4.6 Billion Year Symphony of Evolution

Last chapter recap: Lin discovers sexual reproduction.

The vibrations continued. The base grew closer and closer to the water surface … …

The mothership swam as fast as it could. Lin had to make it leave this area to avoid being exposed out of the water.

That was … …

An enormous crack appeared on the sand in front of the mothership. This seemed to be called a “fault.”

The powerful vibrations split the sand into two. The place where the base was continued to rise while the other part sank down.

The beach which had been on the same level separated into cliffs. If Lin did not flee, it would face the fate of dying by the ultraviolet light above the water.

“Fate?”

While this was a tense moment, Lin still split its attention to pay attention to this interesting term. This term seemed to represent something that could decide the past, future and everything.

Was there really such a thing? Of course not!

Lin quickly turned its attention back. The vibrations grew stronger, and the upward rise accelerated. The base was close to the water surface and Lin had the giant shield tentacles wrap around the base.

However, the mothership might not be able to escape in time.

Boom … …

Suddenly, the entire region of water shook. The surrounding water suddenly rose up due to this force, pushed out of the water surface to form an enormous wall of water.

Lin’s mothership was inside this wall of water, and a term could describe this phenomenon … …

This was a “tsunami?” This seemed to mean a phenomenon where water rose above the surface and formed a wall of water.

The wall of water that charged out of the water surface moved in one direction due to the vibrations. The mothership couldn’t move being caught by the strong currents but it could see the direction the tsunami was travelling in.

That was … … ground?

The mothership’s eyeball could make out the tsunami was heading towards a desolate desert which was clearly on the land.

The tsunami rushed rapidly onto the land, the powerful collision mixing water with sand. The enormous wall of water continued to charge onto the land. As it left behind a large track of water in its wake, the entire wall of water slowly shrank and then completely spread apart, turning into countless puddles of water on the desolate land.

Caught within the tsunami, the mothership was thrown onto land. Powerful ultraviolet light baked its body, and the pain of every cell passed onto Lin.

Half of the mothership’s cells died instantly.

It could not survive … …

The mothership did not have the ability to move on the land, and now it had been washed by the tsunami to this place.

Was its only choice to give up?

The ultraviolet light had killed the cells in the mothership’s ectoderm. The interior structures and organs started to collapse. Water flowed out of everywhere, and the mothership’s end was decided.

Was this the so-called fate?

Lin would not pay attention to something like this.

Lin quickly created a kind of black chitin substance at a small part of the mothership which wrapped around several small cells, including a few fat cells, and Lin’s first cell–the observer.

This cell had always been inside the mothership. It hadn’t been useful because Lin had the eyeballs, but Lin felt that it had some special meaning so Lin protected it.

Lin would bring the observer back when it had the opportunity.

On the other side, the base was not inside the water either. The entire area had risen above the water surface due to the vibrations.

But unlike the mothership, the giant shield tentacle protected the base well.

The ectoderm of the giant shield tentacles didn’t have eyeballs nor cells. It only had a thick shell. The giant shield tentacle relied on a few muscle cells inside the shell to move. The shell seemed thick enough that ultraviolet light could not penetrate through.

Wrapped up, the base was completely dark. This mean that no light penetrated the outer shell of the giant shield tentacle. But if Lin opened the giant shield tentacle, the structures inside would be exposed to the UV light and immediately killed.

Presently the base was completely exposed out of the water. Lin had to wait for night in order to act.

However, it may be difficult to move the base into the water from above the water. Should it try to live on land? If it had the green cells, food wouldn’t be a problem.

No matter what, Lin would wait for night to see.

Lin’s study of the green cells had progressed slightly. It had finished the first stage of “making things that could absorb and store light.” Actually, these substances were contained in all kinds of food. Now, Lin was at the second step, mixing the light, the gases and water together to make those edible crystals.

This was the most difficult step. Lin’s cells had automatically completed the previous step but for this step, the cells could not act on their own. Lin had to test by itself. Lin didn’t know how long it would take, but this was just a problem of the ratios involved. Lin would complete this sooner or later.

If Lin completed this, Lin would be able to give all bases the ability to eat light. This meant Lin didn’t have to worry about food. While Lin wasn’t worried now, no food source was as steady as light.

The light grew dimmer, and night finally came. The giant shield tentacle around the base opened slightly and revealed a small hole. Dim light shone in through the hole. This almost dark light didn’t cause any feeling of burning. It appeared that this was not dangerous.

The base’s reproduction chambers created ten warheads like the ones the Leviathan made. Lin had them climb out of the base and explore the outside world.

When the first warhead climbed out of the small hole above the base, Lin once again felt the emptiness in the air. The light of the stars illuminated everything in front of it. The beach that had previously been in the water was completely exposed out of the water, and water still lingered between the sand granules and stones.

This area had truly risen above the water. It seemed this place should be called an “island.”

The warheads’ segmented limbs had many curved hooks so it could climb even on land.

They climbed down the enormous rock where the base was down to the sand beach. Then the warheads scattered to explore the surrounding environment.

Lin found many organisms that hadn’t fell were trapped in the water between the cracks of sand. Most of them were unicellular while a few were multicellular.

Even in such small puddles, they lived well. However, when the wind blew, countless drops of water would be blown away, and the water would dry sooner or later. At that time, this place would become dry and desolate just like normal land.

Other than these small organisms, there were the corpses of the larger organisms that couldn’t hide in the cracks and were killed by the ultraviolet light. Most of them were sea stars as they were slow movers.

Lin had the warheads climb towards the edges. They climbed for a long time before they reached the edge of the “island.” Lin found that this place was a far distance from the water surface. Looking down, Lin felt it was a cliff. Lin feared it would be troublesome to return to water.

Would it have to deconstruct the organs of the base and then create a cell type to move them back into water?

After that, Lin had to return to the corpse of the mothership on land to get the observer.

That was far away from this place. If Lin moved the base first, and it would take a long time to complete, Lin felt it was troublesome. It was better to leave the base here. Lin decided to create a new structure and try to have it live on land.

As it thought, Lin had the warheads return to the base. It started to create a new type primarily for creating things on land.

However, Lin could not open the giant shield tentacles much. Otherwise, the water inside the base would spill out. With the resources it had, it could only make smaller things.

As Lin was feeling hampered by this, it found something unique had appeared in the vision of one warhead.

[1] Editor’s comment: … I edited the wrong chapters ! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Translator Ramblings: Despite the editor’s note, the chapter was edited at the beginning of this month. So the lateness is on me.