"Roll! Dodge quickly!"
Watching the frenzied horned dragons charging at them, the Brainworm rolled to a rock, and the young Wyvern immediately followed it. It seemed to be sticking to the Brainworm.
However, Lin didn't think that there was a need for them to dodge.
Looking at the Horned Dragon leader charging at the front, the Leviathan aimed at it and fired a small needle.
After being hit by the needle, the frenzied Horned Dragon leader immediately stopped. Its emotions returned to normal, and at the same time, its horde stopped as well.
They seemed to be completely following their leader and didn't go berserk themselves.
Looking at the situation before her, Lin confirmed one thing. It seemed that the abnormal behavior of some creatures in the forest was related to the Humerus. The Humerus probably used some kind of stimulant poison to cause these creatures to go berserk. Perhaps the young Wyvern's abnormality was related to them too.
However, Lin still remembered the liquid that stimulated the creatures. She had the Leviathan create a liquid with the opposite effect. It could neutralize the effect of the stimulant and calm the creatures down.
The Humerus hiding in the bushes slowly retreated. After retreating to a safe place, it immediately turned around and fled.
But before that, the Leviathan also 'located' it. A small needle pierced its back, but it didn't notice it at all.
Next, Lin continued to send the Brainbag to the edge of the forest. There, Lin helped the Brainbag build a nest similar to the one in the Twisted Forest Rocky Mountain until it could produce troops.
The young Wyvern naturally followed the Brainworm into the nest. It seemed to like the Brainworm very much. The Brainworm didn't pay much attention to it.
There shouldn't be a problem for the two of them to stay together. While the Brainworm was living here. The Leviathan continued to explore the forest.
The Leviathan flew into the forest again. Lin directly let the Leviathan check the red tree. When the Leviathan pried open the bark, the needles shot out again. They hit the Leviathan's carapace bullets everywhere.
This time, the Leviathan grabbed the bark and didn't let it close. Lin carefully observed the inside of the trunk and found a spherical structure. There were many small holes in the spherical structure. Lin found many seeds in these small holes.
Lin could basically guess what was going on.
The seeds of this tree had many small hooks on them. Every time a creature passed by, it would shoot out these seeds and stick them on other creatures to help them spread. Many plants knew how to spread seeds like this.
As for the needles coated with the stimulant … they were obviously stuffed in by other creatures, and that creature was … a skeleton dragon.
The purpose of their actions was indeed to cause a fight between some large creatures, and then wait for both sides to suffer.
Interesting way of doing things. This creature is worth investigating.
After this, several days and nights passed. Lin first observed the many dinosaur creatures in the forest, and at the same time found the location of the Skeleton Dragon. Lin noticed that it didn't seem to have a pack. It hunted small creatures in the forest by itself, and then kept heading south. It seemed to want to go somewhere.
Lin asked Leviathan to release a Flyer to follow it. Leviathan was too big for it to follow. Moreover, Leviathan had to return to the rift valley to do something else …
Lin had other things to deal with, so she turned her attention to this. Although Lin could handle many things at once, she didn't like to do so. She preferred to deal with things one by one, unless they were of equal importance.
However, the importance of this matter might be higher than anything else. It could even be said that they had encountered a new threat.
Lin's' fungus eradication unit ', the Bomber and Bechymos had discovered something special about plague fungi at sea …
Bechymos had discovered the 'Locust Lord' and its swarm of locusts in the ocean two hundred kilometers east of the mainland.
In fact, Lin hadn't seen any locusts in her recent fungus eradication activities. The locusts she saw now, however, seemed to have no connection with fungi.
These locusts were generally yellow in color. Their blood and bodies weren't infected with fungi. The infected locusts were purple in color, and the same was true for the Locust Lord. Their blood was filled with fungi, so their color had changed.
Lin followed them and observed them. She later discovered that these locusts weren't combat troops. The Locust Lord used them to devour plants on various islands in the ocean and then transport them back to itself. They basically wouldn't cause any devastating disasters.
They weren't as frenzied as the ones infected with fungi. They would only nibble on a certain amount of nutrients before leaving. However, they would completely change after being infected with fungi. That was why Lin had a special idea about plague fungi …
Perhaps this fungus could affect the behaviour of living creatures by infecting the brain.
But generally speaking, plague fungi would devour all living creatures. It was unlikely that they would only infect the brain. Perhaps they were selective. So Lin caught some locusts and used some plague fungus dust she obtained to conduct experiments.
Lin discovered a wonderful thing. When the fungus dust landed on various parts of the locusts' bodies, it would rapidly grow and devour the entire locusts. It was exactly the same as how it treated other living creatures.
But sometimes, when the mycelium spread through the locusts' bodies, it would come into contact with the locusts' nerves. At that time, the mycelium would climb up the locusts' nerves and eventually reach the brain.
The mycelium would invade the brain but it wouldn't devour the brain cells. In short, it was as if the mycelium had merged with the brain.
At that time, the living creature's behaviour would become abnormal. This infected locust's behaviour became strange. Originally, the purpose of this sub-species' life was to collect nutrients for the Locust Lord but now, its purpose in life had become the spread of the fungus.
The fungus would spread its fungus dust into the locusts' blood. Then, the locusts would try to infect the uninfected locusts in Lin's experiment. At that time, the fungus would directly infect the brain instead of devouring them. After infecting them, the locusts would try to infect other living creatures.
They spread in a crazy way. Sometimes, they would commit suicide to spread the infection. Other times, they relied on contact and other methods. When the fungus infected the target and grew a large number of mushrooms and other structures, the locusts would consume these structures. In fact, Lin discovered that the locusts didn't digest the fungus they ate. The fungus that was swallowed by the locusts would grow in their stomach and seep into their blood. The fungus in their blood would secrete nutrients to maintain the locusts' lives.
In other words, they didn't have a symbiotic relationship. It was more like the fungus had enslaved the locusts. This situation … was very strange.
Generally speaking, the fungus was brainless but it could control creatures with brains. After infecting the locusts' brains, the surrounding fungus seemed to have become … smarter.
The fungus would react according to what the locusts saw. For example, when the locusts saw fire, they would secrete a fire-resistant mucus. When the locusts saw plants in the distance, they would grow a structure like a 'gun barrel' and shoot fungus dust at them. When the locusts saw flying fish in the sea, the fungus would react immediately by releasing a smell to attract the fish.
Without the locusts, the fungus wouldn't do these things. Or rather, the reaction would be very slow, just like a brainless plant …
What was going on? Could the fungus borrow the locusts' brains to 'think'?
Was that even possible? Because the fungus was brainless, they 'borrowed' the brains of other creatures. Their lifestyle wasn't just about eating like a plague. They were a rather unique species.
They were similar to the primitive parasitic Incan insects in that they could control the species they parasitized.
Lin had experimented with infecting the infected locusts with hallucinogens or brain-readers. However, this caused the locusts' brains to bleed profusely and they died.
Perhaps due to the conflict of information in the brain, the locusts' brains were small but they could provide the fungus with a lot of basic information, even vision and so on. However, they couldn't provide the fungus with any intelligence.
It was the same for the Locust Lords. Their brains weren't that big but what if the fungus infected a highly intelligent creature? What would happen then?
Perhaps the fungus didn't have the ability to infect creatures with bigger brains. The simple-minded locusts were easy to control but the bigger the brain, the more complicated it would be.
Next, Lin used the fungus to experiment on some creatures, such as fish that were commonly seen in the sea. The fungus didn't react much to these fish. Even if the fungus dust was directly placed in their brains, it wouldn't control them. Instead, it would devour them as usual.
Next, Lin experimented on some arthropods. She found that the control was a very random behavior. Most of the time, the fungus would just devour the creature directly.
Even when the fungus infected locusts, it wasn't certain that it would control the locusts unless the locusts were infected by the fungus. If the locusts came into direct contact with the fungus, most of them would be devoured by the fungus. Only one in a hundred locusts would be controlled by the infected brain.
In other words, the fungus' control of the brain was very random. However, if it succeeded, the organism would become a creature that lived to spread the fungus …
In summary, there were two ways for the fungus to infect. One was very simple, which was to slowly grow the mycelium and devour the entire organism. The other was to have the mycelium crawl towards the brain and affect the organism's brain.
In Lin's experiments, she discovered that the fungus had infected a small reptile. As long as the fungus infected one organism, it could infect all of its species in a controlled manner. The infected and the uninfected had to come into contact with each other in order to spread the infection.
In short, this characteristic of the fungus made them more dangerous. It also made it more difficult for Lin to know how far they had spread.
Moreover, Bechymos had recently discovered that the fungus seemed to be able to infect some creatures with big brains. On an island, Lin saw a large creature that was infected by the fungus and had turned purple all over. Amazing astronomy.
PS: Thanks to ~ Baili Fengshen ~ Luo Haoyue ~ for the tip ~