4.6 Billion Year Symphony of Evolution Chapter 22

Last chapter recap: Lin managed to create eyes from its cells.

Chapter Twenty Two Explorer

Lin’s life went on so.

On the rock, the numerous tentacles that grew on the ectoderm continued to dance. The stinger cells that grew on them did not let go of anything that came near them. They killed these cells that swam close or were just pa.s.sing by. Lin continued to slowly but consistently grow … …

Lin didn’t know what to do next.

The cells that pa.s.sed by seemed to be endless as though it could not consume them all. However, it was all random. It was possible that tens of thousands would appear in one night, and on the second night, nothing would appear.

The white gel that came from the cracks in the rock or the cavern gradually decreased.

If anything happened to these two sources of food, then Lin’s great cell group would collapse.

Counting the cells that made up the tentacles and the ectoderm, Lin’s present cell group was millions of cells. While Lin had ways to reduce the demand for food, and had large amounts of fat cells storing food, Lin did not want any problems to occur to food sources.

Did it have to leave?

Leave this rock and return to the endless deep blue.

It felt … … very dangerous even though Lin should be able to swim relying on the tentacles, and the single cells could come along with the structure of the ectoderm and not be scattered around like before.

However, Lin did not know what was in the deeper waters, and did not want to leave behind this comfortable place.

With food constantly appearing from above and below, where would be better than this?

Lin did not act and started to plan to dig on the rock underneath it.

It was going to search for the secret of why the white gel would come out.

Lin used the strong muscle cells to reach into the cracks of the cavern. By constantly dividing, it started to tear apart the strong stone.

After Lin opened some of the cavern cracks, there was more white gel that came out.

However, this did not achieve what Lin wanted to do. It wanted to make bigger holes on the rock. This way, it could burrow deeper, and see how the white gel came out.

The muscle cells were not enough.

Lin’s diggers could not dig apart the rock, but what about larger diggers? Lin had some diggers form a ball. This enormous sphere was filled with denticles on the surface, and looked like an enlarged digger.

This enormous digger had even thicker and shaper denticles. It only had to touch the rock and twist in order to easily split apart the rock.

While Lin could excavate the rock now, from the size of the rock, it could not dig to the deeper parts in a short amount of time.

However, digging at the rock was very interesting.

Lin started to lick digging at the rock, and threw the matter of leaving out of its thoughts.

What it did not expect was that staying at this place that looked very comfortable right now would be a path of destruction … …

Countless black nights later, Lin’s digging had developed deeper and deeper.

It primarily dug from the center of the rock. It felt that this was closer to the white gel inside. Lin had dug out a considerably deep hole. There had been a lot of white gel hidden in the rock. Almost every time the enormous digger used its denticles to sc.r.a.pe the surface of the rock, numerous bits of rock and white gel would float out. However, Lin still did not understand how the white gel came out.

So strange … …

Lin suddenly felt puzzled in its thoughts. However, this was not created by a matter relating to the digging.

Lin’s observer was in the hole looking at the development of the digging, and the eyeball antenna was on the outside of the ectoderm looking at everything outside.

Seven nights had pa.s.sed, but the water was still calm. No cells, not even viruses, swam by.

This phenomenon had never occurred before.

Even if no cells appeared at a certain time, after another night, they would come in great numbers.

Lin had many fat cells. So many that it could grow and be safe for a long time after it lost its food source completely. However, Lin could not tolerate this strange phenomenon.

Something had happened.

Something that Lin did not know.

Lin did not want to go out and be in danger but it did not want to wait here.

Lin started to act. It used basic, fat, and muscle cells to form a tentacle. This tentacle was long and flat. It could move through the water by twisting its body left and right. The top of the tentacle was a transparent oval, and the interior was hollow to store some fat cells. Lin’s observer went inside. This way, the tentacle had vision.

Lin called this tentacle “explorer.” While Lin would not move the entire cell group, Lin could have a tentacle go explore the other regions of the water it had not gone to for a long time.

As it thought, the explorer started to move its body. It was the first time Lin had combined cells move. The movements were clumsy at the start. The tentacle didn’t swim, but the water current it stirred up washed away the cells around it.

However, Lin immediately knew what to do. The explorer quickly started to sim in the water.

After swimming a few circles inside the gastrula, Lin felt it was good. This was much faster than normal cells.

After the preparations were finished, Lin started to swim outside. The muscles cells on the gastrula contracted, and opened a path towards the outside for the explorer.

The explorer was not large. It was even smaller than the tentacles where stinger cells grew on the outside of the ectoderm. Therefore, it could exit through the little holes in the gastrula.

Countless tentacles slowly moved on the ectoderm. It was a pity there was no prey and they were useless.

Lin left this rock it had stayed for a long time on, and the exploder started to slowly sim towards unknown waters … …

Lin had the observer at the head of the explorer. As the explorer whipped its body, it could observe the environment outside. However, after swimming for a while, Lin felt slightly disappointed. Other than water, there was only water.

Maybe it should swim back to that place where there had been that enormous piece of white gel.

Lin still remembered that area that had been frozen by ice. While there were no signs in this ocean, Lin still knew how to return to that place.

It seemed that many strange new terms were coming out?

Lin did not care too much about new terms. It cared more about what had happened that caused no cells to appear.

As the explorer swam, Lin could feel the changes in the surrounding water.

Cold … …

The water here was colder than the place before. As the explorer swam forward, this feeling grew. However, Lin had a method to resist the cold now.

The cells could resist being pervaded by the cold by constantly vibrating their bodies. Lin named this motion “s.h.i.+ver.”

However, s.h.i.+vering would expend more energy. Lin had predicted this situation, so it had taken along some fat cells. However, there were not many. If this continued, Lin probably would not be able to stand for long before the explorer froze to death.

Even so, Lin would not give up. It would create a bigger explorer to come.

… … it seemed there was no use.

As Lin moved towards the increasing cold regions of water, Lin finally saw something other than water … … ice crystals.

Countless pieces of ice floated in the water. They were of various sizes. However, the biggest was just the size of Lin’s explorer. These ice crystals filled this region of water. Lin remembered that this was the location of the enormous white gel. When the water had froze, the white gel had also been frozen into ice. However, why was there only ice crystals left now?

So strange … … had something gigantic smashed the white gel that had frozen?

It really wanted to know… …

Curiosity drove Lin to continue exploring. As it swam among the ice crystals, it felt the temperature here seemed to be slowing increasing. The cold decreased, and Lin’s explorer did not need to s.h.i.+ver.

Lin swam along the warm flow. In the water that grew warmer, the ice crystals grew smaller until Lin finally left the region of water filled with ice crystals. The water here was at a normal temperature.

At this time, Lin had the explorer turn its head. It saw an enormous region of ice floating above it. In other words, was it swimming downwards?

“Down” was a concept that Lin recently understood. When Lin used its cells to create bigger structures, it could feel that there was a certain power pulling it towards one direction. While Lin easily subdued this power, Lin was still curious. What was this power?

The new term that represented this power was “gravity.” It seemed to be an unique force and was stronger the bigger the object.

After that, Lin called the direction that gravity pulled in “down” and the opposite direction “up.”

Lin felt strange. Before, up had always been warm and close to light. Why was it that the down was warmer this time?

Just as Lin was thinking about this, an unique phenomenon it had never seen before appeared in front of its eye.

Translator Ramblings: And we just jumped a couple of billion years into the future to Issac Newton and the "discovery" of gravity.