章 33: Brainwash
編集者: Atlas Studios
At a rubble pile near Foolish's nest, System collected food onto a caved-in rock, and then secreted [Corrosive Slime], spraying it over the food.
Ever since he had found that Foolish could order the normal worker ants, System no longer had to worry about food or work hard to snatch from the ants.
All he had to do was sit back and wait for nearly 100 ants to carry food from the ant nest and act as his free laborers.
Now, System's constraint was no longer the time needed to catch normal ants but rather his consumption speed. After all, he could not swallow his prey straight down like a snake.
Undoubtedly, System would waste a lot of time if he chewed the food. Thus, he thought of using his [Corrosive Slime] to digest the food outside of his body, after which he would only need to suck in the half-digested food to save him a lot of time.
After leveling up several times, [Corrosive Slime] could allow him to secrete sufficient slime for him to complete the digestion outside his body.
Although some of his energy would be consumed by secreting and retrieving [Corrosive Slime], it was negligible when he had the worker ants to carry an infinite amount of food for him.
System's only concern was that the food would have a funny taste. After all, the slime would mix together different kinds of insect carcasses and mushrooms after melting them.
Fortunately, when System gave it a try, he found that the taste was not like he thought.
Grasshoppers had a completely different taste structure than humans, and System did not feel any weird flavor while swallowing this liquid. On the contrary, he found the taste delicious, which was similar to mixed fruit yogurt.
…
After swallowing the liquid, it made his abdomen bulge slightly. Then System tried to brainwash the few ant eggs Foolish had brought.
The dark-brown ants' eggs were translucent, white with a hue of yellow, and were about three millimeters in size, faintly emitting the signature acidic smell of ants.
These ant eggs were incubated to different degrees. One could see the ant larvae's outline through the outer layer of gelatin, meaning they were expected to hatch soon. Others did not have a solid shape of larvae formed inside, meaning they would take longer to hatch.
System used [Mind Transmission] and tried to communicate with them.
Unlike ant larvae, these eggs could send him intimate emotions as if they were returning to their mother's embrace once his [Mind Transmission] was connected.
The longer the time left to hatching, the more intimate their emotion was, but the weaker the spirit power they fed back.
If the ant queen had just laid the eggs and the larvae were undeveloped, they would not respond to System's [Mind Transmission]. Apparently, this kind of egg was like a plant that had not developed thoughts yet.
The ants that were about to hatch would see through his lie after being hypnotized for six or seven minutes. Then they would treat System as an eternal enemy, just like normal adult ants.
The eggs that still needed more time to hatch could be deceived for a longer time, and only after ten minutes would they realize that System was not one of their kind.
Unlike the eggs that were about to hatch, they would not permanently see System as their enemy.
As long as [Spirit Transmission] continued to reassure them with [Mind Transmission] when they regarded System as an enemy, they would believe that System was their queen again.
Of course, after some time, they would find out that System was not one of their kind again.
…
After a whole day of repeatedly brainwashing the ant eggs, System finally figured out the pattern to brainwash them.
By continuously communicating through [Mind Transmission], the time that the eggs believed him was significantly increased, and they had fewer suspicions.
If he followed this trend to keep brainwashing the eggs with [Mind Transmission], System would be able to subdue an egg in about three days' time and turn it like Foolish.
Although this method succeeded in meeting System's expectation, and it would not be a problem for him to control hundreds of ants using that way, System was unsatisfied with the outcome.
[Mind Transmission]'s efficiency in brainwashing these eggs was too low. He had to keep an eye on them at all times, as once they suspected him, he would have to use [Mind Transmission] immediately to calm them.
Otherwise, all his previous efforts would be wasted.
Thus, he had to monitor the eggs for about three days and could not leave for too long.
It was fine if there were only a few eggs, but he would be unable to implement this method if there were too many. Also, it would speed up his spiritual energy consumption, making it impossible for him to last for three days.
Nevertheless, with plenty of food at this point, System had nothing else to do.
As long as he continued to eat and waited for about 14 days, he would be able to reach Level 12 and then undergo his third molting.
System pondered for a while. 'Brainwashing the eggs is a better and more prudent option than venturing out in search of edible magical creatures.'
System ordered Foolish to steal a few eggs from the nest before asking it to continue leading the worker ants to construct his cave.
After that, System got busy near those rocks, discarding the eggs that were about to hatch or the ones that would take too long to hatch. In the end, System was left with 13 eggs.
With a rate of 13 eggs at a time, putting aside the time needed for resting, System would have 100 ants, loyal to him, in about a month. Of course, they were only ant larvae that did not yet possess any ability, and he would still be busy for a while after that.
In turn, System used [Mind Transmission] to send intimate emotions, like a mother to her child, to those eggs, and then responded to their feedback one at a time.
After experimenting for an entire day, System was very proficient in brainwashing the ant eggs. Though it was a bit exhausting to brainwash 13 ant eggs, it was not impossible to do so.
System observed the eggs in front of him and suddenly noticed something. Then a blue glow flickered in his compound eyes.
[Information Reading]!
System scrutinized the eggs, used his hard forelegs to scratch the eggs, and then put the eggs' mucus into his mouth to taste.
System eventually picked out a special ant egg from these eggs. The pattern on this one was slightly different from the others, and [Information Reading]'s analysis indicated that this egg was extraordinary.
System recalled his knowledge about ants in his previous life, as the habits of ants in this world should be similar to those in his previous life.
In a nest of ants, the eggs laid by the queen would be able to hatch to produce four types of ants. One of them was a male, known as a male ant who would mate with the queen or a female ant and die shortly after mating.
The rest were females, known as female ants, soldier ants, and worker ants.
Female ants had the right to mate, and if they were lucky, they could build a new nest and become the new queen. Usually, there would be only one queen per nest.
Soldier ants and worker ants were incomplete female ants. Although they were female, they could not mate. The soldier ants were mainly responsible for guarding the nest, while the worker ants had to take care of all the chores in the colony.
…
System stared at the extraordinary egg while his antennae kept shaking.
He could not tell if this egg was a soldier ant, a male ant, or a female ant, but it did not matter. By discovering the differences between the eggs, System was inspired.
Why would he want to brainwash normal worker ants?
He could brainwash a female and train it to become the ant queen!
If the queen regarded him as her kind, it was very likely that its children would acknowledge him, too.
He would be a new ant nest's owner!
-- 贈り物
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