First Hatch

His original plan was to face the enemy and shout, "Sacred F2 links us, bugs, charge!"

Then, an endless swarm of insects would descend like a red dust storm, overwhelming the enemy.

Now, it seemed that idea could only exist in his mind for the time being. Given the current situation, he didn't know if that day would ever come.

Finally, Rowan, feeling a bit impatient with the feeding, laboriously bit off a small section of tree root, carried it in his mouth, linked it to the Mother Nest, and dragged it back to the underground cave.

Back in the cave, he inserted one end of the root into the Mother Nest's absorber. Since the root was quite long, more than half of it was still exposed. But so be it; let the Mother Nest digest it slowly.

Rowan praised himself for his cleverness. Although this method would make the Mother Nest's absorption and conversion efficiency even slower, it saved him a lot of effort, didn't it?

For the next few days, Rowan didn't go anywhere. He planned to establish a nest here temporarily.

He expanded the small temporary cave he had dug underground several times, then dug dozens of various tunnels, some leading to the surface, some to the unknown surrounding areas, and some leading deeper underground.

He also dug small rooms in the middle or at the ends of some tunnels. Although they weren't needed yet, they were there while he was idle. Some tunnel ends were dead ends, purely for misdirection.

Several tunnels were exceptionally wide. These were paths for transferring the Mother Nest in case of an emergency, and he had also set up many branching paths along them.

When he was hungry during this time, he would take the Mother Nest up to find tree roots to drink some sap, and incidentally bite off a section for the Mother Nest to absorb slowly. When he was tired, he would lie down next to the Mother Nest and sleep.

The first time he woke up from a rest, he gained a new ability: he could secrete a mucus from his mouth that could be used to stick soil together, making it more solid.

Did this mean they didn't want him to go to the surface? He had evolved so many abilities for hiding and digging holes?

However, having an extra ability was always good. He checked with the Mother Nest and found that it was a gene fragment from those black ants, which meant they were also good at digging holes.

Despite complaining a few times, he still enthusiastically renovated and sealed the room where the Mother Nest was stored after gaining the new ability, making it more solid, though it did take some effort.

In a few days, the Mother Nest, having become an individual entity, had clearly grown several times larger. Rowan suspected it was lining its own pockets, secretly using the energy meant for producing offspring for its own development.

As a result, with the Mother Nest's current size, it was already difficult for Rowan to drag it. If this continued, the wide escape tunnels he had dug would be useless.

After a careful inspection, he realized it was his own fault.

The first bug he intended to hatch was modeled after the black-armored "War God," and he had also added digging legs to it, replacing its two short antennae with longer ones for better signal reception, which would also reduce the chance of surprise attacks.

Unfortunately, this significantly increased the required materials and energy, and that wasn't the main issue.

The key problem was that the black-armored "War God" was more than ten times larger than Rowan. For the Mother Nest, which had detached from Rowan, to directly hatch a black-armored "War God," it first had to grow its own body to be even larger than it.

Understanding the truth, Rowan cursed the Mother Nest's rigid operating mode, wondering why it couldn't be more flexible. So, all the energy from these past few days had really been pocketed by it.

But now, the Mother Nest was just a production and processing base, more like a machine, with no intention of pleasing its boss. Of course, it wouldn't back down from Rowan. If you have the ability, don't feed me; if you have the ability, leave me here to fend for myself. That's how the Mother Nest was acting now.

In the end, Rowan backed down. He couldn't abandon the Mother Nest.

He quickly corrected the erroneous command: hatch a miniature version of the black-armored "War God" with the Mother Nest's current size.

During this period, while digging tunnels, Rowan had also scouted the surroundings and found no threats. Therefore, he wasn't watching the Mother Nest as closely as before, taking it wherever he went. Moreover, the Mother Nest's current size didn't allow him to do that anymore.

So, he dug another secret room next to the large room, hid the Mother Nest inside, and left a small opening that he could barely squeeze through. He then used his saliva to create a door, blocking the opening whenever he went out and sealing it with saliva.

After a few tries, his craftsmanship had reached the point where it was seamless, and it was impossible to tell from the outside.

Rowan pondered, why was he so talented in everything related to digging?

Rowan discovered that the Mother Nest's larger size also had some benefits, such as its faster speed in gnawing tree roots and higher efficiency in converting energy.

In that case, would a larger Mother Nest be better? He hesitated; if the Mother Nest became any larger, he truly wouldn't be able to move it.

Fortunately, it was sufficient for now, so he put the issue aside, planning to hatch some bugs first to see the effect before considering other options.

After another two days, the Mother Nest finally accumulated enough energy and began to officially hatch its first bug.

The hatching time was unexpectedly long. After another two days, a black-armored bug, exactly as Rowan had envisioned, was "spat" out by the Mother Nest.

However, perhaps "spewed" would be a more appropriate term.

One side of the Mother Nest split open, and the bug, along with a lot of mucus, was spewed onto the ground.

Fortunately, Rowan had prepared in advance and enlarged the room's door considerably, otherwise, the black-armored bug would have hit the wall.

After spewing out the black-armored bug, the Mother Nest seemed to deflate, rapidly shrinking, which greatly frightened Rowan.

Could this thing be a one-time use item?

He quickly touched the Mother Nest to check its condition. The result was worrying. Although the Mother Nest was not a one-time use item, it had been severely weakened by hatching the black-armored bug and would need a long period of recovery before it could be used again.

And during the recovery period, it would require a large amount of energy replenishment.

Was the Mother Nest also going through postpartum recovery?

Rowan was somewhat depressed. Two days to replenish energy, two days to hatch, and then a period of recovery. With this kind of cycle, when would he be able to accumulate the insect army he envisioned?

Was this the power of the collective?

Perhaps this wasn't the power of the collective, but a trial on his path to ultimate individuality, trying to wear him out prematurely.

After putting in so much effort, only to get such a result, it was no wonder Rowan found it difficult to accept. However, he temporarily suppressed his dejected emotions and turned his gaze to the newly born black-armored bug, hoping it wouldn't disappoint him.