Emerald

When Huo Gu first began thinking about the problem of the "field source," the first thing he thought of was the trace amounts of magnetite contained in the cells.

Magnetite was commonly known as "lodestone," and it constantly emitted a magnetic field. Add to that the fact that cells originally contained very little of this substance, and it fit the earlier inference that "life fields are easily disturbed by external interference."

But the results of the experiment were telling Huo Gu that he was wrong!

The true face of the field source—"beryllium-aluminum silicate mineral."

Just hearing that name, many people would find it unfamiliar, but if it was called by its common name, it would definitely ring a bell—"emerald," those gemstones that had once been worn as ornaments by princes and nobles.

"Why is it this substance? Can this substance form a 'field' too?"

The result had suddenly turned into a situation Huo Gu could not understand. In his impression, something like an emerald, aside from its ornamental value, seemed to be useless, and he had never heard that it could emit some kind of field.

At this point, Huo Gu had already realized something: his knowledge was no longer enough to help him solve the problem before him.

A human's energy was limited in the end, and every discipline was vast and profound. Although he had been a professor, the field he had focused on was ultimately archaeology. His knowledge of physics and chemistry was only the general knowledge he had touched on through archaeology.

"All right, I'll set this 'mystery of the emerald' aside for now and solve the easier problem first."

Huo Gu had originally hoped to find the thing that allowed him to maintain his thoughts, then understand its principles and achieve cross-cluster networking. That way, as long as he scattered countless cell clusters across every corner of the planet, he would no longer need to worry about sudden geological activity wiping him out together with the cell cluster he resided in.

"But it doesn't make much difference. Although I haven't found the reason that thing produces a 'field,' the result is still acceptable. At least I've found what the medium linking cell clusters to each other actually is."

"In that case, I only need to increase the output power of the 'field' to mask the interference and issue commands to distant cells... huh?"

Just as Huo Gu was planning his next move, a crisis affecting the entire cell cluster suddenly erupted without warning.

The first to go wrong were the inner-wall cells inside the digestive cavity and the internal cells near the inner-wall cells. One after another, they entered a state of death.

Attack-type microorganisms?

That was what Huo Gu instinctively thought of.

There was no other reason. He had absolute confidence that those microorganisms could never break through the completely sealed cell walls of the wall cells. The wall cells relied on the protein channels of neighboring internal cells to maintain cellular activity.

This could also explain why the first to die were the inner-wall cells of the digestive cavity and the internal cells connected to them.

The only place where the entire cell cluster exchanged matter with the outside world was the digestive cavity. The internal cells used the larger gaps between the inner-wall cells to absorb amino acids inside the digestive cavity, providing nutrients for the entire cell cluster.

However, Huo Gu immediately discarded this conjecture afterward.

All microorganisms relied on proteins and amino acids as the basic units for constructing themselves. Considering the possible existence of extreme acidophiles, the digestive fluid Huo Gu had chosen at the start was enzymes, a lethal weapon against microorganisms with proteins as the basis of life.

And the gaps between the inner-wall cells were absolutely impossible to invade. That was not only the entrance through which internal cells absorbed proteins, but also the outlet through which digestive enzymes were released. In the entire digestive cavity, the enzyme concentration was highest there.

Aside from cells like wall cells, which were completely specialized and sealed off, no microorganism could withstand decomposition by digestive enzymes for long.

But if the cause was not microorganisms, then what had caused the death of the inner-wall cells and neighboring internal cells?

Because he had been focused on studying the source of the cell-cluster network earlier, Huo Gu only noticed the cells' abnormal state once they started dying. He did not know the specific process that had occurred.

Huo Gu roughly observed the internal cells around the inner wall as a whole, but did not find the cause.

The material exchange between the digestive cavity and the outside world absolutely could not stop. Just as a person needed to breathe, every cell in the cell cluster was counting on the "nutrients" gathered and integrated by the digestive cavity to maintain its own cellular activity.

Immediately afterward, Huo Gu issued a new command to the cell cluster.

"Cells divide. Repair the inner wall of the cavity and replace the dead cells."

After consuming a certain amount of protein reserves, the inner-wall cells and internal cells replaced the positions of the dead cells, completing the repair of the digestive cavity and continuing the operation of resource collection.

However, the same thing soon happened again. The internal cells engaged in gathering amino acids and proteins through the gaps between the wall cells rapidly began to lose activity in their cell membranes, repeating the fate of the previous cells. Before long, the internal cells died again, and the wall cells connected to them also followed in their footsteps after losing their supply of nutrients.

Huo Gu watched the whole process coldly. The cells' deaths did not make him panic much. Rather, everything that had happened was something he had deliberately brought about, all for the sake of understanding why the cells were dying.

"External factors caused the cell membrane to 'denature'... hm, it's a water problem."

The cells of the cell cluster had originally lived in the waters near a submarine volcano. That stretch of water was hot and acidic, a paradise for acidophiles and a hell for non-acidophiles.

Now, Huo Gu had led the cell cluster away from those waters and into a neutral body of water. As a cell cluster of acidophiles, it naturally could not accept this environment. After the internal cells' membranes came into contact with the neutral aqueous solution, their proteins "denatured" and lost their original activity. That was only natural.

The method to solve this problem was also very simple. He only needed to make some slight adjustments to the properties of the cell membrane. Whether acidophiles or alkaliphiles, the cytoplasmic solution inside them was neutral; they survived in such extreme environments by relying on the cell membrane to regulate liquids.

The modification process was not complicated. Thanks to the cells' inherent self-replication, Huo Gu very quickly obtained a batch of internal cells that could survive in neutral waters.

But the result of implementation was not as simple as Huo Gu had imagined. Under his stunned gaze, the newly constructed inner wall still collapsed just like before.

"Why is this happening?"

"I clearly adjusted the mechanism of the cell wall, so why are the proteins still 'denaturing'?"

Suddenly, Huo Gu noticed the tiny crystal particles floating in the digestive cavity solution.

"Salt... wait, could it be!?"

The cell cluster's full 360-degree all-around field of view began to mobilize.