Chapter 122: The Vanished History

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You Zhi first pulled out his identification card and swiped it, then entered a long string of numbers. After that came a fingerprint scan, followed by an iris scan.

Opening a door was more elaborate than entering a vault. Were there some priceless treasures hidden behind it?

It was only an archive room. Was all that really necessary?!

Besides, who would ever think of robbing the Transcendent Prefecture?

Ye Chen had never been particularly curious, but even his interest was gradually being stirred.

With a deep rumble, the black metal door slowly lifted.

Ye Chen peered inside. It was pitch-black.

You Zhi led the two of them in. They passed through a short corridor, and the instant they stepped into the room, the lights all around them sprang on in unison, soft and easy on the eyes.

Ye Chen stood at the center of the circular room, looking up as he turned to take in his surroundings.

The room had an extraordinarily high ceiling, from which hung a grand classical crystal chandelier. Strings of crystal pendants cascaded from it, scattering dazzling, disorienting light and creating the illusion that they had stepped into a palace.

The archive room had three levels. It was spacious and open, and its distinctive wooden construction made it resemble an ancient castle with sharply defined lines.

Within this enormous three-dimensional space stood rows upon rows of neatly arranged wooden bookshelves.

The shelves were filled with all kinds of books, yet they did not appear crammed. Plenty of empty compartments remained.

On closer inspection, Ye Chen saw words carved into the shelves. They identified the different categories of books, making it easier for readers to find what they needed.

There was also a long wooden table in the archive room, with paper and pens already laid out upon it. No explanation was needed to know that they were provided for readers to take notes.

You Zhi closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, intoxicated by the ocean of knowledge.

His sister, You Ya, glanced at him, then silently stepped away, putting as much distance as possible between herself and her idiot brother.

After enjoying himself for a moment, You Zhi opened his eyes and explained to Ye Chen:

“This is the archive room of the Transcendent Prefecture in the Energy Capital. Every Transcendent Prefecture has a room like this, used to store the materials collected over the years.

“That includes many pre-human documents discovered in the ruins.”

Ye Chen looked around the empty room, puzzled. “Why aren’t there any researchers here looking through the materials?”

You Ya jumped in to explain:

“The scanned copies of the materials were uploaded to the database ages ago. Naturally, researchers of different ranks have different access privileges.

“But only a weirdo like my brother enjoys reading paper documents.

“That man has all sorts of strange habits!”

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You Zhi badly wanted to argue. How could reading an electronic version possibly compare with reading a paper one?

He simply liked the feel of paper beneath his fingertips, and the rustling sound made by a pen moving across its pages.

Ye Chen thought to himself, They have the same parents, so how did they end up being so different?

At that thought, he instinctively turned to look at You Ya.

“Why are you looking at me?!” You Ya snapped, her willow brows rising as an intimidating force radiated from her.

You Zhi treated his sister as though she were air and continued explaining to Ye Chen:

“Every book, every document and letter, whether damaged or intact, is a precious treasure left behind by humanity. It would not be an exaggeration to call them priceless.

“Calling the things preserved here ‘books’ would diminish them. They should be called civilization—or perhaps merely a fragment of civilization.

“One of the Transcendent Prefecture’s greatest missions is to reconstruct pre-human history and uncover the several hundred years that vanished during the transition from the pre-human era to the human era.”

Several hundred vanished years?

Ye Chen recalled the history textbook he had read. Aside from the opening passage about the cataclysm, which sounded like something out of a fantasy tale, the rest was little more than the sordid family history of successive City Lords.

There had been nothing worth studying in depth.

Could it be that the history textbooks were incomplete? Or perhaps they had never revealed the truth of history at all?

Were countless unknown events buried beneath the river of time?

You Zhi said solemnly:

“I heard from You Ya that you want to know what research the Inner City Research Prefecture is currently conducting. It is a long story. Come with me.”

With that, he led Ye Chen toward one of the walls of bookshelves.

As they drew closer, Ye Chen saw a line of words carved into the shelves:

“Physical-Type Awakeners.”

Ye Chen was secretly puzzled. Wasn’t researching awakeners the work of the Transcendent Prefecture? Could this also have something to do with the Research Prefecture?

“As you know, the Transcendent Prefecture conducts research into all three types of awakeners. What is stored here represents part of our research成果 concerning physical-type awakeners.”

You Zhi searched the shelves for a while, then removed a thick stack of bound documents and handed it to Ye Chen.

The title on the cover read: “Agent One.”

An agent? Was the Transcendent Prefecture manufacturing agents too?

With his mind full of questions, Ye Chen opened the documents.

Good grief... holy crap!

Page after page was packed with dense writing and combinations of strange symbols. Their sight left Ye Chen, whose knowledge was still at an elementary level, dizzy and disoriented.

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After flipping through several pages with his scalp tingling, Ye Chen finally found explanations accompanied by pictures that he could understand.

The first image showed an ordinary human. The next showed a large black chimpanzee. The final image depicted an ordinary human with a pair of thick, powerful arms identical to the chimpanzee’s.

As he continued turning the pages, he found images of different people paired with different mutant creatures, producing astonishing changes when combined.

Some were fish-like humanoids, with gills growing on their faces and webbing between their fingers and toes.

Some were bird-like humanoids, with wings sprouting from their backs and the ability to glide through the air.

Some were horse-like humanoids, with hooves instead of feet and the ability to run at incredible speed.

Ye Chen looked up at the utterly serious You Zhi, his eyes filled with question marks.

“As you can see, the purpose of Agent One is to induce physical mutations in ordinary humans.

“We call this artificial awakening.

“The Transcendent Prefecture extracts genes from mutant creatures, then selectively injects them into human tissue to achieve localized awakening.”

Injecting humans?

The moment Ye Chen heard that the Transcendent Prefecture had also conducted human experiments, his expression darkened. He lowered his head and pretended to continue reading, remaining silent.

You Ya, standing behind him, keenly noticed the subtle change. To prevent someone from sinking deeper into a misunderstanding, she took the initiative to explain:

“All the experimental subjects who underwent the injections volunteered. The Transcendent Prefecture did not force anyone to participate.

“Among them... among them, many were our own researchers.”

Ye Chen looked up in astonishment at You Zhi, who gave him a firm nod.

So this was what it meant to devote oneself to scientific research...

His contempt for the word “researcher” vanished in an instant, replaced by solemn respect.

“The design of the experimental procedure benefited from our collection of pre-human documents.

“We compared mutant beasts before and after their transformations and concluded that their bodies contained genes capable of triggering mutation.

“Facts proved that our reasoning was correct.”

You Zhi’s explanation left a certain young man utterly stunned.

You mean that the mutant beasts I’ve been dealing with all these years are actually awakeners?

Then how does humanity’s natural awakening come about?