Frequency-hopping breathing and the gravity-forging environment bonus. Shen Cong had finally dug the biggest prize of this whole trip out of Luo Shouhai: two ways to raise Talent.

Strictly speaking, three.

Luo Shouhai's attempt to break through to particle-grade by fusing with his battle-truck was also a way to raise Talent. What he'd handed Shen Cong was a cut-down version. The real fusion method was laid out in detail, backed by a great deal of research on iron beasts, and the odds of success were argued to be high.

Shen Cong had no intention of going the fusion route, but he might be able to borrow something from how the properties changed.

Whether all three methods worked was still to be proven.

Shen Cong tried frequency-hopping breathing first.

Frequency-hopping breathing and the Primal Energy Fluctuation Method had both been developed to work on Activity fluctuations, as an active way of drawing in Firestarter grains. The difference was that the Primal Energy Fluctuation Method had the stronger effect, while frequency-hopping breathing suited an iron person better—it had been built for iron people specifically.

The Eastern Theater Command and the Provisional Government put most of their manpower and resources into people's livelihoods.

In the Chinese Empire, an autocratic monarchy, the science teams worked under a hard hand, and most of their manpower and resources went wherever the man in power wanted. Their bright ideas were all aimed at raising Talent and building combat strength.

The Eastern Theater Command, for instance, had spent a great deal of manpower and resources on developing the Spilled Water Serum, which benefited every ordinary person.

To Luo Shouhai and his kind, who cared about the Spilled Water Serum? Let ordinary people live or die, what of it? The next generation would be evolved people anyway, so developing it or not made no difference. In a few decades the new generation would all be evolved people, and there was no need to waste research strength on any of that.

Frequency-hopping breathing wasn't really breathing. It was a way of using radiative fluctuation.

Shen Cong got the knack of…