Shen Cong's gaze flickered.

Having heard the committee member's briefing, he was silent in thought — listening to the other members discuss how to mount the rescue, while quietly weighing whether to involve himself or pull away.

"The Liaoning currently has 115 iron people, 234 jin people, 15 half-beasts, and 188 ordinary people — 552 in all. By He Dahai's account, there are still 7 iron people stronger than him, though only marginally, which is to say these 7 iron people all have Talents between 2.9H and 3H."

"But every iron person on the Liaoning has devoured an iron core."

From 413 iron people slashed down to 115 — nearly three hundred sacrificed. You could imagine how dangerous the ocean was. Because so many iron people had died — apart from 12 fighter jets and 3 helicopters, which had lured the ocean jin beasts away, then plunged into the sea and left no iron cores behind — the rest of the fallen iron people had all left their iron cores aboard the Liaoning.

With the Liaoning's collective ingenuity, they'd soon found the method for devouring iron cores and completed the Talent increase for all their iron people.

And the iron cores couldn't all be used up; a great heap still remained.

"There are three ways to raise Talent: devouring iron cores, Firestarter fragment irradiation, and the Banner Body-Strengthening Method. The Banner Body-Strengthening Method needs a powerful iron beast of Beyond-Four-Star Talent — met by chance, not sought at will. Of the other two, they've completed the first; if they then receive Firestarter fragment irradiation…"

Shen Cong shot a glance at He Dahai, gauging that these people — including He Dahai and those 7 powerful iron people — could probably be raised to a Talent of around 3.5H.

Shen Cong's Talent was 4.067H, only 0.5H of Activity Value above 3.5H.

Not a large gap.

"Which is to say, this batch of iron people from the Liaoning is enough to pose a fatal threat to me. Perhaps one-on-one they couldn't beat me — I have the Hell Plant Armor, I've been through…