In addition to food, another commodity sold by the red fire ants is the eggs and pupae of the leafcutter ants that are captured, of various types: queen, male, large worker, medium, small and miniature worker.

The species of leafcutter ants are very complicated, but the protagonist now has leafcutter ants under his command, and he has figured out the specific division of labor among the four body types of leafcutter ants.

The proportion of large worker ants in leafcutter ants is generally low, and they are the main force guarding the nest, and their status and combat effectiveness are roughly equivalent to those of large-headed ants.

Medium-sized worker ants are mainly responsible for cutting and collecting leaves, and sap is responsible for most of the housekeeping work of the nest.

Small worker ants are more aggressive than medium-sized workers, they are agile and flexible outdoors, especially in trees, and are responsible for protecting medium-sized worker ants that collect leaves.

In particular, there is an insect that likes to sneak up on medium-sized worker ants that carry leaves and have no time to take care of themselves, and lay eggs in their bodies, which can lead to the death of the host. These small worker ants climb onto the leaves they are carrying, alerting and driving away threats from the air.

The military strength of the leafcutter ant colony is also composed of both large and small worker ants, and they are very good at fighting on trees. The protagonist has formed 5 squads of leafcutter ants, each consisting of 10 large worker ants and 40 small worker ants, as a supplementary force for the forest war.

The mini worker ants of the leaf-cutting ants are specially responsible for taking care of the fungus nursery, they are small and can drill through the gaps of the mycelium, and are good at caring for the mycelium and removing dead bacteria.

Although the protagonist already has a colony of leafcutter ants under his command, he is still ready to purchase a few eggs or pupae of the queen ant and male ants in small quantities.

Although the ant colonies he knew were basically inbreeding (they all mated with males and females of the same force), he didn't seem to see any ill effects from this.

However, the appearance of the Divine Worker Ant and the Divine Soldier Ant makes the protagonist realize that excellent genetic traits seem to be hereditary or partially inherited, and the Divine Worker Ant and the Divine Soldier Ant have their own genes, and their abilities are stronger than ordinary occupational ants.

The leaves cut ant eggs captured by the red fire ants come from different countries from the original group of leaf cutting ants under the command of the Divine Envoy King's army, and there are certain differences in gene estimates, so I don't know if such genes can be fused together to get excellent offspring.

Anyway, the red fire ants sell leaf-cutting ant eggs and pupae at a very cheap price, and buying a small amount is not enough to put pressure on the finances of the Divine Envoy King Legion. Red fire ants only treat these trophies as food, and want to trade these eggs or pupae for some food that is scarce, such as honeydew, and the price of food is naturally not much higher.

The protagonist decides to spend a small amount of money to experiment with whether the offspring mated by different colonies of leafcutter ants are better.

In addition to grain and food, the red fire ants also sell some of the messy things they catch, and they basically remove everything that is not in the leaf-cutting nest warehouse, regardless of whether it is useful to themselves or not.

In the packet list, the protagonist sees ant silk, processed plant fibers, dried plants, insect carapaces and wings that may have been used for decorative purposes, and containers made of nut shells. The protagonist is ready to buy something that he can see.

Then, he saw something that shocked him.

The red fire ants are listed for sale with a large number of ochre-red grains, and since the protagonist has seen similar color patterns on some of the containers and insect carapaces, he guesses that the leafcutter ants use these ochre red particles as pigments.

However, these ochre-red particles can not only be used as pigments, if the protagonist is not mistaken, these ochre-red soil grains are excellent hematite!

The chemical composition of hematite is Fe2O3, and the forms are diverse, including flake, scale (crystalline), granular, kidney, soil, dense block, etc. This time, I saw granular ore grains. Its color is reddish-brown, steel gray to iron black, etc., the streaks are cherry red, among which the reddish-brown, dull luster is called ochre, the ancient Chinese name is "dai ochre", and "ochre" refers to hematite. Hematite is an iron mineral widely distributed in nature, is an important raw material for ironmaking, and can also be used as a red pigment.

Iron ore is generally more widely distributed than copper ore, but when the protagonist was in his homeland before, he searched for iron ore in many ways, but he never found it, so he could only use the copper ore in [Malachite City] to process metal as a weapon tool.

I didn't expect to harvest the mulberry elm now, and found traces of iron ore in this new home.

Although the protagonist does not know the exact origin of the iron ore, it can be deduced that it is close to the territory of the red fire ant in the territory of the leafcutter ant.

As long as there is this resource, how to obtain it in the future is better than not knowing where the iron ore is all over the world.

Moreover, this time the red fire ants seized a lot of hematite particles, which are estimated to be the volume of more than a dozen walnuts. The iron content of some hematite can be as high as 70%, judging from the color of these ores, the iron content will definitely not be low, even if it is only 50% of the iron content, and then counting the poor smelting technology of the Divine Envoy King Legion, the iron production rate is not high. At the most conservative calculation, so much ore can also produce two or three walnut-sized iron, which is enough to arm one or two legions.

The legion, which the protagonist had enjoyed a long time ago in full iron and even steel equipment, no longer seems out of reach.

- I'm the dividing line -

Although the price of hematite that they don't know the use of the red fire ants is not high, after all, the total price of so much ore and the additional labor fees that need to be paid to the bellied ants who are responsible for carrying it is still expensive.

The protagonist paid almost all of the honeydew inventory, and also took a small amount of grain and gravel tools, before finally transporting all the hematite and other goods he had in mind into Xinyang City before winter.

In order to make iron, the protagonist built an ant mound in [Xinyang City]. Because the water table here is too high, it is not possible to build a smelting blast furnace underground like in [Dongyang City].

This time, the protagonist designs a semi-underground blast furnace, the lower part is about two decimeters underground, and the upper part is an anthill structure, but the walls are very thick, leaving only a narrow pipe in the middle, which is actually equivalent to a chimney.

Such a blast furnace can only smelt the size of one walnut of hematite at a time, but as an experimental blast furnace, it is enough for the Divine Envoy King Legion who has no experience in iron-making for the time being.

In addition to iron ore, another thing that makes the protagonist happy is that the crow honey he sells has successfully entered the high-end market of red fire ants and belly ants.

Now both the bellied ants and the red fire ants are in a hurry to buy, but the protagonist only sells one snail shell a month, so that the existing stock is enough to support the new purple gray butterfly larvae to start producing honey after the beginning of spring tomorrow.

More than 500 Purple Gray Butterfly Eggs are already quietly stacked in the warehouse of the Divine Envoy King's Legion, and the production of crow honey will increase greatly next year.