Chapter 169: Ant-Keeping

"A new test..."

Lin Wei's eyes suddenly opened, and just as he was about to get up to observe his surroundings, he froze abruptly.

"My body... cannot move..."

Lin Wei tried to shift his body, but found it completely unresponsive. From head to toe, apart from his eyeballs, not a single part of him could budge.

"Core, detect my current physical state."

Lin Wei inquired.

"The host's body is in a state of restraint."

"Restraint?"

Lin Wei narrowed his eyes slightly, a spark of curiosity arising regarding the upcoming test: "Even my body cannot move... Is this a test of the intellect?"

Just as Lin Wei felt a sense of perplexity, swish, swish, swish—a transparent panel suddenly appeared in front of him.

The transparent panel resembled glass, standing about a meter tall and shaped like a square.

"This is..."

Lin Wei glanced at the transparent panel a few times, failing to find anything particularly unusual about it.

Just as Lin Wei was wondering what it meant, spots of various colors suddenly emerged on the transparent glass panel.

They bubbled up from the glass panel in a flurry, like gushing spring water.

"Are these... ants?!"

Lin Wei's expression turned somewhat peculiar.

These small dots of different colors turned out to be individual ants.

"The colors of the rainbow..."

Lin Wei observed them closely. The ants were divided into seven colors, with an average of one hundred ants per color.

Suddenly, a shudder ran through Lin Wei's heart. Vaguely, transparent bridges seemed to have been built between himself and that hundred red ants.

"It seems I can control them..."

This sensation immediately arose in Lin Wei's mind, and from the consciousness of these hundred red ants, he sensed a strong desire—a profound urge to assimilate the other ants.

Just as Lin Wei intended to further understand the consciousness of the ants, the entire transparent panel trembled abruptly, and the seven hundred ants were instantly divided into seven categories, confined to a corner of the transparent panel.

Right in the exact center of the transparent panel, a black horizontal line appeared.

"What is this supposed to do?"

Just as Lin Wei felt puzzled, two or three yellow ants confined in the corner suddenly crawled out of the restricted circle.

They formed a line, crawling into the left side of the horizontal black line one by one.

After the first yellow ant entered, it landed on the far left of the horizontal black line and then remained completely motionless, as if frozen in place.

Shortly after, the second yellow ant also entered from the left entrance.

The moment the second yellow ant entered, the position of the first yellow ant suddenly shifted slightly toward the upper right.

"Hmm?"

Lin Wei's brow furrowed deeply, failing to comprehend the rules contained within.

Immediately following that, the third yellow ant also entered. Similarly, the positions of both the first and second yellow ants shifted slightly toward the upper right, and then they stopped moving.

"What does this mean?"

Without familiarizing himself with the situation, Lin Wei did not dare to act rashly. At present, he had yet to fully grasp the rules of the game.

Rustle, rustle, rustle...

At this moment, two orange ants began walking toward the entrance.

Just like the yellow ants, for every orange ant that entered, the preceding ant would shift slightly toward the upper right.

Five ants thus remained motionless, clinging to the transparent panel.

Rustle, rustle, rustle...

This time, five green ants crawled in from the entrance, following the exact same pattern.

Not a single subsequent ant followed after them, and time seemed to have come to a standstill.

Time ticked by second by second. Lin Wei appeared extremely patient, refusing to deploy even a single red ant of his own.

Swish!

After the ten ants had stood in a stalemate for a while, the three yellow ants that had entered first suddenly became restless.

Thud, thud!

They plummeted straight down!

The instant the yellow ants dropped, the two orange ants also moved swiftly.

The ten ants vanished abruptly from the transparent panel, directly teleported back to the confined area.

The ten ants, which were originally five greens, two oranges, and three yellows, transformed into four oranges and six yellows.

Seeing this, Lin Wei's tightly furrowed brow suddenly relaxed, and a smile crept onto the corner of his mouth: "It's a game similar to passing the parcel, nothing more than a fool's game..."

Through the recent changes, Lin Wei quickly discovered the underlying pattern.

The ants that entered first could assimilate the subsequent ants into their own color, and the subsequent ants, as long as they weren't the very last ones, could also choose to do so. However, if they became the last ants to enter, and no other colored ants entered afterward, they would be passively assimilated into other colors.

In addition, the amount of time each ant spent on the transparent panel was limited. The previous yellow ants had no choice but to drop down because of the time limit.

"If the previous trial tested one's mindset at a critical juncture, then this trial... should be testing..." Lin Wei smiled faintly, "Rationality."

There were no longer any ants on the transparent panel, so the confined ants began to stir restlessly once again.

Only the red ants controlled by Lin Wei remained completely still, without any movement.

Swish, swish, swish...

Ants of various colors began to rush toward the transparent panel in a scramble. Having had the previous test run, every ant moved much faster this time, without a shred of hesitation.

"These ants... possess no beastly nature, only human nature..."

The corner of Lin Wei's mouth curved slightly: "Or rather... sometimes human nature is beastly nature itself..."

About a third of the ants were blindly crawling onto the transparent panel. They all seemed to know that whoever climbed onto the transparent panel first would hold the initiative to assimilate the others.

Over two hundred ants went in and out, constantly being assimilated into different colors.

"The remaining two thirds seem unable to hold back either..."

Lin Wei observed carefully, but made no move. The red ants under his control still stayed in place without moving.

"The remaining ants have realized that as long as they can enter the transparent panel, subsequent ants will inevitably arrive to play the role of the final fool..."

At this moment, on the transparent panel, apart from the ants that had to leave due to time limits, the remaining ants simply refused to drop down proactively. They were all waiting for a larger influx of ants to enter so they could assimilate more of them.

Consequently, the confined ants grew fewer and fewer, while the ants on the transparent panel grew more and more numerous.

Lin Wei looked at everything before him and muttered softly to himself.

"When the subsequent ants become insufficient... what will happen then?"

"When there are no more fools left, who will catch the parcel?"

"If you cannot find a fool in this game... it can only mean one thing... you are that fool!"