The third great earthquake had turned the landscape upside down. Raised fire rivers, volcanic lakes and volcanic craters had appeared in great numbers, and quite a few Firestarter Spirits had surfaced along with them.

Still, Firestarter Spirits remained a scarce form of extraterrestrial life.

With Brother Dao around, Shen Cong rarely had to lift a finger. They had met only two along the way, and he left both to Brother Dao.

Unlike Shen Cong's clean, efficient Sun Wukong tactic, Brother Dao fought brutally. It chewed savagely at a Firestarter Spirit, tore it limb from limb by sheer force, and in the end calmly carried a Superbrain out in its mouth. Its attitude toward fire-spirit medium was the same as Shen Cong's: it didn't think much of it. Only the Superbrain struck it as a real prize.

Shen Cong accepted the Superbrain. When it came to Superbrains, the more the better. The Space Fortress Plan, after all, needed Superbrains as a safeguard.

An Sanshun had even proposed building a Superbrain machine room, where Superbrains would be used specifically to take charge of and control the module components.

None of it was more than a plan yet, but you could never have too many Superbrains.

In exchange, Shen Cong poured a big basin of silver bamboo cocktail for Brother Dao to drink. At the sight of it Brother Dao's dog eyes lit up, and it buried its face in the basin and started lapping.

"Mmm, delicious! Not bad, not bad, Brother Dao loves silver bamboo cocktails! Wa-ha-ha! Too bad you're such a tightwad, Shen Cong. If I don't give you something, you won't give me a single drop of silver bamboo cocktail. Total cheapskate!"

Silver bamboo cocktail was something Shen Cong had developed after many rounds of mixing and testing, using silver bamboo wine and a few edible metal fruits. It tasted amazing.

As a metal life-form that no longer knew what hunger was, he could live without food.

But Shen Cong still couldn't shake his remembered love of good food, and in his spare time he puzzled over how to treat…