I Reincarnated into a Single-celled Organism! - Chapter 183

“Hah… ahn…”

It was late at night, and Mara was covered in a sheen of sweat, eyes closed, grunting and whimpering. She had taken the pill and fallen into a fitful sleep.

We weren’t in her bedroom though. Abigail had taken Mara to a stone platform located at the back of the mansion. I had seen it before, but it wasn’t around the guest mansion, so I only took note of it. It was made of a smooth polished rock, and it appeared to have various words written on it.

“A tribulation shouldn’t occur indoors, or it will destroy whatever ceiling is in its way. When someone is ready to evolve, we take them to a platform like this,” Abigail had explained. “The circuits help navigate extra energy, allowing the process to go smoother.”

So, they weren’t words at all, but circuits. Now that she mentioned it, I think I recognized some of the symbols from some electrical plans. At that moment, Mara let out a groan. Abigail was sitting next to where Mara had been placed, and she gently stroked her hair.

“Is that how it usually goes?” I asked.

“For those who take medication, as far as I know.” Abigail dipped a clean white cloth into a bowl of water she had brought to the platform and then dabbed Mara’s forehead.

“You don’t know?” I raised an eyebrow.

“If Mara absorbed mana naturally, her evolution would be a bit more peaceful. However, that pill is rapidly filling her body with mana without giving her body time to adapt.”

“Is there any danger?” I asked.

“There can be…” she responded. “However, this medicine is considered quite gentle. This is why it can be used on mortals. As your level of evolution increases, so do the associated dangers with medication. I’m surprised you don’t know this.”

“I only became an alchemist a week ago.” She laughed softly at my response.

I glanced over at Abigail. Kneeling beneath the pale silver glow of the moon, she looked a bit like an ethereal spirit – serene, untouchable, and breathtaking in her quiet grace. Her long brown hair was pulled back into an elegant bun, but some loose strands shimmered as they caught the moonlight. The soft fabric of her robes fluttered in the night breeze, embroidered with various floral patterns.

I hadn’t seriously paid much attention to her before, but as I took in her appearance, her face turned slightly upward and her eyes half-lidded in thought, I couldn’t help but appreciate her intelligence and delicate strength. Perhaps, it wasn’t such a bad thing that I was engaged to her. She seemed to feel my gaze, and she glanced up, her soft eyelashes fluttering as our eyes met.

Her cheeks turned slightly pink. “Spirit, I-”

She froze suddenly and turned her head. I also noticed the same thing through my sentinels. Pierre was standing a distance away. He made a gesture to which Abigail nodded. I knew why he was there too. A guest had arrived at the mansion.

“It appears you have something to take care of.”

She looked at me, her expression serious. “Every evolution needs a Darwin Protector.”

“I won’t let anything happen to Mara. I promise.”

She slowly stood up and then nodded. “Thank you, Spirit.”

With that, she turned around and left. I found I couldn’t tear my gaze away. I watched as she walked away, her robes trailing behind her and the silver mist swirling around her feet. Pierre whispered a few words to her, and the pair looked back at me once before turning to leave. She slipped away, her silhouette vanishing in the dark and I returned to my vigil over Mara. I couldn’t help at the name she gave this duty. Darwin Protector? It seemed to be a suitable name.

Darwin was the scientist who first proposed evolution through natural selection. His name has forever been linked with evolution and natural selection. There were things like the Darwin Awards, a made-up award for those who died incredibly foolish deaths. Why couldn’t a Darwin Protector be there to prevent the foolish death of an evolving mortal? I didn’t know how Darwin ended up in this world, but I was no stranger to names like Schrodinger or Nikola.

I sliced with my hand, cutting down a nearby tree before sitting on the stump. I began to wait. Mara was still fight her battle, occasionally whimpering or mumbling. She was steadily accumulating energy. She passed the energy level of a paragon, but she had yet to reach the activation energy level. As soon as she had enough energy, her evolution would begin, and her energy level would drop back down to a level one evolved. Then, she’d need to build up energy again, breaking through level after level until she was ready to reach the next stage of evolution.

If she found herself without enough energy and failed to pass the activation threshold, then she would experience a backlash and fall back to the ninth level of the mortal realm. Hopefully, the pill I gave her was sufficient that this wouldn’t happen, and Abigail had also used her resources to prepare Mara in every other way. In truth, I had little experience evolving. Although I had gone through countless evolutions, I had never needed to deal with tribulations or bottlenecks.

However, Abigail had given me a few books on evolution that hadn’t been in their library. These explained a lot of the points I hadn’t understood. For example, I learned that my evolution had only brought me back to the stage of being human. I wasn’t the only being to ever do this. Certain sage beasts could also evolve into a human form. They maintained their beast form, but could also appear human. Although I was human, I could also warp my body into any shape I wanted per my original single-celled nature.

These sage beasts who evolved into humans also had advantages. They had higher stats than a normal human and were generally considered dangerous. They had a name for them too. They called them Transapiens. A Prime Transapien evolved once into a human, a Secondary Transapien took two evolutions, and a Tertiary Transapien took three. The book affirmed that Quaternary Transapiens, those that took four evolutions, did not exist. It acknowledged that such an existence was theoretically possible, but even a Tertiary was nearly unheard of.

Thus, my official designation would be a Nonary Transapien, although such a being shouldn’t be possible. Simply put, one cannot accumulate energy and grow to understand the universe without some basic level of intelligence. The order of biology in this world dictated that anything greater than a fourth-order species would be too simple to ever be able to have a human form. It also mentioned that something that is many orders away from humans could just as easily evolve into something else. The books also suggested that evolutionary pathways weren’t limited, and I could have evolved some other way had I wanted. It was likely because I had the memories from my previous life as a human that I ended up evolving this way.

Interestingly enough, humans only had one evolutionary path. The Evolved to Lord path seemed set in stone. Was this because humans were too rigid in their understanding of the world? Perhaps, with only five senses, we only could go one evolutionary path. However, humans could still mutate, and through that experience some variation. The book alluded to ancient family lines with elemental affinities, but if such people existed, they didn’t live in Stormberg.

“Hmm?” As I was sitting and dwelling on the literature I had recently transcribed, one of my sentinels gave me a warning, and I grimaced. “You chose tonight?”

Someone was trying to break into the treasury room. It was pretty obvious they were after the technique. They must’ve been pretty skilled, as they had yet to alert any of the alarms that the Capala household used to protect the room.

I looked at Mara still lying on the ground and my lips tightened. After dropping a sentinel next to her to keep watch, I turned and left. Mara’s tribulation was still some time away. I could resolve this and be back without any issues. Once I reached the primary mansion, I put on a cloak and raised the hood. Just in case, I changed my face too. I realized I changed it to the face I had been using when I engaged Grandmaster Bai. It was specially sculpted to be generic and forgettable.

It took me no effort to dodge the understaffed guards. A quick jump and I was through a window and inside the mansion. It was time to see what manner of fish our bait had managed to attract.