Experiment

This approach left Rowan complaining incessantly. He now had to travel much further to hunt those stray Black Ants and drag them back to the cave, which significantly increased his workload.

However, it was all worth it. After days of being fed meat, the Mother Nest had finally recovered its vitality and could undergo another round of incubation.

Rowan had also been pondering these past few days whether his previous operation had been correct.

Incubating them directly into adult insects was somewhat counterproductive. Although it took only two days for a Black Beetle to cross the stages from egg to larva to adult, it was a costly process.

Rowan did not know if the Black Beetle's growth process included a pupation stage, but if it did, he had skipped over four entire stages.

While he could immediately harvest a mature combatant, the cost was too high; its massive body was formed entirely by absorbing the flesh and blood of the Mother Nest.

Following this line of thought, Rowan speculated in reverse: if he let the Mother Nest produce eggs and allowed them to hatch and grow on their own, wouldn't the consumption be much lower?

This guess was not without basis. By continuously feeding it tree roots over the past few days, he had noticed the Black Beetle showing slight signs of growth.

Initially, due to the size of the Mother Nest, the Black Beetle that hatched was far from its normal size.

Rowan had originally thought the Black Beetle was like a product coming off an assembly line, with all parameters fixed the moment it left the factory. But he had underestimated the Mother Nest; this was no longer the mechanical technology he was familiar with, but a brand-new biotechnology containing many impossibilities.

It was precisely by observing that the Black Beetle could still develop normally that he began to understand the correct way to use the Mother Nest.

This time, he would attempt to have the Mother Nest produce an egg, one without any fancy gene fragments, copying the Black Ant's genes entirely.

He wanted to hatch a Black Ant egg and, incidentally, test whether it carried the Interaction System.

Things progressed very smoothly. The Mother Nest easily produced a tiny egg, which seemed to have no effect on it at all.

Rowan was excited; this proved his previous hypothesis that the correct way to use the Mother Nest was to produce eggs and let them mature on their own.

But reality immediately poured a bucket of cold water on Rowan.

Looking at the small, pale yellow egg in front of him, Rowan felt troubled. He had no experience in caring for insect eggs and did not know how to make them hatch.

He felt he had been too rash. Before he could think of a remedy, the Black Beetle wandering around the room stepped on the egg. Its sharp claws pierced the egg directly, and the liquid inside spilled all over the floor.

Rowan was stunned for a moment. The Black Beetle did not have eyes like his that could see in the dark; it relied entirely on sound and vibration to perceive its surroundings. The egg had been motionless since its birth, and compared to the Black Beetle's size, it was too tiny. Rowan had been lost in thought and hadn't paid attention. Various factors had led to this tragedy.

The Black Beetle was completely unaware, having no idea what it had crushed, and continued to wander about. Rowan did not move either; nothing could be saved now, and besides, it was just an insect, and he had no emotional attachment to it.

However, this incident also triggered some thoughts.

Although the Mother Nest had evolved from him and was a separate individual, the insects produced by the Mother Nest were not Efiash. This was the conclusion Rowan reached through observing the Black Beetle and the egg.

If Efiash could be bred through this method, they would have become a common species long ago and would never be so rare.

The insects produced by the Mother Nest were more like some kind of machine—living machines that executed certain tasks mechanically. Of course, whether they had other characteristics could not be concluded yet due to the small sample size.

Therefore, the eggs produced by the Mother Nest could not be as indestructible as the eggs of the Efiash. They remained fragile and required some care.

As for the personnel to take care of them, the Black Beetle was clearly not a good choice. Rowan could not command it; it would only mechanically patrol around the Mother Nest.

After thinking for a while, Rowan had an idea.

He touched the Mother Nest and issued a production command.

Half a day later, two miniature Black Ants were spat out by the Mother Nest. This time, the Mother Nest was only slightly weakened and did not seem to be "leaking air" like last time.

Rowan learned from his experience; while the two ants were still in their weak post-birth period, he used his body to block them. This way, when the Black Beetle bumped into Rowan, it would change its patrol direction.

Although the Black Ants were miniature versions, they were still much larger than the eggs. After a little time to adapt, they climbed up from the ground one after another.

The two ants touched each other with their antennae, seemingly communicating.

Rowan watched from the side, feeling a bit confused and having a headache. What was going on? Did they have the Interaction System, but he didn't?

But soon, as if stimulated by something, a previously hidden ability of his awakened.

This ability seemed to have evolved along with the Mother Nest during the hibernation when he first evolved into it. It seemed to involve secreting something—now that he thought about it, it must be pheromones. It was just that he had never had an object to communicate with before, so the ability had remained hidden.

After awakening, Rowan immediately understood what the two ants were expressing. They were expressing a sense of confusion, as if they didn't know what to do and were waiting for orders.

They smeared the pheromones expressing this meaning onto their bodies and antennae, and then other ants received this information through contact with their antennae.

But Rowan could directly "see," "smell," or "perceive" the meaning of this information, skipping the step of antenna contact. He figured some gene fragments were at work; he didn't know exactly how it was done, but it seemed it was meant to be this way.

Rowan did not dwell on this question; he was already completely absorbed by this novel way of communication.

After a period of testing, he also learned this method of communicating with pheromones. He integrated the meaning of "follow me" into the pheromones and then radiated their scent.

The two ants seemed to sense something; they moved to Rowan's side, touched his body with their antennae, and then obediently stood behind him.

"Interesting," Rowan thought to himself.

He then led the two ants into a tunnel and issued a new command: "Dig together."

Then, he saw the three small insects in the tunnel start to dig.

"You go dig over there," Rowan tried to issue a more complex command.

After receiving the new command, the two ants radiated pheromones expressing confusion; they did not understand what it meant.

"Damn, you don't understand that? Your intelligence is a bit worrying."

Rowan had one of them stay in place, then took the other one a bit further away and gave it the command: "Go bring that one over here."

This time the ant understood. It scurried over to the other ant, and the two ants intertwined their antennae to communicate for a while. The other ant did not doubt it at all, and the two ants returned to Rowan's side together.

After some more testing, Rowan gained a certain understanding of the range of the commands.

There had to be a clear target for the ants to understand the meaning.

For example, with the command "go over there," the ants would express confusion because they couldn't understand where "there" was. But if the command was "return to the nest," they could understand it and complete the task perfectly according to the command.

And now, he needed to conduct some other tests.