4.6 Billion Year Symphony of Evolution - Chapter 5

Chapter 5

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 substitute?

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 thirteen 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 thorny 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 pasta 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 .