The overhaul proceeded far more smoothly than anticipated.

Shen Cong's willpower was the key factor. Guiding metal through extension and reshaping, his speed on the major structural work was faster than any manual fabrication process could match — and the precision was better too. Six years of solitary work on a heavy truck, every component handled and rehandled until he understood it by feel, had given him a structural intuition that no other iron person in the camp could replicate. They could push metal around, but they couldn't hold a three-dimensional model in their minds while doing it. The result was always rough, approximate, more abstract art than engineering.

Shen Cong worked like a skilled draftsman — a few deliberate strokes and the shape was there, exactly as intended.

In a day and a night, the primary structural frame was complete — extended, reshaped, and amalgamated.

Alongside the frame work, he melted down the crane truck's primary metal using an electric welding torch. The sample was small — roughly shoebox-sized, not a complete primary metal deposit, just the fragment he'd managed to partially absorb before the process stalled. As he attempted to amalgamate it, he ran into the same resistance: partial absorption only, and then nothing further.

Vajra's Talent — the Activity Source ceiling — rose from 2.511H to 2.518H.

2.518H. That was the wall.

Not as impressive as the Golden Jiao. He noted the ceiling with mild frustration and moved on.

Rather than waste the remaining fragment, he offered it to his Half-Activated Armor instead.

The Half-Activated Armor was a failed metal lifeform — no autonomous will, no Talent in the conventional sense, only its current Activity Value of 0.9H. But for a brief moment after the crane truck's primary metal was absorbed, Shen Cong felt something shift. The armor's Activity seemed to... quicken. Become more fluid, more responsive. And he could sense something like a Talent reading — around 1H, a One-Star baseline.

Then he reached for it again and it was gone. The armor had returned to its usual inert state. The Talent impression had vanished.

Try…