Swimming

As it moved farther from the seafloor, the strange rocks surrounding the cell cluster gradually grew sparser, while the water used as its jet medium was also gradually running out.

At this point, it needed to use inertia to fill its water-storage cavity with water.

"Open the intake valve... Hm?!"

Something Huo Gu had not expected happened.

After drawing in water for a while, the intake pipe actually pressed together and became blocked, completely unable to guide any more water in.

This mishap directly prevented the jet propulsion from continuing, and the cell cluster gradually slowed down.

As its speed fell, the intake returned to its previous state, with the pipes separating again.

"The Bernoulli principle..."

"How did I forget that?"

After watching the entire process of the pipes changing, Huo Gu finally realized where the problem lay.

The Bernoulli principle was a fundamental law of fluid mechanics that applied only to ideal fluids whose viscosity could be ignored and which could not be compressed.

That was, the faster the flow speed, the lower the pressure.

This law could easily be demonstrated through small experiments. For example, if one blew between two sheets of paper, the sheets would press together.

They pressed together because of pressure. Blowing between the sheets caused the air to flow, reducing the pressure in the middle, so the sheets came together.

The same thing had happened inside the intake pipes, except it was not airflow that caused the pressure to drop, but water flow.

"It looks like this intake can't be used..."

To prevent the pipes from pressing together, their walls would need to be thickened, using their structure to resist the pressure...

"But that would also increase useless weight..."

To maintain speed, how to use mass efficiently became Huo Gu's top priority.

It would be great if there were already a passage connecting to the outside that could bring water into the cell cluster...

"Wait, isn't there one right here?"

While wrestling with the problem, Huo Gu's attention settled on the digestive cavity connected to its mouth, which had been divided into six smaller chambers.

Delighted yet somewhat annoyed, Huo Gu muttered to itself.

"Why didn't I think of this sooner?"

The adjustments were nearing their end. Huo Gu sealed off the cell cluster's intake again and connected the water-storage cavity to the digestive cavity instead.

Then, six small valves separated the six small digestive chambers from the large water-storage cavity.

Huo Gu added muscle cells beneath the outer layer of the digestive cavities, allowing them to squeeze water into the water-storage cavity.

Once the digestive cavities had consumed all the microorganisms in the water, they would push the water into the water-storage cavity to serve as jet medium. At the same time, moving quickly would make it easier to harvest microorganisms.

With the adjustments complete, Huo Gu set sail once more.

This time, its route was different from its previous straight vertical ascent. It glided upward at an angle.

Before, Huo Gu had done so only because it needed to quickly escape the volcano's dangerous zone.

In truth, ascending vertically like that was extremely dangerous. One mistake, and the difference in water pressure inside and outside the cell cluster could cause the entire thing to burst.

As it climbed higher, Huo Gu's field of view gradually expanded. Star-like points of light and plumes of smoke soaring upward vividly showed it just how many active volcanoes lay on the bottom of these waters.

"My God..."

"Even if the water here isn't boiling, it's probably around seventy or eighty degrees, right?"

It continued rising. Due to the murkiness of the water, Huo Gu could gradually see only scattered points of light. Later, it could see nothing at all. The surroundings became pitch-black, utterly empty.

Without the faint light from the volcanoes, Huo Gu could see nothing.

"Good thing I anticipated this possibility early on and made a backup preparation."

Huo Gu quietly congratulated itself on its foresight. Its perspective changed once again, and the entire world seemed to be divided by crisscrossing fine lines—magnetic field lines.

What gave Huo Gu this ability was the minute amount of magnetite hidden within every cell, commonly known as a magnet.

However, what happened next completely exceeded Huo Gu's expectations.

The magnetic field lines trembled wildly as though they had gone mad, gradually changing. Huo Gu watched it all in utter disbelief.

There were still crisscrossing magnetic field lines, but their arrangement was completely different from before.

After a long while, Huo Gu finally forced out a sentence.

"...Where the hell is this place?"

The magnetic field was chaotic. Huo Gu quickly summarized the phenomenon and reached that conclusion. It also meant that magnetic sensing was utterly useless here.

Huo Gu had been completely confident in magnetic sensing. It was only the simple principle of a compass, so it had not thought to test it back then.

Thus, only now did it discover that the magnetic field where it was located was chaotic.

"This place is underwater, after all. As long as I keep moving upward, I can't be wrong... right?"

That was true enough, but Huo Gu could always faintly sense an unease of unknown origin.

Writing it off as a psychological aftereffect of escaping the volcano, Huo Gu made up its mind and continued gliding upward.

With the digestive cavities providing a relay, its jet propulsion gained lasting endurance. As long as the microorganisms in the water did not run out and there was enough protein and amino acids, the cell cluster could keep moving this way for days without issue.

Huo Gu glided upward for who knew how long and who knew how far. With no reference points or timekeeping device, it could not give an exact measure for many things.

At this moment, there was still nothing around it, but the changes had become especially obvious. The darkness was no longer almost completely black; there was now a certain degree of visibility, and Huo Gu could feel changes in the currents through its cilia.

The water was gradually becoming neutral. For acidophilic bacteria, it was practically the end of the world, but for Huo Gu, it was not much of a problem. With appropriate adjustments to the cell membranes, it could avoid the membranes becoming inactive.

"It must be very 'lively' up there. Perhaps I should be more careful..."

The farther upward it glided, the more Huo Gu could sense that there was a great deal of activity. The currents before had merely trickled along, or sometimes there had been no current at all, but now they were surging violently.

Using shifts in its fins, Huo Gu carefully rode the currents. No matter what, it had to take a look at what was above. Risking danger to satisfy its curiosity had always been its way.

If it had not already been an old bag of bones when it was human, it would have personally boarded a rocket and gone to the Mars base to see those humanoid skeletons with its own eyes.

Rising with the current and adding force upon force, the cell cluster seized the instant two raging waves collided and burst through the surface in one mighty surge!