Capítulo 53: The Ants Obey Me
"What he saw next left him shocked: almost half of the little carin chicken had already been devoured. Quickly, he shook it, but the red ants wouldn't let go. He yanked them off, squeezing them one by one with force.
When he was about to pull the last one off the now almost lifeless little carin chicken, the ant fought back, delivering a painfully sharp bite.
Joe ran off in pain, ripping the biting ant to pieces. Running home, he made a little corner to place the little carin chicken, which seemed to barely breathe.
As he examined the tiny bird closer, he felt an overwhelming urge to cry. Slamming the door shut, he rushed to the large anthill. He had no doubt: he would destroy it, even if only a little, but he needed to avenge the little carin chicken.
With anger, he grabbed the shovel from the ground and used it as a bat, striking the anthill repeatedly until part of it collapsed, filling the place with hundreds of yellow ants, almost invisible in the bright sunlight.
Desperate, he wanted to destroy even more of the anthill, but a sharp pain hit his abdomen again. Unable to control himself, he lay down next to the anthill. When he noticed that none of those ants were attacking him, he realized he had hit the wrong spot and destroyed the wrong anthill.
Still moaning in pain and out of his mind, he asked:
'Do you think if I apologized, you'd forgive me?'
The ants seemed to pity him, as they just stared at him without reacting.
'You know what I'd like to do with you all? Since there are so many of you, I'd want you to work for me. I'm poor, but I've got loads of sweets at home.'
Obviously, his crazy idea wouldn't work, but he ordered anyway:
'I want you to work for me because tomorrow, I'll have nowhere to live, the little carin chicken is going to die, and the others won't survive either.'
Then, slowly, he got up, standing in front of the anthill, crouching carefully so as not to crush any ants, and cried out, sobbing:
'Please, I need you to work for me! If you do, I'll buy a ton of sweets for you!'
He repeated this so many times that he didn't even notice the several ants climbing onto his body until, suddenly, he felt a pinch on his nose. Before slapping it off, he realized it was the largest ant there. When he focused his eyes on the ant's little eyes, he heard in his mind:
["Connection formed 🔗. Issue the command 📣 and offer a reward."]
'What? What?! And why these symbols? Oh, it must be because the ant doesn't understand human language,' Joe said to himself.
["Connection formed 🔗. The future queen of the ants awaits orders and the offer of a reward."]
Joe pinched himself two or three times until checking the small micro subsystem screen:
'I've got nothing to lose. Madam future queen, command your ants to carry all that manure to the place where I left the other pile. The reward will be a bucket of sweets, with loads of sugar.'
In the ant queen's mind, the symbol for reward 🏆 formed, which she understood well.
The queen nodded, and Joe gently placed her on the ground. A message popped up:
[You've established a friendly connection with a rare Dorylus Efligion Mortalis ant. Would you like to create a micro screen for her?]
'Seriously, I can do that? Of course, I will! Enable screen creation.'
"Microsubs Status!"
Visitor Status / Abilities
⬇️off 🔋 Power-saving option Level 00.1%
⬇️off 🕐 Slow consumption Level 0.36%
⬇️off 🧠➗ Intelligence Level 0.50% + 0.36%
⬆️on 🖼️ Screen creation 🔗 Connection Level 0.15%
⬆️on 🧠➗ Intelligence Level 0.50% + 0.15%
[Visitor Status. "Screen Creation" connected with "Intelligence" generated results]
🖼️ x 65--- 🔗---🧠---=----65x🐜
[At the current level, this skill connection allows for the creation of 65 micro screens for 65 ants. After 1 hour, the trips made by the connected ants will be tallied, and an amount of XP will be added to the queen ant's micro screen. However, you will not be able to benefit from this. The XP can only be used to create more micro screens or to level up the ants.]
'Will this really work?' Joe doubted, trying to do the math.
Creating the micro screens was easy and simple. Joe created one and multiplied it by 64 since the queen's screen had to be unique.
He wrote only the basics, while the system handled the symbols and information:
[Ant 01. / Size 3.5 cm / Weight 6 g / Strength 50x = 30 g / Speed 0.327 m/s or 1.18 km/h. / Vitality 0.01 and gains 0.25 XP per hour / Confidence 0.01]
🐜 Level 0.1 / 📏 3.5 cm / ⚖️ 6 g / 50x 🦾 = 300 g
🐜 💨 0.327 m/s / 🤎 0.01 + / ⭐⛏1.10 p/hr / 😶
Joe was surprised by the ants' strength and speed.
**"That means something moving at 0.327 m/s would cover 32.7 cm in one second and 1.177 meters in one hour,"** he thought, recalling a book on insects he had read.
The ants began forming a line, one by one, coming toward him. He, crouching with one hand on the ground, lightly touched each ant's head with his finger and said:
'Connect! Connect!...'
After repeating this 64 times, he began crafting the queen's micro screen.
Queen🐜 Level 0.1 / 📏 7 cm / ⚖️ 12 g / 80x 🦾 = 960 g
🐜 💨 0.25 m/s / 🤎 0.3 / + 0.01 / ⭐xps 0.00 / 😐
And each ant grabbed its piece of manure and followed the path indicated by the queen. Joe noticed that each ant with a screen was leading a platoon of 16 worker ants to the task.
After a few minutes, he realized they didn't need to carry the manure all the way to the final destination; it was enough to leave it nearby, so the ants could have the chance to level up.
Status de energia semanal
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