4.6 Billion Year Symphony of Evolution c5

In the previous chapter, Lin defeated the strange cells that spit out dissolving fluid.

Chapter Five Acid Ejector

The cone-shaped cell that was damaged by the dissolving fluid divided. This time, the cell produced by the division was just like the other cone-shaped cells but its color was even darker.

It seemed that if these cells had the ability to tolerate the dissolving fluid, their color would be darker.

Following this, Lin had this cone-shaped cell swallow the dissolving fluid of the strange cell.

It was hard for the hardened cone-shaped cells to eat in large gulps like they did in the past. They could only open a small opening at the end of the cone. Their feeding rate was extremely slow.

Could the other cells that fed faster eat for it?

How to subst.i.tute?

These two thoughts flashed through Lin’s mind but there were no following thoughts.

When Lin’s intelligence was not enough, this state would appear. Its only method of increasing intelligence was to increase its own cell group.

Lin had this new cone-shaped cell that with the ability to tolerate dissolving fluid consume great amounts of dissolving fluid. However, the cell did not show any signs of damage. It seemed that this was the cell with the strongest tolerance ability up until now.

Then was it to let it first go to the hole that had been dug out and use the dissolving fluid to dissolve the harder food,

Or … …

Lin moved its sight towards the remaining strange cells. It suddenly had the thought of killing them. This way, Lin might be able to have cells divide into more of the powerful cone-shaped cells that had the ability of tolerance.

But it was better not to.

A term called “sympathy” came into Lin’s thoughts.

Lin led the new cone-shaped cell back to the bottom of the hole to the hardest and deepest part of the food. Lin had the cone-shaped cell regurgitate out the dissolving fluid that it had taken in. As expected, the harder food was easily dissolved by the dissolving fluid.

The food that was dissolved was mixed with the dissolving fluid but it was still able to be consumed by other cells. At most, it would create some damage, but it was not fatal. Using this method, Lin could get the damaged cells to split into cells that had the ability to tolerate the dissolving fluid.

Lin also found something interesting. The cone-shaped cell that had ingested large amounts of dissolving fluid would become green when it was full of dissolving fluid. After it spat out all the dissolving fluid, the color of its surface would fade. But after it rested for a while and ate some food, its color started to turn green again.

Lin tried. As expected, this cone-shaped cell once again sprayed dissolving fluid.

What did this mean? Was this cell able to produce dissolving fluid by itself? It was able to have the ability of the strange cells?

Was this also … … evolution?

Lin did not understand how the mechanisms involved worked.

However, maybe when its intelligence was high, it would understand.

Therefore, Lin gave this new cone-shaped cell a new name.

“Acid ejector.”

With the help of the acid ejector, Lin’s cell group continued to eat and dig as they went deeper. The group continued to expand. As the cells continued to divide, Lin’s group reached 331 cells.

There were ten acid ejectors, three hundred diggers, twenty cone-shaped cells and one observer. As Lin dug and evolved, there was almost none of the original basic kind of cells.

Lin found a problem.

When the group was small, just slightly increasing the numbers would greatly increase its intelligence but when the group was large, the rate of intelligence increase slowed down.

If it had to be said in numbers, it meant that a group that only had 20 cells would get 1 point of intelligence for every additional cell. But a group of 200 cells would only get one point of intelligence for every ten additional cells.

Why was this so?

Lin would frequently feel that its intelligence was not enough. Even now, it did not know the reasons.

However, the problem that it was paying the most attention to was that it had dug through this enormous piece of food.

When the last layer of white food was dissolved by the acid ejectors, Lin’s vision once again saw the endless blue.

Water again.

What was at the end of the water?

Lin had originally thought there would be something interesting under the enormous piece of food but it was disappointed.

It would keep eating and then plan after eating this piece of food.

Just as Lin was looking at this patch of ocean, something suddenly came into its field of view.

This thing was only one hundredth the size of Lin’s cell but it still could not escape Lin’s sight.

A grey-white color, a long tail, a head that was ball-shaped.

What was this?

Lin found this thing flowed with the water near a digger cell.

It first avoided the denticles the digger had and the hardened parts of the digger. It detoured to the relatively more fragile cell membrane at the back of the cell and then inserted its long tail on the top.

Curiosity drove Lin to observe and not act.

This thing used its tail to puncture a small hole on the cell membrane and then the ball-shaped head slowly shrank. Some grey-fluid flowed through its tail and was injected into the cell.

Pain.

Lin’s first reaction was pain. It was like a strange fluid had been injected. The digger cell felt a great pain response.

Right, I know what this is.

Lin’s group was sizable enough for it to have enough intelligence to understand what strange thing was injecting into it.

This thing was called … … a virus. Right, the th.o.r.n.y ball that it had encountered before was also a virus, but they were not the same kind.

Viruses were not the same as cells, they were strange, but Lin was unable to understand the specific details.

The tail of this virus was empty. After it pushed the tail into the cell, it could inject fluid from its head into the cell.

LIn was not clear what the fluid was but it clearly wasn’t anything good since it caused pain. Also, Lin also knew what term to use to describe this situation.

“Infection.”

Lin’s present understanding was that after the virus infected the cell, it would continue to cause pain until the cell was killed. Then the cell corpse would release large amounts of viruses.

It was a very dangerous thing.

But this time, Lin would not run away.

Under Lin’s direction, ten acid ejectors surrounded the digger cell that was being infected by the virus.

After a period of evolution, the acid ejectors now had a small hole at the tip of its originally cone-shaped head. It could release large amounts of dissolving fluid in one go.

From the outside, it could be seen the digger cell that was being infected was changing from a clear cell membrane to a dim one. There seemed to be strange white threads and fluid inside which caused Lin great pain. Lin started to have a difficult time controlling this cell.

However, Lin did not act. It wanted to observe the entire process.

After a while, Lin completely lost control of this digger cell. This cell seemed to have died, the surface was opaque.

At this time, some fissures appeared on the cell membrane.

The virus did not have the cell explode like the past one but these little fissures increased. And then the viruses flooded out of the cracks!

This time, there were hundreds of them.

Yet the moment these virus appeared, large amounts of acid fluid covered them. The amount of fluid that the acid ejectors sprayed out was extremely large. Even if the number of viruses was ten times their present number, they could not escape.

The viruses turned to dust the moment they came into contact with the acid. These little things were very fragile.

The acid ejectors still continued to spray fluid until even the digger body at the back was dissolved cleanly before Lin stopped.

The joy of victory?

This time, the feeling was not as strong as when Lin had defeated the strange cells but Lin still felt it.

However, it had just won over some weak viruses. There was nothing to be happy about.

Lin, its goal was the endless path of evolution.

Translator Ramblings: No, Lin, none of this is evolution in the real world, but enjoy your evolution in this fictional universe.