Will to Survive

After pondering for a long time, Huo Gu still made that choice—to create macroscopic life in the true sense!

The rhizomes grew and spread toward the passage connected to the ocean. Compared with the rhizomes spreading in other directions, this process was extremely slow. The resistance caused by the seawater pouring in was the greatest difficulty in growing upward. Every rhizome had to grow a large number of rootlets and sink them deep into the rock wall to ensure it would not be washed back by the seawater.

Hard objects caught in the vortex were also an obstacle to the rhizomes' spread, such as gravel, stones, shards of glass, Titanium Snails that had lost their footing, and so on. Under the acceleration provided by the vortex, they would strike the rock wall at fourteen kilometers per hour. Against them, the rhizomes' epidermis was like cheese against a hot knife; it had barely any defensive power.

For this, Huo Gu had no choice but to thicken and reinforce the rhizomes specially.

On the other hand, Huo Gu began constructing the specific model framework for designing macroscopic life in its mind. First came the core, like the foundation of a skyscraper or the keel of a giant steel ship, an absolutely indispensable component.

What was the core of macroscopic life?

It was the carrier of thought, in other words, the brain—the dwelling place of life, this phenomenon that fed on entropy.

Of course, it could not be a human brain with a computational capacity of 1x10^30 operations per second, nor could it reach the level of storing one hundred trillion pieces of information. It was only the most primitive and simple intelligent organ, capable of autonomously responding to external changes.

In truth, in essence, every cell and every microorganism had this self-feedback function. Though they had no neurons, through ion channels formed by proteins inside the cell, they could still possess the behavior of making subjective responses to the outside world.

Ion channels were also the key means by which neurons communicated and sent signals. They allowed information to pass between nerve cells. This was a bit like electric charge moving through a wire; every response made by the brain was based on this mode of communication.

In a certain sense, neurons were an upgraded version based on these ion channels. The electrons carrying information that could be transmitted per unit distance and time had increased exponentially by orders of magnitude, giving the feeling of ordinary broadband being upgraded into fiber-optic broadband.

What Huo Gu had to do was merely enlarge the intracellular template, move the microscopic structure into the macroscopic world and make it an organ, then improve its original performance. Aside from minor adjustments to small details, that was roughly the process.

But things were not so simple. Just like now, Huo Gu had encountered a problem that left it completely helpless.

"An intelligent organ really isn't a problem, but... how am I supposed to make the designed macroscopic creature understand the concept of 'I'?"

"I" was the foundation of thought. Extended from the concept of "I," emotions such as fear, hunger, anger, liking, pleasure, and so on would appear. It was the beginning of understanding and thought, even for beasts that drank blood and ate raw meat.

However, making the manufactured macroscopic life become aware of the concept of "I" was an extremely difficult matter for Huo Gu, because it had no knowledge in this area. The humans of the past had not had it either. The conscious concept of "I" had still been in the stage of research and exploration.

Clearly, this path led nowhere.

Huo Gu reorganized its thoughts. It needed to find a new design approach.

"Life is a phenomenon. In order for this phenomenon to be maintained, it needs to take in entropy reduction from the outside world, so the entropy inside it remains constant or changes very little, while external entropy increase intensifies..."

"From the first point, this concept can be extended: 'In order to exist, life can do anything.' This concept can explain why life fears death. This is the root of the 'will to survive.'"

"This desire stands above every emotion except the concept of 'I.' It is the instinct among instincts. It is precisely because of this that life on Earth was able to pass on its flame for billions of years."

After sorting through point after point, Huo Gu suddenly realized something. The primal force that drove life constantly forward—those two words rapidly enlarged in its sea of thought: desire.

"...Maybe I don't necessarily have to make them become aware of 'I' first. Even if they can't meet the most basic requirement of drinking blood and eating raw meat, it doesn't matter. Fundamentally, what I need is for them to work actively, not 'intelligence' for engaging in mental activity."

"So I can use desire, the will to survive..."

Its train of thought gradually grew clear, and Huo Gu began fitting this idea into the design.

"That's right, just like a so-called symbiotic relationship. I can weaken the stomachs of the microbial Collectors, making them able to digest only a specific type of amino acid. This way, the collected organic materials will essentially be useless to them."

"And the production of this specific type of amino acid will be handed over to the rhizome system. In this way, in order to survive, those Collectors of organic materials will have to constantly provide organic materials to the rhizome system."

"The feasibility is extremely high. There are many examples on Earth, such as bees. When they collect nectar, they also become stained with pollen. Using this method, they complete pollination between flowers."

For the individuals collecting organic materials, Huo Gu chose Gourd as the template. The part where the brain existed was placed by Huo Gu in the area that had originally held sensory cells. The other functional components remained as before, except that an additional stomach appeared at the front end of the water storage cavity, and the absorption by the inner cell membranes was also restricted and filtered.

The moment the design was completed, a thick sense of guilt suddenly welled up in Huo Gu. What it was doing seemed very much like the slave owners of the old feudal era...

Huo Gu hurriedly waved away this utterly awful thought.

"No, how could I be that kind of villain?"

"At most, this is just a company operating model. You have to work to get paid; the boss isn't some god who can create something from nothing. At the very least, slave owners wouldn't care whether slaves lived or died, and would even use them for entertainment. On my side, there's medical insurance. If any of them gets hurt or sick, I'll provide them with the best medical service. Even human society doesn't have this kind of welfare, so how could it possibly be the same?"

Even though it knew only it itself could hear it, Huo Gu still defended itself this way.

The first Collector sample was squeezed out from the flesh cavity of the conical organism.

The Collector individual that had just emerged was very small, roughly one-tenth the size of an adult's palm. It also did not move at all, looking as if Huo Gu's design had failed.

Huo Gu was not anxious. It released a tiny bit of the specially supplied amino acid into the water, and the Collector that sensed these amino acids immediately became active.

It clumsily waved the fins on both sides and, after exerting every last ounce of strength, finally completed the first feeding behavior of its life.

And the Collector's performance also meant that there had been no mistake in Huo Gu's design approach.