After handling the matters at the base, he notified the other players to take care of the affairs there. Zeng Mo then headed to the Plant Garden, where he planned to spend the next two days searching for the intelligent ant tribe.
Not long after he entered, a prompt rang in his ear.
[Your territory's Plant Garden has no guard ants! With the powerful and intelligent ant tribe, your territory's population and species diversity will increase by 10.]
"Great, I'm in luck! There's an intelligent ant tribe, and they don't seem to be busy. I can go take a look."
Zeng Mo nodded, then used a teleportation scroll to return to the Plant Garden. After finishing up the matter he'd been handling there, he stopped in front of the garden's entrance, took out a map, and set off toward the area indicated.
The Plant Garden was enormous. Quite a few rare trees, some of them hundreds of years old, grew among the plants.
At this time of day, there weren't many people around.
Besides, it was already evening. There were even fewer people in the Plant Garden.
"I wonder where that intelligent ant tribe is."
Zeng Mo wandered around the Plant Garden for more than an hour, but still couldn't find the intelligent ant tribe mentioned in the system prompt.
The area ahead was the pine grove. It was the last place he hadn't searched. If he couldn't find them there, he could only assume the system had made a mistake.
Zeng Mo let out a long sigh and walked toward the pine grove. Just as he approached an ancient pine tree, a long-dormant warning prompt sounded in his ear.
[Warning! Warning! Your territory is approaching a powerful ant tribe. Given your territory's current strength, if you take another step forward, you will be attacked by them. You will ultimately die. Please retreat immediately.]
"Huh? No way. These pine trees are the intelligent ant tribe? A powerful ant tribe?"
Zeng Mo felt a little uneasy.
If they were an intelligent ant tribe, he wouldn't be able to communicate with them at all. There was no way he could make them into his followers.
Humans couldn't communicate with plants, after all. How could he possibly do it?
On the leaves of the ancient pine tree in front of him, a swarm of pitch-black ants gazed at Zeng Mo. Just as he noticed them, they stretched out their limbs and swarmed over the tree, covering the entire surface. They looked like they were about to pounce on him.
At that moment, a dangerous warning prompt sounded in his ear.
[Your territory has been attacked by the leader of the powerful ant tribe. Your territory is rapidly being invaded. You have lost 10 population points. Given your territory's current strength, if you don't escape immediately, you will be attacked by the ant tribe, and your entire race will be wiped out. Please escape immediately.]
"What? Attacked by the leader of the powerful ant tribe? Could it be that the powerful ant tribe isn't these ancient pines, but a group of ants?"
Hearing the warning prompt, Zeng Mo instantly understood. He immediately looked around the area surrounding the ancient pine tree, searching for somewhere the ants might be hiding.
Soon, he spotted a mound of earth about a meter behind the ancient pine tree, covered in golden writing.
There were many tiny holes in the mound, and quite a few ants crawled in and out of them. They looked incredibly busy.
Zeng Mo's eyes lit up. He quickly walked over and inspected the mound.
[Powerful Ant Tribe Lair]
"Haha, I knew it! The ancient pine isn't the powerful ant tribe. The ants living inside it are the intelligent ant tribe that rules this Plant Garden."
Zeng Mo was delighted.
If the ancient pines were the intelligent ant tribe, moving them back to his base would've been difficult. But if these ants were the tribe, then things would be much easier.
Still, Zeng Mo wasn't about to move the entire ant nest back home.
The first idea that came to mind was the one he'd thought of before: move these ants back to his base.
He wanted to see if he could communicate with the queen ant and persuade her to become his follower. Then he could bring the entire ant tribe under his command.
"Why not go catch a few ants first, find out which ones have evolved into intelligent ants and which are workers, then take the intelligent ones away and bring them back?"
Zeng Mo thought it over.
He opened the panel of his explosive mine (421 mines), then shook his head at the idea.
The mound of earth these ants had excavated was enormous. He could imagine how many ants were in there. A conservative estimate put their numbers in the thousands; there could even be tens of thousands.
And inspecting every ant to figure out which ones were intelligent and which were workers would be a huge undertaking.
It would be much easier to just move the entire ant nest.
Zeng Mo considered the matter carefully. The most reliable approach would be to deal directly with the queen ant.
As long as he could convince the queen ant to submit to him, she could become his follower, and the entire ant tribe would serve him.
If he could accomplish that, he could have the queen order all the ants to obey him. Then he could establish himself as their god and turn them into his followers.
The only question was how to communicate with the queen ant.
"Could I use an explosive mine to blow the nest up? If the queen dies, then... Well, explosive mines are effective against intelligent tribes, but only against workers..."
Suddenly, the corner of Zeng Mo's mouth curled up. His eyes lit up.
"Why didn't I think of this? I can turn those ants that have evolved into workers and make them go back to the nest to talk to the queen for me."
With that, Zeng Mo quietly hid behind a relatively large worker ant on the mound.
[Race: Powerful Ant Tribe] [Qualification: Common] [Age: 2 years old; 0/1000] [Name: Unnamed] [Skill: None] [Followers: None] [Mood: Cautious] [Analysis: One of the ant tribe. All workers in the tribe are female ants. Like the workers in your territory, they perform various tasks and work hard. Their appearances are no different from those of the males, and they all possess a certain level of strength.]
"Is that all the analysis tells me? What a waste of time."
"I still don't know anything about their tribe. Aside from that one male worker, the rest of these ants are female workers. The whole thing looks like some kind of harem."
"No way."
"I picked a random ant and it's from the intelligent ant tribe. Could this really be the intelligent ant tribe that dug this nest? Isn't that better than I'd imagined?"
"If that's true, then I've struck gold."
"As long as I take over the nest and the ant tribe, then all the beautiful female workers in the tribe will belong to me."
Zeng Mo's eyes gleamed, but he quickly returned to his senses.
"Forget it. What am I thinking?"
"Every day, I have more than enough to deal with at the base."
Zeng Mo sighed, then inspected another ant that looked bigger and darker.
[Race: Giant Ant] [Qualification: Common] [Age: 2 years old; 0/1000] [Name: Unnamed] [Skill: None] [Followers: None] [Mood: Worried] [Analysis: A giant ant controlled by the leader of the powerful ant tribe. It is anxiously hurrying to tell its companions in the nest that they are all going to die.]
"It's you."
Zeng Mo immediately used the explosive mine to attack the giant ant. A prompt sounded as the ant died.
[Congratulations, your attack succeeded. You killed a giant ant. You obtained a basic explosive mine and 10 population points.]
"Fantastic. One ant is all it takes."
Zeng Mo nodded, then deliberately pretended he hadn't noticed anything. He let the ant go on its way and pretended he hadn't seen it.
"Go on."
In the blink of an eye, the black ant hurried over the mound and climbed toward the entrance to its nest.
"Circle around."
The black ant immediately circled around.
"You're smart. Since you're my scout, I'll give you a name: Black Boy."
Zeng Mo grinned to himself, then issued an order in a low voice. "Go tell the queen to submit to me. Tell her to follow me, believe in me, and obey my orders. Then she'll have endless delicious food. Otherwise, she'll have to suffer the wrath of God."
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