Plan

Beyond that, he felt that significant changes had occurred within his body; he seemed different than before.

If Rowan possessed more extensive knowledge of entomology, he might have guessed from the spider's physical structure that his internal oxygen supply system had been upgraded, though he would soon be able to verify this genetic fragment through the Mother Nest.

The new oxygen supply system could support his growth into a much larger size.

However, he had not gained the ability to spin silk, which was to be expected. That creature only looked like a spider; Rowan had named it in a way he could understand for convenience, but who knew what it actually was?

Furthermore, its method of hunting was to use rocks for ambushes, and it had shown no talent for weaving webs.

Rowan felt no regret about failing to acquire the silk-spinning ability.

This time, relying solely on these six walking legs and venomous fangs was already a massive gain; everything else was just a minor detail—a nice bonus if present, but no loss if absent.

With his great vengeance satisfied, Rowan temporarily lost the urge to stir up trouble. Thus, this region entered a period of peaceful development.

With the help of the four ant nests, the number of insects in the Insect Nest grew with each passing day. Relying on the ant nests alone could no longer satisfy the daily consumption of the Insect Nest.

However, some time ago, the Big-Eye Scout Ants sent out discovered three new ant nests. Work on new transport tunnels was already being prepared. He believed that the supply from a total of seven ant nests would be enough to support the development of the Insect Nest for some time.

In the blink of an eye, hundreds of days and nights passed. Rowan did not know how long a year was on this planet, and the climate in his region did not change much. It seemed the same every day; plants did not sprout or shed leaves in any regular pattern, making it impossible to distinguish between the four seasons.

After such a long time, the Insect Nest was now connected to thirty-five surrounding ant nests, supporting a massive colony of over ten thousand Worker Ants and hundreds of Soldier Ants.

Even this number was the result of Rowan's intentional control; otherwise, the insect population would have at least doubled.

The specific reason for this was that the transport lines had been stretched too thin.

The furthest ant nest was nearly a kilometer away from the Insect Nest. By the time a transport worker reached the Storage Room to steal food, its stamina was essentially exhausted. After eating a small portion of the food prepared in the Storage Room and transporting the rest back, it would have to eat more along the way... by the time it returned to the Insect Nest, there was almost nothing left.

To put it in quantitative terms: every morning, a transport worker would eat one unit of food before departing, arrive at the Storage Room of Ant Nest No. 35, eat another unit of food, and transport two units of food back.

Upon returning, it would eat half a unit of food, rest for the night, and then eat one unit of food the next morning to set off again, repeating the cycle.

As the data shows, the cost of a transport worker bringing back two units of food was actually consuming two and a half units, which was becoming counterproductive.

Moreover, there was a limit to how much food could be stolen from each ant nest daily. Exceeding this limit would affect the normal operation of the ant nest, causing the available food supply to gradually decrease. Therefore, for the sake of sustainable development, one could not drain their reserves dry.

Consequently, the Insect Nest had stopped expanding dozens of days ago, and transport teams were rarely sent to ant nests numbered thirty and above. Only a few Spy Ants were left there to freeload.

Rowan had considered having everyone eat dirt, but experiments showed that the energy conversion from eating pure dirt was too low. The dirt-eating skill was only suitable for when the entire colony needed to remain silent and maintain minimal survival consumption to avoid extreme danger.

Simply put, eating dirt could only ensure they didn't starve to death while sleeping all day without working or expending energy; it could not sustain the daily consumption required for normal work.

Now, the development of the Insect Nest had reached a bottleneck. To continue expanding, Rowan thought of several methods. The first was to improve transport efficiency. Although ants were strong enough to carry food several times their own weight, they unfortunately lacked the proper transport tools to utilize their talents.

Relying solely on their mandibles, they could carry a bit more if the food itself wasn't broken up, but unfortunately, most of the food stolen from the ant nests had already been ground into crumbs.

They were like a truck capable of carrying a ton, but with only a cab and no cargo bed, forced to rely on the driver's cabin to carry only a few dozen to a hundred kilograms at a time.

Therefore, if there were some way to increase their cargo capacity and unleash their potential, the Insect Nest's sphere of influence could easily expand several times over.

Unfortunately, Rowan didn't know how to build a cargo bed and could only hope to encounter an insect that came with one to extract its genetic fragment. But when he might encounter such an insect was a matter of fate, and it was uncertain if such a creature even existed.

The second plan was to relocate the Insect Nest. Currently, the nest was backed against a cliff. In the early days when the Insect Nest was weak, the advantage of this location was that he only needed to guard against enemies appearing from the front, without worrying about being ambushed from behind.

But now that the Insect Nest's strength was formidable, if he were to relocate to a position that could radiate to a large number of ant nests in all directions, then with the current transport capacity, the number of connectable ant nests would at least double.

More connected ant nests meant more food could be stolen, and the current problems would naturally be solved.

However, this method only treated the symptoms and not the root cause; the fundamental problem remained, and this was merely a temporary relief. The scale of the Insect Nest was already very large, and moving it would not be easy.

Furthermore, even if they moved to a new location, the tunnels to connect the ant nests could not be completed in a day or two, and there was no way to resolve how to survive during that period.

The third plan was to clear out the ant nests near the current Insect Nest, occupy a piece of surface territory, and autonomously acquire some food.

There were four ant nests very close to the Insect Nest, and to avoid conflict with them, the insects usually didn't wander around on the surface.

Currently, the entire food supply of the Insect Nest relied on the transport from various ant nests; it could be said that apart from the Soldier Ants, everyone was part of a transport team. This ecological model was too deformed and overly dependent.

Therefore, if he could obtain a piece of surface territory, he could autonomously produce some food. For example, he could farm the little green bugs found on leaves, and he could use his intelligence to expand the scale of farming. Although the production methods for that food were somewhat questionable, he could just feed it to his underlings.

Compared to the first two plans, the third was the most feasible.

However, the worker insects in the surrounding ant nests were doing a good job and were diligent and hardworking. Combined with Rowan's lazy mindset and lack of sufficient ambition, the matter was put on hold.

Until a few days ago, when some anomalies occurred.