Shen Cong left the new government, and he did not leave in any great hurry.

With the Super-Thunder Wave stations, as long as he was not too far from the new government he could pick up their technology at will. So once the team of scientists had the Superbrain research more or less done, there was no need for him to go on sitting around at the new government.

The brain-cloud gradation had gone from its clouded state and begun settling into the shape of a biological brain, Firestarter grains lying in a particular state, rising and falling in an unbroken run through the biological brain's furrows. It was like gathering up countless bright stars into a ball, then crumpling the ball into a sheet of paper full of creases — a sheet of paper that glowed.

The Firestarter grains in a Superbrain glitter like a starry sky, splendid but sparse. The Firestarter grains in a biological brain radiate out like a spiderweb, creased but dense.

Judging by total quantity, in fact, a Superbrain and a biological brain of equal-grade Talent probably hold much the same number of Firestarter grains.

It is only that the Firestarter grains are arranged and combined differently, which is why a Superbrain suits controlling a body that has undergone gigantism and a biological brain suits handling Activity waves at a fine grain.

By the time the brain-cloud began settling, Shen Cong had finished feeling out the whole of the Lv4 Nebula Era, so the road ahead of him was no longer something more Superbrain study could give him.

He had to keep exploring. He had to leave the new government, which had been explored about as far as it went, and look for new leads.

"After the Lv4 — Nebula Era, what sort of era comes next? Or does my evolution simply stop here?" Shen Cong did not believe evolution would stop that easily.

The comet named Firestarter had carried energy that was vast and terrible.

As a wholly new life form inheriting that energy, passing without a break from organic life into metal life,…