By the time the terminal brain research produced results, the red sun was already sinking in the west.

The common octopus beast lying on the ground had been thoroughly roughed up by Brother Dao and had finally given in. It couldn't speak any human language, and it didn't know much Cicada Language, but it was highly intelligent and quick to understand.

Once Shen Cong had talked with it a few times and his octopus–Cicada Language vocabulary had grown, he could get to the bottom of things.

"Let me go... I'll tell you everything..." The common octopus beast was a little weak, but its life force was still strong. Losing all eight arms, mating arm included, hadn't left it at death's door.

That alone showed how powerful a particle-grade evolved beast's life force was.

Shen Cong agreed at once. "Fine."

Then he started asking. "Tell me, how did you evolve from an ordinary common octopus into a particle-grade common octopus? In short, what made you so strong?"

The common octopus beast couldn't get used to the human wording right away.

It thought for a good while before it understood what he meant, then answered flatly, "I was a little common octopus... One day the currents in the sea went wild... I found I was different... I grew... got strong... The seawater suddenly got very hot. I couldn't stand it, so I swam to the shallows."

After reaching the shallows, the common octopus beast crawled up onto a small island, this very island, Nan'ao Island.

After hiding on Nan'ao Island for a while, the common octopus beast grew stronger still and no longer feared the temperature of the seawater. At that point it was probably around nuclear-grade. Basically, all the Talent it gained in that stretch of its evolution came from the Firestarter energy the currents carried.

But later a chance encounter gave the common octopus beast a shot at breaking through its Talent.

"It happened by chance. I was swimming freely in the sea, and I saw a volcano, a volcano on the seabed. Something in the volcano was pulling at…