My body flails towards the debris only for it to slide sideways due to my displacement. Panic sets in as it slips smoothly around my cell. Before my emotions break my very small wake draws in the debris and finally it brushes against my membrane. Crisis averted. The nutrients flow in and my organelles quickly get to work breaking it all down. Taking note that the Ribosomes don't kick in this time as my energy rises to a solid 16/20. They must only kick in at a certain threshold. While thinking this it pops up:
Protein synthesis threshold 90% energy
There's a slider along the bottom of the notification and it becomes apparent that the setting can be adjusted. Leaving it at the default value seems sensible at the moment since my recent near miss. Energy should be kept up. Back to grabbing more debris then...
*****
What felt like many days went by as debris is gathered, converted to growth points and spent on either mitochondria or ribosomes. My cell is looking pretty bloated now with six mitochondria and four ribosomes but something seems off. It has gotten a lot easier to hit debris and it's almost instinctive to direct myself into nearby debris. My body twitches again and more nutrients flow into my cell. My unease makes me attentive now, my gaze watches the nutrients absorb into the mitochondria, energy tops back up to full but my vision notices something new. Little bits are released by the mitochondria. Watching these travel around my cell draws my attention to even more of them all seeming to congregate at a tiny organelle.
Lysosome – The recycling centre of the cell. This little beauty recycles the waste from other organelles turning it back into useful components or, if unusable, expelling waste. Without these your cell would become acidic and reduce productivity.
Next stop, Status!
Name
Stan
Race
Eukaryotes
Age
3 days
Stage
Single cell
Growth Points
15/20
Division Cost
125
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Energy
54/54
Mana
0/0
Energy re-gen
6 /s
Mana re-gen
N/A
It becomes apparent the effect my lack of waste management is having. The mitochondria energy stores are being impacted. Burning through my growth points and creating four more of these lysosomes drops my energy back down to 34/54. Once the proteins have done their bit, four shiny new organelles glisten within my cell walls. Nothing further seems to happen. My energy max is still at 54 and my cell looks as bloated as ever, if not more so because of the new organelles. Then it becomes clear that the toxins in my cell are migrating towards these new organelles but will take some time. Damn osmosis and your mechanics. After some time my cell looks more natural and healthier. Time to get back to the grind.
*****
At ten mitochondria, ten lysosomes and four ribosomes a new message pops up. It was just after my last mitochondria formed raising my energy up to a maximum of one hundred. A little goal of mine.
New cell parts are now available!
Boredom of the grind was setting in so this was golden news. Pulling up the growth menu showed the new options clear as day:
Mitochondria
Ribosome
Lysosome
Flagella
Vacuole
Chloroplast
Myofibril
Dendrite
Axon
Telodendria
These options provide a huge insight into future growth potential. It soon becomes apparent that becoming a multicell organism will allow me to specialise individual cells and create biological structures. It wouldn't take much to create a nerve cell connected to a flanged muscle cell to pull me along much faster however this would use more energy. This could be offset by long cells with many flagella to scoop up debris as my body rockets past. If this is how evolution happened last time around it is obvious now why nature had so many specialised and complicated structures. It seems crazy to think it could have been random accident.
Thinking about the potential now at my fingertips it's clear that some planning is needed. Should I spend a bit more time as a single cell and develop my foundation? Should I rush to get to multistage? It is all a lot to think about. On the one hand more energy would provide a buffer. It would also double as my cells split although looking at my status:
Name
Stan
Race
Eukaryotes
Age
<1day
Stage
Single cell
Growth Points
0/20
Division Cost
250
Energy
83/100
Mana
0/0
Energy re-gen
10 /s
Mana re-gen
N/A
My cell division cost has skyrocketed and it isn't possible to store enough growth points to divide my cell.
Looking at the new options from the growth menu and discarding them one by one until...
Vacuole – The storage centre of the cell. Each vacuole will increase growth point storage by 50. Without them you will find things just float around your plasma.
Perfect. Just need to get the growth points to build a few of them too. One component that drew my eye while looking through the options was the chloroplast. They never occurred in animal cells in the last world. Does this mean I'm a plant cell? There's no cell wall in my cell though and have mitochondria and look more like an animal cell. Experiments may be in order but first Vacuoles!