4.6 Billion Year Symphony of Evolution Vol 2 Chapter 12
Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve Explore
The basic cells continuously dividing . Relying on the food stored by the fat cells that Lin transported over, they were filling up the oval worm’s empty sh.e.l.l .
Muscle cells filled the segmented limbs of the chitin carapace . The heart and the blood vessels formed at the center . The important parts of the segmented limbs were filled with flexible and reinforced cells . Lin also constructed an esophagus that was the same as the one destroyed at the mouth . However, Lin filled the esophagus with cone-shaped cells and acid ejectors . The esophagus had a similar structure as the devourers . Muscle cells controlled this esophagus which could contract and crush what was swallowed .
After creating the basic structures, Lin found there were many empty s.p.a.ces in the sh.e.l.l, especially the long tail of the oval worm that was almost completely empty . This kind of tail was not suitable for swimming . Lin remembered that the oval worm moved using its segmented limbs .
While it didn’t know what this s.p.a.ce was used for, then it would keep the structure empty . Lin could use it to store fat cells and such . Also, Lin found that the oval worm had many cracks and small openings over its body other than the mouth . Lin didn’t know what they were for so it used hardened cells to block them off .
After the cells finished, Lin tried to move the oval worm . Completely covered in the hard sh.e.l.l, Lin had a feeling of “safety” but Lin was not nimble when it moved . At the beginning, Lin was not used to this . After practicing for a while, Lin had a basic understanding of how to move the oval worm’s body .
Lin primarily wanted to use the oval worm as a guard for the mothership so it called this being the “protector . ”
Then Lin had the “protector” leave the ice cave and climb beside the mothership . With this, when Lin encountered something similar to the oval worm next time, it wouldn’t haveto fear it as much .
Turning back to the mothership, Lin found that after taking care of the sea star, many other cells had stuck onto the mothership’s ectoderm . These cells would not attack the mothership’s ectoderm but they stuck on motionlessly . Lin didn’t know why they did this but it ate them all .
At the same time, Lin attacked the other leaf worms . These sandbags supplied large amounts of food for Lin . Also, they were unlike enemy uni-cellular colonies that would eventually produce cells that would subdue Lin’s cells and abilities after a while these did nothing . Lin had killed many leaf worms but none of them had produced any abilities to fight back .
It seemed that multicellular beings evolved slowly .
Even if they changed, it probably would be difficult to have the change appear on such a large being .
After eating more leaf worms, Lin’s mothership grew to three times as larger than before . Lin added two more swimming tentacles . Lin felt that it should not continue to get bigger . It must guarantee that it had enough food to survive . If it ate and grew uncontrollably, it would eat all of the leaf worms . If Lin could not find other food, it would be terrible . Due to this, Lin started the “longevity” plan . It would eliminate some old cells, and decrease the need for food as well the overall growth rate .
At the same time, Lin started to make a new cell combination called “nurturers” . They were transparent sphere that moved used tentacles to move . Their use was to raise the green cells in the pens . Because the “nurturers” could move, they could move the green cells places with the most light . However, Lin had them usually swim around the mothership .
After making these preparations, Lin was not afraid of lacking food .
At the same time, Lin was preparing to make some of the sea star’s structures . Lin had one thing it did not understand . The injecting teeth of the sea star were useful, but everything around it was so hard . Its teeth would not be able to pierce other organisms . Also, Lin did not feel that the sea star would be able to bit onto the crucial parts of the oval worm with its movements and speed .
Were there other organisms that were soft and vulnerable to the sea star’s attacks?
Lin’s mothership slowly swam onto a relatively tall mound of sand and looked over . Everything on the sand patch other than the leaf worms were organisms like the round disks . There were no other organisms .
Maybe Lin should observe the entire area and see how deep these beings reached . Then it could calculate how long it should grow .
This was correct .
As Lin thought, it started to act after the protector arrived .
The mothership swam at a relatively high height as the protector climbed along the sand . This empty sh.e.l.l was much faster than the past oval worm, perhaps because it was not completely filled . The two maintained the same speed as they moved on the sand patch and observed the surroundings .
Almost all the organisms in the surroundings were leaf worms and round disk worms . Lin occasionally saw some sea stars . These sea stars were unlike the one that Lin had seen before . They had six tentacles, and were colored like the sand . They kept on throwing sand into the water . Lin thought that they were going through the sand in search of cells to feed on .
Lin ignored them and advanced through the and . After moving forward for a while, Lin found that the density of organisms around it started to decrease . The organisms once packed in the surroundings were scattered in groups .
The leaf worm and other stationary organisms relied on cells that flowed by for food . There seemed to be fewer cells in the water here for some unknown reason .
Lin discovered a completely different organism after pa.s.sing over a sand hillsand hill . It was not different in appearance but in size .
That was an enormous leaf worm that was more than five times as large as the ones Lin encountered previously . It was even larger than Lin’s mothership . But it did not look any different than the previous leaf worms .
Many of these large leaf worms were scattered in the surroundings . There were none of the small leaf worms here .
Was this a gathering place for large leaf worms? Lin swam in front of a large leaf worm, and reached out with its hammer to tap it .
This large leaf worm didn’t feel harder than the small leaf worms . Why did it grow so large? Right, Lin would smash it and see if the interior structures were any different .
As Lin was thinking, the large leaf worm suddenly shook and then the “leaf tip” sprouted a large volume of white fluid .
What was that? Toxins? Lin looked at the fluid the leaf worm sprayed out and its first reaction was to immediately retreat . However, the fluid did not sink down to where Lin was but floated into higher waters . At the same time, Lin discovered the surrounding leaf worms all sprouted a fluid like this into the air .
What were they doing? The leaf worms produced this fluid constantly until it filled the surrounding waters but Lin could not understand the meaning in their actions .
Lin had the mothership and protector stay on the sand to avoid touching the fluid . Then Lin sent some small devourers to swim upwards and see what the fluid was .
This was … … cells?
When the devourers observed from a closer distance, they found that the fluid that had been produced was composed of a type of small cells .
Lin had found this kind of cell before in the bodies of the leaf worms when it had eaten them . This kind of cell was stored in a sac close to the end of the leaf worm . Lin did not know what this kind of cells were used for
were used for back then, and now, it was even more puzzled .
They were spraying large numbers of cells out? What was the meaning in this?
They were clearly not attacking Lin because these cells didn’t have any offensive power . There were two kinds . One kind were small needle-like cells . The other were round white cells that were slightly larger . None of them had any damaging structures . Lin even had the devourers eat some . They were not poisonous .
Lin suddenly found that when the smaller needle cells touched the white round cells, they would burrow into the round cells . Then the round cell would become yellow, and the cell membrane seemed to harden . Other cells were not able to burrow in if they came into contact .
What was this for? Lin didn’t understand at all! It was the first time Lin saw something as strange as this . It didn’t now how to explain it .
But right now, Lin did not have the attention to spare for these strange cells .
The eyes of the devourer saw some other organisms gradually come closer . These organisms were not single cells but enormous beings composed of many cells .
These organisms were mostly round and flat . They were not like the organisms that were buried in the sand . They appeared soft and slowly floated through the water . There were dozens, and each had up to a hundred slender long tentacles under the round disk . The round disk’s body was just one-tenth of Lin’s mothership . However, if the tentacles were included, they were as large as the mothership .
Lin’s devourers saw a great number of them as they looked around . The devourers found that there were at least a hundred swimming over . These organisms seemed to be attracted by the large volume of cells the leaf worm had sprayed into the water . Some of the organisms started to wave their long and slender tentacles to feed as they entered the cell colony .