Choice

To gain a foothold in archaeology, studying biology alone was nowhere near enough. One also had to expand their knowledge into geology.

Thanks to what he had known before, Huo Gu was not quite so passive in this unfamiliar place.

He incorporated the volcanic rock into the taproot in order to use this small stone from near the crater to analyze the general elemental proportions of the lava inside the volcano.

He had not used volcanic rock from the coast because seawater would have chemically reacted with the rock to a certain extent, creating the risk of analytical error.

He had not used the rocks at the foot of the volcano for the same reason. Unlike the rainy environment of Cenozoic Earth, because of the volcanic ash, the rainwater of the Hadean Eon was rich in all kinds of chemical substances, and heavy rain was pouring down on those volcanic rocks every moment. Learning the original elemental proportions from those volcanic rocks would be quite difficult.

What was the use of analyzing the elemental proportions of lava?

Once he knew the elemental proportions, he could naturally infer some of the properties of the lava inside the volcano, such as its volatiles, viscosity, and fluidity.

These properties determined in what form the lava accumulated inside the volcano would be released.

If it was rich in silica and volatiles, the lava's temperature would be relatively low, its viscosity high, and its fluidity poor. When the volcano erupted, it would release energy mainly in the form of explosions, extremely violent and savage. It would also release large amounts of volcanic ash, with volcanic bombs spewing out. It would be quite dangerous. If the energy was great enough, it might even be accompanied by a certain degree of shock wave.

If the magma had a low silica content, relatively few volatiles, a high temperature, low viscosity, and high fluidity, then this kind of lava volcano eruption would seem relatively calm. It would be an effusive eruption like a Hawaiian volcano. As long as someone did not have a screw loose and actively stand in the direction of the lava overflow, there basically would not be any casualties.

"So this is why the island's area is relatively large. Although I guessed it early on, I don't think there's any need to be too surprised..."

"But the fluidity of this volcano's lava is much higher than expected. That is worth being happy about."

Highly fluid lava, after cooling and solidifying, formed large lava plateaus and shield volcanoes. When Huo Gu first saw the appearance of this volcano, he had harbored suspicions. Now, from the information he had obtained, he finally got a definite answer.

"High fluidity means that even if this island is an active volcano, it isn't unusable. As long as it can be modified a little..."

His thoughts gradually drifted farther away. Summarizing the information sent back by the two taproots, a three-dimensional projection of this volcano appeared in Huo Gu's mind. Although there was no information about the volcano's interior, he could infer it through its shape. With Huo Gu's accumulated knowledge, this was not anything too difficult.

He sank into thought for a long time, and this state continued until another matter pulled him back from his thoughts to reality.

Climbing the mountain had taken quite a bit of time. During this period, enough organic materials had finally been collected. Huo Gu knew it was time to start designing and creating a new kind of cell-cluster individual.

Huo Gu was used to simplifying problems, then swiftly solving them in a simple and efficient way.

Clearing all the jumbled thoughts from his mind and recalling the various problems the gourd individuals had displayed when he drove the gourd swarm, Huo Gu directly summarized them into one core issue--body size.

It was precisely because their bodies were too small that, in terms of protection, they were so thin and fragile. Just a simple scrape from a stone could cause fatal damage.

With a small body, their load-bearing capacity was naturally small as well. The number of sensory cells they could carry would be low. In other words, the coverage area of the life field would be small.

Of course, the coverage area of the life field could be expanded through individual relays, but this method had an obvious delay. In a complex and changeable environment, it was unreliable.

"Decided! I'll design a sturdy and enormous body, using that super wave as an imaginary opponent..."

"...At the very least, it has to reach the level where it can withstand one hit and still come out completely unscathed!"

A long spine surfaced in his mind.

To design a massive body, the first thing needed was a sturdy skeletal system to support the entire body. A soft-bodied design like the gourds, without even the slightest bit of skeletal support, was definitely unsuitable.

If he really designed it that way, it would just be a lump of soft flesh that had trouble moving.

"Uh... this isn't good. This chain of vertebrae is too heavy. If I add thick outer armor, that will have a huge effect on speed..."

"And I also need to leave as much load capacity as possible to carry a greater number of sensory cells..."

The spine in his thoughts was broken up again and returned to the starting point. At the same time, the problem followed.

"...Then what skeletal design should I use?"

Huo Gu asked himself this, rethinking his countermeasures.

"Maybe..."

A flash of inspiration suddenly struck Huo Gu's mind.

"If I needed to consider species evolution, a spine would naturally be the best choice, but I don't need to consider that, so I can go beyond convention..."

"In nature, the main focus is 'who can live longer,' not 'whose design is more perfect.' In Earth's history, there has never been any shortage of examples where species with complete and complex systems went extinct earlier than species with crude life systems."

After weighing it again and again, Huo Gu finally hardened his heart and made a decision.

"Mm, it's settled, then. I'll choose the 'orthocone nautilus' design."

A long, slender, conical hollow shell surfaced in Huo Gu's mind.

Just like an orthocone nautilus, its interior would rely entirely on a sturdy exoskeleton for support. Though in terms of evolution, it was true that because of this exoskeleton, the route of evolving toward a massive body size would be restricted. The orthocone nautilus went extinct in the species competition of the Cambrian explosion for that very reason.

But that did not matter. Huo Gu was not taking the route of natural selection and evolution, so there was no such restriction. The sturdy exoskeleton was an advantage instead.

Especially with this conical design, resistance in the water would be reduced to the minimum. It was practically a torpedo in the water.

Huo Gu thought of this design because he had just thought of torpedoes.

No matter how powerful a species was, before tools made by humans, it was a joke. Although there were indeed some organisms that could do things human tools temporarily could not, that was only because humans temporarily had no urgent desire in that area and were in no hurry to manufacture them, so those organisms temporarily maintained their advantage.

As the fastest-moving creature in Earth's oceans, the sailfish had a highest recorded speed of 190 kilometers per hour, which converted to a sailing speed of roughly a little over a hundred knots.

Back when Huo Gu was still on Earth, setting aside the torpedoes various countries were still secretly developing, even the known fastest torpedoes could already reach 100 m/s, which was around two hundred knots!