Chapter 36

The basic cells are continuously dividing, relying on the fat cells transported back by Lin, they are filling the entire hollow shell of the round shield worm.

The muscle cells fill the segments, the heart and blood vessels are combined in the center, and the joint parts of the segments are filled with cells that have enhanced flexibility. Lin also made an almost identical esophagus in the mouth area, but the esophagus was filled with conical cells and acid injectors, similar to the structure inside the mouth of a phagocyte. The esophagus is controlled by muscle cells and can contract extremely, crushing whatever is swallowed.

After the basic combination was completed, Lin found that there were still many empty spaces inside the shell, especially the long tail with the screw-like structure of the round shield worm, which was almost entirely empty. This kind of tail is not suitable for swimming, and Lin believes that the round shield worm must use its segments to move.

Since Lin doesn't know what to put in, he decided to leave it empty for now, which can be used to store fat cells. Additionally, Lin noticed that there were many cracks and small holes on various parts of the round shield worm's body, except for the mouth area. Not knowing their purpose, Lin blocked them with hardened cells.

After all the cells were in place, Lin tried to make the round shield worm move. The feeling of being covered in hard armor indeed gave a sense of 'safety,' but it was not very flexible when moving. At first, Lin was not very accustomed to it, but after practicing for a while, he basically understood how to move the body of the round shield worm.

Lin mainly uses the round shield worm as a guard for the carrier, so he named it 'Guardian.'

Next, Lin let the 'Guardian' leave the ice cave and crawl to the side of the carrier. With it, if Lin encounters round shield worms or similar creatures again, he won't be afraid at all.

Turning back to the carrier, after dealing with the starfish, Lin found that not only starfish but many other wild cells were attached to the skin of his carrier. These cells did not attack Lin's skin; they just stuck there without moving. Lin didn't know why they did this, but he still ate them all.

At the same time, Lin continued to attack other leaf-shaped creatures. These amoebas provided Lin with a large amount of food. Unlike single-cell wars, if the battle lasted long, the enemy would definitely develop cells or abilities to counter Lin. However, Lin has already killed many leaf-shaped creatures, and they have never developed any resistance to Lin's attacks.

It seems that the evolution speed of multicellular organisms is much slower.

Perhaps even if there are changes, they are hard to quickly manifest in such large composite bodies.

After eating many amoebas, Lin's carrier has grown to more than three times its original size. Lin added two more swimming tentacles. Now, Lin feels that he shouldn't continue to grow, as he must ensure there is enough food to continue growing. If he continues to eat without restraint, he will eat all the leaf-shaped creatures, and if he can't find other food, it will be a disaster. Therefore, Lin started to implement the 'lifespan' plan, eliminating some old cells to slow down food consumption and overall growth.

At the same time, Lin began to combine a new type of cell, named 'Cultivator.' It is mainly a transparent sphere, moving with tentacles around its body. Its function is to raise green cells. Since it can move around, it can find the most light-filled places to raise them, but generally, Lin lets them swim around the carrier.

With these preparations, Lin is not too worried about a lack of food.

At the same time, Lin is also preparing to create some structures related to starfish. However, Lin is a bit confused. Although the starfish's injection-type teeth are very useful, the surrounding creatures are so hard that the teeth can't pierce them, so they should be useless. Moreover, Lin doesn't think that the starfish's movements and speed can attack the joints of the round shield worm.

Is there another creature with a soft body that is suitable for the starfish to attack?

Lin's carrier slowly swam to a higher sand dune. Looking around, the only creatures on the beach besides the leaf-shaped creatures were the super-hard disk-shaped ones, with no other creatures in sight.

Perhaps Lin should observe the entire area to see how far these groups of creatures extend, to calculate the appropriate size to stop growing.

Indeed, that's what should be done.

Thinking this, Lin waited for the Guardian to arrive and then began this operation.

The carrier swam at a higher position, while the Guardian crawled on the sand. This hollow shell, perhaps because it wasn't filled, moved much faster than the original round shield worm. The two maintained the same speed, moving on the beach and observing the surroundings.

There were many creatures around, but almost all were amoebas and disk-shaped creatures. Occasionally, Lin would see some starfish, which were different from the ones he had seen before. They had six tentacles, a color similar to the sand, and were constantly flipping the sand. Lin thought they might be flipping the sand to eat the cells inside.

Lin ignored them and continued to move forward on the beach. After a while, Lin noticed that the number of creatures around began to decrease, and the originally dense distribution became scattered.

The leaf-shaped creatures, which cannot move, probably feed on the cells flowing by. The cells in the water here seem to be less, for some unknown reason.

Hmm?

After crossing a sand dune, Lin saw a creature not far ahead that was different, but more in terms of size.

It was a huge leaf-shaped creature, about five times larger than the leaf-shaped creatures Lin had encountered before, and slightly larger than Lin's grown carrier. However, it looked no different from the previous leaf-shaped creatures.

There were quite a few of these large leaf-shaped creatures around, and the smaller ones were no longer seen.

Is this the gathering place of the large leaf-shaped creatures? Lin swam to a large leaf-shaped creature and tapped it with a hammer.

It doesn't seem much harder than the smaller leaf-shaped creatures. Why grow so big? Right, let's break it open and see if the internal structure is different.

As Lin was thinking this, the large leaf-shaped creature suddenly shook its entire body, and a large amount of white liquid was ejected from the 'leaf tip' at the top of its body.

What is that? Poison? When Lin saw the liquid ejected by the leaf-shaped creature, his first thought was to retreat immediately. However, the liquid did not sink to Lin's position but floated to higher water. Lin also noticed that all the leaf-shaped creatures around were ejecting this liquid into the water.

What are they doing? The leaf-shaped creatures were continuously ejecting this liquid, even turning the surrounding water white, but Lin had no idea what the purpose of this behavior was.

Lin let the carrier and the Guardian stay on the beach to avoid contact with the liquid. Then, Lin sent some small phagocytes to swim upward to see what the liquid was.

Is this... cells?

When the phagocytes swam close to the ejected liquid and observed it carefully, Lin realized that the white liquid was actually composed of small cells.

When Lin ate the leaf-shaped creatures, he found these cells inside their bodies. These cells were stored in a sac near the end of the leaf-shaped creature's body. Lin didn't know what these cells were for at the time, and now he was even more confused.

They are actually ejecting a large number of cells? What is the purpose of this?

Clearly, it's not for attacking, as these cells have no offensive capabilities. There are two types: one is a small, needle-like cell, and the other is a large, white, spherical cell. However, they have no harmful structures, and Lin even let the phagocytes eat some, but they contained no toxins.

Hmm?

Lin suddenly noticed that when the smaller needle-like cells touched the white spherical cells, they would drill into the spherical cells, which would then turn yellow, and the outer membrane seemed to harden. Other needle cells could not drill into it again.

What are they doing? I have no idea! This is the first time Lin has seen such a strange behavior, and he has no idea how to explain it.

However, Lin now has no time to worry about these strange cells.

The phagocytes' eyes saw other creatures slowly approaching from a distance. These creatures were not single cells but large multicellular organisms.

Their bodies were disk-shaped, but they were not the hard ones buried in the sand. They looked very soft and floated in the water, slowly swimming. Under the disk, there were dozens, even hundreds, of long tentacles. The disk's body was only about one-tenth the size of Lin's carrier, but including the tentacles, it was as long as the carrier.

There were quite a few of them. Lin's phagocytes looked around in the water and found that at least a hundred were approaching from all directions. These creatures seemed to be attracted by the large number of cells ejected by the leaf-shaped creatures into the water. Some of the creatures that swam into the cell cluster had already started to use their long tentacles to catch food.

Thank you~ Big me~ Kvasir~ for the reward

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