Every bug in the Insect Nest now had the genetic fragment that let it eat dirt. With that talent, solid food was everywhere. They could eat as much of it as they wanted.
The idea was quickly put into action.
Rowan gathered five hundred Worker Ants to run an experiment. He ordered them to eat a meal of dirt every day, then pile the resulting biofertilizer beside designated plants.
The results of eating dirt were remarkable. The same number of Worker Ants produced several times more biofertilizer.
During this time, he also ordered the Worker Ants to stop helping the Aphids migrate. Whether they could help plants grow better still needed further testing, which would take time. So he planned to tackle both problems at once: study the biofertilizer while curbing the Aphids' expansion.
The biofertilizer experiment was a success. Perhaps it aligned with certain laws of nature, but the biofertilizer the Worker Ants produced from eating dirt worked much better than the kind they had produced from eating water droplets.
So the original order, which required only five hundred Worker Ants to eat dirt each day, quickly spread to every bug except Rowan and the Spy Bugs freeloading in the Ant Nest's Hatching Room.
The more than twenty thousand bugs in the Insect Nest produced a considerable amount of biofertilizer each day. Rowan hatched some more Worker Ants to carry it to the base of the vegetation throughout his territory.
Although he had fertilized the plants, the order to curb the Aphid population remained in effect.
The Aphids now supplied the Insect Nest's needs, with some left over each day, so there was no need to increase their numbers for the time being.
With the vegetation crisis resolved, life settled back into a steady routine. The advantage of the bugs having no independent will became clear: day after day, they worked tirelessly and without complaint.
Rowan now liked to climb the trunk of the tallest tree in his territory each day and watch the bugs below busily go about their work in orderly fashion.
He disliked the damp darkness underground and the cramped, stifling spaces there. Before, he'd had no choice but to hide underground for safety.
Now that he had grown stronger and become a lord of his own domain, there was no need to keep himself cooped up underground all the time, even if his territory wasn't very large.
Suddenly, a disturbance on a nearby tree trunk caught Rowan's attention.
A few Worker Ants seemed to have spotted something as they traveled along. As the local overlord, they naturally went over to investigate.
For some unknown reason, the ants spread an assembly pheromone. Any Worker Ants passing by stopped as soon as they detected it.
More and more Worker Ants gathered, surrounding the spot as if they were about to fight.
What puzzled Rowan was that the plant was not very far from him.
He could see the Worker Ants clearly, but couldn't make out what they had surrounded. From where he stood, it looked like nothing more than an ordinary patch of tree bark.
In the monotonous routine of day-to-day life, the rare sight of something new immediately piqued Rowan's curiosity.
He kicked off the trunk and leaped down in a dramatic swan dive, landing in the grass below flat on his back with his belly in the air.
But his legs were very nimble now, each with seven segments. He easily flipped himself over and pushed himself upright.
Then he quickly crawled toward the commotion.
As he approached the circle of Worker Ants, he noticed something strange.
The patch of bark looked almost identical to the surrounding bark, but with his high-resolution eyes, he could just make out the outline of a bug.
Could it be a Camouflage Bug?
Rowan's interest waned a little. The woods beneath this Cliff were home to Camouflage Bugs and Black Armored Beetles, the same kinds he had encountered in the desert thickets.
They seemed to face none of the limitations of the Earth-Yellow Ants. They had spread out here too, and there were quite a few of them.
But Camouflage Bugs were weak in a fight. Their ambush skills might be top-tier, but in a direct fight, they were barely bronze-tier.
And their camouflage was useless against Worker Ants, a blind soldier caste that identified friend from foe by pheromones. Once spotted, a few Worker Ants could easily take care of one.
As for the Black Armored Beetles, if they didn't run and the Worker Ants called for reinforcements, their only fate was to be recycled for their protein.
Worker Ants might not be very strong individually, but they were formidable in groups. They could also call for backup, making them the rulers of this area.
Even the Grasshoppers that had once given Rowan a headache because he couldn't catch them were now being killed several at a time every day.
He had no idea how they managed it.
Rowan had already tasted Grasshopper, too. The only part of its genetic makeup he had wanted—the strong hind legs—had only made his leg muscles a little stronger. They hadn't reached the Grasshopper's level.
Suddenly, Rowan snapped out of his reverie. He noticed that something about the "Camouflage Bug" ahead seemed different.
The bark it used for camouflage didn't seem to have been attached afterward. Instead, the colors and patterns on its body looked exactly like the bark.
This was a kind of bug he had never seen before.
Rowan's interest returned. A new species meant a new genetic fragment. Whether it would come in handy or not, he might as well collect it first.
He quickened his pace and reached the edge of the circle in a few steps. As he waved his antennae, the Worker Ants opened a path for him.
This new bug was a little smaller than a Camouflage Bug, with a similarly slender build. Unlike the Camouflage Bug, it had fairly thick shoulder and back armor.
Its coloring really was exactly the same as its surroundings, blending right in. Even the patterns on its back armor were nearly indistinguishable from the grain of the bark.
The bug paid no attention to Rowan's approach and remained motionless.
Rowan cautiously reached out with his Digging Leg and nudged it. Rowan was many times larger than the bug; a single Digging Leg was almost as big as the bug itself.
The bug didn't react to the touch at all. It was just like a real piece of bark.
Rowan applied a little more force and pushed it. The bug rocked slightly, but continued playing dead. Rowan could see, though, that its little claws underneath were gripping the bark tightly.
Rowan almost wanted to laugh. Did this bug think that if it pretended to be bark and stayed still, he'd really be fooled?
As if its intelligence had insulted him, Rowan thrust out his Digging Leg and swung a blow at its head, using the opening move of Rowan's Combat Technique.
Though the bug was long and thin, it was tougher than he'd expected. It took Rowan's blow head-on and was barely hurt.
But it seemed to realize that it had truly been exposed. It stopped pretending to be tree bark, released the bark with its short limbs, and kicked off hard, falling toward the ground.
Then something amazing happened. As soon as the bug fell to the ground, its coloring changed, quickly matching the color of the grass and leaves around it.
Its shape blended into its surroundings again and vanished from sight.
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