The cone cell that was damaged by the dissolving liquid began to divide again. This time, the new cell had the same appearance as the cone cell, but its colour was a bit darker.
It seems as long as these cells could resist the dissolving liquid, their colour would become darker.
Next, Lin had the new cone cell consume the dissolving liquid of the strange cells.
Due to the cone-shaped and hardened front part of the cone cell, it was very difficult for it to consume large amounts of food like the original cells. It could only open a small hole at the front part of the cone cell, so its rate of consumption was very slow.
Could it replace its consumption with other cells that could consume faster?
How?
These two thoughts flashed through Lin's mind, but she couldn't think of anything else.
When Lin's intelligence was still lacking, this would happen. The only way for her to increase her intelligence was to expand her community.
Lin had this new, resistant cone cell consume quite a bit of the dissolving liquid, but it showed no signs of damage. It seems this was the cell with the strongest resistance so far.
If that's the case, I'll have it return to the hole I just made and use the dissolving liquid to melt the harder food.
Or perhaps …
Lin turned her gaze to the remaining strange cells. She suddenly had the thought of killing them all. That way, she might be able to produce more cone cells with stronger resistance.
Forget it.
A new word called 'sympathy' popped up in Lin's mind.
Lin brought the new cone cell back to the depths of the hole. After reaching the deepest and hardest part of the food, Lin had the cone cell spray out the dissolving liquid it had consumed. Sure enough, the harder food was easily dissolved.
Although the dissolving liquid was still mixed with the dissolving liquid, it could still be consumed by other normal cells. At most, it would cause some damage, but it would not be fatal. Using this method, Lin could have these damaged cells split into cells that could resist the dissolving liquid.
Lin also noticed something interesting. After consuming a large amount of the dissolving liquid, the cone cell's body would take on a green hue. After spitting out the dissolving liquid, the hue of its body would fade away. However, after resting for a while and eating something, its body would slowly regain its green hue.
Lin tried it. Sure enough, the cone cell sprayed out the dissolving liquid again.
What does this mean? Can this cell produce its own dissolving liquid? Can it use the abilities of the strange cells?
Is this also … an evolution?
Lin had no idea how this mechanism worked.
However, once her intelligence increased, she would be able to understand.
And so, Lin gave this new cone cell a name.
"Acid injector."
With the help of the acid-injector, Lin's cell colony continued to dig and eat, continuously expanding its colony. As the cells continued to divide, Lin's colony had reached 331 cells.
There were ten acid-injectors, three hundred excavators, twenty cone-shaped cells, and one observer with vision. After continuous excavation and evolution, there were almost none of the basic cells that he had at the beginning.
Lin discovered a problem.
When the colony was still small, it could increase its intelligence by a lot as long as its population increased slightly. However, as the colony grew larger, the increase in intelligence slowed down.
In terms of numbers, it meant that in a community of 20 cells, each additional cell would give 1 point of Intelligence. In a community of 200 cells, each additional cell would give 1 point of Intelligence.
Why?
Lin often felt that she was lacking in intelligence, and she felt the same way now. She had no idea why.
However, what Lin was most concerned about right now was the fact that she had dug through this enormous piece of food.
After the last layer of white food was dissolved by the acid injector, Lin once again saw the boundless azure sky in front of her.
It was water again.
What was at the end of this water?
Lin originally thought that there would be something interesting under this huge piece of food, but she was disappointed.
She could only continue eating until she finished this piece of food.
Just as Lin was looking at the ocean, something suddenly rushed into her field of vision.
This thing was only about 1% the size of Lin's cell, but it still couldn't escape her sight.
A greyish white color, a long tail, and a spherical head structure.
What is this?
Lin noticed that this thing was following the current to approach one of the excavator cells.
First, it went around the excavator's serrated, relatively hard part, then circled around to the fragile cell membrane behind it, then used its long tail to stab it.
Curiosity drove Lin to keep watching without doing anything.
This thing used its tail to stab a small hole in the cell membrane, then the spherical head of this thing slowly shrunk as a greyish liquid was injected into the cell through its tail.
Pain.
Lin's first reaction was pain, as if a strange liquid had been injected into it. The excavator cell reacted with intense pain.
That's right, I know what this thing is now.
Lin's current size meant that she had enough intelligence to understand this strange thing that was injected into her cell.
This thing was called … a virus. That's right, the spiky ball from before was also a virus, but they weren't the same kind.
Viruses were different from cells, they were strange things, but Lin still didn't know how to understand them in detail.
This virus had a hollow tail, so when it stuck its tail into the cell, it was able to inject some sort of liquid from its head into the cell.
Lin still didn't know what this liquid was, but it clearly wasn't anything good. After all, it was very painful, and Lin didn't know how to describe this phenomenon.
"Infection"
Lin's current understanding was: after a virus infected a cell, it would cause continuous pain until it finally killed the cell, then released a large amount of virus from the dead cell.
This was a very dangerous and troublesome thing.
But this time, Lin wouldn't run away.
Under Lin's command, the 10 acid-injectors surrounded the excavator cell that was infected by the virus.
After a period of evolution, the acid-injectors now had a small hole on the sawtooth tip of their cone-shaped heads, allowing them to spray out a large amount of dissolving liquid at once.
From the outside, it could be seen that the originally transparent cell membrane of the infected Digger's cell had begun to darken. The inside of the cell seemed to be filled with strange white threads and liquid, causing Lin to feel extreme pain. She was slowly losing control of the cell.
But Lin still didn't move, she wanted to witness the entire process.
After a while, Lin had completely lost control of the digger's cell. The cell seemed to have died, as it had turned murky and unclear.
At this point, the cell membrane began to crack open.
This virus didn't cause the cell to explode like the spiky ball from before, but the number of cracks was increasing. Then, a large amount of viruses poured out from the cracks!
This time, there were over a hundred of them.
However, as soon as these viruses appeared, a large amount of acid immediately enveloped them. The acid-injectors had sprayed out such a large amount of dissolving liquid that even if the number of viruses was increased by 10 times, they still wouldn't be able to escape.
The viruses that came into contact with the acid instantly turned into fine powder. These little things were very fragile.
The acid injector continued to spray until the body of the digger behind her was dissolved completely. Only then did Lin give up.
The joy of victory?
This time, the joy wasn't as strong as when she defeated the monster cell, but Lin still felt it.
But it was true, defeating a few weak viruses was nothing to be happy about.