Could you get stronger without paying to win?

Obviously not.

If the four-legged dragon was to keep pace with Shen Cong's evolution and not end up dead weight, it had to pay. There was no flowfire to spare for it yet, and it couldn't grasp the Primal Energy Fluctuation Method or frequency-hopping breathing. For now the gravity-forging environment bonus was the only way to raise it at all.

It was an experiment at the same time, to see whether the thing worked.

Deep down Shen Cong didn't believe what Luo Shouhai had told him. It needed testing, and the four-legged dragon was the ideal test subject.

As for Yellow Great-Immortal, it was already nuclear-grade, and whether to raise its Talent any further wanted more watching, because one more step would make it particle-grade. A particle-grade battle pet whose absolute loyalty couldn't be guaranteed was not one Shen Cong would keep. As its IQ rose, the possibility of betrayal rose with it.

Even if it was the four-legged dragon that turned particle-grade, Shen Cong would be very much on his guard.

January 12, 2024.

Talent rose again, reaching 6.374H, and his height reached two meters thirty-six.

Shen Cong burned his Activity down to nothing, walked back to the driver's cab, and drove toward the rising sun, sitting in the light to get his energy back.

His thoughts, though, stayed on the upper compartment.

Inside the compartment.

Below where Smartbrain No. 1 sat, a "pressure cooker" had been installed, and inside the pressure cooker was a Firestarter fragment held in the fire cloud state. Fine threads of energy escaping from that state, in a form unlike flowfire, were being slowly absorbed by the Superbrain and then spread through the whole vehicle by spirit-fire, Shen Cong's body included.

That thread of energy was energy in its true form, not Firestarter grains.

The energy settled slowly into the vehicle and into his body, seeming to vanish into thin air. But Shen Cong could feel that it hadn't vanished at all. It had gone dormant, working itself into every cell of his metal structure.

"The…