Five days slipped by in a blur, and after one brief downpour the date came to August 29.

Early morning, before the sky had lightened.

Shen Cong was already awake, washed and ready, and had come to the first-level compartment—the old ant nest he'd remade into a modification workshop—where he sat cross-legged on the floor. The Primal Energy Fluctuation Method went on guiding, and Firestarter energy was drawn in bit by bit, forming Firestarter grains inside him and raising his Talent. Last night he had officially hit 5.837H Talent.

This morning, after a good half hour of cultivation.

At last, his Talent reached the critical value of 5.838H—the very peak of a nuclear-grade iron person.

In that moment Shen Cong felt a rush of excitement, because by the numbers he now stood at the peak of a nuclear-grade iron person—and at the starting line of a whole new grade.

A grade beyond nuclear-grade!

The strongest Talent known on land very likely belonged to the same grade as the 300-meter humpback whale the Liaoning had found.

"Finally, that step's taken... hm?" Shen Cong was quietly savoring it when his body abruptly changed—a vast, swelling ache surged through him from head to foot.

As if he'd been crammed into a child's clothes, squeezed until he couldn't breathe.

"What's happening to me?"

The delight had long since drained away. Gritting through the discomfort, Shen Cong tried to sense his own condition—and all at once he found that the finest details of his body lay open to his Activity waves, laid out clear and sharp. He could feel every inch of his body's tissue: blood vessels, muscle, bone.

The marrow-gold in his bones, the blood-gold in his vessels.

And the nervous system already replaced by kindled Firestarter grains—the spinal cord included.

Before now this had been impossible to observe; he'd only ever sensed it in a dim, groping way.

"This is a lot like an interior view!"

Shen Cong had already forgotten the crammed, straining feeling of his body, throwing himself body and soul into that interior view. Never once, until today, had he…