4.6 Billion Year Symphony of Evolution

Last chapter recap: Lin find a chain of underwater vents as it explored the deepsea trench using a warhead.

Enormous pillars of smoke gushed from the abyss and rose upwards until it gradually dissipated.

Lin thought this was a harmful substance so it moved away but the surrounding organisms had the opposite response. Many small trilobites came out of the sand and gathered next to the crack. They waved their limbs and fed on the dust and smoke.

Could this be eaten?

As Lin wondered this, it found many single-celled organisms and some jellyfish went close to the smoke. However, they did not enter the center. They only swam near the pillar of smoke. Lin thought they were collecting the dust.

Maybe there were some edible substances in the dust?

Lin was not surprised by this. Organisms that ate light existed. However, it would be excellent if Lin could use such an enormous resource … …

The Leviathan created a new unit called the “analyzer.” Round in shape, it possess a large mouth similar to the devourer. However, there were no teeth inside the mouth, but tiny tentacles. These tentacles could analyze whether the substances they came into contact to were harmful or beneficial to Lin’s cells.

The analyzer consumed the dust in the smoke like the surrounding jellyfish, and then perceived the composition using the tentacles in its mouth.

Lin could feel from the analyzer’s tentacles that some of the dust was harmless, and some was harmful. However, the harmless substances were not things all cells could digest.

Lin’s cells had different digestive abilities. For example, ones like the acid ejectors and the exploding balls could decompose many different substances, including abiotic substances. Basic cells could only digest debris from other cells or white gel.

Thinking of that, Lin had not seen the white gel for a long time … …

Lin wasn’t very clear about the meaning of digestion. From its present study, Lin knew that this was a process in deconstruction and reconstruction, using certain substances to dissolve things consumed, and then reconstructing it into parts of the body.

This process was complex. However, the dissolving fluid inside the acid ejectors and exploding balls helped them increase the digestive rate. When Lin was able to use oxygen, Lin found that cells would sometimes use oxygen to digest food.

For example, the dust in this mist could only be broken down when oxygen was mixed in.

Lin could not understand the mysteries of deconstruction right now, but it knew that these pillars of smoke that came out of the abyss was an enormous supply of food.

There was no reason to not occupy this great production.

Leviathan would not stop in its journey but the base did not have to be moved here. Lin could create a new base right here.

Lin had Leviathan create a special thing inside its body called the “base seed.”

This was made from 80% fat cells, 10% basic cells and 10% gland cells which formed a sphere. The basic cells inside could use the fat cells to quickly divide and grow into a small base.

The small base could create new units to hunt for food and grow into a large base.

These bases were not the same as the first one. In the end, they would form a triangular structure with all of its organs protected on the inside with a hard shell.

Yes, it was a good plan … … Lin decided it would place a base seed wherever it saw a nutrient-rich area in the future.

If the resources of the base ran out, Lin would have the base decompose into a group of transporters that would transport all the nutrients to the nearest base.

After Leviathan put the base seed in the sand near the abyss, it ate a few trilobite nearby to stop them from affecting the base.

The gland cells in the base seed would secrete a layer of chitin to protect the base seed. Then the basic cells inside would change. After their transformation, they could open the shell to send out armies or reach out with tentacles.

Only when the base needed to grow large would Lin dissolve this shell to put on a bigger shell.

While it was slightly troublesome, this could provide the base with good protection.

After the shell was made, it would be almost invulnerable. Leviathan could leave.

Then where would it go next?

Leviathan slowly swam across the dark abyss and what appeared in front of Lin were still patches of white sand. The looming groups of stone barely perceptible in the distance attracted Lin’s attention.

Go there and see.

Leviathan did not swim fast. Lin wanted to swim and observe if there were any other places suitable to putting down base seeds.

The organisms on this sand patch were mostly sea stars and anemones. There was nothing special.

Lin started to speed up as it was still some distance away from the stones. It suddenly discovered some small and flat leaf-shaped organisms in its surroundings.

Were these flat worms? They did not seem to be the same.

Lin found that while these little organisms had a similar shape to the flat worms, their bodies were longer. Their mouth parts were round and had multiple circles of sharp denticles on the surface.

Lin would call them round-mouthed flat worms.

Lin ignored them at the start and continued to swim forward. After swimming for a while, it found these round-mouthed flat worms were increasing in number.

The situation did not seem good … …

Lin wanted to speed up but the round-mouthed flat worms were much faster. The enormous Leviathan could not leave them behind. More round-mouthed flat worms swam over from the distance. At this time, there were thousands of them.

Looking at the denticles on their mouths, Lin knew what these organisms wanted to do.

So Lin attacked first. Lin waved all of Leviathan’s biting tentacles and caught dozens of round-mouthed flat worms swimming around it, chewing them to pieces.

In an instant, all of the round-mouthed flat worms rushed over!

Their round mouths were like suckers. The round-mouthed flat worm would suck on tightly and twist their bodies, using the denticles to scrape flesh off their target.

Lin immediately fought back. Leviathan waved its tentacles and bit through the nearby round-mouthed flat worms.

The round-mouthed flat worms seemed to have a strong perception of their fellows unlike the jellyfish who did not care if one of their own was killed. When one of the round-mouthed flat worms was killed, they would furiously attack their fellow’s target. Countless round-mouthed flat worm attached themselves to Leviathan’s tentacles. Countless wounds appeared on the unprotected tentacles.

While Lin could immediately solidify the blood vessels at the wounds so cells would not spill out, and the round-mouthed flat worm could not damage Leviathan’s shell, they could attack the tentacles together, and the tentacles would be likely torn to pieces.

The round-mouthed flat worms were extremely fast. Normal cells could not catch up to them.

Lin quickly created a disk-like unit. These were completely covered in hard shells, and had a circle of curved blades on their edges. They could quickly swim and spin their bodies using their siphon and were called … … flying saws!

The apertures on Leviathan opened, and it sent out multiple flying saws. These new spinning units were much faster than the round-mouthed flat worm and extremely efficient at killing enemies. The flying saws only had to spin and charge into the groups of flat worms and could easily use the curved blades around their bodies to cut the worms into pieces.

Countless corpses and cells of the flat worms floated in the water.The flying saws destroyed the groups of round-mouthed flat worms. They could not damage the flying saws’ hard shells so they could not fight back effectively. Consequently, they started to withdraw and flee.

The round-mouthed flat worms were united in their attack but when they fled, they scattered in all directions. However, Lin thought this was a more effective method of retreat. Lin could not pursue all of them.

Lin did not pursue them and recalled the flying saws. It released gatherers to eat the carcasses of the round-mouthed flat worms as it repaired the tentacle’s wounds.

These things seemed smart.

In the past, the flat worms Lin encountered knew how to build enormous stone circles, and now they knew to attack in groups.

Did they have some secret?

Lin studied a relatively intact round-mouthed flat worm carcass and found the ganglions in their head part was especially large. Lin almost could not call them “ganglions” as there was a new term describing this structure.

“Brain.”

Other than this, this round-mouthed flat worm was the same as other flat worms. There was a round pillar inside the body made out of chitin which extended from the head to the tail.

Lin hadn’t understood all this time why it put the shell into its body? Just to take up space?

There was also a new term to describe this structure.

“Spine.”.

[1] I don’t know if the organisms here are carbon-based so I used abiotic rather than inorganic.

Translator Ramblings: I love how we can add “er” or “or” to verbs to make them nouns.