Chapter 680: The Child |
Just as the New Alliance’s Biological Research Institution initially suspected, the forests of Baiyue Province are the child born of Gaia and Earth.
The forest didn’t simply refer to the trees within it. It also included the flowers, grasses, insects, birds, beasts, and even the humans who once lived there. The Hive that descended upon this land opened its genetic library and granted all life on this land the ability to exchange genetic material with one another.
Of course, the exchange was not a chaotic, ruleless transfer. Rather, within the framework of Earth’s natural selection, the most exceptional genetic fragments, and the combinations between them, emerge through evolution, flourishing through extreme survival-of-the-fittest pressures and constant trial and error.
In just two centuries, they have traversed a path that Earth’s ecosystem would originally have taken two million, even twenty million years to complete, or might never have completed at all.
The rustling of leaves and the chirping of insects echoed in their ears.
Hearing the astonishing conclusion, Ample Time stood stunned for a long while, his throat bobbing slightly as he swallowed. “… This is fusion?”
Chen Yutong nodded.
Old White, standing nearby, couldn’t help but press further. “Then what about the people here? Did they also undergo that… fusion? Did they merge with the DNA of other species?”
Chen Yutong nodded again. “Most likely, yes. There are fewer survivors in this region compared to Clearspring City, but there had to have been some who stayed behind.”
As if she had anticipated the question, Chen Yutong patiently explained, “Individual evolution and population-level evolution operate on entirely different dimensions. Faced with a drastically deteriorating environment, some people chose to leave, while others chose to stay. The survivors in the southern seas are simply those who left, they no longer participate in the evolutionary processes taking place in this rainforest.”
Old White frowned slightly. “Then what about the ones who stayed?”
“They ‘disappeared’ in the course of evolution, or rather, they were assimilated, transformed into other forms of existence.” As she spoke, Chen Yutong crouched down and gently plucked a blade of royal bamboo grass from the roadside. After standing up, she handed it to him.
Taking the leaf, Old White looked at her in confusion.
“This is?”
“A blade of royal bamboo grass,” Chen Yutong said, looking at the leaf in his hand. “We discovered fragments of human mitochondrial DNA within the mitochondria of cells taken from a sample of this plant.”
Human mitochondria?!
Both Old White and Ample Time showed expressions of shock.
How the hell was that even possible?!
“… We are still unable to trace how this fragment of DNA, originally belonging to humans, migrated into the royal bamboo grass. It may have transferred through the food chain, or via some intermediary microorganisms acting as a bridge, or perhaps both. In subsequent investigations, we quickly found similar phenomena in mutated spiders, lizards, and even snails. They all contained components of humans as well as other species.”
Looking at the two of them standing there dumbfounded, Chen Yutong spoke softly. “This is Gaia. She handed Earth a key and unlocked the constraints on our evolution, the lock on the evolution of all living things.”
Ample Time stared at her, completely baffled, yet somehow feeling like he understood a little. It reminded him of a game he had once played, Stellaris.
There was an ascension perk in it he rarely picked: “Cross-Species Compatibility,” the final step of genetic ascension.
Not that the path was weak, in fact, it was arguably the most overpowered route in the game.
Because once unlocked, it allowed players to perform all sorts of war-crime-level manipulations. By continuously placing species with different traits on the same planet and forcing them to hybridize, the resulting offspring would inherit one positive trait from each parent, unconstrained by genetic modification limits, allowing traits to stack infinitely.
With enough repetition, a player could eventually create a super-species that possessed every positive trait in the game.
It was a walking bundle of buffs.
Of course, the downside was that the species interface would devolve into a chaotic palette.
Hybrids breeding with other hybrids would result in bizarre names and appearances.
Who knew if the computer’s CPU would crash, but a human brain’s CPU definitely would.
Why should he bother with it?
Even without stacking buffs to absurd levels, the game’s underdeveloped AI opponents were no match for the player anyway. So most players stopped short of the final step, preserving species purity and immersion.
A minority, after achieving the ultimate goal, a super-being stacked with countless buffs, would gather all the hybrid byproducts onto a single planet and wipe them out in one go.
The situation on Gaia’s planet resembled a civilization that had unlocked Cross-Species Compatibility. For some reason, they had not only achieved cross-species integration, but through unrestricted genetic exchange, had fused all organic life on the planet into one.
To outsiders, they appeared to be a unified consciousness. But upon closer inspection, it was not a conventional hive mind, it was countless minds merged into one!
It was the whole, and the whole was it.
That civilization, now dissolved into formlessness, might be far more advanced than humanity could imagine.
As for why their footsteps had not spread across the stars, or why they had lost their original form, it was simply a matter of differing pursuits.
The stars in the sky are not all the same color, after all. Not every civilization seeks expansion.
Some civilizations may exist solely to build a wonder, or compose a poem. And perhaps their poem had already been completed long ago, that existence humans called Gaia.
The colonists had returned the Hive carrying that poem to Earth, and the Hives scattered across Baiyue Province were fragments of that poem.
Ample Time vaguely felt that he was getting closer to the truth behind the Three Year War, the main storyline that had been seeded since the launch of Wasteland Online.
Looking at Chen Yutong, Old White still wore a completely bewildered expression. “But… how is this even possible?”
The prevailing view in biology is that horizontal gene transfer is largely limited to microorganisms and rarely occurs between eukaryotic organisms.
That was also why, after the early microbial stage, life’s evolution on Earth generally followed a branching, tree-like pattern. If a river separates a population of rats, mountains on one side, forest on the other, and after millions of years the river dries up and the two populations meet again, reproductive isolation would have formed between them, effectively making them different species.
One could even say that isolation was a necessary condition for the emergence of new species. Most biology textbooks and popular science materials use such simple models when explaining geographic and reproductive isolation.
Yet she was telling him that the barriers between species had been broken?!
He might not be a biologist, but he had at least gone through nine years of compulsory education. And honestly, what she was saying didn’t even require that.
He could believe that horses and donkeys could mate, but ants and trees, spiders and cockroaches… How could such bizarre combinations possibly come together?!
Seeing the confusion on his face, Chen Yutong pressed a finger to her temple and said helplessly, “… I can roughly guess what you’re thinking, reproductive isolation between species, right?”
Old White nodded. “Exactly.”
Chen Yutong continued patiently, “Generally speaking, yes. But reproduction isn’t the only way genes can spread. Take Earth as an example, icefish and herring are unrelated cold-water fish, yet the antifreeze protein gene from herring appears in the genetic sequence of icefish. This phenomenon is known as horizontal gene transfer.”
“According to literature from the Prosperity Era, this isn’t limited to fish, similar cases have been observed in reptiles, birds, and mammals. So, before the war, the academic consensus was that evolution is not a perfect tree. Some branches are connected by fine threads.”
“And what Gaia did was transform those threads, once insignificant in evolution, into bridges connecting species, turning Earth’s tree-like evolutionary diagram into a ‘network’ similar to Gaia’s.”
This time, Old White held his head in pain. “So… we’ve joined this glorious evolution too?”
Chen Yutong nodded, looking toward the dense rainforest in the distance. “Yes. The genes we carry will also enter this forest in some form. Microorganisms everywhere will break down our waste, hair, even our corpses, these are all entry points. But this is integration on a macroscopic level. On a microscopic level, as long as we aren’t eaten by the local mutants and turned into fertilizer, we won’t ‘disappear’ into this rainforest.”
After thinking for a long time, Ample Time suddenly asked, “What if we leave this forest?”
Chen Yutong looked at him. “Nothing will happen, just like the survivors who escaped to the islands. The genes they carry no longer participate in the rainforest’s evolution.”
“In fact, over the past two centuries, mutants have constantly left this forest while new ones have entered. Some populations thrived here, while others contributed their DNA and vanished.”
“Abstractly speaking, this forest is like an early-stage Gaia layered on top of Earth’s natural laws. Every organism here is a sub-entity, and together they form an abstract Hive. As for the original, physical Hive, we’re still searching for it.”
“… How is something like this even possible?” Old White muttered, still stuck on the question.
Seeing him stubbornly obsessing over it, Chen Yutong sighed but answered patiently, “That’s exactly what we’re researching, including why this phenomenon is confined to this province and hasn’t spread elsewhere… Don’t rush it.”
After a pause, she looked at Ample Time. “Also, the self-healing phenomenon you observed earlier is based on the principles I just described.”
“With genes freely exchanging between species and constantly selecting for stronger traits, the organisms here, plants and animals alike, producers and consumers, possess extremely strong vitality and nutrient accumulation capabilities. Otherwise, they’d quickly become cannon fodder, species that contributed a few gene fragments and disappeared.”
“In such a highly competitive environment, once a physical vacuum appears, it is rapidly occupied by other species.”
Ample Time asked as he felt a headache forming, “Is there any solution?”
Chen Yutong replied, “It’s actually quite simple, just maintain control over the area. For example, the ground beneath your feet doesn’t grow dense grass because people frequently pass through it. Even paving it with concrete can last a long time, though maintenance costs may be higher.”
Ample Time immediately followed up, “What about areas that aren’t frequently active?”
“Then… there’s no real solution,” Chen Yutong said helplessly. “Even a Shilong City, which once existed, couldn’t resist this overwhelming force of nature. Life here tolerates no waste whatsoever. You best find ways to make use of any land you develop.”
Ample Time gave a bitter smile. “And bear the high maintenance costs, right?”
The infrastructure of French Fry Harbor was entirely funded by the players and the New Alliance wasn’t going to pay for its roads. He had to carefully consider the balance between income and expenditure.
And it wasn’t just about money.
From a macro perspective, money is merely a tool for balancing logistics and supply-demand relationships. A negative asset doesn’t just show up as losses on financial statements, it also wastes manpower and resources on meaningless efforts.
Chen Yutong looked at him helplessly and sighed, “Maintaining the original ecological landscape might not be a bad idea. There’s no need to make every settlement the same. Why not explore a development model suited to Baiyue Province? That’s the only advice I can give.”
At that moment, she suddenly thought of something. “Oh right, you’ve been researching how to use slime molds in construction, haven’t you? You could try bio-self-healing materials. They might be perfect for this environment. As for low-utilization land, it’s better to preserve the forest’s natural state, ”
At that moment, Old White, who had been deep in thought, suddenly interrupted. “It’s not like there’s no solution.”
Both of them turned to look at him, and Ample Time immediately asked, “What solution?”
“For areas we can’t develop yet, why not plant some tropical crops to occupy the land? Like rubber or cotton. Didn’t the shelter produce some high-yield cotton seeds a long time ago?”
Old White glanced toward the tribe of Moonfolk in the eastern camp and continued, “Just like back in Clearspring City, we reclaim the land and contract it out to them to farm. As long as something is growing there, it should be fine, right?”
Maintaining cotton fields would cost far less than maintaining concrete, and the crops could even generate profit. Combined with the land’s apparent growth speed +n% buff and extremely high soil fertility, they might even get three or four harvests a year.
He had given up trying to understand the game’s mechanics scientifically, better to think in terms of game logic instead.
Chen Yutong’s eyes lit up as well. “Exactly… that’s a great idea. It’s basically what I was thinking, just replace wild plants with economic crops.”
Ample Time frowned slightly. “But wouldn’t that introduce more genes into the system and make things even more complex?”
Seeing his concern, Old White shrugged helplessly. “… We’ve been here for so long, do you really think a couple more chromosomes will make a difference?”
Ample Time froze, suddenly realizing he had asked a rather stupid question, overlooking the difference in scale between variables and the whole. Not to mention metabolites, the number of corpses they had left in the forest alone far exceeded a few cotton seeds. And besides, the rainforest didn’t become like this overnight, what hadn’t it already seen?
Rubbing his forehead, he said with a wry smile, “Fair point…”
