Chapter 82: Reverse Landslide
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Chapter 82: Reverse Landslide
The barriers to his strength werent something he could solve just because he wanted to. Sage spent the rest of the night in the cave, waking up in the morning to find the body of a shadow-tailed civet. The Chameleon Mantis had done its job well and Sage stored the body of the beast before collecting the Mantis and starting on the next leg of the journey. The origin of this chapter's debut can be traced to N0v3l--B1n.
Hed lost a couple days with that pair of adventures, but the journey wasnt too long in the first place so he didnt have an issue with hunting for fortune along the way. It was also useful to compare the maps he found in the libraries to the actual current situation. The topography and major landmarks were sure to be the same, but the maps wouldnt have any information about powerful beast territories or any recent changes.
A few days later, Sage saw movement over a large area of territory but couldnt quite pick out what it was. One the side of a scree covered mountain it looked like the rough gravel was shifting. Like a small scale landslide, everything was shifting. The only problem was that the gravel seemed to be moving uphill and not downhill. The Dragonfly flew a bit closer before its excellent vision finally had a good look and Sage realized it wasnt gravel. The motion came from tens of thousands of tiny ants. They were colored a slate grey and each was carrying a piece of rock over their heads, each of the bean sized gravel rocks was easily two to five times larger than the ants that were carrying them. Interesting!
Sage looked down on the ants from above as they moved closer through the air. Eventually reaching a few hundred meters away and starting to follow the flow of the ants to find their goal. Near the midway point of the mountain the flood of ants started to disappear into many cracks and crevices in the rock. Theres not enough room for even my own body to fit down there, let alone my other huge bugs.
With this idea in mind, Sage wasnt even upset when he didnt find any treasure within the Ant den. In fact, these ants had turned into the greatest treasure. As he observed the colony he found that there was a larger caste of this ant, as big as a marble, that could surround its mandibles with Qi which it used to cut through stone and rock like it was butter. Seeing this, Sage was even more excited and he followed his Spirit Sense to have the Warp Worm circle them around and behind the colony to the chamber where he sensed the biggest and largest of the ants. Theoretically he should be able to just capture any ant and use mutate to shift it into a queen of its species. The problem was that process was not guaranteed to succeed and also highly likely to cause other mutations. He always preferred to start with a pure and established species to try and preserve their unique abilities since it wasnt always obvious how they worked or where they came from.
The best method would consist of taking away either the Queen herself or a large number of eggs. If he were to take the Queen it would cause a huge disturbance in the colony and it would make escaping quite difficult. If he took the eggs it would also cause a problem, but it should be far less. An ant queen like this was probably laying hundreds if not thousands of eggs every day and there was a small army of ants acting as nursemaids to carry them to nursery chambers as well as feeding and caring for them. The Queen itself also had a number of assistants that brought her food and kept her clean, which Sage would have trouble capturing along with the Queen, but the same could be said of the many nurses for the eggs. Sage of course went with the safer choice of targeting the eggs. It would take a bit of experimenting to get the right mix of food, pheromones or nursing to get an egg to hatch as a queen instead of one of the other castes, but as long as he took enough eggs, it should be possible.
Observing the colony, Sage watched them all carefully to learn their habits and behavior. He paid special attention to the treatment of the Queen and the rearing of the larva by the nursery ants. Depending on how a larva was fed it would determine the future caste and role of the ant when it grew up. Sage observed them with his spirit sense to see how they did it. What stunned him was that he realized all the stones that the ants were bringing back to the cave were unrefined spirit stones. It was like raw ore that needed processing to extract the metal, the stones were brought into the ant colony and broken down into the consistency of sand. The sand size particles were separated and the ones filled with energy were used as food for larva, the queen, and the large Qi using ants. The regular rock was ground down further and used as part of a fertilizer for a sort of fungus that fed the rest of the colony. Seems theyre similar to the Spirit Jade Beetles. They grow their own food from rare materials.
After watching them for a few hours, Sage found the most isolated egg chamber and had the Warp Worm tunnel close. Biting through the wall, Sages hand extended out of the Worms opened mouth and scooped up the contents of the whole egg chamber into one of his Insect Cages. Hundreds of eggs, a dozen nanny ants, and a few pounds of spirit stone dust were swept up all at once before his hand retreated back into the Warp Worm and quickly escaped. The Worm smashed up the path behind it and returned along its previous path. Following the tunnel it had already carved through the stone, the speed was multiplied by many times more than before. All Sage had to do was get the Worm to dig a loop back onto its old route and it was able to follow the old path back at rapid speed. Once they returned to the midpoint of the mountain where they started, Sage checked on the Insect Cage and smiled. Success!
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Chapter 82: Reverse Landslide
The barriers to his strength werent something he could solve just because he wanted to. Sage spent the rest of the night in the cave, waking up in the morning to find the body of a shadow-tailed civet. The Chameleon Mantis had done its job well and Sage stored the body of the beast before collecting the Mantis and starting on the next leg of the journey. The origin of this chapter's debut can be traced to N0v3l--B1n.
Hed lost a couple days with that pair of adventures, but the journey wasnt too long in the first place so he didnt have an issue with hunting for fortune along the way. It was also useful to compare the maps he found in the libraries to the actual current situation. The topography and major landmarks were sure to be the same, but the maps wouldnt have any information about powerful beast territories or any recent changes.
A few days later, Sage saw movement over a large area of territory but couldnt quite pick out what it was. One the side of a scree covered mountain it looked like the rough gravel was shifting. Like a small scale landslide, everything was shifting. The only problem was that the gravel seemed to be moving uphill and not downhill. The Dragonfly flew a bit closer before its excellent vision finally had a good look and Sage realized it wasnt gravel. The motion came from tens of thousands of tiny ants. They were colored a slate grey and each was carrying a piece of rock over their heads, each of the bean sized gravel rocks was easily two to five times larger than the ants that were carrying them. Interesting!
Sage looked down on the ants from above as they moved closer through the air. Eventually reaching a few hundred meters away and starting to follow the flow of the ants to find their goal. Near the midway point of the mountain the flood of ants started to disappear into many cracks and crevices in the rock. Theres not enough room for even my own body to fit down there, let alone my other huge bugs.
With this idea in mind, Sage wasnt even upset when he didnt find any treasure within the Ant den. In fact, these ants had turned into the greatest treasure. As he observed the colony he found that there was a larger caste of this ant, as big as a marble, that could surround its mandibles with Qi which it used to cut through stone and rock like it was butter. Seeing this, Sage was even more excited and he followed his Spirit Sense to have the Warp Worm circle them around and behind the colony to the chamber where he sensed the biggest and largest of the ants. Theoretically he should be able to just capture any ant and use mutate to shift it into a queen of its species. The problem was that process was not guaranteed to succeed and also highly likely to cause other mutations. He always preferred to start with a pure and established species to try and preserve their unique abilities since it wasnt always obvious how they worked or where they came from.
The best method would consist of taking away either the Queen herself or a large number of eggs. If he were to take the Queen it would cause a huge disturbance in the colony and it would make escaping quite difficult. If he took the eggs it would also cause a problem, but it should be far less. An ant queen like this was probably laying hundreds if not thousands of eggs every day and there was a small army of ants acting as nursemaids to carry them to nursery chambers as well as feeding and caring for them. The Queen itself also had a number of assistants that brought her food and kept her clean, which Sage would have trouble capturing along with the Queen, but the same could be said of the many nurses for the eggs. Sage of course went with the safer choice of targeting the eggs. It would take a bit of experimenting to get the right mix of food, pheromones or nursing to get an egg to hatch as a queen instead of one of the other castes, but as long as he took enough eggs, it should be possible.
Observing the colony, Sage watched them all carefully to learn their habits and behavior. He paid special attention to the treatment of the Queen and the rearing of the larva by the nursery ants. Depending on how a larva was fed it would determine the future caste and role of the ant when it grew up. Sage observed them with his spirit sense to see how they did it. What stunned him was that he realized all the stones that the ants were bringing back to the cave were unrefined spirit stones. It was like raw ore that needed processing to extract the metal, the stones were brought into the ant colony and broken down into the consistency of sand. The sand size particles were separated and the ones filled with energy were used as food for larva, the queen, and the large Qi using ants. The regular rock was ground down further and used as part of a fertilizer for a sort of fungus that fed the rest of the colony. Seems theyre similar to the Spirit Jade Beetles. They grow their own food from rare materials.
After watching them for a few hours, Sage found the most isolated egg chamber and had the Warp Worm tunnel close. Biting through the wall, Sages hand extended out of the Worms opened mouth and scooped up the contents of the whole egg chamber into one of his Insect Cages. Hundreds of eggs, a dozen nanny ants, and a few pounds of spirit stone dust were swept up all at once before his hand retreated back into the Warp Worm and quickly escaped. The Worm smashed up the path behind it and returned along its previous path. Following the tunnel it had already carved through the stone, the speed was multiplied by many times more than before. All Sage had to do was get the Worm to dig a loop back onto its old route and it was able to follow the old path back at rapid speed. Once they returned to the midpoint of the mountain where they started, Sage checked on the Insect Cage and smiled. Success!
Chapter 82: Reverse LandslideThe barriers to his strength werent something he could solve just because he wanted to. Sage spent the rest of the night in the cave, waking up in the morning to find the body of a shadow-tailed civet. The Chameleon Mantis had done its job well and Sage stored the body of the beast before collecting the Mantis and starting on the next leg of the journey. The origin of this chapter's debut can be traced to N0v3l--B1n.Hed lost a couple days with that pair of adventures, but the journey wasnt too long in the first place so he didnt have an issue with hunting for fortune along the way. It was also useful to compare the maps he found in the libraries to the actual current situation. The topography and major landmarks were sure to be the same, but the maps wouldnt have any information about powerful beast territories or any recent changes.A few days later, Sage saw movement over a large area of territory but couldnt quite pick out what it was. One the side of a scree covered mountain it looked like the rough gravel was shifting. Like a small scale landslide, everything was shifting. The only problem was that the gravel seemed to be moving uphill and not downhill. The Dragonfly flew a bit closer before its excellent vision finally had a good look and Sage realized it wasnt gravel. The motion came from tens of thousands of tiny ants. They were colored a slate grey and each was carrying a piece of rock over their heads, each of the bean sized gravel rocks was easily two to five times larger than the ants that were carrying them. Interesting!Sage looked down on the ants from above as they moved closer through the air. Eventually reaching a few hundred meters away and starting to follow the flow of the ants to find their goal. Near the midway point of the mountain the flood of ants started to disappear into many cracks and crevices in the rock. Theres not enough room for even my own body to fit down there, let alone my other huge bugs.With this idea in mind, Sage wasnt even upset when he didnt find any treasure within the Ant den. In fact, these ants had turned into the greatest treasure. As he observed the colony he found that there was a larger caste of this ant, as big as a marble, that could surround its mandibles with Qi which it used to cut through stone and rock like it was butter. Seeing this, Sage was even more excited and he followed his Spirit Sense to have the Warp Worm circle them around and behind the colony to the chamber where he sensed the biggest and largest of the ants. Theoretically he should be able to just capture any ant and use mutate to shift it into a queen of its species. The problem was that process was not guaranteed to succeed and also highly likely to cause other mutations. He always preferred to start with a pure and established species to try and preserve their unique abilities since it wasnt always obvious how they worked or where they came from. The best method would consist of taking away either the Queen herself or a large number of eggs. If he were to take the Queen it would cause a huge disturbance in the colony and it would make escaping quite difficult. If he took the eggs it would also cause a problem, but it should be far less. An ant queen like this was probably laying hundreds if not thousands of eggs every day and there was a small army of ants acting as nursemaids to carry them to nursery chambers as well as feeding and caring for them. The Queen itself also had a number of assistants that brought her food and kept her clean, which Sage would have trouble capturing along with the Queen, but the same could be said of the many nurses for the eggs. Sage of course went with the safer choice of targeting the eggs. It would take a bit of experimenting to get the right mix of food, pheromones or nursing to get an egg to hatch as a queen instead of one of the other castes, but as long as he took enough eggs, it should be possible. Observing the colony, Sage watched them all carefully to learn their habits and behavior. He paid special attention to the treatment of the Queen and the rearing of the larva by the nursery ants. Depending on how a larva was fed it would determine the future caste and role of the ant when it grew up. Sage observed them with his spirit sense to see how they did it. What stunned him was that he realized all the stones that the ants were bringing back to the cave were unrefined spirit stones. It was like raw ore that needed processing to extract the metal, the stones were brought into the ant colony and broken down into the consistency of sand. The sand size particles were separated and the ones filled with energy were used as food for larva, the queen, and the large Qi using ants. The regular rock was ground down further and used as part of a fertilizer for a sort of fungus that fed the rest of the colony. Seems theyre similar to the Spirit Jade Beetles. They grow their own food from rare materials. After watching them for a few hours, Sage found the most isolated egg chamber and had the Warp Worm tunnel close. Biting through the wall, Sages hand extended out of the Worms opened mouth and scooped up the contents of the whole egg chamber into one of his Insect Cages. Hundreds of eggs, a dozen nanny ants, and a few pounds of spirit stone dust were swept up all at once before his hand retreated back into the Warp Worm and quickly escaped. The Worm smashed up the path behind it and returned along its previous path. Following the tunnel it had already carved through the stone, the speed was multiplied by many times more than before. All Sage had to do was get the Worm to dig a loop back onto its old route and it was able to follow the old path back at rapid speed. Once they returned to the midpoint of the mountain where they started, Sage checked on the Insect Cage and smiled. Success!
