บท 11: Chapter 11
Lin ordered the observers to swim to higher ground in an attempt to find the thing that attacked the acid-injectors. Lin recalled that the acid-injector's pain came from below, so the attack must have come from below as well.
Lin noticed that there were many protruding black pebbles on the surface of the rocks below the acid-injectors. They were very inconspicuous in this rocky area, and since the acid-injectors were floating very close to these pebbles, Lin had a feeling that the attack was coming from these pebbles.
Camouflage … A creature disguised itself as something commonly seen in the environment and used it to ambush its prey.
Although she had never seen such a situation before, Lin's thoughts told her that such a thing was possible.
And so, Lin decided to counterattack. The acid-injectors immediately aimed at the pebbles below them and sprayed a large amount of dissolving liquid onto them. The pebbles were damaged by the dissolving liquid and began to move. However, it wasn't just one pebble that moved, but all the pebbles in the area began to tremble violently. Following that, the pebbles on the ground began to slowly rise.
Lin didn't expect this to happen. She hurriedly ordered the acid-injectors to disperse, and when they were far away, the creature hiding underground revealed itself.
Its entire body was a mixture of black and grey, the same color as the rocks around it. Furthermore, there were many protruding pebbles on the surface of its body, similar to the sawteeth on the surface of the excavator's body. A large number of flagella grew under its body, but its body was over 50 times the size of the excavator. As it floated up, a large crack appeared on the rocks below.
A rock worm.
Lin gave this gigantic creature that was adept at camouflage a name, then decided to kill it.
Lin once again ordered another acid-injector to come forward. Because Lin still didn't know how the rock worm attacked, she didn't dare to rashly send out all the acid-injectors.
As the acid-injector approached the rock worm, the rock worm also reacted. This time, Lin could clearly see a small pebble on the rock worm's body tremble slightly, followed by an almost invisible sharp object shooting out from it. The sharp object instantly pierced the acid-injector's body.
Following that, Lin felt the same pain as before, then there was no response.
It was a terrifying attack, but Lin still managed to see it clearly. The protruding pebbles on the rock worm's body hid something sharp, and that thing contained some kind of liquid that could rapidly destroy the acid-injector's cell nucleus.
Poison?
Although it was a new term, Lin felt that its meaning was similar to the dissolving liquid of acid injectors. It was a type of liquid that could cause great damage.
The Rock Worm moved its huge body and slowly turned around, swimming towards the corpse of the Acid Injector that was shot down.
When the rock worm turned around, Lin saw a strange black protrusion growing from the top of its mouth. Unlike the stone grains, this protrusion was rather large and shone like an ice crystal.
Eyes …
Although she had never seen it before, Lin realized what it was. This was the first time she had seen another creature with vision other than her own observer.
Curiosity.
Lin was getting more and more curious about this rock worm. Not only its eyes, but also its strange attack method. If Lin's cells could also have such a thing, it would definitely be very interesting.
Therefore, Lin had no intention of letting the rock worm go.
The rock worm had already swum to the corpse of the acid-injector. It opened its cave-like mouth and slowly swallowed the corpse. However, it did not swallow the corpse completely. Instead, it used its flagellum to tear apart the remaining part of the corpse and threw the pieces of the corpse to the stone particles on its body.
Does that mean the stone particles also need to eat?
Despite her curiosity, Lin did not stop there. Almost at the same time, Lin ordered the Acid Injectors to attack again.
Although the rock worm had a powerful attack method, Lin noticed that there weren't that many stone particles on its body. There were only around 20 of them, which was incomparable to the number of Acid Injectors it had.
Meanwhile, as long as Lin had basic cells, the rock worm could continuously regrow more Acid Injectors, so Lin did not have to worry about losing any of them.
The Acid Injectors charged forward. Facing their huge opponent, they sprayed a large amount of dissolving liquid at the rock worm, dyeing the water around them green.
The rock worm's body was like a rock. Not only was it green, but it was also extremely sturdy. When the dissolving liquid of the Acid Injectors came into contact with it, only the surface of the rock worm was corroded.
The rock worm retaliated. The stone particles on its body shot out a large number of sharp spikes, killing several Acid Injectors in a single strike.
Although the Acid Injectors were evolved from cone-shaped cells, as they had not used their bodies to dig for things for a very long time, their hard outer shell had already deteriorated, making them unable to resist this kind of attack.
However, Lin had no choice but to use the Acid Injectors to attack. Apart from them, Lin estimated that no other cells would be able to tear apart the rock worm's outer membrane.
The rock worm twisted its body as if it was in great pain from the dissolving liquid. It began to move its flagella as if it was trying to escape.
However, the rock worm's speed was not fast. In fact, it was only about the same as Lin's Reservoir cells that were filled with oil.
It was not because of its huge body, but because it was used to hiding and camouflaging itself for a long time. Its mobility had begun to deteriorate.
At this moment, Lin ordered the cone-shaped cells to join the attack. Over a hundred cone-shaped cells instantly surrounded the rock worm. Lin ordered them to stab the corroded wounds on the rock worm's body with their cones.
This time, the rock worm was powerless to resist. It seemed like it had run out of spikes as well.
Lin's Acid Injectors would also run out of dissolving liquid, but they could easily make up for this shortcoming with numbers. However, the rock worm could not. Under the cooperation of the Acid Injectors and the cone-shaped cells, the rock worm's huge body finally stopped moving. Its outer membrane that mimicked the color of rocks was torn apart by the cone-shaped cells and scattered into the water …
This time, they only lost 15 Acid Injectors. Many of the rock worm's spikes had been shot at the same Acid Injector, so the loss was much less than Lin had expected. However, if they ate the rock worm, Lin could immediately split into over a hundred clones.
Lin could finally examine the parts that she was curious about. The first was the eye. She had paid special attention to prevent the Acid Injectors from corroding the rock worm's eye.
The eye was exceptionally large, about twice the size of Lin's cells. Lin ordered the cone-shaped cells to dig it out from the rock worm's body. Since it was too large for normal cells to eat, Lin specifically ordered the Reservoir cells to eat it.
The Reservoir cells slowly swam over. In order to store more food, these fat cells had become extremely flexible. Their bodies had even grown to five times the size of normal cells, so it was more than enough to eat the rock worm's eye.
As soon as the Reservoir cells swallowed the rock worm's eye, Lin immediately transmitted a message to them in her mind.
This message was exactly the same as when Lin first tried to gain vision. Lin tried to use the eye to gain vision.
However, it failed. The Reservoir cells did not react at all. The eye was slowly digested like any other food that had been swallowed, then turned into fat and stored away.
Was there no other way?
Forget it …
Lin's next target was the small pebbles that had shot out the deadly spikes.
If one looked closely, they would notice a small hole on the pebbles, where the poisonous spikes were shot out from.
According to Lin's previous experience, if a cell was damaged by poison and survived to divide, it would gain a resistance to the poison. Then, if the resistant cell ate the poison, it would gain the ability to secrete the poison. Although she didn't understand the principle behind this, this was how acid injectors evolved.
Unfortunately, none of Lin's cells could survive after being shot by the poisonous spikes.
If she let them eat the poison directly, they would only lose a few more cells. Lin was a bit worried.
At this moment, Lin suddenly saw one of the pebbles crack open to reveal a small, round creature.
On the surface of the creature's body, there was a structure that looked like a lid. From its transparent body, one could see that under the lid, there were very long tentacles that were coiled together. At the end of the tentacle, there was a small needle.
Did it shoot out the poisonous spikes just now?
Lin curiously observed the creature. It was clearly different from the rock worm and was a different type of cell.
What was its relationship with the rock worm? Was it the same as her, where there were many different types of cells in a group?
If that was the case, the spikes that were so close to her should have attacked her, but they didn't react.
While thinking this, Lin had a cone-shaped cell poke the spikes. The spikes were startled and opened the lid on its body. The tentacle inside instantly stood up and shot out the spikes.
Although it didn't hit, it still scared Lin.
However, Lin immediately had a new idea.
This spikes might be useful to Lin …
After observing them for a while, Lin discovered that these tiny spikes were only about one-tenth the size of her own cells. They seemed to be able to collect the pebbles, gather the pebbles to surround themselves, and stick them to the ground to disguise themselves as pebbles. They also had a small hole at the top, which was obviously used to shoot out the spikes.
These cells usually disguised themselves as pebbles to ambush other cells, but why were they related to the rock worm? Furthermore, their attack commands seemed to be controlled by the rock worm.
Regardless, Lin could use them just like the rock worm.
Lin put the spikes on a digger's body. The digger could use its serrated teeth to clamp the pebbles. This way, the digger would have the ability to shoot out the spikes.
Perhaps these spikes just happened to fall on the rock worm's body. They probably reached a common consciousness after communicating, so they helped each other …
Communication?
Lin had never tried to communicate with other creatures. This seemed to be able to promote a special kind of relationship, and that was … symbiosis.
Although Lin had never tried it, she knew this was the case.
Lin was now confused. Why did it know so much since it was born? Shouldn't these things be discovered bit by bit?
Lin began to feel strange about this, but it was still the same. If it couldn't figure it out, then it would stop thinking about it.
And so, Lin turned her thoughts back.
Since she had obtained the spikes, Lin planned to treat them like the rock worm, giving them food and then using them as a means of attack.
However, Lin didn't know how to feed them, so she imitated the rock worm and put some food pieces at the entrance of the spikes.
When the spikes reacted, they would suck in the food pieces at the entrance of the cave.
However, Lin still didn't know how to command the spikes to attack, so she could only put them on a few diggers for now.
Next, Lin let the spikes eat the rock worm's huge body, which increased its colony by quite a bit. Then, Lin turned her gaze to the various creatures in this area.
There were a lot of spikes in this rocky area. Most of them were large in number, and they were species that Lin had never seen before. However, Lin didn't rashly attack them. Spikes had many different kinds of attacks, so it was better to be careful.
That was why Lin planned to increase the colony's population. One of the main reasons why so many spikes were attracted to this place was because food would occasionally pop out from the cracks in the rocks.
It was the soft white food from before. Lin noticed that the food seemed to be popping out from the cracks in the rocks. Most of them were in the form of powder, and if the spikes approached the cracks, they would be able to feel a weak flow of water.
In other words, there was a lot of this food hidden in the depths of the rocks. For some reason, a flow of water brought the food from the depths to the surface of the rocks and sprayed it out, thus attracting a lot of spikes.
Lin began to try to excavate the rocks.
However, Lin found that this was a very difficult task. Even if she let the spikes dissolve the rocks first, and then let the spikes drill with their spikes, they could only peel off some of the rock fragments.
Lin also found that no spikes of spikes were trying to dig through the rocks. Instead, some small spikes of cells were moving in and out of the cracks.
Lin began to feel that not only did she need large spikes of spikes to store food, she also needed small spikes of cells that could burrow into the cracks.
However, Lin really didn't understand how she could make them smaller.
In short, Lin now had a new goal.
If she blindly killed other spikes of cells, she might encounter a strong enemy and be in mortal danger, so Lin planned to develop slowly.
As Lin's tribe grew larger, her thoughts were also progressing step by step.
First, she would occupy all the cracks that were spitting out food. That way, she would have an endless supply of food.
With that in mind, Lin had the spikes of cells spread out and occupy the surrounding food cracks. She also chased away the small spikes of cells that were originally guarding the cracks.
In just a short while, Lin had occupied over a hundred cracks in the surrounding area. Strangely, these cracks were all about the same length, and the amount of food they spat out was also about the same. So, there wasn't any particular spot that was worth guarding, so Lin evenly distributed the spikes of cells to occupy each spot.
Meanwhile, Lin's Observer hovered high up in the sky, bringing along a few spikes of cells and spikes of acid as guards, looking for a better target to attack.
Under the Observer's vision, Lin discovered something strange.
It was a gigantic crack. This crack was extremely wide, and on an empty rock surface in the distance, it was large enough to fit several hundred of Lin's cells.
This gigantic crack would occasionally spit out a large amount of food, but strangely, there were no cells waiting to eat the food. There were only a few greyish white cells that slowly floated around the crack, but they never rushed forward to eat the food that was spat out.
Very suspicious.
Lin had a few of the spikes try it out. As they approached the gigantic crack, Lin felt a familiar sensation.
Warm … no, hot. The water temperature above this crack was quite high.
Moreover, this crack was not like other small cracks that maintained a fine flow of water all the time. Instead, it was intermittent. After erupting once, it would stop for a while before erupting again!
When Lin thought of this, the diggers were instantly hit by the hot stream, and Lin lost her sense of them.
Was the temperature of the instantaneous eruption high enough to kill the excavator?
Although the loss of a few diggers wasn't a big deal since there was enough food, Lin still felt that it was a pity.
At this time, the gray and white cells floating next to the crack slowly floated up, swam to the diggers who were killed by the heat flow, and slowly devoured them.
So that was the case.
Lin immediately understood what was going on. Those cells were waiting to eat the cells that were killed by the heat flow.
… Then, this heat flow belongs to me!
Perhaps the grey cells were used to eating free food, so they had no fighting power at all. Lin's Acid Injectors easily killed them all and took over their huge cracks.
Of course, Lin also gave this unique crevice a name: Hot Spring Mouth.
Lin thought the hot spring would be very useful.
Then, let's continue to develop.
Lin needed more, more intelligence to figure out the difficult questions she did not understand.
With a stable source of food, Lin's colony was constantly growing, so she needed to take over more food cracks. Normally, Lin would have around 10 cells guard the crack, and if she ran into a strong enemy, she would have the cells from other places reinforce them. Fortunately, there weren't any enemies that could threaten Lin's survival.
Lin also had the cells continuously drill into the rock, trying to evolve a type that could dig through hard rocks. However, it seemed to be quite difficult. The diggers and cone-shaped cells that had been digging for a long time still couldn't do any effective damage to the rock apart from having their serrated teeth sharpened a bit.
The symbiotic spiny cells would also split after eating too much. When they split, they would swim out to the rock to make a nest. Lin had no choice but to have the diggers catch them again. After a few generations, they learned to swim to the nearest digger to fix themselves.
This way, Lin officially obtained a symbiotic relationship with the spiny cells, although she still didn't know how to order the spiny cells to shoot their poisonous stingers.
Just like that, Lin gradually took over the area of the huge rock that was spewing food everywhere. When she had taken over 20% of the rock, Lin's colony had already reached over 10,000 cells.
However, it was already very difficult for her to expand any further. The ones who took over the other areas were all large colonies of cells. If Lin wanted to attack them, she would have to concentrate her forces, but that would mean giving up on a large number of crevice guards.
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