On top of Vajra's roof, Shen Cong watered the Mechanical Vine, then added a few scraps of fatty meat and metal shavings.

The vine liked both kinds of nourishment. He could see it put out thread-like roots, gripping the fat and metal fragments and slowly consuming them. But the leaves still looked a little wilted — it had never managed to recover the lush green vibrancy of its original host plant.

Worse, this cutting didn't seem to move at all. No matter how he touched it, there was no response. That was the whole reason he'd bothered cultivating it — he'd wanted a vine that moved.

Disappointing.

"Big ant! Big ant!"

The children behind the fence suddenly erupted.

They'd spotted Blackhead on her morning stroll.

Blackhead was hardly a secret anymore. Plenty of survivors in camp kept evolved beasts as pets. Mutation had warped most animals' temperaments — twisted their minds — but not all of them. Some evolved beasts had come through with their intelligence intact. Li Junfu, the man Shen Cong had encountered back at Wangba, kept a mongrel evolved dog named Heidou.

Taming evolved beasts was an ongoing research topic at the Research Institute. The organization Shen Cong had once pinned such hopes on had produced almost nothing useful on the theoretical side — but in practical applications, they had their moments. The camp kept several evolved cats and dogs, even a few evolved snakes.

Shen Cong, however, was the only person in camp who kept an insect as a pet.

"Big ant! Big ant! Such a big big ant!" The children were still going at it behind the fence.

He was ignoring them — until something in their noise struck a spark.

The reason he'd been able to build a perceptual link with Blackhead was that his Activity had influenced her development, and the Antgod's, from early on. So.

What if he tried influencing the Mechanical Vine's growth with his Activity now?

The thought hit and he acted on it immediately. He tuned his Activity radiation frequency to match the Mechanical Vine's, then pushed Activity into…