Chapter 188: The ants and their communication (1)
When Theo returned to the room, he went directly to his research diary and started writing down things.
For him to make a terrarium for the ants would be something he had not done before.
The biggest terrarium he had in that room of his was a simple ecosystem with small plants and cave systems with all sorts of small insects moving around and multiplying before a predator was introduced.
’But for this one, I need a big ground where I can observe what they do when they are outside their colony... and then I need to make the lower terrarium in a way that I can see what is going on inside.’ Theo thought and started coming up with things.
For a long time on that desk, things didn’t come directly in his mind. But with time and a lot of diagrams to reference the imagination,
He finally thought of a small option.
A terrarium that is large both in length and breadth for the above-ground part. Then a lengthy section that went down in length but was only a few inches of width.
It was such that if the ants start digging inside to make a colony for themselves, Theo would still be able to see every compartment that they make and how they lived inside it.
But this was not something he could have come up with on his own. Theo knew at the back of his head, he had seen some quirky people keep ant colonies in their homes to observe them.
When he started trying to remember one of the big settings in a billionaire’s house, he finally remembered an even better plan.
He drew it such that he would be able to compare and when he was finished, Theo compared both of them.
While one was the previous idea to have a few inches of broadness for the undersurface system, the other was to just lay a flat rectangle on the ground with a few inches of length.
The only downside Theo felt from the latter was that he would need to get a bigger terrarium room just to get enough room to have as many ants as he had hoped before.
So in the end, he decided with the first option and the work started right away.
The blueprint for the colony’s terrarium was given to Elias, who was more than proud to have things so accurately stated beforehand.
And just about an hour later of giving the blueprints, Elias had already got everything ready for production.
Just the raw material selection was left in Theo’s hand. But truly, it was Elias that gave Theo suggestions and he took them because of how reliable they seemed.
The translucent glass from which the terrarium was going to be made was going to apparently be made from the feces of a crystal affinity beast.
Theo almost chuckled knowing those beasts ate and defecated crystals, only what came out was a lot better than the ones eaten.
The solid inside was going to be from the same barren region these ants were located in as Theo could only guess this was the terrain they were really supposed to be in.
The work was going so fast and autonomous since the crude blueprint making that all Theo did was devise a plan as to how he was going to capture the ants.
There clearly were very few ants to begin with, but most of the things were still unknown.
So the next day, Theo was at the same spot again.
"We will start with some small tests," Theo stated, yet the giggly smile didn’t leave his face.
Both Elias and Clara were smiling too, seeing how Theo was enjoying things again rather than making it hard on himself.
He pulled a small pouch out of one of the compartments in his waist and opened it before crouching down.
Soon, honey-colored thick liquid started dribbling out of the pouch until Theo was satisfied with the quantity.
The extremely small puddle of honey-like liquid was about a few inches from the hole.
"Alright, let’s go." Theo spoke and moved a few steps back but observed intently.
"Are you sure they will come out, young master?" Clara asked in curiosity, only for Theo to nod.
"That’s what we want to observe right now."
A few minutes passed and Theo couldn’t tell if the small honey puddle actually had any ants near it anymore.
"Do you see any?" he asked with restlessness, only for the duo to shake their heads.
Theo gave it another few minutes but seeing that nothing was happening, Theo felt disappointed. He only closed his eyes for a few seconds in frustration but when he opened them, he frowned.
"What’s that light glow?" Theo asked, making Clara and Elias come out of their thinking. They had become quite lax seeing how there was little to almost no danger in the area they were at.
"... It’s here..." Theo tried to downplay his voice, yet with how excited and astonished he was, it still came out as a light shout.
Elias and Clara came closer too and crouched down, and there it was — the small familiar-looking ant that had them creasing their eyebrows to focus enough and look at.
If not for the glow on the ant’s antenna, Theo was sure that he wouldn’t have detected its presence at all.
He gave the others a sign to shut up for the time being — it was a critical moment.
Theo looked at the ant in excitement and was cheering for it to take that honey back to the colony so that more could come back.
But even after a few seconds of observing, all he could see was the ant frozen in place with its antennae moving left and right and glowing the same.
’It clearly has food right in front of it, I am having a hard time getting the mantis to back off, so there is no way it can’t detect it...’ Theo thought with restlessness.
And the ant wasn’t any better after a minute of just being frozen.
But fortunately, Theo saw another ant pop out of nowhere beside the ant.
And just like that, another and then another ant popped up when finally, Theo was able to get that sensory illusion of their camouflage out of his eyes.
"There are so many!"
With that, Theo couldn’t help but believe that the little glow in the antennae could, in fact, just be the signal and communication he was looking to find today.
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(Ant’s image in this comment!)