Time waits for no man. That was how it felt to Shen Cong now.

But it was not enough to throw him into a panic or cost him his balance and his caution. Setting up the Super-Thunder Wave station didn't need to be decided in a hurry. First he would cultivate the Primal Energy Fluctuation Method, and then see.

After a few failed attempts, he had the method soon enough.

As a nuclear-grade iron person, he had a command of Activity waves and of his own body that might not be first among all evolved individuals, but was certainly first among human beings.

Once he understood the principle of the Primal Energy Fluctuation Method — the breathing rhythm of the Activity wave, guided by will — he felt the Firestarter grains in his body come alive on the instant.

Every Firestarter grain in him was already in a kindled spirit-fire state.

Now it was as though flame rose up in him, and a vast pull went out from his body, drawing the free Firestarter energy out of the air.

In other men's records of cultivating the Primal Energy Fluctuation Method, all that appeared was a warm current in the body and a sense that Activity waves were being absorbed faster. It took a week at least before any rise in Talent could be felt at all.

The rise was very slow, and the amount of it seemed to vary a great deal with the man's physical constitution.

A jin person of very low Talent, like He Huan, would commonly gain one to one and a half times over. Some jin people managed twice; a few, three times.

When Li Sikai shook hands with him, Shen Cong read his Talent: 3.266H. A super-grade jin person beyond any doubt.

By his own account, before he cultivated the Primal Energy Fluctuation Method his Talent had been perhaps a quarter of that — around 0.8H — so he had raised it four times over.

He was also the only jin person to have reached super-grade. Of the others, only a few had reached high-grade.