"Big fella, go eat some grass." Arrived at his stop, Shen Cong immediately waved the Snail Traveler off to roam freely.

The Snail Traveler's two big stalk-mounted eyeballs tracked Shen Cong's departing back with startling human-like attentiveness, radiating emotions of hungry and grass is tasty.

Shen Cong repeated himself. "Go eat some grass."

Only then did the Snail Traveler turn its eyes away and crawl toward the dense forest not far off, meaning to eat jin trees.

Shen Cong suddenly remembered something and quickly communicated in Snail Cicada-Language. "Oh, right — big fella, remember to keep your distance. Your dung stinks too much."

The Snail Traveler didn't grasp far and near, or stench; those words were all Shen Cong's own.

So it started eating jin trees a short way off.

Shen Cong shook his head. He'd just have to drive off a distance himself.

The Four-Legged Dragon watched the Snail Traveler, wanting to approach but not daring — the Talent pressure aura exerted a heavy suppression on her. This was psychological interference; the earlier Shen Cong had treated the Snail Traveler just as cautiously. But once he'd learned this fellow was a silver-plated pewter spearhead — all show, no substance — the tension had faded.

However big a combat zero grows, it stays a combat zero.

It wasn't a predator-type creature to begin with — no sharp claws, no keen teeth, no powerful limbs. Growing larger only made it harder to bite into… and a bit fatter.

If you really pitted the Four-Legged Dragon against the Snail Traveler, it might well end with the Four-Legged Dragon clawing through the shell and killing the snail.

"Dividing grades by Talent alone can only calculate an evolved beast's rough capability range." Shen Cong scratched the chin of the enthusiastically welcoming Four-Legged Dragon, thinking as he did. "Actually, grading by combat strength — super, heavy, cruiser, feather, bantam, fly, grass — setting aside the group-versus-individual distinction, is finer-grained by comparison."

Shen Cong felt some nostalgia for the old super-heavyweight, heavyweight, cruiserweight divisions.

Whether the combat-strength method or the Talent method, each had its shortcomings…