Lv0.01. Activity Value 0.011H. Talent 1.027H.

Xiao Li Du's data resolved clearly in Shen Cong's perception, and it stopped him.

One-Star Talent. 1.027H.

One-Star wasn't extraordinary on its face — the Golden Jiao and Shen Cong himself were both Two-and-a-Half Star, and the camp's iron people generally achieved One-Star or better. But those were special cases.

Xiao Li Du was a mutant. Among the camp's first-generation mutants, no one had been found with Talent above One-Star — the average sat around Half-Star, and some fell below even that. Xiao Li Du was the first mutant to reach One-Star Talent. He was also the first second-generation human evolved person to exist.

He was a single data point. But a data point like that generated a great deal of inference.

Iron people were a rare mutation, increasingly so — bonded to machinery that was steadily corroding and failing, with no way to replace what was lost. One by one, they would diminish. Iron people were never going to be the mainstream of human evolution.

Mutants were.

And mutants' Talent had consistently looked weak — pitiful against evolved beasts that routinely displayed multiple Star ratings. The garrison had researched the "blood food" concept, attempting to boost mutant Talent by having them consume the Activity cores of condemned criminals. When Shen Cong had first heard of blood food, he'd immediately thought of Wang Gen's group back in Juchao District — hunting mutants and iron people alike. Wang Gen had probably picked up the concept from garrison soldiers passing through, and run with it in the worst possible direction.

The blood food research had ultimately failed. Mutants couldn't boost their Talent that way.

But Xiao Li Du's birth changed the premise. Mutants weren't inherently weak. The second generation could carry strong Talent from birth.

"Do you feel it?" Zhang Kan's hands were visibly trembling. "One-Star Talent — on a newborn mutant! This is a sign of things to come. Humans will keep getting stronger, as long as we can keep reproducing. Every one of us alive today belongs to the old era. Even evolved people…