Chapter 5

The conical cells damaged by the dissolving solution began to divide. This time, the new cells grew to be similar to the conical cells but were darker in color.

It seems that as long as these cells have resistance to the dissolving solution, they will turn darker.

Next, Lin made the conical cell engulf the dissolving solution from the strange cells.

Because the front part of the conical cell had become conical and hardened, it was difficult for it to swallow large pieces of food like the original cells. It could only open a small hole at the tip of the cone, and the speed of eating was quite slow.

Could other cells that eat faster be used to replace it?

How to replace it?

These two thoughts flashed through Lin's mind, but unfortunately, there was no follow-up.

When Lin's intelligence was insufficient, such situations would occur. The only way to increase its intelligence was to expand its colony.

Lin made the new, resistant conical cell eat a lot of dissolving solution, but there were no signs of damage. It seemed that this was the most resistant cell so far.

So, let it go to the hole it just ate and use the dissolving solution to dissolve the harder food.

Or...

Lin looked at the remaining strange cells and suddenly had the idea of killing them all. This might allow it to split and produce more resistant conical cells.

But let's not do that.

A new word, "sympathy," seemed to appear in Lin's thoughts.

Lin took the new conical cell back to the depths of the cave, reaching the hardest part of the food. Lin made the conical cell spray out the dissolving solution it had eaten. Indeed, the harder food was easily dissolved.

The food fragments dissolved by the solution, although mixed with the dissolving solution, could still be eaten by other ordinary cells. At most, it would cause some damage, but not be fatal. Using this method, Lin could make the damaged cells split into cells resistant to the dissolving solution.

Lin also found something interesting. The conical cell that had eaten a lot of dissolving solution turned green when full of the solution. After expelling all the solution, its color became lighter. But after resting for a while and eating a bit, its body slowly turned green again.

Lin tried it, and indeed, the conical cell sprayed out the dissolving solution again.

What does this mean? Can this cell produce the dissolving solution on its own? Can it use the ability of the strange cells?

Is this... evolution?

Lin had no idea how the internal mechanism worked.

But, with higher intelligence, it would know, right?

So, Lin gave this new conical cell a name.

"Acid Injector"

With the help of the Acid Injectors, Lin's cell colony continued to eat and dig deeper, constantly expanding. Through continuous cell division, Lin's colony had reached 331 cells.

There were ten Acid Injectors, 300 diggers, 20 conical cells, and one observer with vision. After continuous digging and evolution, there were almost no basic cells left from the beginning.

Lin discovered a problem.

When the colony was small, increasing the number of cells would significantly boost its intelligence. But as the colony grew larger, the increase in intelligence slowed down.

If explained with numbers, a colony of 20 cells would gain 1 point of intelligence for each additional cell, while a colony of 200 cells would gain 1 point of intelligence for every 10 additional cells.

Why?

Lin often felt its intelligence was insufficient, and it was the same now. It had no idea why.

However, the most pressing issue for Lin was that it had dug through this enormous piece of food.

After the last layer of white food was dissolved by the Acid Injectors, Lin's vision once again saw the boundless blue.

It's water again.

What lies at the end of this water?

Lin had thought there would be something interesting beneath this huge piece of food, but it was disappointed.

There was nothing left to do but continue eating and finish this piece of food.

As Lin was looking at the vast expanse of water, something suddenly entered its field of vision.

This thing was only about one percent the size of Lin's cells, but it still didn't escape its notice.

It was grayish-white, with a long, tail-like structure and a spherical head.

What is this?

Lin noticed that this thing approached a digger cell along the water flow.

It first avoided the digger's saw-toothed, harder parts and instead circled around to the vulnerable cell membrane at the back, then pierced it with its long tail.

Curiosity drove Lin to watch without taking any action.

This thing pierced a small hole in the cell membrane, and then its spherical head slowly shrank as some gray liquid was injected into the cell through its tail.

Pain.

Lin's first reaction was pain, as if a strange liquid had been injected. The digger cell reacted with intense pain.

Right, I know what this thing is.

Lin's current colony size gave it enough intelligence to understand the strange thing injecting into its cells.

This thing is called... a virus. The spiky ball encountered earlier was also a virus, but they were not the same type.

Viruses are different from cells; they are strange things, but Lin couldn't understand their detailed situation yet.

The virus's tail is hollow, and after piercing the cell, it can inject a liquid from its head into the cell.

Lin didn't know what these liquids were, but they were clearly not good. After all, they caused a lot of pain, and Lin knew the word to describe this phenomenon.

"Infection."

Lin currently understood that after a virus infects a cell, it causes continuous pain, eventually killing the cell, and then releases a large number of viruses from the dead cell.

It's a very dangerous and troublesome thing.

But this time, Lin wouldn't run away.

Under Lin's command, ten Acid Injectors surrounded the digger cell infected by the virus.

After evolving for some time, the Acid Injectors had developed small holes at the tips of their conical heads, allowing them to spray large amounts of dissolving solution at once.

From the outside, the infected digger cell's originally transparent cell membrane began to darken, filled with strange white threads and liquids, causing Lin intense pain and making it increasingly difficult to control the cell.

But Lin still took no action; it wanted to witness the entire process.

After a while, Lin completely lost control of the digger cell, which appeared to be dead, completely opaque.

At this point, the cell membrane began to slowly crack.

This virus didn't make the cell burst like the spiky ball, but the cracks increased, and a large number of viruses poured out!

This time, there were about a hundred.

However, as soon as these viruses appeared, they were enveloped by a massive amount of acid solution. The Acid Injectors sprayed an enormous amount of dissolving solution, and even if the number of viruses were ten times more, they couldn't escape.

The viruses that touched the acid solution instantly turned into fragments; these small things were very fragile.

The Acid Injectors continued to spray until the digger's corpse was completely dissolved, and Lin was satisfied.

Victory's joy?

This time, the feeling wasn't as strong as when defeating the strange cells, but Lin still felt it.

But indeed, defeating some weak viruses wasn't something to be overly joyful about.

Lin's goal is the endless path of evolution.