An Sanshun and the others had no idea that this dog, which didn't look all that big, was a fearsome particle-grade iron beast. Nor did they know it was Space Brother Dao, hailed as a space hero a few years ago.

They were busily debating how to cook an "iron dog."

Evolved individuals that had reached the last stage of the Lv2 — Pitch-Black Era had, by and large, started moving away from organic food. The abundant Activity between heaven and earth meant an evolved individual didn't need to eat much to keep its energy supplied.

But far more evolved individuals were still caught up in killing and hunting for food.

The new world's low-grade evolved beasts were vast in number, especially swarming creatures like insects. Most of them were held back by the Activity Lock, unable to evolve into the Lv1 — Pure Gold Era, and could only linger and breed in the Lv0 — Activity Era.

An Sanshun and the other researchers had all become evolved people through injections of the Spilled Water Serum, and they were still lingering in the Lv0 — Activity Era too.

So they still needed to eat a lot.

Shen Cong often caught a few low-grade evolved beasts along the way for the researchers to eat. He himself only tasted a metal food now and then, when he found a new kind, a small nod to his old love of good food.

So far, the new government had recorded more than 126 kinds of metal food that could be eaten and absorbed for nutrition.

Most of them were the fruits of plants.

Studying these edible metal fruits closely, the scientists found that the metal alloys in them had a special kind of metallic bond.

A metallic bond is a kind of chemical bond. Chemical bond is the general name for the strong forces between two or more neighboring atoms (or ions) within a molecule of a pure substance or within a crystal.

The essence of a chemical change is this: old bonds break, and new bonds form.

Breaking old bonds takes in energy,…