climbed towards the mouth of the river not far away. There is a transition zone between fresh water and sea water here, and the safety of testing there is much higher.

He first came to the freshwater area and slowly entered the water. Because he had acquired the ability to dive, he didn't panic.

As the river flooded him, he immediately felt something different.

This time in the water, breathing is much easier than before, and it seems that there are indeed some changes.

Next, he tried to seal off the ventilation hole connecting the air bag between the carapace and the abdomen. If he dared to do this in the past, he would definitely feel suffocated immediately, but this time, he didn't feel much abnormality.

He can still breathe normally underwater.

This is real underwater breathing, absorbing oxygen directly from the water, not the previous pseudo-underwater breathing with an "oxygen tank".

Through careful induction, he finally found the change.

Moreover, there are still two places.

First of all, his carapace can filter water, and the oxygen in the water can be supplied to the body.

Secondly, at the base of his walking legs, there are some membrane-like structures protruding from the body wall, which are filled with capillaries. They can also filter water and salt and absorb oxygen.

Since their location is too hidden and they are still in the blind spot of Rowan's vision, they were not discovered before. And the changes on the carapace are even more subtle. From the surface, it is impossible to see the difference from before.

This is also the reason why Rowan didn't notice the change before.