Chapter 2: Two Biological Mass Extinctions

"Plankton have appeared in the ocean... Mother Nest, begin setting genetic locks to limit the size of spore organisms!"Xu Zhi frowned, silently issuing the command.The orchard was only so large; it was impossible to let them evolve to an excessive size.Memories from the previous Brood Mother also indicated that evolving giant bodies was a flawed approach.There was no need to deliberately enlarge the insect race's body size; maintaining their original small insect-like forms was the correct evolutionary path. The smaller the body, the more easily a qualitative leap in energy could occur.Their bodies stopped expanding.From then on, the normal species in the sandbox were smaller than ordinary ants—these were true insects, the insectoid race. Even the largest species, if they evolved to the level of dinosaurs, would not exceed the size of a cat.An insect the size of a cat was already an exaggeration, and a hundred-acre sandbox, for micro-ecological organisms the size of small ants, was equivalent to a small province.

On the afternoon of the sixth day, after five days as a single-celled, paleozoic ocean, the water finally underwent a dramatic change: multicellular organisms began to appear.Within minutes, it was as if Xu Zhi was watching a sped-up nature documentary. In this artificial ocean in the pond, new planktonic species were constantly being born, dying, and giving rise to the next generation in mere seconds.Soon, various peculiar aquatic plants floated across the pond in the orchard.Xu Zhi had initially just wanted to experiment by introducing single cells to evolve species in the ocean, never expecting it to be so potent."With ten thousand years accelerated into one day, only six days had passed, yet this represented sixty thousand years of species evolution. The single-celled organisms in the ocean have evolved into plankton, forming a super-paleozoic ocean similar to Earth's 'Phanerozoic Eon' at the end of the Cambrian Explosion, five hundred million years ago. This insect race spore is simply astonishingly powerful..."Xu Zhi was not familiar with Earth's evolutionary history.However, he naturally went back to his room, opened his laptop, and frantically researched Earth's evolutionary eras, the origins of species, the Cambrian, Silurian, Devonian periods, and more.After all, Earth could serve as a reference.

"But night is falling quickly. My biggest fear is beginning: the world in the sandbox is about to be destroyed..."He looked at the artificial ocean in the courtyard, then up at the darkening sky, where the last glow of twilight fell upon the walls.With cell division and evolution accelerated ten thousand times, he had condensed ten thousand years into a single day, meaning five thousand years of daylight and five thousand years of night.Now that it was dark, it meant the long five thousand years of daylight had passed, and five thousand years of endless night were about to begin.Sunlight was the source of all life; these newly emerged aquatic plants in the ocean would lose their ability to photosynthesize and would wither and die.As expected, just as night fell, the moment sunlight vanished, drastic changes occurred in the ocean.Vast expanses of aquatic plants withered, sank to the seabed, and lost their life, like a dead sea, utterly devoid of life under the cover of night.

"My first mass extinction event in this evolutionary era has begun... I didn't expect it to happen so quickly."Xu Zhi took a deep breath.He had already looked up information online.Throughout the long evolutionary eras, from the birth of single cells, the evolution of multicellular organisms, and the proliferation of various ancient species, Earth had experienced five catastrophic mass extinction events!Historically, the most famous was naturally the Cretaceous mass extinction, sixty-five million years ago, which led to the demise of Earth's former dominant rulers, the dinosaurs, with eighty percent of animal life dying out.However, Earth's first mass extinction, the Ordovician-Silurian extinction event, occurred over four hundred million years ago.That event was caused by a sudden drop in temperature and sea levels, which destroyed Earth's marine ecosystem, directly wiping out 85% of marine species at the time.Now, unlike Earth's eras, this sandbox under his control experienced its first species extinction because of the sudden arrival of five thousand years of endless night as the sun abruptly vanished.Earth, being a massive planet with countless species, underwent natural selection and possessed immense resilience, allowing it to recover even from mass extinctions.But his situation was different; the environment was too small.Theoretically, even if the pond ocean were completely filled, there would only be tens of millions of species. According to Darwin's theory of evolution, such a small biological base would be insufficient to evolve a new species capable of adapting to the environment."But these are the highly adaptable single-celled spores of the insect race. They could survive on barren planets, so there's no reason they can't here..."Xu Zhi took a deep breath, feeling a mix of excitement and unease.

He waited quietly as moonlight streamed into the courtyard, illuminating the lifeless ocean filled with plant corpses. After a full half-hour, a faint blue appeared on the surface.It was an ant-sized blue plant with delicate leaf-like shapes.Having lost direct sunlight, this plant chose to reorient its photosynthesis source towards the extremely faint moonlight, managing to cling to life.After successfully surviving the first round of mass extinction, this plant grew, developed, and died within mere seconds, like a sped-up video.It rapidly began to evolve through generations, undergoing natural selection, frantically adapting to the nighttime environment. It developed angular and disc-like shapes, like lily pads spread across the sea surface, to maximize the absorption of moonlight from the courtyard sky.Another hour passed.As the sole marine species in the sandbox, this aquatic plant, which Xu Zhi named "Blue Moon Grass," underwent tens of thousands of generations of evolution, beginning to form various branches.There were angular ones, slender ones, oval ones, deep-sea types, shallow-sea types... At this point, it even developed into two divergent species.One part of the Blue Moon Grass continued to absorb moonlight during evolution, enhancing the efficiency of moonlight conversion.Another part of the Blue Moon Grass surprisingly turned carnivorous, preying on other Blue Moon Grass. These, too, absorbed moonlight, emitting a faint glow to attract other Blue Moon Grass to float nearby, then consuming them.Witnessing this, Xu Zhi marveled at life's tenacity and wonder, at the survival of the fittest. "After enduring the first mass extinction, this sole surviving aquatic plant actually developed its own diverse forms of life in the nighttime ocean."

He pulled out a black notebook, picked up a pen, and recorded the evolutionary progress of this sandbox."Perhaps I should also document the countless eras of my sandbox's evolution according to Earth's geological time scale?On Earth, the Cambrian period, with its biological explosion, was the origin era for all life on Earth, leading to dinosaurs, humans, and various beasts... But my biological explosion here faces five thousand years of darkness... I'll call it the Dark Cambrian Era."Inspired, he opened the first page of Genesis in his black notebook and wrote the first line:The Dark Cambrian Era: The world dramatically changed. The sun set, the moon rose, and the world plunged into five thousand years of long darkness. 99% of marine life was extinguished, with only the Blue Moon Grass surviving by absorbing moonlight. It became the sole living species and thrived immensely in this dark ocean, becoming the dominant species of this era.

He looked at the pond, which he named the Ocean of Life, quietly anticipating."According to Earth's biological evolutionary history, the ocean is the origin of all life. Marine plants appeared first, followed by marine animals. What kind of marine animals would the insectoid cells evolve into...?"He stayed up all night, waiting for dawn.The seventh day had finally begun!However, contrary to Xu Zhi's expectations, animals did not begin to evolve on the seventh day. Instead, another terrifying mass extinction arrived!

Because the sun rose.At sunrise, the various Blue Moon Grasses that had thrived in the nocturnal ocean quickly withered.Having adapted to the faint moonlight at night, they were now suddenly exposed to such intense direct sunlight, sinking to the seabed as if incinerated.Instantly, the Blue Moon Grass began to undergo widespread extinction again."The second mass extinction has erupted so quickly. They had barely survived, and now this is utterly devastating..."This was the demise of life.Throughout the long evolutionary eras of species, spanning billions of years, countless species were born and extinguished—a vast planetary epic.The long and brilliant journey of spore evolution, however, was compressed into mere hours before Xu Zhi's eyes, displaying countless periods of prosperity and decline, bringing him a profound and inexplicable shock.

By afternoon, a faint blue gradually regained vitality from among the withered plants.It was a five-star-shaped Blue Moon Grass, which had undergone its own mutational evolution, successfully escaping this mass extinction. It transformed in the scorching sun, reborn from the ashes.To better adapt to the intense sunlight, it began to reproduce through generations again.In just a few minutes, it died, was reborn, and reproduced countless generations, gradually deepening in color from blue to purplish-black... Finally, it formed a mysterious, dark blue, star-shaped seaweed.It possessed beautiful, mysterious, symmetrical star-shaped leaves that could expand and contract.At night, it would spread its five points flat on the sea surface to maximize moonlight absorption. During the day, to protect against intense sunlight, it would contract by more than half, resembling a flower bud.It was somewhat like a mimosa plant.Mass extinction was not just destruction, but also an opportunity for weaker species to rise.With no other species competing for survival in the entire ocean, it rapidly proliferated, giving rise to various offshoots, vibrantly filling the entire ocean.

"You've endured five millennia of scorching sun and five millennia of darkness.""Having survived five millennia of day and night, as the sole living being among countless species, you are a true hero for experiencing both scorching heat and profound darkness. I'll call you Purple Zhaocao," Xu Zhi said with a smile, silently picking up his pen and turning to the second page of his black diary.He continued to record the second mass extinction event in his biological evolutionary history:The Radiant Cambrian Era: The world dramatically changed. The moon set, the sun rose, and five thousand years of scorching sunlight ensued. The dominant Blue Moon Grass from the Dark Cambrian Era began to undergo widespread extinction. However, a weaker lineage of the Blue Moon Grass, the Purple Zhaocao, remarkably rose to prominence, becoming the main force of this era.