Chapter 1

Cells

On an endless, deep blue and calm sea, a small figure darted swiftly.

"Hehe~ A planet with an ocean but no multicellular organisms? That's quite rare. I spent who knows how long to find such a place. Now I can play the role of a creator~ Although it's just about dropping some primitive cells from Earth into it..."

This figure had short golden hair and a cute face, looking like a little girl. She stopped on the surface of the sea, gently waved her hand, and a large number of objects that looked like water droplets fell into the seawater.

"Then... add a bit of my knowledge to one of these cells~ And... consciousness~"

"Oh, right, and this. If it only has an eyespot, it wouldn't be able to see anything, which would be too pitiful. With this, it can have the vision of a normal human, even as a single cell."

She sprinkled some powder-like substance into the seawater.

"Shaline, let's go~"

A voice came from the sky, making the little girl slightly startled.

"I know, I'm coming!"

She replied casually, then looked at the sea again and said, "I'm leaving now, I'll come back to see you later."

"I'm really looking forward to seeing what you'll evolve into...?"

As she spoke, the little girl's body slowly floated up, then turned into a beam of light and disappeared into the starry sky.

…………………………………………

"Where am I? Who am I?"

This was its first thought. It had consciousness and a sense of touch, but no vision or smell. Through its only sense, it knew it was in a liquid.

This liquid seemed to be called water.

"I... am called a cell?"

It had no brain, yet it knew the shape of its body—a thin, round membrane with a complex, intricate structure at the center, called the nucleus. Because of this nucleus, it could think, move, and have life...

However, its thinking ability was limited. Such a small nucleus couldn't allow it to think too much.

"Move... search..."

It controlled the outer layer of the membrane, which immediately began to ripple like waves, allowing it to slowly swim in the water, searching for its only goal in the endless darkness...

Food.

Food equals energy, and with energy, it could gain more knowledge and a larger body, allowing it to think more.

As it swam, it suddenly felt its outer membrane touch something.

Food?

It tried hard to identify the object, but the only information it could get was that it was "soft." To understand it better, it had to do this:

Swallow!

It slowly enveloped the object with its membrane and swallowed it.

It felt the object slowly shrink and eventually disappear inside its body. At the same time, it felt its body gradually changing. The seemingly fragile membrane around its body began to strengthen and expand.

This activity lasted only a moment, but the feeling of fulfillment already told it...

That was food, and it needed to get more... food!

It quickly waved its outer membrane and soon encountered another object like the one before. It quickly swallowed it.

Again, it felt the same sensation as before, with the object slowly shrinking inside its body. This time, it thought of a word.

This is called... digestion.

After swallowing two pieces of food, its body became slightly larger and more powerful, and its speed increased. All of this meant it could find more food and gain more energy.

Swallow, swallow, swallow.

It almost swallowed all the "soft" objects around it, and its body expanded significantly.

However, it was still not satisfied and continued to swim in the water, trying to swallow more food.

When it swallowed the next piece of food, its body seemed to reach its limit. After completely digesting the food, it did not grow larger but slowly split, centered around the nucleus, and then completely divided.

It ultimately became two identical individuals, each with the same round membrane and the same nucleus. It had completely split in two.

However, its consciousness did not split.

Even though it had split into two cells, it still felt they were part of its body. It could control these two individuals as easily as controlling its hands.

"What are hands?"

Its thoughts seemed to become richer. The doubled nucleus gave it more thinking ability but also more questions.

"Speaking of which, who am I?"

"I should have a name..."

"And that name is..."

"Lin."

For some reason, only this word came to mind.

"Then I'll call myself this, Lin... It feels good."

Lin continued to move forward, and the two cells slowly swam in the water, continuing to collect food.

This meant higher intelligence, more individuals, and more power.

Now that Lin was two cells, it could collect and search for food more efficiently and quickly. Soon, it made one of the cells eat enough food and enter the division stage.

When this cell completely split, Lin had three individuals, three identical cells, symbolizing Lin's existence.

Lin could fully command them. Although the three cells were not connected, commanding them was not more difficult than commanding one individual; it felt even easier.

Then, Lin had more questions. It could think about more things and quickly discovered the biggest problem.

Darkness.

Yes, it could not observe its surroundings. Although it could feel the liquid around it, it could not know more detailed conditions... Therefore, everything around Lin was endless darkness.

"Eyes..."

The word appeared in Lin's thoughts, but it could not understand it further.

To understand this word, Lin began to try to swallow more food, but the soft food around it seemed to be almost gone. It decided to swim to a farther place.

Three small cells, with a shared consciousness, set out on a journey...

"?"

Suddenly, Lin realized that the cell in front seemed to have touched something. Unlike the soft food before, this thing was very hard but smaller than the previous food.

Unable to analyze what it was, Lin had one of the cells swallow the hard object.

"Seems like it can't be digested."

The hard object remained in one of Lin's cells, showing no signs of shrinking, just floating quietly in the cell membrane.

It seems to be useless?

Lin didn't care and continued to search for other food.

In this area, it found many more soft objects like before, but no more hard objects.

Continuing its task of swallowing, one of Lin's cells again stored enough energy and split.

This time, Lin had four cells, but it still felt it was not enough, so it continued...

When the number of cells reached five, Lin's previous thought resurfaced.

Want to see...

Want to see everything outside! I don't want darkness!

When its thoughts became strong enough, the nucleus in the cell that had eaten the hard object trembled slightly.

From the nucleus, a tentacle-like object extended, gently touching the hard object and slowly pushing it to the surface of the cell membrane.

When the hard object slightly protruded from the cell membrane, a strong light broke through the darkness, flooding into Lin's thoughts.

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