The Firestarter Spirit's corpse lay silent for a long time. As far as Brother Dao was concerned, the experiment had flopped, no question. But a moment later the corpse began to tremble, and Brother Dao's verdict got slapped right back in its face—if a dog can be said to have a face to lose.

"BOSS, it worked! The Firestarter Spirit's come back to life!" An Sanshun chuckled. It proved the theory behind the dual-brain interference experiment he and his people had designed was right.

Shen Cong's face gave nothing away. A twitching corpse didn't prove the experiment had actually worked.

He went straight over and sent particle-grade Activity waves pounding unchecked through the Firestarter Spirit's body, feeling out the spirit-fire system and the Superbrains inside. Within moments he had picked up every last thought signal the Superbrains were giving off. Then he analyzed them and pieced them together into an abstract picture in his mind.

"Both Superbrains are activated. They've started putting out chaotic thoughts."

"But their thoughts aren't on the same channel. When they pass through the spirit-fire system, they collide and get tangled up in each other, so the signals turn even more chaotic. They can't come together into any spirit-fire command that means anything, so they can't control the body."

"Dual-brain interference really does work..."

The brain is the most remarkable structure a living thing has. Only with a brain can there be thought, consciousness and emotion. Only with a brain can a creature evolve intelligence, build a civilization and become a highly intelligent being.

Of course, most creatures' brains are nowhere near that impressive. Only the humans of the old world could truly understand what intelligence was. In the new world, Superbrains, biological brains and proto-Firestarters had all become standard kit for intelligence. The new government's scientists had done a great deal of research on the brain, but they had little to show for it.

Much of what went on in a brain couldn't be explained by any existing theory.

What Shen Cong knew was just as thin.

He knew an octopus had nine brains: one…