Are There Gems in Ants' Heads?

"Did they discover me just now and then lie in ambush here?" Tom couldn't believe that ants could have such intelligence. However, the ants behind him had successfully climbed onto the computer desk. He could only tightly grasp the cover pin with both hands, muster his courage, and charge forward.

This time, Tom learned his lesson. When he jabbed with the pin, he feinted a little, avoiding the big pincers from catching the pinhead. After several back-and-forth probes, Tom found an opportunity to avoid the big pincers and stabbed upwards, directly piercing through the middle of the ant's mandibles.

Tom was overjoyed. Seizing the chance, he stabbed all the way through, exerting all his strength to flip the large ant upside down, then shouted and thrust down, directly puncturing the ant's head.

Being delayed by the blocking ant cost him time. By the time he killed it, the ants behind him had already surrounded him.

Tom didn't have time to pull out the cover pin. He resolutely let go and drew out the homemade large knife, gripping it tightly with both hands in front of him. It was now a do-or-die situation.

"Come on, bring it on!" They say a cornered tiger is easy prey. Now that he had shrunk, even ants could come for him. Tom was furious. How could he easily surrender and become ants' breakfast?

Facing three large ants, each the size of a small dog, one of them rushed forward. Tom shouted again and swung the big knife, striking down.

The penknife he used for modeling had an extremely sharp blade. It could easily cut through plastic parts, and even though an ant had grown larger, its skull couldn't withstand the knife. With this strike, he directly split its head in half.

"This looks promising!" Tom was delighted. He raised the big knife, but hesitated to launch another attack. With two hands against four, especially facing two large ants now, reckless aggression might get him killed by the other while dealing with one. Reality wasn't a game; there was no way to replenish lost blood with a potion.

This time, both large ants attacked simultaneously. Tom retreated repeatedly while holding the big knife, unable to find an opportunity to strike, only able to shrink back in defense, waiting for a chance.

He used the big knife to block while retreating, not in a rigid straight line but in a circular motion, which inadvertently created distance between the two ants with each attack. It was a small trick he learned from fighting in the orphanage when he was a child.

Finally, one of the ants fell behind by a step. Tom knew the time had come. Seizing the opportunity, he finally swung the knife. The heavy blade instantly split the ant's head, but it got stuck.

It was this kind of accident that he feared! So Tom cautiously retreated step by step, avoiding the ants' attack. If the two ants had been in sync, during the time the knife got stuck, the other ant could have bitten his hand off.

The remaining ant caught up, and its large pincers snapped towards Tom's face. It was a very perilous moment. If he hadn't dodged quickly, his skull might have been split open, rather than just losing a few strands of hair.

Now even more cautious, Tom dared not use his arms to block, not even to push away, as it was extremely dangerous. His arm had been cut, stinging painfully.

In pain, he finally remembered the burden on his back and quickly used it to defend himself. The large ant tore open the bundle, scattering biscuits, fabric, and several gems of various sizes all over the floor.

This gave Tom a moment to catch his breath. He quickly retreated, only to find that the large ant didn't come after him. Instead, it turned around and chased after the red gem that had rolled out.

"What's going on?" Tom wondered, but the next moment, he hurriedly rushed to the body of the ant with the stuck knife, dragging its hand and foot. After some effort, he managed to pull out the knife.

Here, the large ant completely ignored Tom. It caught up with the red gem and swallowed it in one gulp.

Tom didn't care about anything else. He raised the big knife and charged forward, chopping it down and splitting its forelimb in half.

Dropping the weapon, Tom slumped on the bed, panting heavily, wiped his face, his hands covered in sweat, his robe soaked through.

Fighting with people at most resulted in getting beaten up. But fighting with these monsters, without being alert... Tom looked at the torn cloth beside him, patting his chest. He didn't want to become minced meat.

Taking off his robe and resting for a while, Tom finally stood up. He first pulled out the stuck cover pin, and unsurprisingly, dug out a large red gem from the dead ant's head.

Then, he dug out one from each of the other two ant corpses, one of which turned out to be green. Adding the one swallowed by the ant, Tom now had three large red gems, one large green gem, and two small red gems.

Setting aside the ants' greater interest in human flesh than biscuits, now they were more interested in the gems dug out from ants' bodies than humans. Tom found this matter truly bizarre. In the past, if you told someone that you dug gems out of ants' heads, you'd probably be ridiculed as reading too much fantasy. But now, not only had he shrunk, he had actually dug gems out of the enlarged ants' heads. That was interesting.

Tom finally paid attention to these sparkling gems. He tried to bite one, but it was hard as he gnawed on it, leaving no marks on its surface. It was incredibly tough.

After catching his breath and attempting to focus his "qi" as described in novels, he still didn't notice anything unusual.

Shaking his head, Tom put aside the exploration of the gems for now. After eating some biscuits and fighting a thrilling battle, Tom felt parched. He then remembered seeing bottles of water on the table earlier.

Tom strapped the big knife back on, climbed back up the rope to the computer desk, and with force, pushed over the bottle of purified water. Then he dared to make a hole in it and quenched his thirst with the flowing water. If the bottle had been standing, the water pressure might have been too high, and he was afraid of being washed away.

After quenching his thirst, Tom decided to check on the situation of the glasses guy.

From the clothes spread on the chair, Tom inferred that the guy was sitting in front of the computer, shrunk, and then eaten by the large ants that came to the door.

Though a bit far, he could still see the guy's opened belly, his intestines and other organs pulled out. It was just too tragic.

"So not only was I shrunk, but both the manager and this guy were also shrunk. The former might have exploded his head during the process, stopping shrinking after death. The latter... just thinking about it made Tom shudder. If he had woken up a little later, he would probably have ended up like the guy."

"Just three ants were so troublesome. Ants are social creatures. If more come... No, I have

to leave this eerie building and seek help outside."

Having made up his mind, Tom decided to gather some resources. However, after searching around, he found no good food on the glasses guy's table, only some dry leftover instant noodle crumbs. Tired of biscuits, a change to instant noodles wouldn't be bad.

On the other side of the table, there were even two figurines. One of them was a Japanese-style girl in a sailor uniform, surprisingly without panties. However, what surprised him more was that this figurine even had a backpack, which delighted Tom.

The backpack was made of cloth and fit Tom perfectly. Moreover, it could carry things inside, much more comfortable than the bundle he had been carrying.

He immediately stuffed the noodle crumbs into the backpack and hung the big knife on it. Then, crawling back up the rope, he put the biscuit crumbs and six gems into the backpack. Climbing back up to the windowsill, he went out through the ventilation window that led directly to the stairs, allowing him to descend.

The sunlight shone all the way, and Tom arrived at the stairwell. Beside it, there was another room. He thought it would be a good idea to check if ants eating people was just an isolated incident. Entering the room, he indeed found a body on the bed under the window, completely eaten, undoubtedly another tenant of the room who had been shrunk and then eaten by ants while sleeping.

"Firstly, everyone on this floor, or at least the third floor where I am, has been shrunk. Secondly, other creatures... from what I've seen, ants actively come to eat human flesh." These two conclusions made Tom determined to leave the rental building as soon as possible and seek help outside. Regardless of how people outside would treat him after he shrunk, it was still better than the possibility of being surrounded by ants and eaten alive.

Tom left the room, passed by the side, climbed back up the ventilation window in the stairwell, then jumped onto the half-meter-high protrusion on the wall, walking horizontally until he reached the stairs.

Once he could stride two steps in one leap, but now even one step was somewhat high for Tom. He held onto the edge of the stairs to lower himself, compensating for his height. The distance between his feet and the next step was almost equal to his height.

However, after landing, he was pleasantly surprised to find that he didn't feel any shock as he did before. It was as easy as jumping off a small stool. He immediately thought of an article he had read online, which discussed whether ants would die from falling from a height.

He distinctly remembered that the article stated: all objects experience air resistance when moving through the air. The magnitude of the resistance is closely related to the surface area of the object in contact with the air. The smaller the object, the greater the ratio of its surface area to gravity, and the easier it is for the resistance to balance with gravity, resulting in the object's descent speed not becoming faster. In other words, tiny objects can fall slowly in the air.

According to Tom's understanding, the smaller the object, the more air resistance can offset its gravitational acceleration. If the descent speed remains unchanged, or changes very little, then jumping from the first or tenth floor will almost result in the same outcome.

Now that he was 7 centimeters tall, jumping from a height of 20 centimeters didn't make much difference from jumping from a height of 2 centimeters. Therefore, he wouldn't suffer any harm.

Why did he remember that Baidu article? That was because he had argued with Ouyang Haotian about it before. It started with a game called "Witcher," where the protagonist, Geralt, a powerful monster hunter, could defeat vampires, werewolves, and all sorts of creatures, yet could die from a fall of just two meters.

At that time, Haotian cited that article and concluded: Geralt of Rivia was too bulky.