Thirst, hunger.

Fever-heat, racing heartbeat.

This was what Shen Cong's body fed back to his brain after alloying that portion of the mask's iron core — a sensation that reached deep into the marrow. It drove him to the kitchen before he even had time to gauge just how much Talent he'd gained, where he found food and stuffed it into his mouth by the fistful, cramming himself full.

After a good long spell of wolfing it down, his stomach began to churn, and only then was the impulse of hunger a little satisfied.

He downed two big bottles of the prepared pearl milk tea before he could finally relax and start sensing the state of his body.

Once he felt it out, his heart surged.

His Talent had jumped straight from 3.012H to 3.124H — a full 0.112H gained. Genuinely terrifying.

"Good. My Talent's finally increased again." Shen Cong clenched his fist, itching to go smelt the rest of the mask's iron core that very instant. "With the arrival of the Lv1 — Pure Gold Era, Talent has become the key standard limiting how high growth can reach. Evolution happens continuously; every species, once it breaks the Activity Lock, can evolve."

"But Talent is fixed. As the degree of evolution shifts, in the end the high-Talent individual will grind the low-Talent one into the dirt."

"I'm already a super-grade iron person, but that's not enough. I want to become an ultimate-grade iron person — a nuclear-grade iron person, even, a peerless iron person!"

Evolved beasts could be peerless — the Great Earth Dragon and Xuanwu — so there was no reason humans couldn't reach it too.

Now that evolution grew ever clearer, getting ahead of others in completing it grew ever harder; after all, evolution couldn't be rushed to completion in one stroke, and required slow adaptation.

He was already among the very first batch of humans to enter the Lv1 — Pure Gold Era, far out in front.

Shen Cong's goal now was lateral development — increasing his Talent, so he'd always be stronger than the same batch…