Ten hours.

Leaning on his formidable willpower, Shen Cong endured the flaying pain each time it came, and at last finished establishing the Mind Channel in full stability. From day into night, tedium alongside pain—even with Shen Cong's toughness, he found it something of a strain.

But the gains were enormous.

Successfully establishing the Mind Channel not only removed the danger of Shen Cong's body being fused and devoured by the Vajra Fortress, it also gave him a working scheme for fusing with the Fortress in the first place.

Shen Cong had no idea whether the future of evolution truly required fusing with the Vajra Fortress.

But so long as there was an alternative, he preferred to keep his body's independence. A great many of the body's pleasures were gone for him now, true—but a lifetime's familiarity with his own body, from childhood on, left him unable to swap out the shell with any peace of mind.

"The threat to my body is lifted. Now I only wait for the scientists to analyze the various scenarios of the brain gradation for me—another four or five days and I'll have to face it."

Anticipation.

Unease.

Tension.

Every kind of feeling rose and died away in his heart as the brain gradation drew nearer.

The thunderbolt giant fir suffered for it. To prepare himself properly, Shen Cong ran a great many experiments inside the fir's rough Superbrain, most of them designed along the scientists' suggestions—including plenty that struck even Shen Cong as gruesome stuff.

Digging out a portion of the rough Superbrain to purify separately, for instance; when he cut into it, the thunderbolt giant fir all but exploded.

Or scorching and corroding the rough Superbrain; under that provocation, the fir's consciousness swung between lucid and deranged.

By the end of one round of experiments, Shen Cong suspected that if the thunderbolt giant fir really did give birth to higher intelligence, it would be a madman or an idiot for certain.

The scientists, though, felt nothing about it whatsoever, and kept urging Shen Cong on to more inhumane experiments—or, to be precise…