Having classified Zhou Ningning as unhinged, Shen Cong added her to his active monitoring list and returned to Great Vajra.
The queen cell larva was next on his schedule. Another round of careful Activity infusion, another round of the larva straining toward a frequency alignment it couldn’t quite achieve. He pushed until it was clearly near collapse, then stopped. Royal Treasure Jelly administered. Recovery maintained.
Eat. Recover. We try again later.
The Antgod had laid one egg and was now moving around the cabin with her distended abdomen, apparently unconcerned about the egg’s welfare. Blackhead, by contrast, had appointed herself the egg’s full-time guardian — picking it up periodically for inspection, settling it back in the corner of the ant burrow, hovering over it with obvious protective investment.
Shen Cong noted the Antgod’s physical development carefully. The abdomen had grown substantially since the wing-shedding — now twice the combined volume of her head and thorax, with the original yellow-brown pattern replaced by pale yellow-white stripes where the abdominal plates had separated under the expansion. But she retained mobility. She hadn’t become the grotesque distended shape of a driver ant queen or a termite queen. She was something between — capable of movement, visibly changed, distinctly her own evolutionary form.
“You need a proper species name,” he decided. “You live on Great Vajra, so: Vajra Ant. You’re the Vajra Ant Queen.”
The name wasn’t particularly elegant. Nothing better came to mind immediately, so it would do.
The Antgod transmitted no emotional response to the naming. Ants didn’t need names. They needed to know they were ants, and that was sufficient.
Current daily observation log: Treasure Bee queen cell larva, Vajra Ant Queen, Mechanical Vine, Activity Peach seedling, Life-Saving Yellow Soybeans. Shen Cong tracked all of them, not because he had scientific training but because he recognized patterns in how Activity-infused organisms developed, and pattern recognition didn’t require a laboratory.
The professional analysis could stay with the Research Institute. He was content to be a dedicated amateur.
What he couldn’t do — what the Research Institute couldn’t do either, currently — was study Activity from the inside. None of the Institute’s biology researchers were evolved people. Without Activity sensitivity, you could document what Activity did without ever touching what it was. That gap made the research painfully slow.
Zhang Kan kept asking. Shen Cong kept declining. His interest was in his own evolution, not in other people’s understanding of it.
November 1st.
The Research Institute — modest as its facilities were — announced a research achievement with genuine significance.
Vice Director and Bee Treasure Lab head Xu Changde had led his team through several months of sustained research using the Institute’s one properly equipped laboratory to develop what he called evolved beast fat extract — Activity preservation oil.
Abbreviated: Grease.
Grease had one function beyond being technically edible: it dramatically slowed Activity dissipation from treated surfaces. Applied to any Activity-bearing object, it created a barrier against Activity leaching into the air, preserving the Activity Value for substantially longer.
A simple iron tool that an iron person had amalgamated would normally retain its Activity for roughly six hours before leaching completely back to inert metal. Treated with Grease, the same tool retained Activity for a minimum of seventy-two hours.
Twelve times slower dissipation rate.
“What this means,” Zhang Kan explained during the announcement, “is that Grease will fundamentally liberate iron person productive capacity. Equipment that was being written off as impractical to maintain can be returned to active use. The camp’s development will accelerate dramatically. In terms of long-term significance, this stands alongside Colonel Hu’s discovery of the Activity sweet potato.”
Commander Zhao Weiliang came personally to the Research Institute to present formal recognition.
“Our applause for Vice Director Xu Changde and his entire research team.”
Grease was not a minor development.
The maintenance workload for iron people had always been the bottleneck — an iron person could amalgamate a tool, but the six-hour activity window meant constant re-maintenance to keep equipment functional. Grease extended every maintenance cycle by more than tenfold. Machinery that had been sitting in the depreciated pile could come back into service. More functional equipment meant more productive output. More productive output meant faster camp development.
Even Shen Cong found the result genuinely welcome.
His own amalgamated materials didn’t leak Activity — the bonded vehicle relationship prevented it. But his bone-gold weapons were a different matter, and Grease would extend their effective maintenance intervals substantially.
He exchanged points for a container of Grease immediately and started working.
The maintenance protocol: surface polish, weld inspection at joints, buffing, Grease application, amalgamation touch-up. Full cycle, repeated for every weapon.
“Ape King series — 1.567H. One long blade, one war hammer, two arrows, four throwing knives, two knuckle dusters, two daggers, twenty-two pellets. Maintenance complete.”
He moved through each series with the same systematic attention.
“Condor series — 1.334H. Two blades, two arrows, one spade, sixteen pellets. Maintenance complete.”
“Spike King series — 1.101H. Six arrows, six javelins, six heavy bolts, thirty-three pellets. Maintenance complete.”
“Three Dog-Croc War Hammers at 0.726H — complete. Six Dragon Hornet Arrows and six Dragon Hornet Javelins at 0.311H, Activity-Killer venom intact — complete. Canine Tooth Arrows in the 0.3H–0.5H range, twenty total — complete.”
He pulled the ten 12.7mm bone-gold rounds from the JS sniper rifle and applied a careful Grease coating to each, then loaded them back.
Outside next, container in hand.
He tapped the touchscreen.
Click.
Six blades of varying lengths deployed from the chassis ports — the Spike King dorsal quill blades, installed as the “Flying Wing Knives” vehicle weapon. Grease applied to every edge and surface, carefully worked into the joints. Retracted.
Click.
Whirr.
From the rear undercarriage, beside the winch, the integrated drill assembly extended — three meters of Spike King quill sections cut and interlocked in gear formation, mounted on a drive shaft connected to hydraulic extension pistons. When the pistons fired, the shaft spun and the drill rotated. The hydraulic mount allowed thirty degrees of lateral adjustment and fifteen degrees of vertical, letting him angle the deployment without repositioning the vehicle.
The Flying Wing Knives and the Tail Cannon — his names for the two vehicle-mounted weapons, both designed by the Automotive Lab over two days of consultation.
He applied Grease to the drill assembly with the same patience he’d given everything else. Every surface. Every joint. Every tooth of every gear section.
These two, he was particularly satisfied with.
(End of Chapter 188)