Bab 115: Chapter 114
The evolution of the moss gave Lin hope of restoring the Shining Woodland, but there was only one patch of moss left.
This moss couldn't reproduce on its own, but Lin couldn't find any more living moss. Normally, a plant could grow a new one after cutting off a section, or a new seedling could grow near the main body, but this moss didn't seem to have this ability, which made Lin feel a bit strange …
However, it didn't matter even if there was no moss, she only needed the twisted trees. Just like the trees in the Dark Plains, didn't they still grow well without moss?
Lin then used the same method on the twisted trees to make them evolve immune cells. Because she couldn't experiment underground, she tried it on the ground.
The twisted trees in the Shining Woodland were almost burned to ashes, but the trees in the Dark Plains were still fine. During the experiment, Lin found that they had already evolved immune cells.
The trees in the Dark Plains weren't affected by the fungus or the fire at all, they seemed to be much stronger than the trees in the Shining Woodland.
Could it be that they weren't the same species?
Lin rarely distinguished the species of plants, but the trees in the Dark Plains were indeed a bit different. In that case, the threat of the fungus should have been eliminated …?
Then, Leviathan returned to the base, but when it looked at the burnt forest, it had a strange feeling.
No matter what, it had to continue observing.
After returning to the base, the headworm called out to Leviathan: "Fire, food!"
The headworm especially liked food that was roasted by fire, according to its thoughts, it was' delicious'. Lin brought some back to the base to feed it last time, and it completely fell in love with it.
However, Lin didn't bring any food this time, so it kept calling out those two words and followed Leviathan. Lin ordered some soldiers to dig some burnt arthropods in the burnt forest for it to eat, and it finally stopped calling.
For the rest of the time, Lin continued to live her life as before, expanding the green carpet. Looking at the changes in the burnt forest, there were many creatures digging for barbecue to eat day and night. Barbecue seemed to be very delicious to them, and the headworm was one of them. However, it couldn't dig by itself, so it had to let Lin do it.
Lin had been studying the burnt forest, so it didn't matter if she brought some for it.
However, Lin always had a bad feeling in her mind. Because after so long, the burnt forest still looked the same. If ashes could be used as food. Then, there should be plants growing out of it.
Lin discovered that plants did not only absorb light to obtain nutrients. They also used their roots to absorb the nutrients in the soil, so since most of the ashes were plant debris, they should be able to absorb it as well.
However, nothing grew out of the charred forest ….
Lin had already discovered many young Twisted Trees within the ashes. If they were plants, they should be called 'seeds'. They were surrounded by a sturdy shell and weren't affected by the fire. They were alive inside, but these seeds didn't grow. Whether they were soaked in water or buried in ashes, they didn't grow. Lin didn't know what was going on …
Day and night slowly passed. The scorched and twisted trees were unable to withstand the wind and sand blowing from the desert. Endless sand and dust slowly covered the scorched forest. The originally beautiful shining forest had now become a strange half-black half-sand place. The creatures that always dug for barbecued food did not come here much anymore.
The river that separated the two forests also began to narrow, and the flow of water was not as much.
"Sand and dust, dry and cracked, death." The headworm was lying on the side of a cave in the base, gnawing on a piece of burnt limb while looking at the scorched forest.
Although it seemed to be eating happily, it was in a state of anxiety.
Indeed, if this continued, it would not be good. The sand would drown the entire forest, and then the entire Shining Forest would disappear. They would no longer be able to revive. Although the Twisted Forest was still very large, it would be a pity to lose this glowing forest belt.
"Guuu …!" The headworm suddenly let out a strange cry. Lin had never heard it before, but it was probably not a word. It was a cry of pain.
Leviathan was also next to the headworm. Lin saw that there was a spherical protrusion on the headworm's back. In fact, Lin had already noticed it. At first, she thought it was something that grew on its own and didn't pay it any attention. However, it seemed to have grown bigger recently. Under such circumstances, it might be squeezing its organs, but since its entire body was made up of brains, it might be squeezing its brain.
Lin thought that she should investigate this strange phenomenon and why it would grow such a protrusion for no reason.
Leviathan brought the headworm back to the base. The headworm seemed to be in a lot of pain, so it didn't object at all. In fact, it didn't like Lin doing all kinds of experiments on it.
Lin placed a miniature Scout into the headworm's body. Scouts were usually a combination of multiple cells, because they weren't afraid of being attacked by immune cells. This way, they could better study the condition of the headworm's body.
This was … very strange.
Lin noticed that the newly grown protrusion on the headworm's back was filled with a large number of cells. It could be said that the protrusion was made up of these cells.
However, there was a problem with these cells, they seemed to be completely useless.
Generally speaking, every cell in an organism's body had a purpose, and they were a large group of cooperative workers. However, the cells in this protrusion didn't seem to have any purpose. In other words, they were a bunch of meaningless cells that constantly absorbed nutrients and grew to form a meatball. They would also squeeze other organs, and in the end, wouldn't they kill the organism?
How strange, why would this happen?
Lin ordered the Scout to expand the search area. It found that these 'meaningless' cells were everywhere in the headworm's body. The task of these cells seemed to be to constantly multiply and eventually squeeze other normal cells to death.
Lin also found that it seemed that because the headworm liked to eat burnt food, there was a substance in the burnt food that made some of the cells in its body become abnormal.
In fact, it didn't seem abnormal, but more like 'atavism'. In other words, these cells had returned to their most primitive form, constantly absorbing nutrients and constantly multiplying, regardless of anything else.
However. According to some of the 'primitive cells' that Lin found in the headworm's body, their rate of division was quite slow, and they would also be recognized and killed by immune cells. If a cell wanted to grow into a meatball, it would take more than a year to form a small protrusion on the headworm's back. However, it had only been a dozen or so days since the headworm started eating barbecue, so how could it grow into such a small protrusion so quickly?
Perhaps it would speed up its reproduction when it reached a certain part of the headworm.
When Lin thought of this, she found that some of her troops also produced some of these cells, after all, burnt food was readily available. So Lin also had some collectors eat a lot, but these collectors had very few of these cells, far from enough to form a meatball, and Lin could still control them with her thoughts. She could make them return to normal.
However, the headworm's thoughts obviously couldn't control every cell, even if its brain was so big, so it would be affected.
These cells didn't just squeeze organs. They also produced various toxins and waste products from digesting nutrients. Moreover, they would invade and attack other cells, which would seriously affect the headworm's circulatory system. If left alone, it might die soon.
These cells didn't seem to belong to this creature anymore, they had become a new species on their own, reproducing their own army inside the headworm's body.
If that's the case, I'll just help it kill these cells.
Dealing with these primitive cells was quite simple. Although the headworm's immune cells couldn't easily deal with them, Lin's Scout was different. It had a lot of ability to deal with single cells, so it could easily kill a large number of these abnormal cells.
Soon enough, the protrusions on the headworm's back disappeared. After Lin killed those cells, the normal cells quickly grew back.
The brain cells of common creatures couldn't multiply, but the headworm's brain cells could. This creature was quite special.
After three days and nights, the headworm began to regain its spirit and wandered around. Lin gave it a 'warning': "Fire, food, death."
The headworm seemed to have understood, and since then, it never ate the burnt food again. Lin, on the other hand, ate even more. She mainly wanted to study why the burnt food could make the cells primitive.
But this study was quite difficult. Lin believed that there must be some kind of change in the cells, but even Lin's smallest eyeball, the Observer, couldn't see the situation inside the cells.
In fact, Lin couldn't even assemble an eyeball as small as a cell, let alone one smaller than a cell. Normal single-celled creatures didn't have vision at all, they only had a simple structure similar to a small eyeball that could sense light.
Only the Observer was different, and Lin had never created a second Observer.
Not only in the greater world, there were also quite a lot of secrets in the smaller world …
The substance produced by the burnt food that affected the cells was called 'carcinogen', but Lin didn't like the name, so she called it 'betrayal'.
Hmm, that felt much better. This was also the first time Lin mentioned the word 'betrayal'. It seemed to be referring to something that had broken away from its original structure, and would even attack its original structure or commit other harmful acts.
But now, Lin was more concerned about the bigger change.
The airflow from the desert was affecting the forest. The sand and dust they brought with them slowly drowned the entire forest. By the 30th day and night, most of the Glittering Forest had been covered in sand and dust.
While it was a pity that the burnt forest had disappeared, it didn't matter too much. But what Lin was concerned about was that the sand and dust didn't seem to have stopped spreading, it was even spreading towards the Dark Plains.
The river had almost dried up. Lin tried to clean up the sand and dust, but the sand from the desert was endless. The Twisted Trees of the Dark Plains were also affected. Their bark was now covered in sand, and Lin had to mobilize troops to clean up the sand and dust for the green carpet. Meanwhile, the ground that wasn't covered by the green carpet was now covered in a thin layer of yellow sand …
Status Power Mingguan
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Power 
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