What It's Like Being a Vampire

Next, he targeted the type of ant he encountered in the mountains – the Pseudomyrma gravicornis, and began to make repeated attempts.

At first, he was in a “Super Sensory State”, using the “Super-connected Objects” to continually influence a single ant, causing certain changes in its body and habits, and could begin to guide its behavior to some extent.

But these ants didn’t live long, the longest one only lasted three hours after transformation before there was no movement.

Then Xiang Kun finally relied on the interpretation of cognitive information in the “Super Sensory State”, after a dozen attempts, successfully brought an ant into the “Super Sensory Item System”.

Not sure if this ant has a low intelligence, or the way it was integrated was too brutal and direct, the connection with Xiang Kun is very weak, and there is no close feeling with “Gold Sparkle” or “Custard Pie”.

However, after this ant was integrated into the “Super Sensory Item System”, it became much easier for Xiang Kun to influence it, and he could also give it clear instructions.

Of course, these instructions are still limited to where to go, what to eat, and what target to attack, these types of simple and direct instructions.

But Xiang Kun clearly felt that the ant still had a strong sense of panic. Unless orders were continuously given to it, it would always be in a state close to mania, wanting to attack other creatures around it.

After discussing with Old Xia, they believed this should be related to ant characteristics. All ants live in social communities, driven by very strong social instincts.

The large Pseudomyrma worker ant he connected with, although it has differentiated greatly from its original species after Xiang Kun’s transformation, its instinct still makes it try to find a new group that belongs to it and to carry out its duties. Clearly, Xiang Kun has not yet found a way to erase this instinct.

Xiang Kun’s solution is simple, just go directly to find an ant queen to establish a connection, bring it into the “Super Sensory Item System”, establish a simple social system of ants, and give that worker ant a “queen ant” to protect.

Since there are Pseudomyrma in the woods, there must be a Pseudomyrma queen. For Xiang Kun now, if he wants to find any creature in the woods, there is basically no possibility of not finding it.

In this continuous rainy spring season, it doesn’t matter whether it crawls on the ground, burrows, or flies in the sky. Within a certain range, he is confident he can catch it.

Without much effort, Xiang Kun quickly found an ant nest, caught the queen ant, and quickly established a relationship with this big-butt Pseudomyrma, bringing it into the “Super Sensory Item System”.

Honestly, he didn’t quite understand why he catches so many animals, all of which end in failure, but ants are successful?

Xiang Kun did not continue to explore the uniqueness of ants for the time being. After establishing a connection with the queen ant and placing the previous worker ants around the queen ant for a while, its state did indeed stabilize.

And Xiang Kun’s control of the queen ant is much easier than controlling the worker ants.

Xiang Kun initially controlled the queen ant in order to allow the previous worker ants to find a sense of social belonging again, but unexpectedly, this queen ant greatly surprised him.

Just like with that worker ant, Xiang Kun similarly influenced the queen ant through the “Super Sensory State” and “Super-connected Objects”, causing its form to undergo considerable changes, even growing wings for flight again.

After being caught by Xiang Kun and established a connection, the queen ant and the worker ant were separated from their original colonies and were brought back by Xiang Kun to a self-built house temporarily rented in Chongyun Village and raised indoors.

The queen and worker ants both have a large appetite, their size rapidly increased, the size of the queen ant reached the size of Xiang Kun’s thumb, and the worker ants are nearly the size of his little finger.

The queen ant began to lay eggs soon, with many eggs laying, and they hatched quickly. The hatched ants all had wings, which made Xiang Kun unable to distinguish for a moment whether these were reproducing ants or “flying worker ants” that had grown wings like the queen ant. After all, he did not give the queen ant the command to lay eggs; it was a spontaneous behavior.

But Xiang Kun soon confirmed that these winged ones are not reproducing ants, but “flying worker ants”.

In addition to these flying “flying worker ants”, there are also some very small, rice-sized mini worker ants, which are also somewhat different from the original Pseudomyrma.

After sensing the intention of the queen ant, Xiang Kun released these new worker ants to the outside of the house, and then discovered that those “flying worker ants” have a strong flying ability, and if you don’t pay attention, you might think they are flies or bees.

Those “mini worker ants” also move very quickly on the ground, and they are good at burrowing into pits and cracks, and have a strong ability to dig holes.

Even if Xiang Kun did not rely on his senses while standing in the yard, he could still clearly perceive the locations of these worker ants and even receive some environmental information from around them.

However, he did not obtain this information directly from the worker ants. He had no direct connection with them but received this information through indirect commands issued by the ant queen he had connected with.

These worker ants, like weak sensory probes, transferred information via the ant queen.

The sensory information transfer between Xiang Kun, the ant queen, and the initial worker ant with whom a connection had been established could essentially ignore distance and had no delay in transmission. But the information transfer between these “flying worker ants”, “small worker ants”, and the ant queen was evidently not carried through the “Super Sensory Item System”.

Xiang Kun didn’t immediately comprehend the principle of their information exchange. Still, through observation and experimentation, he was sure this was not the traditional way ants transferred information. It was more like the “conversion branches” and “reconstruction branches” of the “mutated spider” he had exterminated in the Qinling Uninhabited Area.

It seemed as if he had inadvertently granted the ant queen the ability to create unique plants through the “Super Sensory State” transformation.

The ant queen did not realize this ability through grafting or reconstructing plants but by laying eggs, using its worker ants to perform corresponding functions.

Their information transfer was likely accomplished through a series of nodes, carrying out short-distance teleportation, which then converged at the ant queen.

Currently constrained by their quantity, both the content and range of the information they could transfer were limited, far inferior to Xiang Kun’s sensory abilities.

However, Xiang Kun could imagine that, once these special worker ants reached a certain number, they could cover a wide area, just like the “mutated spider” setting up “branches” around the forest to maintain vigilance.

Moreover, these “worker ants” had many other applications besides perceiving information.

Once a stable connection was established, Xiang Kun had Old Xia, who was conducting ant research with him, name the ant queen and the original large worker ant.

Without any hesitation, Old Xia assigned the names “Zero Zero One” and “Zero Zero Two” to the two ants, with the large worker ant being “Zero Zero One” and the ant queen being “Zero Zero Two”, simple, direct, and easy to remember.

The one discovered by Zhou Rui on the back of a chair at the pedestrian street at this point was actually one of the “flying worker ants” produced by “Zero Zero Two”, which Xiang Kun had brought to the town.

Recognizing Zhou Rui, Mijoe, and Gao Shu among the people who had come to the restaurant for lunch, Xiang Kun intended to make Zhou Rui “discover” a “flying worker ant” and realize its uniqueness, then bring it back for research.

Although the research base and laboratory that Old Xia had helped him plan were under construction, and some equipment had been ordered, it would be a long time before they were completed and put into use. Even upon completion, his and Old Xia’s relevant professional knowledge was still lacking, and the equipment would not be comprehensive.

If “Divine Technology” took an interest in that “flying worker ant” and set out to research it, they would certainly obtain many research results that he and Old Xia currently could not.

He still had many questions about the specific mechanisms of the changes he caused in the ants through his series of operations.

By having the team of Zhou Rui and Dr. Fang conduct the research and observation, he could obtain timely feedback through the black circle graffiti around Mijoe.

If necessary, he could even guide their research direction through the method of a Dream in a Dream.

From their research on the “flying worker ant”, he might glean their research methods on “mutants” to some extent.

In any case, the “flying worker ant” had no direct connection with him, so he did not need to worry about them tracing it back to him.

He was initially worried that Zhou Rui might not notice the peculiarity of the “flying worker ant”. If he did ignore it, then later, he would have to find time to deliver it directly to their accommodation near Wushu Mountain.

Luckily, Zhou Rui lived up to his label of “ant enthusiast” and astutely found one of the eight “flying worker ants” Xiang Kun had placed on the pedestrian street.

Behind Xiang Kun, Xia Libing also got up from the dining table, bringing a hot bowl of soup to sip on as she came over to him, watching out of the window.

After devastating the bowl of soup with one slurp and exhaling a breath of steam, Xia Libing asked, “Was it successful?” Given her visual acuity, she naturally couldn’t see the distant figures of Mijoe, Zhou Rui and others. However, Xiang Kun had already told her about his plans and goals, which she agreed on.

Looking down at the “flying worker ant” perched on the back of his hand, Xiang Kun said, “Zhou Rui caught one and took it back. We’ll explore Mijoe’s dreamscape tonight to see what their attitude toward this worker ant is, whether it’s Zhou Rui researching on his own, or their team’s research, and whether they have reported it up.”