บท 22: Chapter 22
Lin's life was still the same.
Above the rock, the countless tentacles that grew from its skin were constantly waving about. The needle-like cells on its body didn't let go of any of the cells that approached it, hunting down the cells that were swimming or just passing by. Lin was slowly but surely growing …
Lin didn't know what to do next.
Although the number of cells passing by was endless, as if it couldn't be eaten up, it was highly random. It was possible that after the first night, thousands of cells would appear, but on the second night, nothing would appear at all.
The white paste that kept emerging from the cracks and caves of the rock had also begun to decrease.
If either of these two sources of food had a problem, Lin's large colony would collapse.
In Lin's current community, if the cells that formed the tentacles and cortex were included, there would be a total of several tens of millions of them. Although Lin had various methods to reduce food consumption and had a large number of fat cells to store food, Lin didn't want to run into any problems with food sources.
Should I leave?
Leave this rock and return to the endless deep blue.
It felt … very risky. Although Lin should be able to rely on the tentacles to swim, the individual cells should be able to ride on the skin structure without having to scatter like before.
However, Lin didn't know what would be in the deeper water, so Lin didn't want to leave this comfortable place.
After all, there was always food emerging from both above and below, so where else could it be better than here?
Lin didn't move. Instead, it began to dig up the rock below it.
It wanted to find the secret of why the white paste was emerging.
Lin used its strong muscle cells to reach into the cracks of the rock and continuously split the rock apart.
As Lin tore open some of the cracks, more and more white paste emerged from them.
However, Lin didn't want to stop there. It wanted to make an even bigger hole in the rock so that it could drill deeper and find out how the white paste came to be.
Muscle cells alone weren't enough.
Lin's excavators couldn't dig through the rock, but what about a gigantic one? Lin combined some of the excavators into a sphere. The surface of the sphere was filled with sawtooth, making it look like a gigantic excavator.
This gigantic excavator had even thicker and sharper sawtooth. It only needed to stick to the rock and twist its head to easily dig through the rock.
Although Lin could now dig through the rock, judging from the size of the rock, it wouldn't be able to dig deep enough in a short amount of time.
However, it seemed interesting to dig for stones.
Lin began to enjoy digging rocks, and thus the thought of leaving was thrown out of her mind.
What it didn't expect was that staying in this seemingly comfortable place would usher in a path of destruction …
Countless nights passed, and Lin's excavation progressed deeper and deeper.
It was mainly digging in the cave, so it felt closer to the white paste. But Lin had already dug out a big hole, and there was indeed a lot of white paste hidden in the rock. Every time the giant excavator scraped the rock with its sawtooth, countless white paste and rock fragments would drift out, but Lin still couldn't figure out where the white paste came from.
Strange …
Doubts suddenly appeared in Lin's mind, but they were not caused by the excavation.
Lin's observer was inside the hole, watching the excavation progress, while the eyeball tentacles were outside the cortex, watching everything outside.
Seven nights had passed, but the surrounding waters were still calm. There were no cells or viruses swimming around.
This phenomenon had never happened before.
Even if there were no cells to be found at a certain time, they would still swarm out in large numbers every night.
Lin had a lot of fat cells, enough to keep it safe for a long time after its food source was completely cut off, but Lin couldn't tolerate this strange phenomenon.
Something had happened.
Something that Lin didn't know about.
Although Lin didn't want to take any risks right now, she didn't want to wait here either.
Lin began to move. She used basic cells, fat cells, and muscle cells to form a tentacle. The tentacle's body was long and flat, allowing it to swim through the water by swinging its body left and right. The tentacle's head was a transparent oval with a hollow interior. Since there were some fat cells inside, and Lin's observer was also inside, the tentacle had gained vision.
Lin called this tentacle the 'Explorer'. Although Lin couldn't mobilize the entire colony, Lin could send a single tentacle out to explore other waters that it hadn't been in contact with for a long time.
With that in mind, the Explorer began to move its body. This was the first time Lin had used a combination of cells to swim, so its movements were a bit clumsy at first. Not only did it fail to swim, the water it stirred up even washed away a large number of cells around it.
However, Lin immediately knew what to do. The Explorer quickly swam through the water.
It first swam a few laps around the inside of the tentacle. Lin felt that this was quite good, as it swam much faster than normal cells.
After finishing its preparations, Lin began to swim outwards. The muscle cells on the tentacle slowly contracted, opening a path for the Explorer to move outwards.
The Explorer wasn't that big, it was even smaller than the tentacle full of cells on the tentacle's surface, so it was able to move through the small holes on the tentacle's surface.
Countless tentacles slowly swayed on the tentacle's surface, but unfortunately, without prey, they were useless.
Lin left the rock that she had been staying on for a long time, the Explorer slowly swam towards the unknown waters …
Lin had the observer sit on top of the Explorer's head. As the Explorer swayed its body, it could also observe its surroundings. However, after swimming for a while, Lin felt a bit disappointed. There was nothing but water around her, and this scene continued.
Perhaps, I should swim back to the original place where the giant white paste was.
Lin still remembered the area that used to be frozen. Although there were no landmarks in this vast ocean, Lin still knew how to return there.
Why do I feel like I've come up with a lot of strange new words?
Lin didn't really care about these new words right now. She was more concerned about what exactly happened to cause the cells to not appear.
As the Explorer swam, Lin could feel the water around her changing.
Cold …
The water here was much colder compared to the previous places. The further the Explorer swam, the colder this feeling became. However, Lin had discovered a way to resist the cold.
It was by constantly shaking its body through its cells to prevent its body from being invaded by the cold. Lin called this method 'shivering'.
However, 'shivering' would consume a lot of energy. Lin had expected this to happen, so she brought along some fat cells with her. However, there weren't many of them. If this continued, the Explorer wouldn't be able to last much longer and would freeze to death.
If that happened, Lin wouldn't give up. Instead, she would form an even larger Explorer and come forward.
… I don't think that's necessary anymore.
As the water continued to grow colder and colder, Lin finally saw something other than water, which was … ice crystals.
Countless ice crystals floated in the water. They all varied in size, but the largest one was no larger than Lin's Explorer. These ice crystals were scattered all over this body of water. Lin remembered that this was where the giant white paste used to be, but when the water began to freeze, the white paste was also frozen into ice. So why were there only floating ice crystals now?
How strange … Could it be that there was something huge that broke the entire piece of frozen white paste?
I really want to know …
Lin's curiosity drove her to continue her exploration. As she swam through the ice crystals, she suddenly felt the temperature here slowly rising. As the chill lessened, Lin's Explorer no longer shivered.
Lin swam along with this warmth. The warmer the water, the smaller the ice crystals became. Finally, after leaving the area filled with ice crystals, the water temperature returned to normal.
Lin then had the Explorer turn around, only to see a large number of ice crystals floating above her. In other words, she was swimming downstream?
The concept of 'down' was something that Lin had only recently understood. When Lin combined her cells to form something larger, she could feel some sort of force pulling her in a certain direction. Although she easily overcame this force, Lin couldn't help but feel curious about what this force was.
The new term for this force was' gravity '. It seemed to be some sort of strange force that had a more obvious effect on larger objects.
Since then, Lin had categorized the direction of gravity as' down ', while the opposite direction was' up '.
Lin felt a bit strange. It had always been the upper part that was warmer and closer to light, so why was it the lower part that was warmer?
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