This time, after the interviews, Shen Cong added ten people to his research team. With An Sanshun, that made a team of eleven.

Once the research staff was in place, Shen Cong left Linyi City and headed toward Beijing.

Several Firestarter Spirits had also crawled out of the ground in what used to be the Provisional Government's territory. Now they were rampaging across the ravaged land.

A disaster on the scale of a plate fracture had torn up the surface of the world. Strong evolved beasts could avoid the danger, though the plants in their habitats had been badly hurt. Luckily, evolved beasts had now all entered the Lv3 — Burning Era, and they needed far less food.

Their survival wasn't in danger.

"With all these great earthquakes, the trees took the worst damage. It looks like Tree Vajras are going to be even harder to come by..." Shen Cong said it with a sigh as he drove the Vajra Fortress. All around him, plants lay buried in the dirt, with only a little of each still showing.

Deep down, he still thought that of the eight Earth species of the future, the Tree Vajras would be the most remarkable species.

Titan Giants, Super-Powered Warriors, Colossi and Mechanists had all split off from humanity and still belonged to the human species. The huge Primal Beasts would probably lean toward living as loners. The intelligent species among animals, which would evolve into Fierce Beast Heroes, might become humanity's rivals. The Armored Beasts, fused with machines, were so few they hardly counted.

Only the Tree Vajras should have had an enormous base to draw from. After all, all the world's species put together might not outnumber its plants.

But the conditions for a plant to grow a Superbrain were harsh, and plants had been struck by devastating blows again and again. So far, apart from the thunderbolt giant fir Shen Cong had cut down, only that one dragon-claw pagoda tree seemed to be on its way to becoming a Tree Vajra.

"Tree Vajras and Armored Beasts take harsh conditions to form, and…