10:30 PM. Seventh Siphon event.

Activity Value: 3.001H. The Talent ceiling of 3.012H was 0.011H away — exactly one more Siphon transfer.

"One more. The last one."

"I've finally reached this day. The Lv1 era. The apocalyptic storm began May 18th. The final push, December 15th. Seven full months — and I've finally arrived at the turning point of evolutionary life."

"What comes next? What does the iron person's evolution look like? Will it be like the Old Pearl Mussel — full-body metallic transformation beginning to propagate? Or something else entirely?"

"Will this be an Activity accumulation event for me personally? Will metal replace my body tissue and become a new kind of living shell?"

"How should someone who is one organism with a vehicle even enter the Lv1 era?"

"Will I become a Terminator — a new form of human? Or will I become something else — a Shen Cong Beast?"

These questions had no answers yet. Tonight would begin to answer them, one by one.

The half-hour buffer interval passed quickly.

He cleared his mind, gathered his focus, and waited for the Siphon.

11:05 PM. Eighth event. The last one.

BOOM.

Activity erupted through him — filling every corner of his body simultaneously.

The count climbed: 3.002H. 3.003H. 3.004H... 3.011H. And then, under his careful perception, the final increment — 3.012H.

In that instant, he felt something seal.

Like a cork pushed into a bottle — his Activity Value was full, and the sense of measuring it vanished. He couldn't perceive how much Activity he held anymore; he could only sense that he was 3.012H Talent, and the distinction between current value and capacity had disappeared. What had been a bottle he could shake and hear the liquid moving inside had become a sealed tin can.

Activity and body had merged into something that felt inseparable.

Strange. But stranger still was what Great Vajra was sending through the bond.

The moment Shen Cong crossed into the Lv1 era, he felt it: Great Vajra's liquid Activity — what had always moved like fluid through the vehicle's metal framework —…