Metal-steel was several times stronger than metal-iron, and that came down to the particular structure formed between Vajra's blood and metal-iron.

Shen Cong had run the experiment. Cut a piece of metal-steel off, store it a week, and once it had gone inert and turned into ordinary metal, alloy it again. What he found was that after alloying it was still metal-steel — not metal-iron. Which meant metal-steel was a material that could not be reduced back down, rather than some short-lived compound.

So Vajra's blood strengthening metal-iron into metal-steel probably wasn't an Activity wave effect.

Activity wave effects all reversed as the Activity wave decayed. The Activity water-wave, for instance, could strengthen an ordinary person into a bug warrior — but cut the bug core out and the decay started immediately, and the bug warrior's strength dropped through the floor. After death, the physique returned to ordinary.

And if it wasn't the Activity wave, then the secret of Vajra's blood would have to be decoded starting from the raw material.

These liquid metals are similar to mercury. Like what you'd get if mercury were activated. The things you could compare Vajra's blood to are the natural carrier vehicles and the Firestarter Spirit... Shen Cong had grasped one simple common thread: all of them had been catalyzed by the energy of Firestarter fragments.

In point of fact, everything in the new world had been brought by the Firestarter.

Coming at it from the Firestarter side was the best point of entry. Vajra's blood was metal activated directly, so its characteristics ought to resemble those of the natural carrier vehicles and the Firestarter Spirit.

Over the next several days, Shen Cong dug into the problem.

Feeling out the subtleties of Vajra's blood in detail.

Vajra's blood didn't only evolve the metal material outside the Vajra Fortress's iron core into metal-steel; the Vajra Fortress could also trade it across to Shen Cong, accelerating his metallic gradation.

By now Shen Cong was at the Lv2 Pitch-Black Era, lymph-gold / gland-gold stage.

He had begun his metallic gradation in early April, and now it…