The Core-Totem Great Vajra couldn't absorb the mercury either — but Shen Cong had at least seen progress.

With the Hell Plant Armor, rejection came before any structural change had even begun; with the Great Vajra, a change did occur, only it hadn't completed before the rejection set in.

In other words, compared with the Hell Plant Armor, the Great Vajra plainly surpassed it on some variable.

"The Hell Plant Armor is a natural carrier vehicle — no Talent, can't enter the Lv1 Pure Gold Era, and there's no iron core to speak of. Compared with the Great Vajra, those are the parts the Hell Plant Armor lacks. But the one that actually relates to absorbing the mercury, it seems, is the Lv1 Pure Gold Era."

Because a natural carrier vehicle had no iron core and no Talent, it couldn't evolve, and could only hold at the Lv0 Activity Era.

The Lv0 Activity Era couldn't solidify Activity.

"The Great Vajra's grade is hard to define, but going by the fact that the Great Vajra and I are life-integrated, once I entered the Lv1 Pure Gold Era, the Great Vajra reached that grade too. And now the Great Vajra is one step short of absorbing the mercury — does that mean the Great Vajra's degree of evolution still isn't enough?"

Shen Cong had, at present, entered the final stage of the Lv1 Pure Gold Era, the skin-gold stage, two days in.

The Great Vajra's overall framework, meanwhile, was developing toward higher-strength metal-iron — metal-iron being the metallic-gradation form unique to carrier vehicles, similar to metal-change, only that metal-iron was a reversible metallic gradation.

"If it really is a matter of insufficient evolution, then it may be that the metal-iron's strength still isn't enough… In that case, perhaps there's a way to game it after all." Shen Cong's eyes glinted.

As a predator single-mindedly pursuing strength, yearning to stand atop the food chain, Shen Cong never allowed himself to evolve by the book.

He had to stay ahead of everyone else, everywhere.

Naturally, right now too, he had to take a shortcut…