Ever since entering particle-grade, with his understanding of the Firestarter grains raised to an unprecedented height and techniques like the Activity light-wave and the Activity water-wave fully mastered, Shen Cong's personal fighting strength had passed beyond the ordinary run of things altogether.

The metal-base nuclide, closer now to the source, kept strengthening his body: from a height of two meters twenty-seven, in the space of a few days, he had gained another centimeter and reached two meters twenty-eight—and his body was still drawn tight. He would have to grow at least another two or three centimeters before he could digest the potential the source nuclide of the metal base was releasing.

Which was to say Shen Cong would grow to two meters thirty, or two meters thirty-one, or even two meters thirty-two.

His body's development now had nothing to do with growth hormone; it came from the body regulating itself. The old body couldn't match a higher-grade metal base—but because of the bonds of the ego imposed through the biological magnetic field, the body couldn't undergo gigantism, and could only keep packing every last cell tighter.

Where it truly couldn't be packed any tighter, it satisfied the overflow by growing taller.

So the solidity of his body already far exceeded that of an evolved beast of the same grade. Apart from the disadvantage of being unable to undergo gigantism, he surpassed the evolved beasts in every respect. Which was why he had given thought to how he ought to fight: before the Vajra Fortress could be remade into a Transformer, or into a heavy weapon on the scale of a Jaeger, he could only rely on himself.

The best method was to learn from Sun Wukong.

"Sister-in-law, I'm inside your belly." (TL Note: in Journey to the West, Sun Wukong shrinks himself, is swallowed by the demoness Princess Iron Fan, and taunts her from inside her stomach until she yields)

Boring into a body to fight let Shen Cong make better use of the advantage of his small size. So when he hunted the Firestarter Spirit, Shen Cong used the…