Nan Guohua was deep in the second-generation topic, full of ideas he and his research team had been developing.

"I genuinely love The Science of Activity Evolution. The people who compiled it at New Hefei had an interesting approach — the Bronze, Silver, Gold points system I'll set aside, but the jin beast tier designations, the Activity Value accounting, all of that is genuinely inspired nomenclature."

He warmed to the subject. "Plain language that anyone can understand. We've always used specialist vocabulary in our own work, and when we try to explain things to people without that background they simply can't follow. We've been borrowing your framework. We've used it to produce a generational timeline for second-generation individuals."

The timeline was straightforward.

Second-generation individuals conceived before May 18th — the first transitional cohort, simply called second-generation mutants (变二代). The Eastern Theater Command currently had roughly seventy to eighty of them.

Second-generation individuals born to ordinary people, jin people, or iron people who were in the Lv0 — Activity Era when conception occurred — the second transitional cohort, called strong second-generation (强二代). This cohort would be large; the Command had many pregnant women, though none had yet delivered.

Second-generation individuals born to parents who'd reached the Lv1 — Pure Gold Era — the third transitional cohort, called gold second-generation (金二代). Theoretical for now. Only around ten individuals had reached the Pure Gold Era, and their partners had in most cases already been pregnant before that transition. Without new reproductive arrangements, the gold second-generation remained a concept rather than a reality.

Whatever came after the Lv2 — Pitch-Black Era: a further cohort, not yet categorized.

"We genuinely don't know what happens to human reproduction once the Pitch-Black Era begins. Whether metallic contamination eventually eliminates fertility is an open question. The Command's current priority is promoting births — build up the strong second-generation numbers to a meaningful baseline, then push toward the Pure Gold Era. If fertility persists through that transition, develop the gold second-generation from there."

"Evolution is a long road. This round of metallic contamination is happening with extraordinary speed. The…