#691 - Chapter 691 Humans Have Homes
"Leaving? Going where?"
"Home," the other party replied.
Dongfang Chen frowned upon hearing this word.
The concept of 'home' is unique to humans.
Tasmanian ants do not possess this concept.
How could they possibly know the word 'home'?
"You know 'home'?" Dongfang Chen asked.
"Humans, have home," the other party replied.
Dongfang Chen guessed that this sentence meant it knew humans had homes.
"Where is home?" Dongfang Chen phrased his question carefully.
"Far, wormhole," the other party replied.
Dongfang Chen's mind buzzed.
This sentence was very clear; it was saying that there were other humans in other places, and they were very far away. To get there, one needed to travel through a wormhole.
That also meant that the knowledge they spoke of should be the technology for traversing wormholes.
"You can create wormholes?" Dongfang Chen asked.
"Can," the other party replied.
Upon receiving confirmation, Dongfang Chen was overjoyed.
He didn't expect to find such a pleasant surprise while attacking the Tasmanian ants.
"An exchange is possible, but there are conditions," Dongfang Chen said.
"What?" It meant to ask what the conditions were.
"Obey my commands," Dongfang Chen said.
"Obey," the other party replied.
"Deal," Dongfang Chen readily agreed.
Dongfang Chen ordered Xiaolin to issue instructions, ordering the queen in Australia to cease the attack. Then he continued to ask:
"How are wormholes created?"
"Requires breeding," the queen replied.
This wasn't stating a condition, but rather saying it wasn't possible yet and needed further breeding.
"How long will it take?" Dongfang Chen asked.
"Time," the other party replied.
It seemed it didn't understand the question.
"How much time?" Dongfang Chen asked.
"83," the queen replied.
"83? No units?" Dongfang Chen wondered.
First, it was certain that the 83 it spoke of wasn't a unit of time.
Years, months, days, minutes, seconds – these units of time were agreed upon by humans themselves; they couldn't possibly use them.
Since it wasn't a unit of time, what else could 83 represent?
Dongfang Chen pondered for a long time and concluded that 83 likely referred to the number of iterations.
For them, what determined their ability should be the number of iterations.
Combining the queen's earlier statement about needing to breed, it wasn't difficult to deduce that they could update and evolve through breeding.
And to master the technology of wormhole creation, it still needed 83 iterations.
83 iterations – that would definitely take a while.
"Can it be accelerated?" Dongfang Chen asked.
"Food," the queen replied.
"I'll give you food," Dongfang Chen said.
"Master," the queen replied.
Her calling him 'master' likely expressed two layers of meaning: one was allegiance, and the other was gratitude.
Considering the context, she was primarily expressing gratitude here.
After ending the call, Mengka asked:
"You don't actually believe these bugs, do you?"
"Of course. They're just some bugs in the early stages of development. Surely they wouldn't lie, would they?" Dongfang Chen replied as a matter of course.
"But what if they are lying?"
"Then we'll just eliminate them when the time comes," Dongfang Chen replied.
"You're thinking too simply. These bugs have extremely tenacious lifeforce; completely eliminating them is extremely difficult. What if they suddenly betray you after evolving to sufficient strength? Do you still have the confidence to eliminate them then?" Mengka asked.
"Yes, I do. Haven't the Sirius survivors already provided a template? We can just copy their homework, right?" Dongfang Chen said with a smile.
"Copy homework?"
"You mean, modify their genes?" Mengka understood.
"That's right. They're still in the early stages of iteration. As long as we modify the genes of the queen and her guard, and implant a Trojan horse segment, we won't have to worry about them betraying us."
The queen and the guard are responsible for breeding.
As long as their genes are modified, all subsequent generations will be modified.
"Then how will you modify them? It wouldn't be easy to get them into the gene repair pod, would it?" Mengka asked.
"Didn't I say we're copying homework? How did the Sirius survivors modify human genes?" Dongfang Chen asked in return.
"You mean using a virus?" Mengka understood.
"That's right," Dongfang Chen nodded.
"Xiaolin, extract gene samples from the corpses of the giant Tasmanian ants at the Australian base and create a gene map."
"Yes, Commander."
"Design a Trojan horse gene segment that allows them to receive electromagnetic waves of a specific frequency through their antennae and unconditionally execute signal commands."
"Yes, Commander."
"After the gene segment is designed, design a virus. This virus is not pathogenic, but it can implant the Trojan horse gene segment into their genes by interfering with the DNA transcription process. Oh, right, it's best if the virus can only be transmitted sexually."
"Yes, Commander."
