Setting Up the Base

With a clear goal in mind, one of the Gourds living at the rear of the Titanium Snail cautiously left the area covered by the underwater curtain.

As it moved through the water, it stayed close to the seafloor and followed the currents as much as possible. That way, even a submarine equipped with military sonar couldn't detect the Gourd moving through the water.

Huo Gu had no idea whether the unknown presence would discover it. This was as stealthy as he could make it.

Propelled by the current, the Gourd traveled to a point one nautical mile from the Titanium Snail. This was the edge of the Titanium Snail's life field. Any farther, and Huo Gu would no longer be able to issue commands to the Gourd.

The area the Gourd reached was a sandy stretch of seafloor, with no large rocks in sight. It was the result of repeated erosion by underwater currents. It would take a very long time before this planet could have fine sand like the beaches on Earth.

The splitting began. Under Huo Gu's command, the cells in the Gourd divided, increasing its number from one to two.

After splitting, the original Gourd sank onto the sandy seafloor. This was to minimize the current's effect on its position. The Gourd's carbon-nanofiber coating meant it didn't need to worry about the coarse sand scraping its skin.

The Gourd flapped its side fins, using the sand to bury itself and hide.

The newly split Gourd continued on, heading farther away.

Whenever it encountered an underwater volcano or island, it veered slightly off course. It didn't follow a perfectly straight line, but no matter how much it changed direction, it always kept moving away from the Titanium Snail's hiding place.

A long time passed. Huo Gu wasn't sure exactly how long; that was simply how it felt. By then, the command chain had stretched hundreds of nautical miles, and the delay in receiving commands had grown increasingly severe.

"This should be far enough... Even if humans sent out satellites, without knowing about life fields, there's no way they could follow the trail back to me from this distance."

That was what Huo Gu said, but out of caution, it extended the distance by another hundred nautical miles or so.

The farthest Gourd stopped splitting like the ones before it. Instead, under Huo Gu's command, it altered its gene expression sequence.

The Gourd sank to the seafloor, settling in a rocky area scattered with rubble. Just like the coast of the volcanic island, an underwater volcano lay nearby.

The Gourd that had sunk to the seafloor no longer retained its gourd shape. It became a ball of flesh that continued to swell and pulse, like a heart beating on its own.

The sphere grew larger and larger. Its interior was no longer solid but filled with liquid, and through the membrane, a small embryo could just barely be seen at its center.

To maintain its structural strength, the expanding sphere instinctively thickened its walls. In the stable environment inside, the embryo developed its shape and internal organs.

At last, the fully developed creature inside pierced the sphere from within with its titanium-alloy fangs.

The creature stretched out its body, and something that was both like a living organism and unlike one appeared on the seafloor.

The massive life-form was about the size of a small hill and shaped like a cone. Its base had a radius of ten meters, and it stood fourteen meters tall. Six enormous mouths at its base rested against the seafloor, and another gaping mouth sat at the top. Its conical body was covered with countless tiny pores and rows of titanium-alloy spikes.

Its core sensory cells were buried underground. From the outset, Huo Gu had never intended for this giant to move through the water.

A titanium-alloy skeleton gave it enough strength to withstand the pressure at the bottom of the sea while supporting its enormous body. Its skin was a composite of carbon nanofibers and multiple layers of protein, with titanium-alloy scales covering the outermost layer.

At the creature's command, the monster's body began to pulse. Its upper mouth sucked in seawater, which then flowed out through the six mouths at its base.

That simple process alone allowed it to collect a large amount of protein.

Rhizomes began growing from the monster's base. These Rhizomes differed from those on the volcanic island: none resembled a main root. All were of uniform thickness and intertwined into a mesh that spread across the seafloor.

Magnified enough to see the cellular structure, one would find that these Rhizomes were made of countless smaller Rhizomes woven together. Each small Rhizome had a carbon-nanotube core, and each had a different resource affinity. This meant the newly designed Rhizome system could process every type of resource while also being even stronger.

Most importantly, these Rhizomes constantly produced oxygen, harvested the volcano's heat or the warmth of the water, and reacted with acidic and alkaline elements in the water.

This design was meant to protect the Rhizome system from microbial attacks.

High concentrations of oxygen could destroy cell membranes. In an era when most microbes were anaerobic, oxygen was an exceptionally powerful weapon. More importantly, it was easy to produce, with carbon dioxide everywhere in the atmosphere.

Microbes killed by the oxygen would sink and then be collected by the Rhizome system.

Of course, this was a secondary function. The primary purpose was to absorb compounds from the area it covered and transport them to the cone-shaped organism. The two functions supported each other.

Nourished by the cone-shaped organism's proteins, the Rhizome system spread rapidly, covering the waters within a six-kilometer radius of the organism.

Meanwhile, the cone-shaped organism used its surplus organic material to produce large numbers of Gourds. Under Huo Gu's command, the Gourd swarm traveled to the edge of the life field and buried itself there, transforming into cone-shaped organisms.

The area under its control expanded explosively, growing at a geometric rate. The Rhizome system didn't spare volcanoes, either. Except for places of extreme heat, such as volcanic vents, it covered the entire area.

Huo Gu had considered sustainability from the beginning. If it acted too recklessly, the planet's ecosystem, still in its infancy, might perish prematurely. Huo Gu didn't want that to happen.

As a researcher of ancient life, learning to respect it was the most basic ethical principle.

The Rhizome system's metabolism was faster than that of the previous generation. Its individual cells had very short lifespans. After dying, they gradually accumulated into a muddy organic substance—an extremely nutrient-rich delicacy for microbes.

When the covered area had expanded to more than two hundred nautical miles, it finally attracted the attention of that unknown presence once again.