I Reincarnated Into A Single-Celled Organism! - I Reincarnated into a Single-celled Organism! - Chapter 12

I was capable of creating toxins. This appeared more instinctually to me. It worked in conjunction with Cohesion. In the same way that I could create compounds to store energy for use later, I was also able to create compounds that I knew would injure my enemies. I could release them with Active Diffusion, or I could inject them with my Phage tail.

Yet, I didn’t see any need to depend on toxins, I was already in paradise. Food was readily available and I was able to consume it. The only thing I was lacking was speed. If only I had more of me.

“…”

I had leveled up once again. Theoretically, I could now create 256 versions of myself. Yet, there was also the me outside of this cell. Did they count as part of my 256? There was only one way to find out. I started dividing. My cells divided and ate, divided and ate. Soon, I had 256 cells once again busily consuming the eukaryote from the inside out.

We started to use Conjugation, but then a thought struck me. These cells are no longer me. Technically, they’ve consumed different things and had different experiences. What if I divided again? I decided to do so, and then I had 512 cells. I began to realize that the limit of cells was only on a single experience. Once the experiences were different enough that Conjugation worked, then they were also different enough that my division limit reset.

That meant that I wasn’t limited by size nearly as much as I thought. I could make 256 copies, go out, and experience different things, and each cell could then make 256 copies of itself. At any point, we could just use conjugation and I could get any of my brethren up to speed. I was trying to grow linearly when I could be growing exponentially!

I started to do just that. Soon hundreds became thousands, and thousands became millions. The eukaryote could support the dietary needs of a few hundred of us, but as my consumption rate increased, the eukaryote shriveled up and died. We lined up and then shot out our water jets. The spent eukaryote exploded. Releasing an armada of me.

This eukaryote was still in the center of a group of other eukaryotes, and those eukaryotes were alerted to my presence upon the destruction of their companion. However, there weren’t just a few hundred of us now. There were millions. The group broke off and began attacking other cells. The goal was naturally to break through the cell wall and then get a few of us inside.

At that point, they would start to consume and replicate until there were millions, and then erupt out the new cell. Eukaryote after eukaryote erupted. And in practically no time, I levelled again via Conjugation.

Congratulations! You have reached level 9.

You have unlocked the skill, Exocytosis.

The counter to Endocytosis, the ability to take chemicals in rapidly, was Exocytosis, the ability to release them rapidly. Before Exocytosis, I had to sort through chemicals and remove them manually. Now, I could automatically organize, store, and eject large amounts of chemicals, or swallow them up. How did that differ? Well, an example would be without Exocytosis, if I tried to just release toxins, I could only release a small stream of chemicals. It would happen slowly, and the result would be it wouldn’t reach an amount that could kill even a small eukaryote. Now, I could store up and release toxins like a bomb, sending out waves of destructive material.

No sooner had I considered this when a wave of toxin exploded out. At first, I thought that one of my brethren had just excitedly tested out the skill. Yet, the bomb had gone off in an area where a lot of me was. I watched in horror as nearly a thousand of me was destroyed in an instant. That’s when I found more toxin bombs erupting.

I had a sudden bad feeling, and I flapped my Flagella. I just narrowly avoided the shot of a water jet. The entire area has turned into a chaotic battlefield. It was hard to say who made the first shot. I had produced millions of versions of myself, but they hadn’t Conjugated enough. Those who leveled began to see themselves as superior to those who didn’t. Why should they share all their experience with so many? Wasn’t that experience a waste? If it just went to the true me, then I could already probably evolve.

Many of me saw our copies as a good source of experience. Everyone turned on everyone else, and the battles grew explosive. Some created copies of themselves, attempting to have strength in numbers, while others tried to form teams. Sometimes, those teams held together for a bit, but other times they broke up with one of me going rogue.

Our battles didn’t seem to attract more eukaryotes. If anything, the toxins being used, and the constant powerful waterjets were enough disturbance that most things seemed to avoid us. It was brutal battling, but any time any of us got a distance and started to try to reestablish the previous order, an event would occur again and at least one of us would go rogue. We almost wiped ourselves out a few dozen times, and it was hard to see just how long we attacked.

One thing was certain though. We were stronger in numbers. We couldn’t just stop replicating. It was like a drug. None of us wanted to be a single-celled organism, could not stop competing with each other to obtain the most resources. After all, every single one of us had a right to call themselves the main us. There was no difference. Even when one leveled, the other was just a single Conjugation from matching them in every way.

The chaos seemed like it would never end. Then one day…

[You have reached the maximum level for a bacterial colony. If you wish to proceed, you must evolve. Your level will return to level 1. Do you want to evolve into a simple eukaryote?]

“Yes!”

I just wanted the war to end.

Congratulations! You have evolved into a simple eukaryote. 

You have unlocked the skill, Specialization.

I attempted Binary Fusion one more time, but what I was expecting didn’t happen.

[Binary Fusion is now locked. You may now use Cellular Growth to create specialized cell parts. Please grow accordingly.]

Since I had gotten here, the system had been very sparing with instructions. It was rare to see it give me anything. I could no longer use Binary Fusion. Didn’t that mean that I was back down to only one of me? I had gotten so reckless with that infinite me glitch, but it also felt kind of scary to have only one of me. If I died, then that would be it. There would be no more me.

Of course, the only reason I had made it until this point was because of the countless other men out there. I had survived, where countless others had died. Some had been eaten by eukaryotes. Others had been killed by their brethren. Each one of them had been snuffed out. I didn’t know if I was an original or a duplicate, or the duplicate of a duplicate, or the result of a well-placed Conjugation. All that I knew was that I had a complete history up until this point, step by step gaining experience until I had finally reached this point. I was the one who made it, and who became a Eukaryote after countless amounts of fighting.

If any others become a eukaryote, wouldn’t they become a threat to me?

Such a thought came to me. I could no longer replicate myself, so as far as I was concerned, I was an individual once again. I couldn’t depend on the other copies of me. They had lived different lives and experienced different things. My only choice was to become strong and defeat everyone else before they became a threat.

To do that, I started using my skills to build. Specialization seemed to be a supplementary skill. It was placed under a new skill type called Body Modification. I was able to use Cohesion and Adhesion to assemble parts in my body. These parts acted like little factories that could carry out jobs without my active input. I knew what I was doing was creating organelles.

Organelles were the little specialized parts of cells, and while prokaryotes had them, the complex membrane-bound organelles could only exist in a eukaryote. These organelles took all shapes and sizes. The mitochondria produced energy, and I was able to use it to focus on energy production. However, I felt like something was missing and I couldn’t utilize the full potential of my mitochondria.

Thankfully, I had an endoplasmic reticulum. These were assembly line strips that allowed me to create and process proteins. There was also the Golgi apparatus, which served the role of organizing my inventory automatically, so that saved me from having to do it manually. Once I set it up, it could automatically import and export whatever chemicals I needed to run my body using Exocytosis and Endocytosis. In short, organelles were like programmer macros. Where in the past I had to manually initiate every skill, requiring a great deal of focus, I was now able to set up a task, and then have it automatically run and repeat.

After building up enough of these processes, my body was running on its own, and I could finally focus all of my attention on hunting for sources of energy. While I had been doing all of this, I had remained in a low-power state using Encapsulation. Since I had finished my growth period, I now needed to consume more to grow more.

I went out first and challenged one of the smaller eukaryotes. These guys were simplistic and perhaps about half my current size. They were about the size I was when I first became a eukaryote. I was able to Phagocytosis it entirely. In a single gulp, the cell was inside of my body. I immediately went to work ripping it apart and using its parts. I then proceeded to grow even larger. By the time I found the next cell, it was 1/3 of my current size. I consumed this one just as easily.

By the end of my growth cycle, a familiar text appeared.

Congratulations! You have reached level 2.

You have unlocked the skill, Homeostasis.

Homeostasis, the ability of a cell to maintain its environment for it to survive. Like that, I felt my eukaryotic body fine tweaking itself. The skill seemed to trigger passively, and it took all the organelle macros I had been playing with and optimized them. Like that, my body seemed to move more comfortably. I hadn’t realized just how many processes I had to take care of just to keep myself alive. The organelles helped, but it had been a trial and error for me.

With Homeostasis, I felt a wave of relief, like a tense muscle suddenly being relaxed or uncomfortable stomach gas being released. I felt like an entirely different thing now. Whether it was attack, defense, or energy production, they had all increased thanks to the optimization of Homeostasis.

I was naturally a bit curious about it, so I brought up my status for the first time in a long while.

Name: ???

Evolutionary Form: 4

Evolution Level: 2

Species: Eukaryote

HP: 2900/2900

Stamina: 2900/2900

Attack: 2902

Mana: 0

Defense: 2903 (5797)

Agility: 2902

Skills:

Absorption Skill: Active Diffusion, Endocytosis, Phagocytosis, Pinocytosis,

Attack Skill: Phage Tail, Pilli, Water Jet

Body Modification Skill: Cellular Growth, Specialization

Buff Skill: Toxins

Crafting Skill: Adhesion, Cohesion, Lysis

Defense Skill: Encapsulation, Cellular Wall

Endurance Skill: Chemosynthesis, Fermentation, Glycolysis

Experience Skill: Conjugation

Health Skill: Binary Fission, Homeostasis, Photosynthesis

Movement Skill: Cilia

Perception Skill: Chemotaxis

Storage Skill: Endocytosis, Selective Permeability