Force Astral Plane: Starting with the Chimera Ants

Chapter 18: Sowing the Divine Seed

On a soft cushion woven from fine, white ant silk, a huge weaver ant, about two centimeters long, lies quietly and motionless, like a sculpture.

Suddenly, its well-developed tentacles twitched twice, and its body seemed to struggle to get up. Then, with a soft crack, a crack appeared on its back shell, revealing the slightly white and tender new exoskeleton underneath.

A head, more harmonious than the old shell, slowly emerged from the carapace, followed by tentacles, six limbs, thoracic segments, and two pairs of membranous wings on the thoracic segments... until the abdomen also emerged from the old shell, at which point it wiggled its tentacles and surveyed its surroundings.

This was Ye Zhi undergoing a molting evolution. At this moment, his slightly pale body stretched out in the air, and the wrinkles on his new carapace slowly unfolded as his body moved, becoming congested with blood and expanding, causing his body size to rapidly increase.

Once the body was fully formed, Ye Zhi's body had grown to about five centimeters in length. The newly formed carapace slowly hardened and deepened, eventually settling on an orange-yellow color. The exoskeleton was seamless, with almost no trace of interlocking.

Looking around, the compound eyes were finally completely uniform in size, perfectly symmetrical on both sides. The lengths of the upper jaws on both sides were also barely level, with sharp, serrated teeth growing from the inner edges, gleaming slightly with a cold light.

Now, the right jaw is only slightly narrower than the intact left jaw in width, which may affect its strength to some extent, but it will not affect the power of the bite attack.

The only thing that proves his past chimeric identity is perhaps the two light-sensing "simple eyes" on his head - normal weaver ants do not have simple eyes, while queens and males have three eyes arranged in an inverted triangle, but weavers now only have two symmetrical ones.

But this is not a big deal. After two more molts and evolutions, his body, with only the slightly uneven jaws remaining, will be able to return to normal.

After stretching her body, Ye Zhi continued to test her Force power—she injected a wisp of Force into her forelimbs, raised her tarsus, and channeled the Force into the dark claws at the ends of her tarsi, then slashed at the rock wall beside her.

The originally hard rock wall was easily sliced ​​open like tofu by the claws imbued with the Force - the formidable power of the Force-based life level began to emerge.

Retracting its claws, Ye Zhi looked ahead with satisfaction, took two steps forward, cut along the edge of the ant silk blocking the hole, extended its antennae, and looked out with its compound eyes, only to meet another pair of compound eyes looking towards the hole.

It was the Red Citron ant, guarding its nest entrance, surrounded by two worker ants. A slightly surprised telepathic message followed: "Little guy, you're awake? Is the divine seed ready? Take it out and let me see?"

Ye Zhi cut off the entire nest, which was originally surrounded by ant silk cloth, and laid it flat on the ground. Then, she opened her mandibles and gently spat out a special seed with a surface covered with patterns in the center - the divinely bestowed seed of the two-toothed pitcher plant!

Under Hong Yuan's curious gaze, Ye Zhi gathered the piece of recycled "cloth" into a pocket shape, then bent her abdomen and spit out a thread of ant silk, which wrapped around the opening of the pocket three times to seal it tightly.

Seeing this, Hongyuan simply lowered its antennae skillfully: "Come up, little fellow, go see the King!"

Ye Zhi did not refuse. She picked up the packaged divine seed, leaped onto the other's head, and was carried towards the core nest chamber where the Black Ant King was located.

"Little one, are you two-year-olds now?"

Upon seeing the Red Cypress carrying Ye Zhi approaching from afar, the Black Cypress Ant King, possessing the powerful mental energy of a lord-level being, immediately transmitted a signal. Ye Zhi quickly flapped her wings and took flight, landing in front of the Black Cypress and tapping her antennae: "It's mainly because the Force food you provided, Black Cypress Ant King, is of excellent quality!"

"Little guy, are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?" The cypress waved its antennae again, summoning a worker ant whose abdomen was full of liquid food, which regurgitated a mixture of honey and minced meat.

After evolving once, Ye Zhi was indeed hungry. She immediately put the package of the divinely bestowed seed at her feet and went forward to eat it all up. With her increased size, she actually ate it all up.

"Is the divinely bestowed seed ready?" Wu Yuan asked, shaking its tentacles again after Ye Zhi finished eating.

Ye Zhi nodded its antennae, then picked up a silken bundle at its feet and waved it around. Seeing this, Wu Yuan immediately waved its antennae as well, calling out, "Hong Yuan, come on, take the little guy down the mountain and plant the seeds!"

It seems to be due to the racial nature of the slender ant race. The citron ant king himself is also a bit impatient, not to mention the red citron next to him. Upon receiving the ant king's order, it immediately and skillfully used its forelegs to pick up Ye Zhi's wings and placed them directly on its head.

Then it shook its antennae, and a dozen or so worker ants nearby followed suit, forming a long, shiny black line as they walked out of the cave.

Seemingly having already determined its direction, the citron went straight in a specific direction as soon as it emerged from the burrow, with the red citron carrying Ye Zhi and the other worker ants following closely behind.

The destination was a relatively gentle hillside, which had originally been covered with lush vegetation, but now a space had been cleared out, and the soil had just been turned over. From a distance, several bamboo poles could be seen crisscrossing and diagonally inserted into the soil, forming a simple climbing frame.

The soil below had been piled up into a ring, encircling the bamboo frame, seemingly waiting for planting. A ring of slender, glossy black worker ants with black exoskeletons stood guard on the side, each carrying a small sachet of spider silk in its mouth.

The massive body of the black cypress went straight to the pit and the climbing frame, stopped, and waved its tentacles to signal the red cypress carrying Ye Zhi to stop. It then pointed with its tentacles to the center of the pit, indicating that Ye Zhi should get down.

Ye Zhi leaped down from the top of Hong Yuan's head and landed in the middle of the pit, below the climbing frame. He understood that Wu Yuan wanted him to do it himself, so he opened the package, picked up the pitcher plant seeds inside, and began to dig.

Weaver ants are arboreal ants and are not naturally good at digging. However, their increased size after evolution has compensated for many of these shortcomings. In addition, pitcher plants do not have deep root systems, so deep pits are sufficient.

Ye Zhi supported its body with its hind limbs, and its pair of front limbs dug rapidly under its body like a puppy digging in the soil. A pit nearly ten centimeters deep appeared under a bamboo pole facing the sun. Then, it opened its jaws, gently dropped the seed into the pit, and then filled the pit back up.

......

The insect warriors give birth to life seeds, which is a wonderful "symbiosis" at the level of primal force life. The growth and evolution of the life seed will be synchronized with the insect warriors that gave birth to it, making its vitality and growth rate far stronger than that of ordinary plants.

According to the inherited memories, the life force of the divinely bestowed seed is almost ten times that of an ordinary plant. This made Ye Zhi look forward to seeing the two-toothed pitcher plant divinely bestowed seed she planted sprout and break through the soil.