Chapter 41

The water surface was slowly lowering...

It was getting closer to Lin, who could clearly feel the pain on its skin. The light of day was destroying its cells and harming its life.

Lin wanted to escape but couldn't find a way out.

The row of boulders actually formed a huge ring, enclosing all the crystals and trapping Lin inside.

Inanimate objects should be positioned randomly, so why did they form such a perfect ring? Lin arrived at night, and in the darkness, its vision was limited, so it didn't notice the peculiarities of the area. Otherwise, Lin would have hesitated.

Now it was too late to regret. The lowering water left Lin nowhere to go, and it had to face the threat of ultraviolet light directly.

Fortunately, Lin was not unprepared.

Lin only knew the term "ultraviolet" and that it could damage cells, but didn't know what it actually was. The eyes seemed unable to see ultraviolet light, so Lin now believed that ultraviolet light was a type of light or something lethal brought by light. Therefore, it only needed to block the light.

Lin had seen some types of cells produce a peculiar, liquid or solid substance that could reflect, interfere, scatter, or absorb light. This substance was called "pigment."

Although Lin didn't understand the principle of its production, pigments were indeed effective against light. For example, green cells probably relied on pigments to absorb light energy.

However, Lin's cells couldn't produce green; they only had black, white, gray, and colorless "transparent" pigments. During experiments, Lin found that "white" was the most suitable for reflecting light.

Under Lin's thoughts, the skin cells began to slowly turn white. Lin could feel the pain on its skin significantly decrease. Then, Lin quickly repaired the skin damage and covered it entirely with a layer of white.

At the same time, Lin created a white shell above the eyes of its tentacles to protect them from the light while still allowing them to observe the surroundings.

After these changes, the light almost couldn't harm Lin's skin, but the water continued to lower. Without the protection of the water, ultraviolet light could instantly destroy Lin's skin, even if it turned white.

Now, Lin could only swim to a crack in the rocks. If the water level dropped to a certain point, Lin would open a passage under the carrier to let the cells and devourers inside swim into the cracks to avoid danger.

The hard shell of the guardian made it completely unaffected, which made Lin more determined to evolve a similar hard shell.

Lin's hammer was made of hardened cells, different from the non-cellular hard shell. Lin hoped to create a non-cellular, thick, and hard composite material.

After studying some shelled organisms, Lin found that although their shells varied in hardness, they were all composed of similar substances secreted by a type of cell called "gland cells." When gland cells covered the skin with a large amount of this secretion, various hard shells would form.

The water level continued to slowly drop, and Lin could feel the burning pain gradually returning. As the water approached, the light's effect on it grew stronger. Lin was already prepared to let the cells and devourers inside the carrier escape.

However, the water level stopped when it was still a short distance from the carrier.

Was it over?

Lin didn't dare to let its guard down. It didn't know whether the water level would rise or fall next. It quickly began the next step, evolving gland cells.

Creating gland cells wasn't difficult, but the question was what substance inside the gland cells could dissolve and recombine to form a hard shell covering the skin?

Perhaps the answer was in the cells' usual food.

Since it was a non-cellular substance, it must be obtained from food. Maybe the "white paste" Lin used to eat contained substances that could produce a shell.

Of course, it didn't have to be white paste. Lin had seen other wild cells consume various things, like debris on sand grains and powder on rocks. Perhaps these contained the key to producing a shell.

Lin opened a passage under the carrier and sent out a large number of burst balls to search for similar substances in the rock cracks. After consuming these substances, Lin would have them try to dissolve and recombine them inside their bodies and cover them on the outer membrane.

Now, it could only wait. As long as the water level didn't continue to drop, Lin would soon successfully create a hard shell.

Actually, Lin should have tried to create a hard shell earlier, but since it hadn't encountered any problems and the hammer was powerful enough, it hadn't bothered to create a hard shell.

The burst balls swam in the dark cracks of the rocks. Lin sent some small devourers to follow them. Whenever they found suitable substances, the burst balls would consume them, dissolve them inside their bodies, and recombine them into the appropriate shape to cover their bodies.

Lin didn't know the exact transformation process inside the cells, but the cells would automatically operate. Lin only needed to give them the thoughts to execute.

The burst balls found many substances in the rock cracks that seemed capable of producing a shell, such as tiny sand grains, black sticky substances, and rock fragments. The dissolution fluid of the burst balls could dissolve most of the sand grains and fragments, but after successful dissolution, Lin found that the cells couldn't recombine them into a complete structure.

This was because sand grains and fragments were composed of various different substances, some of which would destroy the possibility and integrity of the overall recombination.

Lin called these parts that destroyed the overall integrity "impurities" and needed to remove them. This was a troublesome process because Lin's cells seemed to have difficulty understanding the concept of "removing impurities." Lin had to operate it manually.

Lin's thoughts could perfectly control every part of a cell from the core to the outer membrane, but it had never directly operated the synthesis system inside the cells before, so this was a long and complex process.

The synthesis system inside the cells was quite complex, and there was no vision inside. Lin couldn't observe the situation, but it had a "feeling," like a sense of touch. If needed, Lin could feel the "touch" of different objects that the internal structure of the cells came into contact with.

Relying on this strange ability, Lin could carry out the task of removing impurities.

Lin believed it could succeed.

Just as Lin was trying to remove impurities, some unexpected visitors appeared in the surrounding water. These flat creatures suddenly appeared in large numbers, quickly swimming in the water and consuming the wild cells and small organisms killed by ultraviolet light on the rocks and in the cracks.

These were flatworms. Lin noticed that they had changed somewhat; each flatworm was covered with a layer of sand grains. They seemed to secrete a sticky substance on their bodies, allowing the sand grains to adhere to them, protecting them from ultraviolet light.

So, they hadn't fled but had gone to the beach to stick sand to their bodies and then swam back?

There were many gaps between the ring of boulders that trapped Lin, and the flatworms' bodies could easily fit through.

The mouths of the flatworms were very suitable for consuming various cells, including the burst balls in the rock cracks.

Lin was working on removing impurities from the burst balls. Once successful, the burst balls would be able to remove impurities on their own.

But this was a slow process, and the flatworms had already started swimming around Lin's carrier, entering the rock cracks and beginning to hunt the burst balls!

Lin sent out the injectors. Only the injectors' water jets could catch these fast-swimming flatworms.

Once a flatworm was hit by the injector's needle, it would be injected with a large amount of multipliers, which was a one-hit kill for the small flatworms.

The flatworms used their flexible bodies to evade the injectors, as it was difficult for the injectors to turn during a sprint. Lin should add tentacles to control their direction... but there was no time for that now!

As the chase in the rock cracks unfolded, Lin accelerated the process of removing impurities. It had already distinguished the various substances inside the burst balls and was about to... succeed!

Lin successfully removed the useless impurities from the burst balls' bodies, and the remaining substances successfully combined. Lin had the burst balls secrete this substance from their outer membranes, successfully creating a thin shell.

Now, it transmitted this successful information to every burst ball. All of Lin's burst balls now had the ability to dissolve and form a shell!

At this moment, Lin felt the burning pain again. It noticed that the water level had dropped significantly once more...

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Thank you ~Da Wo Cheng~ for the tip

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