Faced with the Hummer’s original activation metal framework, Shen Cong found himself at a loss.

He could feel that it was extraordinary. He just couldn’t push the research any further — and he had no intention of following the Sharp Eagle and Melancholy Bird’s example by eating it. Vajra had been transmitting a persistent pull toward consuming the metal, and he’d considered guiding the vehicle through an Amalgamation attempt. But Vajra couldn’t amalgamate this material. The how of consuming it remained completely unclear.

Do I actually have to eat this pile of metal myself?

He knocked on the solid axle housing, then decisively set that idea aside. He wasn’t an evolved bird. He didn’t have a razor-edged beak designed for tearing through steel. Biting metal with human teeth was a reliable path to a dental catastrophe, and more fundamentally, it wasn’t on his menu — he still had human tastes, and metal sat firmly outside them.

After turning the problem over repeatedly without finding any practical application, he was left with the logistical reality: the framework was taking up significant space inside Vajra.

Maybe it can work as bait.

He thought back to the two birds — how they’d fought each other the entire flight, both pulled toward the same target, how they’d redirected onto the Hummer frame the moment they were close enough to smell it. Very likely their arrival in the first place had been because of this metal’s Activity signature, detectable from a considerable distance.

If evolved creatures were drawn to it this strongly, the framework could anchor a hunting trap.

The mechanism he had in mind was simple — a variant of the jiàng, the classic bird trap. He’d learned about it in sixth grade, from the language textbook story Young Runtu: in heavy snow, prop up a large bamboo sieve with a short stick, scatter grain beneath it, tie a cord to the stick. A bird comes for the grain, you pull the cord, the sieve drops.

His version would be made of steel rather than bamboo, and scaled for things considerably larger than sparrows.

Weld steel rebar into a square cage. Hinge the bottom face as a door — hold the cage elevated — place the original activation metal at the center connected to a trigger mechanism. When an evolved beast or bird moves in to feed on the metal, it trips the mechanism and the cage drops.

Add an alarm circuit running back to his bedroom: the moment the trap triggered, a buzzer would sound and wake him.

He had plenty of steel. The Hummer teardown had left him with abundant raw material. Guided through Amalgamation, Vajra could shape the rebar using Extension — a simple production line, length after length. It would cost Activity, but with the Bull Demon King Totem running continuously, the drain was manageable.

By eleven that night, he had enough rebar prepared and started welding the cage together. At nearly six-bull strength, assembling the structure was trivially easy. The trap was finished quickly.

He placed it at a fork in the road ten meters from Vajra.

The activation metal was welded to the cage’s center support. Beneath it: a simple contact trigger. Anything that bit or pulled at the metal would release the locking pins holding the cage elevated. The cage would drop and press a knife-switch mounted at the base perimeter.

Switch closes, circuit completes, bedroom alarm sounds.

Everything set.

He yawned, used river water he’d hauled in earlier to shower in the small washroom — the two salvaged climate units were finally holding the interior below thirty degrees Celsius, which felt almost luxurious — then pulled on a pair of boxers, stretched out on the bedroom bunk, and turned on the in-cab television.

He plugged in the USB drive packed with movies.

B-grade horror films. Low budget, high blood. Exactly what he wanted for a late night alone.

The opening shot: a blonde woman in something tight and impractical, the camera making its intentions about her very clear.

A few minutes later, something with too many teeth and no discernible face tore her face off instead. Blood filled the screen.

“Heh.”

He wasn’t frightened — he laughed. After enough B-movies, all the patterns became visible. A group of people doing increasingly fatal things. A monster kept offscreen to maintain mystery. An inevitable hero who steps forward with confidence. Said hero dies immediately. The timid, slightly foolish character — probably a woman — survives to the credits.

He wasn’t sure when exactly B-grade horror had decided that heroism was a death sentence. But he respected the thesis.

Stay out front, become a target. Heroes carry the blame. He had never once wanted to be a hero.

Beep-beep-beep.

The alarm.

He switched the bedroom monitor to the camera covering the trap. Black and white night vision. In the frame: something that looked like an oversized Gnawrat, inside the closed cage, gnawing on the activation metal with focused intensity. The cage had already dropped and locked. The creature hadn’t even registered it — it was still eating.

The pull of the original metal had overwhelmed any instinct toward caution. Or perhaps evolved creatures simply didn’t process danger the same way anymore — mutations ran deeper than the body.

Quick sweep of all cameras. Nothing else nearby.

He suited up, opened the window, raised the crossbow.

Thwack.

One bolt through the skull. Instant kill.

Embarrassingly easy.

It was a Gnawrat. Larger than the one he’d encountered a month or two ago — noticeably bigger across every dimension.

Stats: Lv0.334 / Activity Value 0.156H / Talent 0.467H. A significant jump from the earlier specimen across every measurement. Evolution, it seemed, hadn’t been standing still in the barren zone either.

Its two oversized incisors — each roughly the length of a short cleaver — showed noticeably more metallic gradation than before. The transition toward Activity core material was progressing. Maybe one day those teeth would complete the shift and become fully metal.

If something reaches Lv1, does its Activity core complete the transformation? Does it become fully metallic?

Does that happen to mutant humans too?

Why is my own evolution different — no metallic gradation, no visible core formation? Why do iron people evolve differently from mutants and evolved beasts?

None of these questions had answers he could reach from here. Hefei, military contact, research data — that was where answers lived.

After confirming the trap worked, he moved the cage to Vajra’s roof for storage. The activation metal he cut into smaller pieces and stowed in the cargo bay. With Sharp Eagle, Melancholy Bird, and Gnawrat meat already on hand, he had roughly a week’s supply. No need to hunt further — too much meat with no reliable preservation method just meant waste.

Before sleep, he checked on the larvae.

The old-mature larva was still eating. Relentlessly, methodically, without pause. In the corner of the container, the pupa had deepened to a dark brown, its Activity radiation noticeably stronger than yesterday. Every day brought a measurable increase.

Old-mature larva: Lv0.231 / Activity Value 0.095H / Talent 0.411H. Pupa: Lv0.265 / Activity Value 0.093H / Talent 0.350H.

The pupa was pulling ahead. Something was happening in there.

He closed the container and went to sleep.

(End of Chapter 84)