Shen Cong meant to keep the Life Wall theory to himself, treasuring his own worn-out broom. For a while, at least, he had no plans to tell anyone. How long that while lasted depended on whether he could raise his Talent any further in the time ahead.

5.838H was the standard for particle-grade, and 6.811H the standard for the next level.

Shen Cong was now at 6.577H, still 0.234H short of the next level of Talent. His definition of being a predator was staying ahead of every other evolved individual, especially intelligent ones, by at least a generation's gap. Anything less than a generation's gap and he couldn't rest easy.

Right now he was particle-grade, the highest Talent of any known evolved individual.

But he didn't rule the new world alone. He was only slightly ahead of a few others.

The milu was particle-grade, and having gotten several Talent-raising methods from Shen Cong in trade, it had probably climbed a lot higher. Brother Dao was particle-grade, but it had left in a hurry to follow Shen Cong and hadn't advanced since. It was still barely at the particle-grade standard. The giant sea turtle was particle-grade, its whereabouts currently unknown.

There was also the three-hundred-meter humpback whale, suspected to be particle-grade too. It belonged to the "ancient" sea legends the Liaoning had brought back, and the odds of running into that great whale were slim.

These few particle-grades were, so far, the evolved individuals Shen Cong had to be most wary of.

But just after Shen Cong reached the Wuzhou area, news came over the Super-Thunder Wave station that made him frown. It concerned the new government's evolved people.

"Chairman Huang, good news! We've obtained a brand-new Talent-raising method from the milu, and we're already moving it from the theory stage into practice. We're sending the material over to you now, Chairman Huang."

The material the Academy of Sciences sent was just what Shen Cong had expected. It was about the supercritical fluid state of Firestarter fragments. In other words, devouring flowfire.

Shen Cong had mastered this method long ago and…