Chapter 60

 Why was the little stone in the tentacle facing one place? Magnetic field? Magnet?

Lin's mind was filled with strange words. She still couldn't understand what they meant, but she knew that the so-called 'magnet' should mean attraction.

What was attracting the stone?

The Leviathan retracted the Seed of Base. Lin suddenly had a feeling that perhaps it would be more appropriate to place the stone in the target area.

The Leviathan continued to move forward in the dark sea bed full of crystals. Following the guidance of the stone, Lin found that the crystals around her were getting bigger and bigger. Some of them were no longer fragments, but complete pieces.

Crystal fungi weren't the only things that appeared here. Some flatfish were also active here, but these flatfish looked a little strange. Their heads were rounder and thicker than the average flatfish, and they were covered with a thin layer of carapace.

Why did they look like that? Didn't they swim slower? And they didn't have much defense.

Lin was only a bit confused, so she simply ignored them and continued to swim forward. The crystals here were growing larger and larger, to the point where the scattered fragments were almost indiscernible. While observing her surroundings, Lin tried to visualize the appearance and size of this entire area.

The outer ring of this area was full of broken crystals, and the deeper you went, the more complete they were. What kind of thing created this environment?

Perhaps it was a creature?

There were many flatfish around the Leviathan, and they seemed to be very interested in the Leviathan's lantern. Although Lin didn't see them with eyeballs, they seemed to be able to feel the light.

Lin reached out her tentacles to grab a few and tore them to pieces. She found that there was nothing special in their bodies, but their outer skin was covered with many diamond-shaped crystal scales, and a large number of crystal fungi were stuffed in the gaps between these scales.

The Leviathan had reached the next area. The crystals here were all cone-shaped and stood in the sand. It could be called the 'Thousand Crystal Forest'.

Another kind of creature appeared here. Their bodies were small and soft, but they carried a large hard shell on their back. This kind of creature seemed to be called a 'snail'.

Lin seemed to have mentioned the word 'snail' before, but this was the first time she saw a creature called a snail. Its shell was also made of crystal, and in addition to various organs, there were a lot of crystal fungi.

It seemed like every living thing here was related to the crystal fungi. How did these crystal fungi communicate with them?

This kind of relationship seemed to be called 'symbiotic', but why did they mix together?

Lin hadn't seen a single Ice Crystal Monster yet. Perhaps these creatures were relatively rare.

Lin continued to move forward. The tentacle with the stone was wriggling vigorously, as if it meant that Lin was nearing her target.

At this point, Lin suddenly recalled that she had been too busy with this side of the planet to deal with the matters of the main base. However, Lin had already dissected the Legion Sphere. This creature's internal structure was quite unique, it had a large pouch for the smaller Legion Sphere to live in, and because it didn't have a mouth, it had to rely on the smaller Legion Sphere to feed it.

Although it was interesting, Lin was more interested in this side, so she decided to put the matter of the main base aside and let the warheads work on their own.

Suddenly, a large creature flashed through the light of the lantern.

Ice crystal monster?

Lin ordered the lanterns to chase after the creature, but it swam so fast that Lin could only see some scraps of its tail.

Lin retrieved the lantern and grew lantern tentacles on the Leviathan's shell to illuminate the area. Then, she ordered the Leviathan to chase after the creature at full speed. The direction it was swimming in was also the direction the stone was pointing at.

The Leviathan was able to use the water spouts to rotate, which allowed it to catch up to other fast-moving creatures.

After chasing for a while, Lin saw the creature again. It was indeed an Ice Crystal Monster, but it was much smaller. By relying on the water spouts on its back, it was able to swim very quickly, making it very difficult for the Leviathan to catch up to it.

At this time, Lin also noticed that the surrounding environment had changed again. Several large crystals had appeared, towering like boulders on the seabed. Many creatures were moving around these crystals. At this time, the small ice monster suddenly accelerated. It rushed to a large crystal wall in front of it, then drilled its entire body into it.

This is …

As the Leviathan approached, Lin noticed that there was a hole in the crystal wall that was just big enough for the Ice Crystal Monster to enter.

Furthermore, this crystal … was incredibly large, incredibly large.

Lin could only see a gigantic crystal wall that completely blocked the Leviathan's path. Even the lanterns' light couldn't reach its end. Following that, the Leviathan released a large number of lanterns and had them move in three different directions to see how large this crystal was.

The lanterns and eyeballs that moved in two directions swam for a long time before finally circling back to the Leviathan's position. It seemed that this crystal was a gigantic ring-shaped structure. Its width might be enough to hold a few hundred Leviathans, but the eyeballs and lanterns that swam upward still couldn't reach the end of the crystal wall …

Could it be …

Lin ordered the lanterns to stop and had the Leviathan swim upstream along the crystal wall. She discovered that the crystal continued to extend upwards until the Leviathan approached the ice layer that covered the sea surface.

However, this ice wall actually broke through the ice layer and extended all the way to the surface of the water …

It was actually so large … This was no longer an ordinary crystal, but an object that could be called a 'mountain'.

It extended from the dark abyss of water to the domain of air. This was a mountain of crystals!

How did it grow to such a size? How did it form?

Lin realized that the more she saw, the more she understood, and the more questions she had.

There weren't many living creatures on the crystal wall, unlike the large number of living creatures that gathered in the deep water, which Lin found quite strange.

However, it felt good to dig a hole and build a base on top of it. With such a large number of crystals, she could also create many troops with crystal shells.

Even though food was scarce here, Lin had already completed her research.

This was the final step of 'light-eating'. By mixing water and some kind of gas with light and some substances found inside the green cells, she would be able to create an edible substance.

Lin had already understood the ratio of the substances, and she could now create a new kind of cell.

Even though the substances that needed to be synthesized seemed very complicated, the amount was actually very small. Furthermore, most of them were inedible to begin with. Furthermore, these substances could be found everywhere in the water, so it was very cost-effective to use them to synthesize food.

However, the efficiency of this method wasn't very high. The green cells that Lin had locked up and fed purely on light proliferated very slowly. On the other hand, there were other types of green cells that proliferated very quickly, but they would consume other substances or single-celled organisms.

Even though it wasn't very efficient, it was inexhaustible. That was why Lin felt that this research was very useful. This way, she could establish a base in areas where food was scarce but other resources were abundant.

This seemed to be called 'Photosynthesis' and 'Chlorophyll'.

In fact, green cells weren't the only ones that could absorb light. Lin had also seen many single-celled organisms of other colors that could also consume light. There were red, blue, and even black ones.

Lin planned to build a structure specifically for Photosynthesis in each base, but for now, she decided to focus on this place first.

Now that the night was about to end and the day was about to arrive, a layer of light shone through the ice. Lin didn't care too much about that. She had the Leviathan create 'Miners', which had a sawtooth cone and three water jets at the end that allowed them to rapidly rotate and drill through the crystal wall.

After that, Lin had the 'Collectors' collect the crystal fragments scattered around.

The fragments could be dissolved and reassembled to create a suit of armor. However, there were different types of dissolvers, and not all of them could dissolve the crystal. Some dissolvers would completely destroy the crystal, making it impossible to reassemble, so creating this kind of armor was a bit troublesome.

While Lin was drilling through the crystal wall, the day had already arrived. As the light above grew brighter and brighter, the Miners who were drilling through the crystal wall suddenly felt their surroundings getting hotter and hotter …

That's right, these crystals can absorb heat!

Lin suddenly thought of that, but it was already too late. The Miners had drilled too deep and couldn't get out in time, so they were all killed by the extreme temperature.

The entire crystal also seemed to have absorbed the light of the day and became extremely dazzling.

With such a high temperature, it might not be possible to establish a base here. No wonder there weren't any creatures stuck to the crystal.

Then … what would happen in the deep sea?