Two or three days ago Shen Cong had come close to being swallowed and made one with his vehicle, and the pressure of it was enormous.

On top of that there was his worry about intelligence appearing in animals and plants, and he had no choice but to quicken his own evolution. What frightened him now was that if he slept without being alert enough, he really might become one with the Vajra Fortress, with nothing to tell them apart.

Shen Cong did not understand what it meant to play a long game.

He had no liking for schemes and stratagems either, and no talent for them. In the face of absolute strength every plan was so much talk. Fight what you can beat, run from what you can't — he felt no burden about it at all.

It could not be explained in a hurry over the Super-Thunder Wave station.

Shen Cong only sketched out what he had in mind, and did not pass on the Primal Energy Fluctuation Method right away. "Wait a few days. I want to look around here a while longer. I'll be in touch when the time is right."

That said, he switched the station off without caring what the reaction was at the Eastern Theater Command.

Over the days that followed he cultivated the Primal Energy Fluctuation Method and quietly investigated the China Rescue Team. Once he was certain they had no scheme running against him, he decided at last: he would work with them, and set up a Super-Thunder Wave station.

The China Rescue Team had super-grade iron people, and Wang Sanjun among them was a formidable one — enough to guarantee the signal quality.

So Shen Cong drove the Vajra Fortress to Baoding, prepared to tell the China Rescue Team who he was: a merchant of the Eastern Theater Command.

He decided to say nothing about being the guardian deity or the Commander. He had never claimed either of them himself, and he could not see that they brought him anything beyond a measure of so-called fame.

From the beginning of…