After leaving college, Sean called a carriage. He wanted to go directly to Yulia, but after thinking about it, he asked the coachman to go to Butcher Street.

Martin looked very excited when he saw Sean visiting.

"You're finally here, come in quickly!" Martin said and let Sean into the room.

Sean said: "Have you made new discoveries?"

"Yes, it's a very amazing discovery. Come with me!"

Martin said as he opened the door of a closed warehouse. As soon as Sean walked in, he saw four huge worm boxes in the room in front of him, which were unprecedented in size.

"After you left, I did a lot of experiments and collected a lot of data. The more I studied it, I discovered the magic of this worm." Martin said, and brought Sean to a worm box. Through the glass, you could see many different insects locked inside.

Locusts, mantis, beetles, crickets...Sean initially thought Martin was playing a bug war, but immediately found that this was not the case. Although these bugs were of different species, they had no intention of fighting each other. They stayed together peacefully and built nests with soil and stones.

"Look, these bugs, although they are completely different species and have different biological habits and recipes, will not attack each other after being symbiotically caused by worms. It seems that worms have turned them into the same ethnic group, a social collective across species, and they can live in peace, even if they are in mutual recipes and even cooperate in building territory."

Martin said, putting on canvas gloves and taking out a mouse from a box, and he fed a worm to the mouse.

Soon, the mouse seemed a little different. He stopped struggling and lay calmly in Martin's hand. Martin threw the mouse into the insect box in front of him.

The insects were not nervous when facing the sudden invaders, and surrounded the mice and greeted each other for a while. Then the mice joined the construction army.

"See it. Even the two creatures with huge differences, insects and mice, cannot hinder the connection between this group. This is really amazing."

Sean was also a little amazed. He only knew that humans who were symbiotically worms could reach a tacit understanding, but he didn't expect that they could even cross species.

In this case, wouldn’t it mean that Ulysses can not only unify humanity, but also the whole world and achieve true world unity?

But in this way, how should food be solved? If tigers and sheep are symbiotically affected by worms, they will not attack each other, and sheep can eat grass. What should tigers eat?

At this time, Martin took out another mouse and threw it in. This time it was just an ordinary mouse. This time the situation was completely different. As soon as the mouse landed, the mantis, locusts, beetles, and even mice around him pounced towards the unlucky mouse.

The sharp teeth, pliers, sickle feet, and the insects bit the mouse in front of them in any way they could attack. Even the same person who was symbiotically worms showed no mercy. In less than two minutes, the unlucky mouse had turned into a pool of broken bones and blood on the ground, and was completely eaten away.

"How is it? Do you see the problem?"

Sean nodded, "That is to say, all creatures symbiotically formed a society, a society of exclusive nature!"

"Yes, all those who are symbiotically worms are fellow citizens, and those who are not symbiotically are just food. They will unite to kill them, eat them as food, and store them as part of them. They seem to have some wisdom and are trying to build a stable ecosystem."

Martin said, pointing to the depths of the rushing towards a nest surrounded by stones and mud.

“There are a lot of 'food' in it that has not been killed, and they are actually in captivity.”

Sean looked in through the gap in the nest and indeed saw some legs-less bugs and mice struggling inside.

Sean nodded and asked his previous doubts, "What if there were only creatures that had been symbiotic in the worm box? What would happen if they had no food?"

A society can naturally operate well without external pressure, but what if a crisis occurs, can such a society continue to operate?

"In fact, I've taken this into consideration." Martin said, pulling Sean to another ecological box.

This is the second experimental group, which I call - the Barren Kingdom, and the previous one was the No. 1 experimental group - the initial kingdom.

As an integral part of the worm experiment, there are only worm symbionts in the barren kingdom. They have experienced several days of hunger and have not put any extra food on it, but it seems they have found a solution."

In the worm box, a frog was being eaten by several other insects and mice.

It looks calm without the slightest resistance.

"This frog has also been symbiotic, and it seems that it chooses to voluntarily dedicate itself to the food of other 'compatriots'."

Sean suddenly felt a creepy feeling when he looked at the frog's face that was still gnawed.

Martin was still explaining, "I have been observing for several days. I can probably see some rules. Those who lack value for the ethnic group and are difficult to adapt to the surrounding environment will always be sacrificed first. Of course, there are foodies with huge appetites. They continue the duration of the ethnic group as much as possible. At first, there were 28 individuals in this box, but now there are only 21. To be honest, I am curious about which one they will eventually leave, but at this speed, it will take about a week or two to get the answer."

Then, Martin pulled him to Box No. 3.

"This is the experimental group No. 3, which I call - the Kingdom of Abundance. I have invested a lot of food in this worm box, enough for their daily consumption and even have a lot of surplus. I am observing whether it will induce some special ecological reaction."

Sean nodded and observed carefully that the box was obviously divided into two parts. Dozens of insects, rats and other creatures lived outside, while the other parts were divided into several different areas. Many rats, cockroaches, and insects whose legs were bitten off were lying there, making meaningless screams.

There are also some bread crumbs, minced meat, etc., which are piled up in different categories.

Functional areas seem to have begun to appear in this mini kingdom. After having sufficient food, the symbionts here begin to pursue something beyond survival.

Mini weird buildings are built, with straight and plain passages between the areas, each area has a ‘gate’, blocked by a piece of stone or soil, and even stronger individuals serve as guards and guard all the important roads.

Sean even saw a beetle rubbing a piece of soil with its claws, polishing it into a very regular spherical shape, and didn't know what it was intended.

Sean observed for a while, and the more he looked, the more frightened he became.

He was very suspicious that if there were enough time these completely different creatures would evolve into a weird civilization.

Sean suddenly remembered something, "Wait a minute, where did you get so many worms?"

In the meatballs he gave Martin before, there were only a few dozen worms at most. Even if one worm could symbiotically coexist, it could symbiotically coexist at most dozens of targets. However, looking at the boxes in front of him, there were at least hundreds of symbionts in the creatures that had been symbiotically coexisted.

"I found a way to reproduce worms."

He pointed to the depths of the No. 3 insect box, which was an independent isolation area. At the door was a rat and a scary cockroach guarding it. In the shadow of the lid of the insect box, Sean saw a strange creature. The thing seemed to be some kind of beast, but it was covered with tumors like lumps. After carefully identifying it for a while, Sean realized that it should be a rat, an amazingly fat mouse.

It was lying on the sand at this time, with its eyes closed, curled up into a ball, and was filled with food.

"This mouse is the largest of all symbionts. After three consecutive days of full and surplus food, the symbionts of the rich kingdom began to try to reproduce. The mouse was sent to this independent room and this strange change occurred.

I guess it should be voluntary, and in the principle of fairness, it has the most meat and the largest volume, and can reproduce the most worms, so it was chosen to be a seedling bed, where the worms breed and proliferate in its body, and evolved into that strange egg sheath, which seemed to be almost finished."

Sean stared at the tumor on the fat rat, looking very similar to the meatballs, but much smaller.

The outer skin of the tumor is very thin, the flesh-red one is slightly transparent, and through the red skin, you can vaguely see tiny worms wiggling inside.

A sarcoma seemed to have matured and actually fell off the mouse. Immediately a spider crawled out of the corner, cleverly wrapped the sarcoma with silk thread, and dragged it outward.

It was sent to an empty nest next door. A mantis was dragged in. It lost two legs, so it could only crawl on the ground with difficulty. Seeing the sarcoma, the mantis hesitated for a moment, but the creature could not let it bite it.

The moment the meat ball was bitten, a worm suddenly penetrated into its head and in the blink of an eye it penetrated into the mantis's body. Soon the mantis' broken legs grew out again.

It quickly climbed out of this nest and joined other symbionts.

"They are growing their own tribe!" Sean was stunned.

Martin nodded, showing an indescribable look of excitement, "Yes, how is it, it's amazing."

It was more than just amazing, it was simply horrifying. Looking at the insect boxes in front of him, Sean seemed to be watching several time bombs, a huge threat that threatened the entire human race.

A mere group of symbiotic bugs gave him this feeling of fear, not to mention that Ulysses was controlling the entire sword castle. Once he was allowed to complete it, the ending would be unimaginable.

Seeing Sean's face getting ugly, Martin couldn't help but pat his shoulder, "So--are you still not going to tell me the origin of these worms?"

Sean sighed: "What's the point even if you know."

"At least I can try to infer their meaning of existence."

"Significance of existence?"

Martin nodded, "Any creature has its meaning of existence, it may seem unreasonable, or even weird, but as long as it exists, it must have its reasons.

In the far east, it has become the ancient country of Desairu, there is an ant, which is particularly interesting. It is a desolate desert area with very lack of water. In order to store water sources, local ants have evolved a special variant - bucket ants. They will climb to the deepest part of the nest and hang on the wall of the nest. Then they will drink a lot of water. The lower half of their body will grow bigger and bigger, just like a huge water sac. Its existence is to serve as a living water sac. When drought comes, bucket ants will squeeze out water from their bodies to moisten and nourish other ants.

The most amazing thing is that all bucket ants are voluntarily generated, just like the queen.

I have such a guess about this. Although the queen ant is the nominal ruler and the bucket ants are just buckets, the queen ant and the bucket ants are essentially the same. They are tools to continue the race and serve a higher level of existence together."

"A higher level of existence? What is that?"

"I call it - cluster consciousness, this is just a speculation from me. Have you ever seen a large flock of birds?

I have observed the operational tricks of birds on southern islands and observed a small finch in the local area.

This kind of bird often forms a huge cluster of tens of thousands of birds. They have no leader, but they will operate according to some magical law. Tens of thousands of birds fly together without any chaos and collision, as if there is a consciousness above everything else that controls everything.

Every bird is an integral part of this huge consciousness, some kind of living machine.

Perhaps every group of huge numbers has something similar, such as ants - and these worms."

Sean was shocked when he heard this. This guess was really weird.

But if you think about it carefully, you will feel that there is a slight possibility. According to Ulysses, individuals symbiotically worms can always reach a consensus and understand each other. Isn’t this a sense of ‘cluster consciousness’?

I just don’t know if this cluster consciousness is a phenomenon or if there is really such a ‘consciousness’.

"Then why not experiment?"

"What?"

“I mean, if you want to know if there is such a so-called ‘cluster consciousness’, isn’t it an experiment?”

Martin smiled bitterly and said, "I have considered this issue, but I didn't think of how to conduct the experiment. Should I tell them hello?"

"Why not." Sean said with a serious expression: "If these worms really obey a 'cluster consciousness' and a higher level of existence, then this existence must be wise, right? Maybe it's still very smart, and it may not be impossible to learn our language."

He said, looking at the busy bugs in the worm box next to him, "Maybe when we are observing these worms, that thing is also observing us." For a moment, the symbionts seemed to pause collectively.

However, Sean blinked his eyes and saw an orderly symbiotic society continuing to operate. The pause in the previous moment seemed just an illusion.

Sean looked at the busy symbiotes, and the more he looked, the more he looked, the more he was, the more he looked, the more he was solemn it was just a thought at the beginning, but at this moment, he became a little uneasy - he might have guessed it, right?

No matter how you look at it, it feels suspicious, as if every bug and every mouse are acting, disguising.

He walked to the box.

Suddenly he laughed: "Haha, I guessed it, there is no need to disguise it anymore. I have sensed your existence, so what should I call you?"
To be continued...