Over the week that followed.

Shen Cong kept to the same dull routine, devouring fire-spirit mediums without pause, pushing his Talent higher. Past Beyond-Five, the climb finally began to feel a bottleneck ahead, and to close on it. A week later, on April 28, his Talent reached its limit and would not rise another fraction.

The limit's here at last. Is this the highest my Talent goes, or just one more bottleneck? Shen Cong closed a fist, feeling neither joy nor sorrow.

He simply stood and felt that formidable strength surging through every limb and every bone of him.

His Talent now stood at 5.515H. From 4.067H to where he was today, with the fire-spirit mediums' help, he had raised it by a full 1.45H.

5.515H. I'm stronger than that fat duck's 5.347H. Shame I couldn't make 5.838H and get past nuclear-grade... and Beyond-Six is a long stretch further still. There was a swagger about him as he looked around, though not reaching Beyond-Six-Star Talent was a real regret.

But Shen Cong had become the highest-Talent evolved individual currently known.

Closer and closer to being the predator at the top of the food chain.

Time to start rebuilding the Great Vajra into the Vajra Fortress! Looking at his own reflection in the mirror, Shen Cong was well satisfied.

Two meters twenty-seven tall, corded with sinew that carried the faintest metallic sheen, the lines of it not pronounced — if anything he looked lean.

Lift an arm a little and that sinew came bursting out, edged and angular, and you could tell just by looking that there was explosive strength packed away in there.

Two meters twenty-seven. Taller than Yao Ming, without any of Yao Ming's apparent clumsiness.

Shen Cong's build was a perfect curve, a golden ratio.

With the Hell Plant Armor on, he stood two meters eighty. Set against the peerless jin beasts, which ran to tens or hundreds of meters as a matter of course, Shen Cong's frame could fairly be called puny. But small and fierce — the combat power packed into it could wipe out an…