PS: Happy Goddess Day! Add 1/3 of the reward for "Rising Sun".

The place where Shi Lei lives can be said to be surrounded by mountains. There is only one mountain pass, and there is a gap like a line of sky, which is also the direction of the road to the outside world, and the gateway to the whole village. A river of clear mountain spring water runs through the entire flat land until it disappears into the foothills on the other side.

This is definitely a place that is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and these old generals, although they are not like real generals, will consciously choose this kind of territory, but the keen sense from the battlefield still makes them fall in love with this place at a glance as their place to settle down. Moreover, a wall was spontaneously built at the mountain pass, and there was a heavy gate, which made this mountain pass, which was already closed to a man, safer to operate.

Shi Lei, who was in an excited mood, looked at these mountains and rivers again, and felt that nature was different. This piece of his own territory is not only easy to defend and difficult to attack, but also rich in resources, and so remote that it will never be noticed, which is just a suitable hiding place. As the rear of the house, it is indeed very suitable.

Thanks to the abundant natural resources here, although it will be a little difficult at first, it seems that as long as you settle down, it is not as difficult as Shi Lei imagined to fill your stomach.

When Shi Lei walked out of his small world, he found that everyone was busy. Ploughing the land, building ditches, planting the land, hunting, all of them are doing their thing in an orderly manner.

However, after taking a look, Shi Lei was a little depressed and found that there seemed to be only one idler here. Who made him the only owner here, and he was still in the period of filial piety.

The butler was busy assigning work to everyone, and by the way, he was also in charge of the guards here. Those guards of the serious Xuanjia Army are energetically taking on the duties of guards. Some of the guards were around Shi Lei's grass house, and some guarded a few chokepoints of the entire camp. The mountain gate is naturally guarded, and on several commanding heights, you can also see heavily armed guards, dutifully observing the situation outside.

Seeing Shi Lei come out, there were a few guys who were very tough at first glance, scattered around, and kept following left and right. Even on their own turf, they are still on proper alert, and their hands are habitually kept in the most suitable position for drawing their weapons, so that they can respond to possible battles at any time.

Shi Lei actually didn't think it was too necessary to maintain this state, but considering that this was a painstaking effort by the housekeeper's uncle, or maybe he was worried that the eldest grandson Wuji would come to cut the grass and eradicate the roots, Shi Lei also went with them, anyway, he would have to be familiar with this state in the future.

Shi Lei, who is no longer immersed in his own world, also has a more objective and comprehensive understanding of the situation in the camp. Unlike at the beginning, there were so many taken for granted, but now the camp allows Shi Lei to settle down temporarily. The problem of survival is not as urgent as Shi Lei thought. Then the path of development can be seriously searched, and there is no need to rush for a while.

For Shi Lei, the most important thing to care about at the moment is the problem of his first transformation object.

Obviously, according to the current limits given by the animal modification system, the animal must be small enough. And in order to consider the need to elevate the authority in the future, it is better to have enough of this animal. Something that is too rare to be included in the renovation plan for the time being, then insects are naturally a suitable option.

And after walking down this circle in the camp, Shi Lei has already established his goal, that is, gold-eating ants.

In his previous life, Shi Lei, who liked to watch the animal world and various documentaries, can be very sure that there is no such ant as gold-eating ants. At least in the land of the country, I have never heard of such a thing, even considering that the common name is different in different places.

But now in my hand, this little thing with a pale golden color does exist. And according to the housekeeper who rushed over, this kind of ant is indeed called a gold-eating ant according to the habits of the locals.

According to local legends, someone once accidentally found a lot of sand gold from the burrow of this ant. And some claim to have seen them devour the gold. The natural gold that was found by the lucky guy before, in the form of fine sand, seems to be verifying this statement. And this incident was even recorded in the local local chronicles.

After that, there were naturally many locals digging the nests of this gold-eating ant everywhere. Hopefully, I'll be lucky enough to find some gold.

However, I don't know if it is a successful person, they have chosen to make a fortune in silence, and since then, there has been no similar news coming out. So, gradually, this trend has passed, and only such a desirable legend has been left.

After giving Shi Lei a detailed introduction to the situation of this kind of ant, the housekeeper uncle stared at Shi Lei for a long time with some strangeness. Finding that his appearance was very clear, he signaled to a few guards with some anxiety, asking them to pay more attention to Shi Lei's situation, and then went to continue his work with some doubts.

Shi Lei's strange behavior before made several old family members worry for a long time, and they were afraid that Shi Lei would be mentally stimulated.

Noticing the actions of the housekeeper's uncle, Shi Lei shook his head with a little crying and laughing, let's continue to study the ants in his hand.

After careful observation and research, Shi Lei felt that he should have figured out the origin of these gold-eating ants. These little guys so-called eating gold is actually to absorb various minerals. Their formic acid is strong enough to corrode ordinary metals or something. Even like termites, formic acid is so strong that even silver can be digested, turning it into a black powder.

In order to test these, Shi Lei also painfully threw a dime of silver into the ant nest, and watched it be reimbursed after a while. However, relatively, Shi Lei's harvest is also great.

Not only did he understand the habits of these so-called gold-eating ants, but more importantly, Shi Lei could confirm that the legend about the origin of their names was true, except for the fact that they ate gold, of course, because Shi Lei really found golden sand in their nests.

Now, Shi Lei can already be sure of two things. The first is that these gold-eating ants don't eat gold, they just have a habit of collecting gold. Most of the gold is contributed to the queen and to decorate the nest. As for why they have this habit, only God knows.

In addition, for Shi Lei, the more important point is that it is certain that there is a gold mine under this anthill. It's just that it should be a sand gold mine, and the difficulty of collecting it is estimated to be not small. Just look at the efficiency of these ants' collection, and the quality of this gold mine should not be high.

Shi Lei has observed the behavior of ants in the past few days. It's weird enough, so he's got a big catch. The behavior was strange, and the guards didn't notice it.

Holding back his excitement, Shi Lei slowly walked back to the grass hut and sat in his father's mourning hall and thought quietly.

The gold mine thing. It must not be said to the public, although it can basically guarantee the loyalty of these more than 300 families, they are all a family that shares life and death. But what if it gets out?

Although this probability is really very small, you have to consider that the closed environment here is not. But it's not all the soldiers who came here, but also their families, people's hearts are unpredictable, so it's better to be just in case.

Moreover, the original owner of Shi Lei's body naturally does not lack trust in these people. But Shi Lei, who came from later generations, has really seen it. What can a person do for money, and he really doesn't have that much confidence in the loyalty of others.

After all, I have seen laughing at the poor and not laughing at prostitutes, and I have seen that everything can be sacrificed for the sake of profit. And I am not ashamed, and I have seen too many without fear. The way of doing things without faith.

Now that the tone of secrecy has been set, the next thing to do. There has to be a suitable excuse. Maybe the advertising slogan about black ants in later generations is a good statement.

In addition, we should think of ways to preserve the fruits of the ants' labor, which must also fall on the animals.

Humans are not very harmful to these ants, animals are the bigger threat to them. Sending some people over may not be able to stop the animals from harming them.

In the afternoon, Shi Lei drove the guards home and started his own operation alone.

Finding a bucket large enough, Shi Lei poured bucket by bucket of river water into the ant nest, and waited until the water surface was almost close to the entrance of the cave before stopping.

The reason why Shi Lei is so troublesome is because the formic acid of these gold-eating ants is too powerful, and the target he wants to transform is the queen ant. If you go straight to it, I'm afraid that your whole arm may be gnawed clean.

There is no way, whoever lets the animal only be caught, the transformation system will recognize that he has the right to transform, and it must be kept secret, so Shi Lei has to do it himself.

After making sure that the ant army was no longer a threat to him, Shi Lei opened the ant nest. This time, Shi Lei had to be responsible for draining the water, and stretched out his sinful big hand to the queen ant who had already written down the approximate location. This one's figure is completely different from other ants, and it is still easy to distinguish.

It was not only the bloated queen ant who got her hands on her, but also those sand gold of different sizes, which also became Shi Lei's trophies. Shi Lei used the cowhide bag that he had found a long time ago to clean up all the sand gold.

Shi Lei's time is very accurate, and the queen ant is still alive and well. There were some other ants who also survived, and these were the queen's subordinates, so they were not killed.

When Shi Lei was a child, he didn't pick up ant nests and dig birds' eggs. There are also naughty things like stickiness, and of course I have felt the sourness of peeing on the ant nest, which is why he treats these so carefully. Not only is the body as hard as iron, but formic acid is the reason why gold-eating ants are many times stronger.

Therefore, it is a blessing to suffer losses, at least you can know that you are afraid, and you can do less death.

Shi Lei took the queen ant and a lot of ant eggs, as well as the corpses of dead ants gathered together. Back in his room, ready to move on to the next step.