February 3rd, 2023.

Great Vajra Totem, conversion complete, cross-country capability transformed.

At roughly the same time, after nearly three weeks of training in the fog zone, the Command's jin people and iron people had all managed to activate the Third Eye — results varying considerably across the group. Bao Wenhui, at the strong end, had achieved a clear range of one hundred meters. The weakest had seven or eight.

The largest beneficiaries were those who had already crossed into the Lv1 — Pure Gold Era. Fog fungi exposure was accelerating their blood metallic transition, and several were seeing simultaneous progression in both their skeletal and muscular tissue — bone-gold and flesh-gold advancing in parallel. Combat capability across the Lv1-era personnel had increased meaningfully. The Command's forces were in better shape than they'd been a month ago.

Command planning moved quickly. An operation to enter Xuzhou City was being drafted.

Before that operation, Bao Wenhui and the others with the strongest Third Eye ranges had already made several probing forays into the fog zone, though none had pushed deep into the urban area. Shen Cong's report on Li Xunhuan had established that Xuzhou's inhabitants were capable, hostile to outsiders, and not to be approached carelessly.

Shen Cong himself had entered Xuzhou City once after achieving the Human Radar state, passing along the Jingfu Expressway on the city's outer perimeter — a quick reconnaissance pass rather than a penetration of the urban core. At the time, road conditions made deep entry impractical, and pushing into unfamiliar territory without clear exit options when Li Xunhuan's allies might be anywhere wasn't a risk he wanted to take. Then the Great Vajra Totem conversion had occupied him, and there'd been no second opportunity.

When the Command's operation into Xuzhou finally moved forward, he intended to join it. Great Vajra Totem could handle whatever terrain lay in the way, and having Command forces alongside him meant he could maneuver freely without having to manage every threat personally. If the situation went wrong, he had room to extract.

Before Xuzhou, though, there was the other matter.

At…