Whether the Liaoning had become a carrier vehicle was impossible to determine. Based on the laboratory's theoretical framework, the probability was low.

And frankly, Shen Cong thought, if jin beasts on land had already reached the levels he'd seen — what was happening in the oceans? An unbounded expanse of water, and whatever had mutated inside it. If the Liaoning's hull had corroded past the point of maintaining propulsion, the dangers she'd face would dwarf anything on land, several times over or more.

He let the image form for a moment, then discarded it. Whether the Liaoning had sunk or not had nothing to do with him.

"Natural iron implements — how do those form?"

"Insufficient data to say definitively. The Command has only found around ten natural iron implements in total. Our current working hypothesis is that something went wrong midway through the entanglement process — most likely the organism died before the bond could complete."

The life-integration of a carrier vehicle depended on the biological magnetic field entanglement being sustained on both sides. If one side died, the entanglement broke. Without a living partner to maintain it, the carrier's Activity could no longer hold — it would gradually dissipate until the carrier died as well.

A natural carrier vehicle might represent a bond that had been half-formed when the organism perished. That would explain the characteristic "unliving" Activity signature — present, but inert.

Shen Cong wasn't convinced. "The natural iron implement I found wasn't a mechanical device."

Nan Guohua adjusted his glasses. "The Command has encountered that type as well — raw lumps of metal with no mechanical components whatsoever. Honestly, the data is too sparse to build a real argument from. My personal view is that unusual biological magnetic field configurations are responsible — but nature holds far more mysteries than we can currently explain."

The carrier vehicle question was set aside there. Nan Guohua had reached the edge of what the research could support.

Time moved quickly.

Nan Guohua was a genuine expert. Shen Cong was an amateur scientist — but an unusually well-informed one, with…