9 Chapter Nine Stem Cells

It wasn't the first time Lin had thought about this problem.

There was a certain number of each of the cell types it had. If all the cells of one cell type died, how could Lin obtain them again?

Undergo the events that occurred previously? For example, have the cell ingest the dissolving fluid again to form acid injectors?

But even now, Lin did not understand how the cone-shaped cell had evolved.

But that was not the point. The point was did the cells have to go through such complex steps for Lin to obtain those cells again?

Lin did not think so.

Lin would find a solution.

When Lin was thinking about this, Lin's diggers had already eaten half of the shapeshifting cell. The number of diggers increased dramatically and reached 699.

Lin started to act out what it thought. The first was the storage of energy and food. Lin tried to get a cell that was already full and on the verge of division to halt its division and continue to eat.

How to stop the division? Lin did not know. The cell division would naturally occur so Lin could only continuously send thoughts of stopping it from doing what was not according to Lin's thoughts.

It seemed to have succeeded. This digger did not divide and continued to eat the corpse of the shapeshifter.

Following this was storage. Lin started to get the cell to stop digesting the food and leave the food inside the body.

Success. The food inside the digger was not digested and was piled up in one place.

Lin hadn't expected for this to be so easy. Lin felt slightly happy.

Following this, Lin had this cell continue to eat and only digest the amount needed for its activities. When the cell had extra, it was not allowed to divide but had to store the food inside its body. This also caused the mass of this cell to grow. After feeding for a while, it was almost twice the size of other cells.

Yet storing the food caused this cell to become clumsy, and slow in movement. It was even difficult for the cell to continue scraping off food.

This caused its feeding to become difficult but for Lin, this wasn't a hard problem. Lin had the other cells help this cell. Lin used normal diggers to gather food for this cell that was storing food and this cell was only responsible for eating.

Slowly, an interesting change occurred to the cell.

As it continued to eat and not work, the denticles on its outer membrane started to slowly disappear. Lin knew this phenomenon was called degeneration.

At the same time, the cell became extremely vast. It was almost three times the size of other digger cells. The pieces of the shapeshifting cell that were stored inside the body had decomposed, but it was not digestion. They were turned into something that was similar to water but even stickier.

Lin knew that the liquid was called fat.

This cell turned the food it ate into fat and stored it inside the body. The fat was convenient to transport and the energy density was high so it took up less space. It was better than storing food directly.

Lin did not know how the fat formed. This was not something that Lin controlled but the cell itself produced.

Lin did not have 100% control over the cell. The cell themselves conducted actions such as division. The fat was something they decided to make. It seemed that there were still some mysteries that Lin did not know about in the cell.

As Lin gradually increased in intelligence, Lin could completely grasp all of this

Lin gave this type of cell a new name–cacher.

Lin could get the cacher to divide, but the new cell of the division would not have fat. They needed to eat food to turn the food into fat.

It was a good feeling to have some so it did not have to be afraid of hunger. However, there could not be a large number of these cells because they were unable to fight and were slow to move.

The feeding continued … … a short while later, there was only about 10% of the shapeshifting cell's corpse left. Lin's cell group had recovered their previous numbers and there were also thirty caches. The large amounts of fat inside their body could permit Lin's cell group to swim for a long distance without having to feed.

However, what Lin wanted the most was to once again obtain the acid injectors and cone-shaped cells.

Lin first tried to have the diggers evolve into one of the two types using the original method. It continuously thought about having the cell change into another state.

But there was no effect. The product of the digger cell division was still a digger cell.

But Lin did not give up. It continued to try. For example, it had the diggers move similarly o how cone-shaped cells moved or had the other cells squeeze to force the cell into a cone-shape.

Of course, those all failed. In the end, Lin felt its method was very stupid … …

But Lin did not stop telling them to evolve in its thoughts. In the end, a cell responded back to it.

That was a basic cell, one of the cells that were similar to the ones at the start and did not have an ability.

This cell had split from the only cell that possessed vision: the observer.

The observer had not participated in any action so other than its sight, it was the same as in the beginning. Also, the cells that were produced from its cell division did not possess the ability of sight.

Lin called this kind of cell a basic cell. They would usually evolve quickly when they were working with the digger cells to become diggers. But this time, this cell had not yet evolved into a digger cell when it received Lin's thoughts.

Like a miracle, after the cell digested the food it just injected, its body started to slowly grow long, and then it grew out the long cone-shaped mouth like the cone-shaped cells that were covered in spiraling denticles … …

It looked just like the original cone-shaped cell.

Then, Lin, had the basic cell try to evolve into an acid injector. The result appeared without any effort.

If this was how it is, the basic cells did not have any abilities but they could evolve?

Could they evolve into other things?

When Lin thought about this, it had the basic cell try to evolve into the shapeshifting cell or the strange cell.

… … No response.

It seemed that the basic cell could only evolve into the cells that belonged to Lin's cell group. They did not have the ability to evolve, they just recorded the information about the evolution.

But how did it record this? Was it related to the observer watching from the side all this time?

Lin did not know. But since its main problem had been solved, Lin felt very happy.

What was next was to travel once again into the vast and boundless world to explore everything unknown!

All of the shapeshifting cells had been consumed. With its 1233 cells, Lin started to swim towards the endless deep blue … …

Lin did not have a goal. In this deep blue, Lin was not able to see a destination but there were some things that attracted Lin.

That was warmth.

Swimming in this direction, Lin felt as though it could escape the coldness from the past. The water became even warmer and comfortable.

This direction seemed to be up.

The closer Lin got, the brighter the water became as well as warmer. Lin started to speed up. The warmth seemed to give its cell group energy. This was completely different than the feeling of drowsiness the cold gave Lin. It felt very comfortable.

At this time, the observer that was swimming at a place near the front found new food.

There were numerous purple organisms above Lin's cell group.

The cells were of an oval shape and densely covered in cilia. They were only about half the size of Lin's cells but there were a lot of them.

There were so many they were all Lin's observer could see in its field of view.

A preliminary calculation would be above ten thousand.

This was another kind of cell. Lin did not know what they were called so it used the simplest name "purple cells."

These cells were unconcerned with the appearance of Lin's cell group. Even if Lin's cells neared them, they would not act or respond in any way. They were hurriedly swimming in the same direction.

It was the same direction as the warm place that Lin wanted to go.

Since it was like this, then Lin would follow to take a look.