I’m Trapped in a Cube - Chapter 61

“The eagle is gone?”

Upon hearing the goddess’s words, not only was Mo Ling baffled, but the surrounding Transparent Tribe members were also full of confusion.

“Goddess, what is an eagle?” a nearby Transparent Tribes asked shakily.

The goddess was very patient and explained, “The eagle from the game ‘Eagle Catches Chicks’ . The chicks are still here, but the eagle is gone. You have already lost.”

“Another game?”

Hearing this, Mo Ling already had an idea. “Could it be that these Transparent Tribes played a game of ‘Eagle Catches Chicks’ with the Primordial Cell?” He didn’t know the rules, so he could only keep listening.

“What are chicks?” Seeing the goddess answer everything, the Transparent Tribes grew bolder.

“They are the chicks from ‘Eagle Catches Chicks,’” the goddess replied, her tone utterly flat.

“……”

The Primordial Cell was still as evasive as ever.

Even the Transparent Tribe present were stunned; the goddess’s answers seemed to confuse them, and they didn’t know how to continue asking.

After a moment of silence, the Transparent Tribe organized their words and continued to ask, “Goddess, can you explain in detail? We really don’t know what ‘Eagle Catches Chicks’ is.”

The goddess slowly walked in front of the person who asked, gazed down at him for a long time-until he trembled with fear-before she began to speak again.

“The eagle is your ancestor, and the chicks are the ‘Undying Things’ you speak of…”

She began to explain the rules of the game in great detail, just like a tutorial NPC in a game.

Her steady, mechanical, yet beautiful voice explained the origin of “Eagle Catches Chicks,” even tracing back to the ancestors of the Transparent Tribe.

Only then did Mo Ling understand that this game was a contest between the ancestors of the Transparent Tribe and the goddess.

As the goddess conversed with the Transparent Tribe, a twisted history began to take shape in Mo Ling’s mind.

……

In the beginning, there were no Undying Things underground, no Flesh Tribe.

At that time, the Transparent Tribe were the rulers of the subterranean world.

Just like in the anti-cell world, this was a world made up of Theseus Cell life.

All kinds of creatures were Theseus Cell life, and the Transparent Tribe had developed to the cold weapon age, occupying vast underground territories through agriculture and animal husbandry.

They used stone to make various tools, creating a brilliant civilization.

In the underground world, their only enemies were the various powerful aberrant beasts .

The Transparent Tribe’s stone weapons couldn’t do much damage to these beasts-they could only watch as the beasts rampaged.

Some beasts were even highly intelligent, conserving their strength and waiting for crops to ripen before coming out to eat.

The beasts would also target farms and lone Transparent Tribe, making village defense extremely difficult.

These beasts’ bizarre abilities drove the Transparent Tribe crazy; hunting just one required enormous manpower and resources.

Even after killing a beast, another, different one would soon attack the village.

The underground world’s rich resources meant an endless stream of beasts, many of which were completely unknown.

At this time, a hero arose among the Transparent Tribe-the Prophet.

The Prophet was originally an ordinary Tribe, but a journey into the underground changed his life.

It was an exploration of unknown subterranean spaces. As a member of the expedition, the Prophet reached secret regions never before visited by the Transparent Tribe.

Pitch-black Gloomy Corners.

Jagged Columnar Gobi.

The Myriad Mushroom Forest filled with strange creatures.

And the so-called Endless Void Wall at the world’s edge.

Along the way, the Prophet studied geology and flora and fauna, collected specimens, and recorded all this information.

He systematically classified the creatures.

After a long journey through all regions of the underground, the Prophet returned to the Transparent Tribe.

During his travels, he found that each region had similar yet different creatures, with abilities that were alike but subtly different.

Or the environments were similar, but the creatures were completely different, showing two distinct forms and very different abilities.

These discoveries made the Prophet obsessed with studying biological traits.

Soon after, the Prophet summarized a set of systematic biological rules, naming it-

The Origin of Species.

The Transparent Tribe could only record text on stone, but over time and through oral transmission, these rules caused a sensation within the tribe.

Before this, their understanding of life was purely religious; countless gods were imagined, and polytheism was traditional.

Ignorant people used “creationism” to explain the origin of life, constantly inventing new gods to patch the gaps.

These religious “patches” made the classification of aberrant beasts bloated and unwieldy.

The Origin of Species immediately challenged divine authority, causing a huge stir.

Survival of the fittest, natural selection.

In the pitch-black Gloomy Corners, eyes degenerated, and only creatures with sharp senses survived, passing on these traits to their offspring-hence the region was full of beasts with abnormal senses.

In the Endless Void Wall, only climbing creatures survived; the rest were eliminated, and climbing ability kept improving.

Rock-manipulating abilities appeared through mutation and were inherited.

These unique ideas in the Origin of Species gradually changed the Transparent Tribe’s thinking, replacing creationism and the theory of immutable species.

This theory gained dominance.

The Prophet’s status rose, as his theory made fighting aberrant beasts easier.

By systematically classifying beasts and targeting their weaknesses, they no longer had to throw lives away.

They even analyzed the diets and tolerances of beasts attacking villages, creating specialized traps to kill them.

Knowledge was power, and the Transparent Tribe’s territory expanded, civilization flourished.

The Prophet was elevated to the highest throne.

However, just as everyone thought the Prophet would lead them to conquer the entire underground, an accident occurred.

On an expedition to unknown depths, the Prophet’s army encountered the Primordial Cell.

The Primordial Cell’s Accelerated Evolution Zone shocked the Prophet’s mind.

The directness of the evolutionary process shattered his worldview.

So this was evolution?

“I’m beginning to understand everything.”