4.6 Billion Year Symphony of Evolution

Book 2: Chapter Three “Mothership”

Last chapter recap: Lin traveled away in a newly made body and encountered a patch of sand.

Lin formed new units from cells inside the mothership. Originally, Lin designed many kinds, but then it suddenly felt that there was no great need so it only created one.

These hunting units were primarily round. Their gaping mouths were filled on the inside with sharp teeth made from cone-shaped cells and some acid ejectors mixed in as well. If they neared prey and opened their mouth-like fissures, they could suck in the prey, and then use the sharp teeth mixed with the acid ejector ejectors to kill the prey.

Other than this, these balls with  large mouths had an eyeball observer, and two long tentacles to help it swim.

They were called devourers. Just like their name, Lin created them to devour!

However, the devourers did not have the ability to digest food. The interior of their mouths were completely covered in cone-shaped cells or acid ejectors, and their bodies were made from large numbers of muscle cells. Lin had sacrificed the organs needed to absorb food and transport food to maximize their speed and power. If the devourers used up their energy, they only needed to return to the mothership and they would be replenished by the fat cells inside the mothership.

Lin suddenly found that organ was a new word. It meant structures that were made from many cells and had special uses.

That felt pretty good. It would start hunting now!

The devourers started to act. They wriggled their tentacles to swim out of the surface of the mothership and started to hunt all the cells nearby.

The devourers were not of the same size. Lin had designed them so that they could burrow into the cracks between the sand. The smallest was made from a few hundred cells, the largest from tens, and even hundreds of thousands. However, they all had the same abilities, and so was their appearance. Lin did not feel that there was any need to design too many types at present.

The devourers spread apart and started to swim toward the hunting grounds suited for their body size.

If they found cells, the devourers would charge forward, open their large mouth to devour the cells and then crush them to pieces.

Lin found as it observed the killing of the cells that the movement of these cells were different. They were faster than in the past and they could absorb oxygen.

It seemed that these cells were the same as Lin, having adjusted to using oxygen? But no matter how fast the cells were, they could not compare to the devourers that were made of many cells.

Just as Lin thought, the structure of the devourers was suited to killing and eating many cells. The prey was not able to fight back against the devourers, no matter if it was in speed or in other areas. This caused Lin to have an idea. Maybe it did not need other single cells other than the basic cells. It could combine all of them.

The combined multi-celled bodies were stronger than single-celled bodies in every area.

The devourers consumed all of the small cell colonies nearby. Some devourers returned to the mothership and spat out the food they had gathered. Lin used a part of the nutrients to make fat cells to store away and the rest to make more devourers.

Lins hunting range grew bigger and bigger, from the cracks under the sand to the surrounding water region. The figures of the devourers could be seen all over the place.

Through the devourers that burrowed into the cracks between the sand, Lin found that there was a large amount of white gel being produced deep in the sand. Most of the cells here most likely had been attracted here by the white gel. However, Lin did not plan on eating the white gel this time. The white gel would be completely eaten up sooner or later. It was better to leave them to attract more cells. This way, Lin would have an endless supply of food.

What Lin did now was repeatedly create more devourers using the nutrients the devourers had captured and increase the size of the mothership before hunting again. The entire process was simple, and without any danger. Not long after, Lins thought suddenly had the term leisure.

Lin observed the green cells in the rearing pen. It found that the green cells had increased in number. From this, Lin thought it seemed like the green cells did have a way to obtain food from light because while this place was much colder than above, light still reached this place.

Lin felt that maybe it should make some more rearing pens to raise more

Just as Lin was pondering this question, its devourers suddenly passed over some special emotion.

A devourer that had been hunting far away abruptly felt a strong pain. This pain quickly spread through all the cells in its body, and then Lins perception of the cell disappeared.

Dead?

Lin still remembered this feeling. Lin had saw something familiar from the eyeball of that devourer before it died.

Transparent crystal was spreading through the water. The coldness it gave off quickly turned everything around it into solids. All of the cells were fleeing. They furiously burrowed into the sand to try to avoid this danger.

Lin was the same. It immediately had all the devourers return to the inside of the mothership. They were much faster than the single cells. Adding on the support from oxygen, Lin could move faster through the water faster than the water turning to ice. After losing just two devourers that had been far away, the rest returned safely.

Lins mothership could move as well, but it did not plan on running away.

It wanted to face this danger and gain evolution from the danger!

Lin closed all the orifices on the mothership, and retreated the eyeball at the head back into the body. It also had the surface cells harden. At this time, the ever-spreading ice had come close to the body of the mothership.

Lin could clearly sense cold on the ectoderm. The ice continued to spread across the entire body of the mothership. However, because the ectoderm of the mothership was grey and not clear, Lin could not see what the situation outside was like.

However, the freezing did not spread further. The ice was stuck outside the ectoderm and did not spread into the body of the mothership even though the coldness was still constantly killing the cells in the ectoderm.

Lin knew what to do.

Just like before, Lin had all the fat cells connect to the ectoderm. It continued to provide nutrients to the ectoderm so that the still-living cells would constantly divide and fight against the danger of the cold.

The battle against freezing did not continue for a long time.

After Lin continued to repair the ectodermermal cells for a while, Lin gradually started to not feel the cold. No more cells died.

Maybe because they had experienced cold once, the cells quickly produced resistance against the cold.

Lin paid attention to the green cells during this time. While the ice had not passed through the outer layer of the rearing pen, almost half of the green cells had died. The remainder huddled together. They seemed to have secreted a clear gelatinous matter that covered the entire group.

So interesting.

The cold had not left yet. Lin could feel that it was surrounded by thick layers of ice. The mothership could not move at all.

The ice would melt sooner or later, but Lin didnt know how long.

Lin did not want to wait.

It started to combine some cells into the enormous diggers it had created before. Lin planned to see if it could dig through the ice layer.

After forming ten large-size diggers, Lin opened one of the orifices on the mothership. Gusts of cold immediately flowed in from the outside. Lin could see the thick ice outside.

The enormous diggers immediately went forward. For the enormous diggers that could even dig rock, digging ice was not a difficult matter. Using the sharp denticles on the surface, they could easily scrape away pieces of ice.

Lin formed a little eyeball to go out with them to observe and then immediately closed the opening to the mothership as it was truly too cold. It seemed that the cells inside could not resist the cold like the ones on the ectoderm.

These newly made giant diggers had some ability to resist the cold. However, they were not as able as the ectoderm of the mothership. If one was overly cold, Lin would have it come back into the mothership to rest for a while.

The denticle-covered surface of the giant diggers was approximately the same hardness as the ectoderm of the mothership. Lin knew that hardness alone was not enough to resist the cold. There definitely had to be a secret involved.

The diggers had dug a passageway in the ice. Lin planned to dig downwards towards the sand to see where the other cells were hiding.

When it prepared to dig downwards, suddenly, the ice in front of Lin suddenly shook. At the same time, countless cracks appeared on the ice wall.

What was that? Was the ice melting?

No, ice melting was not like this. This felt as though some great power was shaking the entire ice layer.

Crack

The shaking once again produced countless cracks. Lin felt as though it should retreat back into the mothership.

Lin could feel that there was something else enormous that was digging here.

Translator Ramblings: Another glaciation event Lin just cannot catch a break.