Out of the cage

Escorted by three mechanical beasts, Wei Keng traveled westward along the Huaihe River system, passed through the old cities of northern Anhui such as Bang and Xinyang, and interspersed to the northern part of the Dabie Mountains.

Finally, when entering the south of Henan, to be precise, entering the northern section of the Dabie Mountains where Huoqiu was originally located, the population became scarce.

The radiating influence of the city-state group centered on Jianye ends here.

The maintained gravel road ends at a checkpoint entering the mountainous area of ​​northern Anhui.

The roads beyond this end point are all traces stepped on by some trainers with mechanical beasts. These out-of-the-way trails can be overwhelmed by vegetation at any time, so some eye-catching signs will be placed along the way.

Field marking is also a science.

For example, on a fork: a round stone means that the placer has completed a round trip,

And the flat-topped stone means that the gene community ahead is active during the daytime,

The point of the stone is upward, which means that the genetic group ahead is nocturnal.

As for stones with sunken pits at the top, that means a high degree of danger. ——The deeper the depression, the more obvious the danger information.

As for the specific information, there will be some complicated situations, such as leaving stone powder of different colors, which also means the level of the genetic community ahead.

Such knowledge has a complex system. In fact, it is also used in Guangdong, where the original Ji'an City is located.

It's just that now, no one is using the unified logging area. ——The grass in the cutting area is all the grass of the emperor. The trees in the unified cutting area are the building materials of the emperor,

~

In addition to carrying tents, water filtration and other equipment for this trip, Wei Keng's overall dry food carrying capacity is five days.

However, according to the data, there are high-energy foods that can be collected in the target area, and the real situation can last for ten days.

Entering the ecological zone with individual power, I remember the last time I didn't know how deep I was exploring the northern part of Guangdong. As a result, I was later attacked by multiple node creatures, causing heavy casualties (major under Wei Keng's standard).

As for now, the battle mechanical cat raised its huge axe and sharp claws and slapped it. The leaves and branches in front of it were cut off, and the green leaves and leaves fell to the ground. A road was opened where there was no road, and the tree-dwelling insects who had no time to escape rolled over in the fallen leaves.

Wei Keng clenched the large-caliber firearm in his hand, and the rapid-fire firearm on his waist was also ready to be activated at any time. At the same time, he commanded his swift mechanical cat to scout around.

ten minutes later,

After Wei Keng set up the tent, he stroked the head of the giant cat that had returned.

Wei Keng has a little understanding of the culture of mechanical beasts in this era. In this unfamiliar mountain forest, all sides are unknown. At this time, there are only war beasts that absolutely obey their orders, so human emotions will indeed regard mechanical beasts as companions who depend on each other.

It's just that the goal of the adventure is for oneself, and the emotional needs generated during the adventure are nothing worthy of the world's understanding.

Wei Keng: "The goal of my adventure is not for myself. So~" Wei Keng patted the cat's head and comforted it: "This operation is for the human civilization system. So as one of the participants, you will get humanitarian benefits." Treat it, your bloodline will also get breeding priority."

~

After walking out of the last checkpoint, after three days of advancing, they finally arrived at the target area, which was marked as a red area on the map.

After passing through many jungles, Wei Keng held his breath when he saw this barren and strangely rocky hill.

The whole area forms an irregular but line-filled structure.

From the top of the mountain to the bottom of the mountain, it is full of concave and convex gullies like chocolate lines. There are one-centimeter-sized openings in the raised areas, and the openings are not directly facing the sky, but are covered like cat ears, while the sunken gullies are very smooth. Because this is the drain.

This is the territory of ants. When all the large plants are eaten up, the mountains, rivers, water and soil lose the protection of trees. In order to protect their nests on the mountain, the ants carry out such engineering construction!

Wei Keng couldn't help but sigh with emotion at such an infrastructure: "As expected of Chinese ants!"

...

Ants are a type of species widely distributed around the world. Before the arrival of Pandora Field, they evolved the attributes of true sociality, that is, they rely on the transmission of various pheromones for social communication.

Of course, in the era of human civilization, no scholar believes that the true social evolution of such species is promising.

Because each type of ant may have unique skills, such as weaving leaf nests, building complex caves, and breeding, but each type of ant has become a new species before it evolves its unique ability. In the case of reproductive isolation, the skills they evolved cannot intersect with each other.

Ants, a species that existed 100 million years ago, no matter how they change, there is only one skill slot!

But with the advent of the Pandora era, termites, red ants, army ants, and other types of real social small things began to exchange genes with each other.

When conditions permit, ants in a region, perhaps in a certain battle, are constantly crossing each other's genes to become a new genetic species.

Because of the similar gene structure, gene exchange is easier within ants than between higher species.

For example, primates and ungulates are completely different in feeding and movement patterns, and most genes are unavailable after gene exchange changes, but all ants do not have the difficulty of the ecological circle.

~

Ants that have broken through the shackles of genes have a chance to take off!

This is the case in the South American plateau, and the ants in the upper basin of the Amazon are getting bigger and bigger by the time of the Pandora era, and there are more and more species in a single nest. The breakthrough was soon completed and turned into a multi-Zerg true social civilization.

For example, termites have specialized in farming ants that decompose fibers to produce organic matter. The body of the paint bucket is three meters long, and it crawls underground like a worm, with countless secretion contacts to supply other functional ants.

The fighting ants are getting bigger and bigger, breaking through Hu Feng's volume is nothing. The real fighting ants are advancing in the cave, which is as big as Teddy. After leaving the cave, they unfold the horny gland syringe, As well as the big claws, it looks as big as a husky with its teeth and claws

And as Hymenoptera, they can fly. Although the flying ability is only about ten meters, ants are group fighting animals. Dozens and hundreds of them rush over in a row. The flying distance of more than ten meters is by no means a shortcoming that can be ridiculed.

In the end, South America evolved the Tallinn Nest Master, such an apostle-level existence.

Before the Pandora era, ants, no, it should be the entire insect class, did not reach the top of the biological chain in the long ecological evolution, but after the arrival of the Pandora era, they did it here.

~

Looking back at the Shanghuai area, the ants here are a little less lucky. Because the Pandora Field first spread from America, and when it spread to Asia, the global human power has been compressed in the only remaining area. In the dying struggle, human beings pay more attention to the races around the settlement that are most likely to evolve large-scale communities, and also kill many potential communities in advance. This includes the ant clan in the Shanghuai area.

After the complete collapse of human civilization, the huge Yucheng colony is to the west, the violent Tianjiao dragon colony is to the east, and the human city-states are also located in the north and south. Coupled with the fierce competition between small and medium-sized communities in the surrounding area, this group of ants in the upper reaches of the Huaihe River The community is always limited to some original mountainous areas.

Although these East Asian native ant tribes can't build towers like South America, they can absorb light energy with maximum efficiency. However, complex tunnel systems are still established in each mountain.

The former mining economic zone has now been transformed into nests. The buildings and machinery left by humans can no longer be seen, and they all disappeared under the corrosion of formic acid.

And the ants here have also started a strange evolutionary path in response to other surrounding communities and even human interference, that is, fire-breathing!

That is, after spraying out the chemical substance, at the same time, he used his jaw to strike quickly to complete the ignition. This is a skill they couldn't use in the past, because releasing flames is a skill point that wastes more energy than making venom for the creatures on earth!

Big Predators have this point, but all points are more efficient at muscularity. And the flame output? It can only turn the energy that penetrates the bone into burning a layer of skin. There is no advantage in killing efficiency in open areas.

However, in the process of excavating a mountain tunnel, when the minions and muscles cannot be used, the digging ants can seize the nodes of an area with one fire, and even consume the oxygen in an area, completely suffocating the intruder.

~

But it is also because the flame skill consumes too much energy and is not strong on the surface, so the local ant colony cannot develop a solar energy collection mode that is beneficial to itself.

Therefore, compared with the apostle-level ecological group like the Tallinn Nest Master, this small-scale ant ecological group with a poor foundation is not a star and a half behind, and cannot actively initiate expansion to the outside world.

In short, the skills are very good, but it is lack of mana (not enough ecological energy)! It would be awesome if the Tallinn nest owners from South America were allowed to integrate this community. But across the Pacific Ocean, the Tallinn Nest Master is a terrestrial genetic community, so they can't make it through.

...

Wei Keng crouched in this ant mountainous area. After a full day of records and investigations, he knew it well. Arrange your own mechanical beast in a camp on the next mountain, and start to investigate alone.

After identifying an ant hole, sprinkle a large bottle of sulfur powder from head to toe.

Although after hundreds of years of barbaric evolution, the communication of the ant gene community has already relied on the effect of life radiation, but it still retains the ability to recognize pheromones, so this detail must be prepared.

Wei Keng, code-named Zhenxinzheng, just burrowed into the ant hole and got in.

~

The monitoring space is quite lively~ Before that, no traverser did this. The ladies in Bai Linglu's team had seen Wei Keng's mission style.

~

I encountered dozens of ants in a row in the cave, Wei Keng stuck in the tunnel and said hello to them and passed by.

When brushing back to back with these black beetles, you can even feel the spiky down on the ant's spine. Thanks to the smell of sulfur enough, the smell secreted by myself as a mammal when I was nervous did not make these ants smell delicious.

~

As for how this "hello" works?

After humans learn to use language, their ability to imitate sounds is very strong. Some people imitate dogs to bark "Wang ~ Ang", some imitate cats to bark "Meow ~ Lao Wu", some laugh like pigs, and some can whistle to imitate goshawks.

These are imitations at the sound level. As for things such as snakes and insects with low or no hearing ability, the developed sound imitation ability of human beings is like playing the piano with cows.

But now, in the Pandora field, all the gene groups are pulled into the communication mode of the life radiation frequency.

In such an environment, the Weikeng group has developed the spiritual language, and this skill is the tool for crushing the animals with several orders of magnitude of information-carrying density.

On the same frequency band, the high end is compatible with the low end.

Wei Keng on the surface listened to the situation underground, and after a systematic analysis, deduced 87 main instructions and 1,485 secondary instructions.

It must be noted that the life frequency information of ants has no language system, that is to say, each of their instructions is single, and there is no possibility of combination to generate new information.

Wei Keng released the news that "I am carrying important information" all the way, and sneaked into the nest system all the way through the way made by these ants.

~

After diving four hundred meters,

Wei Keng took a breath. Continuously emphasizing instructions with the language of the mind: "I am a great ant", "I have intelligence", "I have made meritorious service", "I want to see the nest owner", so the brain consumption is very large.

And because the emphasis is too single, the protein consumption of several trace elements such as "silicon" and "manganese" is very large.

As for why there is a high intensity emphasis all the way? It's not because I don't have pheromone in my body, so I have to use spiritual language to confuse it.

[Current research can regard mind fluctuations as a kind of electromagnetic wave frequency band under Pandora's field. When emitting electromagnetic waves, mobile phones consume the energy released by inorganic substances such as lithium batteries, while life consumes organic substances. 】

But fortunately, relying on mountains to eat mountains, relying on water to eat water.

Master Wei found the ants' egg-laying area, and he didn't take away the eggs directly, so as to prevent the ants guarding the ants' eggs from finding out that they were special.

Master Wei directly took out an iron straw, inserted it in, and took a sip.

"Um?"

"tasty."

It has a buttery and nutty flavor.

With a lot of mental exhaustion, Wei Keng, who was a little weak, suddenly got a source of energy, just like eating hot chocolate for a person who has been hungry all day.

In line with the principle of "sweeping wool can't be aimed at a sheep", Wei Keng's straw also inserted seven or eight eggs in a row.

At first glance, the action of inserting seven or eight eggs in a row with a straw in his mouth is nothing.

~

In the monitoring space, all the monitors are working quietly. Master Wei didn't pay attention to the plot of the Heavenly Death Dragon, while the other monitors continued to analyze based on their observation points.

As for Wei Keng, Bai Linglu was in charge, which made her feel like drinking milk tea now.

But later, Wei Keng's performance made her feel so disgusted that she quickly gave the screen to Mosaic.

~

Here in the ant hole, Mr. Wei felt that he had sucked the volleyball-sized egg, so he was sorry, so he blew a little. Later, I drank a little full and a little anxious. Because I don't know if the smell I left will expose myself, for the sake of preservation, I used a sucked very shriveled egg as a waste liquid storage bag, and I had a good time.

Then, in order to prevent myself from looking back, I might have made a mistake, and engraved the word "positive" on the stone next to it!

~

In the space bubble, after confirming that Wei Keng had pulled up his pants, Bai Linglu continued to monitor, and personally grabbed a knife to report on Wei Keng's entire exploration behavior.

This report is extremely positive. Emphasis is placed on many shining points of "bravery", "curiosity" and "firmness". Well, as for some unsightly actions, they will not be recorded for the sake of "seeking truth".

Bai Linglu: "I am the most suitable traveler, of course, only I know its shortcomings best, and others only need to understand its advantages."

...

In fact, some characteristics are shortcomings in the eyes of those who don't understand them, but they are characteristics in the eyes of those who understand them.

For example: Now this kind of behavior is easy to drill ant holes and get covered in dirt.

In the eyes of most individuals who have mastered high-level war beasts and tend to think about cultural exchanges at the upper level in the city-state, it may be a shortcoming——lack of social skills, lack of emotional intelligence to exert influence on key people.

But this, in the eyes of Bailinglu supervisor, is the best advantage.

Almost all people will suffer mental damage when they fall from the clouds to the bottom, as if: the prince turns into a frog, and the princess turns into a cursed monster that no one can approach. Since then, it's like being imprisoned in a deep well, unable to get out.

And Wei Keng can take root in even the lowest area in the eyes of others, be full of vitality, and then hold a potential to push back to the top!

After finishing the report on the above again.

Bai Linglu whispered and said firmly: "The king feeds on clods!~" Then he raised his head and added: "The 'king' of my great river system has a unique civilization."

Now is the middle of the Second Plane War, the King's Plan of the Great River System, and the Caesar's Plan of the Mediterranean System are both unfolding.

~

Zuo Zhuan: Chong'er came from five deer, begged for food from the savage, and the savage gave him a piece, the son was angry and wanted to whip him. Zifan said: "It's a gift from heaven." Jishou, accept and carry it.