As the Alliance Biological Research Institute initially suspected, the forests of Baiyue Province are the children of "Gaia" and the Earth.

The forest here is not just about the trees in the forest.

It also includes flowers, plants, insects, birds, animals, and even humans who once lived here.

The brood that landed on the land opened up its own gene pool and gave all living beings in the land the ability to exchange genetic material with each other.

Of course, this exchange is not an irregular and random migration.

Rather, under the framework of natural selection unique to the earth, the best genetic fragments and the permutations and combinations between fragments stand out from evolution, and flourish in the ultimate natural selection and continuous trial and error.

It took them only two centuries to complete the path that the Earth's ecosystem would have taken 2 million or 20 million years to walk – or even impossible to do.

The rustle of leaves and the chirping of insects were ringing in my ears.

Hearing this shocking conclusion, Fang Chang was stunned for a long time, his Adam's apple moved slightly, and he swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

“…… This is fusion? ”

Chen Yutong nodded.

Lao Bai, who was standing on the side, couldn't help but ask.

"What about the people here? And they also have that fusion...... Fused with xenogeneous DNA? ”

Chen Yutong nodded again.

"It should be no surprise that there are not as many survivors in this area as there are in Qingquan City, but there are definitely people who have stayed."

Lao Bai looked at her stunned.

"But...... Aren't the survivors of the southern seas okay? We didn't feel any different from us. ”

As if he guessed that he would ask this, Chen Yutong patiently explained.

"The evolution of an individual and the evolution of a population are two different things in different dimensions, and in the face of the extreme deterioration of the natural environment, some people choose to leave, and some people choose to stay. The survivors of the southern seas are just the ones who have left, and they have since stopped participating in the evolution that took place in the rainforest. ”

Lao Bai asked with a slight frown.

"What about those who stay?"

"'Disappeared' in evolution, or was fused, into other forms of being......"

While speaking, Chen Yutong squatted on the ground, gently plucked a leaf of yellow bamboo grass from the side of the road, got up and handed it to him.

Taking the blade of grass, Lao Bai looked at her puzzled.

"What is this?"

"A piece of imperial bamboo grass," Chen Yutong continued, looking at the blade of grass in his hand, "We found a fragment of human mitochondrial DNA in the mitochondria of a sliced cell from a sample of imperial bamboo grass. ”

Human mitochondria?!

Both Lao Bai and Fang Chang had surprised expressions on their faces.

How the hell did you do that?!

“…… We are not yet able to trace how this fragment of DNA that originally belonged to humans migrated to Huangzhu grass, perhaps through the food chain, perhaps through some kind of intermediate microbial bridging, or both. Later investigations, we soon found similar findings on mutant spiders, lizards, and even snails...... They have both human and other species in them. ”

Looking at the stunned two, Chen Yutong said softly.

"This is Gaia."

"He has given the earth a key that has opened the locks of our evolution."

"The lock of the evolution of all things."

Fang Chang looked at her dumbfounded, feeling that he didn't understand at all, but he seemed to understand a little.

It reminded him of a game he used to play called Stars.

There is a talent called "Cross-Species Compatible" in it that he rarely clicks, which is the last segment of "Gene Ascension".

It's not that this route isn't strong, in fact, one of the most buggy ascent routes in the whole game is this.

Because once cross-species compatibility is unlocked, it means that players can use a series of war criminal operations, such as constantly putting two creatures with different traits on the same planet, forcing them to crossbreed, and the newly born hybrid will pick a positive trait from their parents to inherit, and they are not limited by the upper limit of genetic improvement, and can be stacked indefinitely.

Players only need to repeat it a few times to create a super species that is compatible with all the positive traits in the game!

It's equivalent to a buff all over the body!

However, on the other hand, the side effect is that the player's race screen becomes a cluttered color palette.

Hybrids born between any different species will breed with other hybrids, and the images and names will eventually become bizarre.

In the end, I don't know if the CPU of the computer will dry up, but the CPU of the human brain will definitely have to dry up.

Why bother?

Even if you don't stack the buff into the sky, the AI with an underdeveloped cerebellum in the game is no match for the player.

Therefore, most players will click to the end, stuck in the last section of "Kifei", in order to maintain the purity of the species and their own sense of substitution.

There are also a few players who will get the other hybrid intermediates on a planet after the ultimate goal is achieved, that is, after getting the super creature with thousands of buffs, and put the vassal declaration of war Colossus charged in one go, and all of them will be destroyed by Sudden Rush.

The situation of Planet Gaia is a bit like a "cross-species compatible" civilization.

For some reason, they not only achieve cross-species communion, but also integrate organisms across the planet in an unimpeded genetic exchange.

To outsiders, they are a unified body of consciousness.

However, if you look at it closely, it is not a hive as ordinary people understand, but thousands of hives are one!

He is all, and all is Him.

The civilization that has dissolved into the invisible may be even more advanced than human imagination.

As for why their footprints have not traveled to thousands of stars, or why they have lost their original appearance, it is just that the pursuit of the two sides is different.

The stars in the sky are not only one color, and not all civilizations are keen to expand their territory.

Perhaps some civilizations were born to build a spectacle or write a poem.

And their poems have been written in the past years—the being that the human colonizers called Gaia.

The colonists returned the brood carrying the poem to Earth, and the brood scattered in Baiyue Province is an excerpt from the poem.

Fang Chang vaguely felt that he seemed to be close to the truth of the three-year war - the main line that "Wasteland Online" had buried since its launch.

Looking at Chen Yutong, Lao Bai still had an incomprehensible expression.

"Yes...... How is this done? ”

The general view in biology is that the lateral transmission of genes is unique to microorganisms and rarely occurs between eukaryotes.

And this is also the reason why the evolution of life on the earth has basically been "branch-shaped" after passing the early microbial stage.

A river separates the rat colony, with mountains on one side and a forest on the other, and after a million years the river is depleted, the two waves of rats remeet and are reproductively isolated from each other, which can be regarded as evolving into different species. It can even be said that "isolation" is a necessary condition for the creation of new species.

Most biology textbooks and popular science books mention such a simple model when explaining the concepts of geographic isolation and reproductive isolation.

And yet she tells him that the isolation between species has been broken?!

Although he didn't know much about biology, he did receive nine years of compulsory education.

What's more, this doesn't require nine years of compulsory education.

He believed that horses and donkeys could mate, but ants and trees, spiders and cockroaches...... How the hell can these strange combinations come together?!

Looking at the bewildered expression on his face, Chen Yutong raised his index finger and pressed his eyebrows, and said helplessly.

“…… I can probably guess what you're thinking, reproductive isolation between species, right? ”

Lao Bai nodded.

"Yes."

Chen Yutong patiently continued.

"That's generally true, but genes aren't just through reproduction...... To illustrate with an example from the earth, smelt and herring are two unrelated cold-water fish, but the antifreeze protein gene of herring appears in the gene sequence of the former, which we call horizontal migration of genes. ”

"According to the literature of the Age of Prosperity, a similar situation exists not only in fish, but also in reptiles, birds, and mammals. Therefore, until the pre-war period, the general view in the academic community was that the evolution of life was not a classical tree shape, and that there were always a small number of fine silk threads between some branches. ”

"What Gaia did was to turn these silk threads, which originally played only a small role in biological evolution, into bridges between species, so that the original branch-like evolution of life on the earth became a 'web' similar to that on Gaia."

This time, the old white head pressed his eyebrows with a headache.

"So...... We are now also joining the glorious evolution? ”

Chen Yutong nodded and looked at the dense rainforest in the distance.

"Yes, the genes we carry also enter this forest in some form, and the ubiquitous microbes break down our feces, hair, and even our bodies, which are one of the ways to get in. But this is a macro-level integration, and on a micro-level, as long as we don't get eaten by the xenomorphs here and turn into stool, we won't disappear in this rainforest. ”

Fang Chang, who had been pondering for a long time, suddenly asked.

"And what if you leave this forest?"

Chen Yutong looked at him and said.

"Nothing will happen, just like the survivors who left this rainforest and fled to the island, the part of the genes they took with them is no longer involved in the evolution of the rainforest."

"In fact, for the past two centuries, xenos have been leaving the forest, and new xenos have joined in. Some ethnic groups thrived in the rainforest, while others contributed their DNA and disappeared from the rainforest. ”

"In the abstract, this forest is equivalent to 'Gaia' superimposed on the natural laws of the earth and developed to the initial stage. All living things in the rainforest are fruiting bodies, and when they add up, they are an abstract 'brood'...... As for the most primitive, concrete brood, we are still in the search. ”

“…… How exactly does this happen? Lao Bai was still scratching his head in a tangled way, repeatedly pondering this question that he couldn't figure out whether he could live or die.

Looking at his expression, Chen Yutong was also a little helpless, but he still said patiently.

"This is also the question we are looking at, including why this forest is confined to the province and has not spread elsewhere...... Don't be too anxious. ”

After a pause, she looked at Fang Chang, who was contemplative.

"In addition, the 'self-healing' that you observed earlier is actually based on the principles I mentioned earlier."

"Genes communicate unhindered between species, and natural selection is constantly selected for more powerful species, where organisms, whether plants or animals, producers or consumers in the food chain, are extremely vigorous and have the capacity to accumulate nutrients...... Because if they don't, they'll quickly become cannon fodder that contributes a few sets of code and then disappears. ”

"In this highly 'involution' environment, once a physical vacuum emerges, it is quickly taken over by other species."

Fang Chang asked with a headache.

"Is there a workaround?"

Chen Yutong: "Actually, it's very easy to solve, as long as you maintain the occupation of the area, for example, the land under your feet, because people often pass by, so it can't grow too lush grass, and it can last for a long time when it is covered with cement, but the relative maintenance cost may be higher than other places." ”

Fang Chang immediately asked.

"What if it's an area that's not very active?"

"Then ...... There's no way," Chen Yutong made a helpless expression, "Not to mention your gathering place, even the Shilong City that existed before, it has not been able to stop the erosion of this extraordinary force of nature, the creatures here cannot tolerate the slightest waste, you still try to find a way to make better use of the land that has been carved out." ”

Fang Chang said with a wry smile.

"And then bear the high maintenance costs, right?"

The infrastructure expenditure of the French Fries Port is entirely paid by the Baiyue Strait Development Co., Ltd., and it is impossible for the Union Treasury to pay for the cost of road construction in the French Fries Port, and he must carefully consider the issue of balance between revenue and expenditure.

And it's not just about money.

From a macro perspective, money is just a tool to balance logistics profits and losses and market supply and demand. The damage caused by a negative equity is not only a deficit in financial reports, but also a lot of human and material resources are wasted on meaningless things.

Chen Yutong looked at him helplessly and said.

"It may be a good idea to maintain the original ecological style as much as possible, but in fact, there is no need to build all the settlements the same, or should we consider exploring a model suitable for the development of Baiyue Province? That's the only advice I can give. ”

As she said this, she suddenly thought about something.

"Oh yes, haven't you been working on how to use slime molds in construction lately? Try the bio-healing material, which is just right for the special situation here. As for the land that is less utilized, it is better to keep the forest pristine-"

At this moment, Lao Bai, who had been drilling the tip of the bull's horns just now, suddenly interjected.

"It's not impossible."

Both of them looked at him in unison, and Fang Chang immediately asked.

"What's the solution?"

"How about planting some tropical crops in areas that can't be developed for the time being and occupying the space? For example, rubber, cotton, or something...... I remember a long time ago, didn't there be some high-yielding cotton seeds in the shelter? ”

Lao Bai glanced at the Moon Clan people in the eastern camp and continued.

"Just like when we were in Qingquan City, we reclaimed the land and contracted it to them to plant. As long as something grows on the ground, it should be fine, right? ”

Cotton fields are always much less expensive to maintain than cement fields, and they can also make a profit from the cash crops they produce.

In addition, this land has a buff of "growth rate +n%", and the soil fertility seems to be ridiculously high, so it is difficult to harvest three or four periods a year.

He has given up on understanding the setting of the game from a scientific point of view, it is better to use the setting of the game to understand, and the idea is open.

Chen Yutong's eyes also lit up, and he said excitedly.

"That's right...... It's a good idea, it's actually pretty much the same as I thought, just replace those flowers and plants with cash crops. ”

Fang Chang frowned slightly.

"But would that make the situation more complicated by the introduction of genes here?"

Looking at his worried expression, Lao Bai shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

“…… We've been here for so long, do you think there's still a chromosome or two missing? ”

Fang Chang was stunned, and suddenly realized that he had asked a stupid question, ignoring the order of magnitude difference between the variable and the population.

Don't say anything about metabolites, there are more than one or two corpses they left in this forest alone, what can a few cotton seeds count?

What's more, this rainforest is not just like this today, what new things haven't you seen?

Touching his forehead with his right hand, he said with a smile.

"That's what I said......"

——

(Thanks to the leader of "Sarayago" for the reward!! ）