Volume One: The Hell-Level Lord’s World Chapter 60: Synthesis Success—Ant Nest, Emerald Forest

"Mithril, arcane crystals, special branches..." As Chen Gu tested each material, he quickly selected those most suitable for his purpose. Five materials were placed into the interface. Then, Chen Gu returned to the synthesis screen.

"Synthesis, begin."

At his command, countless green lights surged from all directions, converging upon the small branch at the center. The branch began to grow rapidly, swiftly engulfing the entire ant nest, which was not particularly large. The materials Chen Gu had placed inside vanished in an instant, and even the ant nest itself was transformed into earth, falling to the ground.

Chen Gu felt certain that the synthesis would succeed this time, though he still harbored some uncertainty about what the final result would be. All he could do now was wait for the process to conclude.

Fortunately, this wait was not a long one. Before long, the ground began to rise as if bread dough was proofing, swelling into a massive mound of earth. From this mound, new ants began to crawl out. Compared to normal ants, these had slightly larger heads, but their faces were gone. In their place, several red markings adorned their heads. Just from this, it was clear that these ants were entirely different creatures from those before.

Chen Gu quickly noticed that the dozen or so ants emerging this time all had wings. Clearly, these were males, the sample-providers of the ant species. But where was the queen? And since he had synthesized an ant nest, why had these creatures emerged instead? Had he perhaps overdone things and caused the synthesis to fail?

Just then, an ant about the size of his pinky finger flew out. Chen Gu’s heart finally settled when he saw the upper half of this ant had taken on a humanoid form. The ant nest was functioning as intended.

The ant landed on Chen Gu’s shoulder and quickly relayed the status of the nest. At the same time, messages popped up before Chen Gu, allowing him to understand the situation at hand.

The first wave of synthesis for this ant nest had, in fact, succeeded. Of the five items Chen Gu had placed into the new interface, two had directly altered the appearance of the ants. The metal ingot he’d originally used was replaced with mithril, and the fire element core remained, fundamentally transforming the ants. Their mandibles now possessed a +2 attack effect, a certain anti-magic attribute, and a +3 fire attribute. In effect, a single bite would be as powerful as an ordinary armor-piercing round.

Aside from this, the other three items were used to enhance other aspects of the ants.

The Emerald Queen currently communicating with Chen Gu was one such enhancement. In addition, there were two other entities that were not ants at all: the Emerald Broodmother and the Emerald Brainworm.

[Emerald Broodmother: One of the cores of the Emerald Ant Nest, it replaces the queen’s reproductive function. Each broodmother can lay 3,000 to 5,000 eggs per week, provided there is sufficient flesh for food. Each Emerald Ant Nest can support up to ten broodmothers at once.
Note: If the number of broodmothers becomes excessive, worker ants can relocate them to new sites, establishing satellite colonies and extending the influence of the Emerald Nest.]

[Emerald Brainworm: One of the cores of the Emerald Ant Nest, it replaces the queen’s direct control, commanding the ants in battle. Theoretically, no more than three Brainworms will exist in a single nest.
Note: Emerald Brainworms are not considered heroes.]

These two non-ant beings—one synthesized with arcane crystal, functioning much like a main base, and the other created from an ordinary branch, acting as a control core for the ants—were easy enough to understand. The ants were on a completely different scale from regular ground troops. A standard legion consisted of ten thousand soldiers. Even players, unless they controlled cities or heroes, could at most command one hundred thousand troops in unison. To command more, a great many heroes were needed.

Yet for ants, each broodmother could produce five thousand ants per week, and each nest could have at least ten broodmothers. With enough satellite colonies, their numbers could reach a million per week. How many heroes would it take to command such a force? Not to mention Chen Gu’s plans for these ants: to battle undead armies head-on, he would need at least a billion ants, with tens of billions as a baseline. Relying on heroes for that was simply impossible; thus, using Brainworms for control was the only reasonable approach.

Besides, most of these ants would be expendable, dying faster than they were produced. Even the ant heroes would meet the same fate. No matter what ideas Chen Gu might have, he would never invest experience points in these ants. Instead, it was the Brainworms—always within the nest, controlling everything—that were worthy of his investment.

Most importantly, Chen Gu discovered that Brainworms could communicate with each other through telepathy. That meant, if he planted ant nests throughout the underground, he could establish a connected communication network via the Brainworms. This was great news for him. Communication currently took far too long; contacting Silverpine Vale took at least half a day for a reply, and matters were even more troublesome with Allen—go too far, and the link simply broke. While this was partly because there were no cities in between and heroes moved unpredictably, it also revealed how vast and disconnected the world of Lords truly was. Now, with the chance for such a network, Chen Gu would not let it slip by.

Chen Gu had already made up his mind: even if the Emerald Ants proved lacking in combat, he would still raise them. All the more so since they clearly possessed formidable fighting power. If he neglected these excellent Emerald Ants, he was certain he would regret it later.

With that in mind, Chen Gu pointed to the lone Emerald Queen and said, “Your name shall be Emerald. From now on, you will remain at my side. As for this nest, let it be the capital of the Emerald Kingdom, and call it Emerald Forest. In the early stages, don’t develop too many broodmothers—send each new one out to found a satellite base. My demand is that you swiftly establish an Emerald Kingdom that controls the underground, rather than remaining as you are now with only a single nest.”

As soon as Chen Gu finished speaking, a new message popped up before him.

[Territory Attributes]
City Name: Emerald Forest
Owner: None
Level: Level 1 Village (maximum level 6)
City Attributes: Emerald, Ants
City Status: Capital (small)
Population:
Civilians (0/500,000)
Laborers (0/100,000)
Guards (0/60,000)
Soldiers (0/60,000)
Officials (0/100)
Leaders (1/3)
Buildings:
None
Specialties:
None
Training Speed:
Emerald Ants (5,000 per week)
Weekly Visiting Heroes: Zero
Note: This is a humble little ant nest most people would never look at. If not for the still-unestablished Emerald Kingdom, this mound of earth—barely taller than a person—could never serve as a capital at all. Even so, this capital cannot reach the normal maximum of level 12; its city level is capped at level 6.