Chapter Sixty-One: Hidden Chronicles—The Civilization of Human Technology

Unconsciously, the first day on Illusion Island had slipped away. With the light of dawn illuminating the earth, the second day had arrived.

The weather remained calm and clear; the sky was a pristine azure, and warm sunlight filtered through the dense layers of foliage, casting a gentle glow upon the three figures by the forest riverbank.

“Whimper!”

Angel stirred groggily awake. Taking in the unfamiliar surroundings, she tried to rise, but a sharp tearing pain in her back made her cry out and collapse back onto the grass.

She recalled faintly that she had lost consciousness the previous night, but everything thereafter was a blank. At that moment, Yuchen Nangong and Kexin Nangong were roused by the commotion.

“Angel? Are you alright?” Yuchen hurried over, watching as she clenched her teeth and tried to turn over.

“Ah… I’m fine!” Angel waved off the concern. As she sat up, she suddenly noticed her chest felt strangely bare. Raising a hand to touch it, her face flushed deeply with embarrassment.

“Na... Na... Yuchen Nangong, what happened to my chest... and my clothes?”

Her voice trembled, stammering, yet her tone grew colder.

“Oh… that. Yesterday, I helped clean your wounds!” Yuchen’s eye twitched as he sensed an ominous chill in the air, hastily adding, “It was Kexin who helped you clean them!”

At this, Angel’s chill subsided. She lifted her gaze, glaring skeptically at Yuchen. “Is that so?”

“Of course!” Yuchen nodded vigorously and suddenly turned to Kexin. “Sis, quickly tell Angel that you were the one who treated her wounds yesterday!”

“Huh? Oh, oh…” Just waking, Kexin was still dazed and unaware of what Yuchen was saying, but nodded along absentmindedly.

“See?” Yuchen said triumphantly.

“Really?” Angel’s expression softened, but her gem-like eyes remained suspicious as she looked at Yuchen.

“Mm-hmm!” Yuchen stood aside, breaking out in cold sweat.

Seeing Angel finally believe him and starting to adjust her clothes, he breathed a sigh of relief, though bitterness churned within him. “Being a good person is truly difficult!”

Yet, recalling what he had seen the previous night, he felt a wave of confusion.

He remembered that while cleaning Angel’s back wounds, he had suddenly spotted dense black patterns, like sinister marks of a curse, extending all the way to her neck.

Just as he prepared to examine them more closely, the dark markings vanished as if they had been an illusion, never really there.

“What exactly were those?”

Lost in thought, Yuchen was startled by Kexin’s sudden exclamation: “Yuchen, what about my wounds…” She looked down at the bandages wrapped around her injuries, recalling that she had not treated them herself last night.

Upon hearing this, Angel’s expression hardened, chilling the air around them. “Nangong Yuchen!”

“Ah… Kexin!” Yuchen paled in alarm, hastily babbling explanations. “Kexin, don’t you remember? After you treated Angel’s wounds, you passed out. I was the one who bandaged your injuries!”

“Is that so?”

“Oh…” Kexin’s cheeks flushed, but thinking that these were just arm and shoulder wounds, and that Yuchen had tended her injuries before, she quickly relaxed.

She looked at Yuchen, sweating profusely as he explained, and then at Angel, whose voice was sharp and accusatory, still puzzled by the morning’s events.

“Oh, by the way, Angel, why can the mech shield withstand the powerful cannon sniper shot, but not the heavy machine gun?” Yuchen wiped the cold sweat from his brow and quickly changed the subject, voicing his doubts about the mech’s workings.

“Hmph!” Angel’s expression remained cold as she looked away from the nervous Yuchen and explained, “Every mech is formed from the crystal blocks and energy you see, right?”

Yuchen nodded.

“And a defensive shield can never be invincible. There are two ways to break it: first, through overwhelming force—if a stronger or more frequent attack hits the shield, it disperses its energy and shatters back into crystal fragments. Second, like the heavy machine gun’s dense bullets, if the projectiles cover every point of the shield, they break the energy links between the crystals, causing it to collapse.”

As she spoke, Kexin approached, listening intently to the mech knowledge.

“The first case mainly occurs when advanced weapons attack lower-level shields, or when skills like the cannon sniper or bombardment sniper make multiple attacks to break the shield. The second case, as of now, only the heavy machine gun can achieve, which is why it’s known as the weapon that shields cannot block!”

“I see!” Yuchen suddenly understood. No wonder the shield couldn’t withstand that boy’s heavy machine gun at first, but could block Liu Ze’s cannon sniper shot.

Yet, the mention of sniping rekindled his doubt: “Why does my cannon sniper’s entire gun body dim every time I fire?”

He recalled that every time he fired a round, the gun’s body darkened.

“That’s natural,” Angel explained. “Just like strength- and speed-type mechs consume the pilot’s physical energy when activating skills, neural-reflex-type mechs differ—they require more energy.”

“And that energy comes from the gun itself. After firing, it cannot shoot more shells or bullets until energy replenishes. But every gun has an energy recovery system. Pistols, rifles, light machine guns, heavy machine guns—they use small amounts of energy per bullet and recover fast, allowing prolonged fire.”

“But cannon snipers and bombardment snipers are different. Their attacks are tremendously powerful and energy-demanding. Though equipped with recovery systems, energy can’t replenish instantly. That’s why their gun bodies dim after firing. For example, a normal cannon sniper has enough stored energy for about three continuous shots, while a bombardment sniper can typically only fire once. Otherwise, if a first-tier bombardment sniper’s power could destroy a radius of over ten meters, and higher tiers could fire endlessly, humans would already be the strongest species on Earth! Don’t you agree?”

Yuchen nodded thoughtfully, realizing it all made perfect sense—every advantage came with a drawback.

At that moment, Angel spoke again.

“Actually, humanity’s greatest wisdom does not lie in neural-reflex mechs, but in strength and speed.”

“Greatest wisdom?” Yuchen and Kexin exchanged glances, startled and curious about what she meant.

“Over five centuries ago, because the Elven race aided humanity in defeating monsters, humans felt deep gratitude and forged a strong bond with the Elves.”

“You must have heard of the Elves who dwell in the Skyward Forest, peaceful beings who cherish nature and harmony—where else could there be human cunning and deceit?”

“Once trust was established, the human ruler discovered that the six elemental powers mastered by the ‘Children of Elements’ among the Elves resonated with human mech strength and speed.”

“This discovery overturned humanity’s previous understanding of mechs, but it was only a discovery—far from mastery or study.”

“So the human ruler ordered, under the pretense of cooperation with the Elves, to deceive those naive Elves.”

Angel’s face twisted into a bitter, self-mocking smile, her voice trembling slightly. “Ha, the price of that deceit was the Elves being taken captive for research, confined and even dissected, all to better understand the six elements: wind, fire, lightning, water, ice, and earth.”

“Though despicable, one must admit human ingenuity. Within years, they succeeded in harnessing the resonance between the six elements and mech strength and speed. This led to the present day, where the six elements can fuse with energy and transform into mech skills…”

“There are many points of resonance: the earth’s weight, fire’s fury, and water’s flexibility align perfectly with strength-type mechs known for power and defense; while wind’s swiftness, ice’s sharpness, and lightning’s penetration merge with speed-type mechs renowned for attack and agility.”

“This is humanity’s great wisdom! It is this wisdom that created human technological civilization and shaped the human race as it is today!”