On the mysterious island in the Pacific—MOTH's S-1 Experimental Base—Vill-V had finally set foot here in person, the place where two members of the Mad Hatter Party had once perished...
The gentle sea breeze brushed against Vill-V's long hair, her eyes gleaming with anticipation and resolve.
Two years ago, Vill-V had attempted to unveil the island's secrets.
However, MOTH's power had been far too immense, and the island itself far too bizarre. Rather than attempt a direct assault, Vill-V had instead shifted her strategy and arranged plans around its backup island.
Now, as time flowed on, Vill-V had finally gained another opportunity to set foot upon this mysterious island.
The island's mystery did not stem solely from MOTH establishing the S-1 Experimental Base here. It was also a legendary existence in its own right.
Legend One: During the Spanish colonial era of the 16th century, several Spanish conquistadors reportedly came to this island and established an outpost to use as a warehouse, burying vast quantities of gold and valuables upon it. But when they returned to retrieve their treasure, the island had vanished.
Legend Two: During the Caribbean pirate era of the 17th century, many famous pirates—such as Blackbeard, Calico Jack, and Anne Bonny—had encountered this mysterious island. It was said they discovered so much gold upon it that their ships could not carry it all. They took only a portion and departed, intending to return by following their sea charts—only to find the island gone.
Legend Three: The United States Pacific Fleet, while on patrol, received a distress signal from an allied source. Strangely, the message had been sent using Morse code long since obsolete. Following the signal, the fleet discovered this mysterious island, and the one calling for help was a World War II-era American pilot who had lost his way. He claimed to have been stranded on the island for twenty-eight years. Yet according to the outside world's timeline, more than a century had already passed since the end of World War II.
There were many more such rumors and apocryphal tales circulating.
This alone showed how difficult it was to find this "mysterious island." Even with Vill-V's black technology, the Mad Hatter Party had spent a long time searching for it, sacrificing two Party members and countless intelligence agents in the process.
As far as the eye could see, the entire island had been transformed by MOTH into a steel fortress.
But at its core, it was still just an ordinary island. If Vill-V had been the one to redesign it, she would have turned it into a sky island—or perhaps a mobile island capable of walking on its own.
Sailing around the world while seated upon an island—how romantic would that be? And there would be no need to worry about suddenly sinking during a Honkai outbreak.
Of course, Vill-V knew that this seemingly unremarkable island was far from simple. Before coming, Conductor had already formed numerous hypotheses about it, though none had been verified.
"Tsk, these particle fluctuation readings... Looks like there's definitely something fishy here." Vill-V frowned and muttered softly.
Her earpiece had already received the analytical report from Project Bunny after conducting a three-dimensional scan of the island.
The magnetic field here was extremely stable, but the quantum field was unusually strange.
Virtual particles existed within the quantum field. They did not truly exist within real-number space, yet their existence... was necessary for describing the behavior of real particles.
Through certain quantum techniques derived from the Three-Body world, Vill-V could obtain related data. If necessary, under certain conditions, she could even activate virtual particles and touch upon traces of them.
And now, it was precisely that data which had undergone peculiar changes. As for the exact nature of the situation, even Vill-V could not clearly explain it.
After all, virtual particles did not truly exist within the physical world. Those data were merely empirical conclusions based on prior research from the Three-Body world. Vill-V would never directly transplant Three-Body theories wholesale into the Honkai world.
Aside from that, the rate of energy conversion here was also strangely abnormal. Normally, such deviations were minuscule—so slight that the scientific instruments of the current era would find them nearly impossible to detect.
But the Curvature Detector constructed by Expert using Three-Body world technology could capture such anomalies.
According to Three-Body logic, it was an abnormality in curvature space. The greater the difference in curvature, the faster mass-energy conversion would occur.
That meant... the space and time of this mysterious island were problematic. At the very least, they did not proceed in the same stable manner as the outside world.
Perhaps it had something to do with the preserved corpse of the Second Herrscher.
It's already just a corpse, and it's still stirring up trouble... Vill-V shuddered inwardly. Please don't let something like a "quantum ghost" suddenly pop out.
When it came to ghosts and the like, Vill-V was truly terrified.
Clang— The tightly sealed secondary soulium gates unlocked and opened one after another.
Unlike the other flooring, beneath Vill-V's feet rose a peculiar magnetic hum—that was the sound emitted by soulium.
The S-1 Experimental Base was an installation constructed entirely from soulium.
This was soulium—the ultimate crystallization of Previous Era technology.
If such an enormous quantity of soulium were placed in the later era, it would make Schicksal envious and Anti-Entropy green with jealousy.
A piece of soulium the size of an arm could fully equip an A-rank Valkyrie. And even A-rank Valkyries could not simply obtain it at will. Soulium in the later civilization was extremely scarce. It was fundamentally impossible to equip all A-rank Valkyries with it—though there were not many A-rank Valkyries to begin with.
Not only in the later era—even in the Previous Era, which possessed the capability to manufacture soulium, it was not something that could be produced in unlimited quantities.
All soulium was forged by nanomachines. As such, its quality varied according to the manufacturing process of those nanomachines.
The highest grade was liquid soulium cast from mercury. It could flow like a liquid, and the fluid itself could store vast amounts of information. Even if eroded by Honkai energy, it could rapidly repair itself. In the future, Otto's soulium body would be constructed from this very material—sufficient proof of its extraordinary information-bearing capacity.
Next came engineering alloy steel—namely, standard foundational soulium. This type of soulium had many variant versions.
Superconductive soulium: manufactured by nanomachines using superconductive materials to twist bilayer graphene. It possessed zero-resistance conductivity and complete diamagnetic properties, suitable for manufacturing high-speed electronic devices and superconducting shielding magnets. In the future, the weapon Skadi of Thrymheim used by Rita in her battlesuit Argent Knight: Artemis would be forged from this type of soulium.
Magnetic soulium: manufactured by nanomachines using magnetic materials. It possessed extremely strong magnetic properties and anti-magnetic performance, suitable for high-efficiency motors and magnetic materials. This soulium came with its own power-generation system, boasting excellent conductivity and discharge capabilities. In the future, the weapon Nuada's Grief used by Fu Hua in her battlesuit Shadow Knight would be forged from this type of soulium.
These were merely two simple examples of foundational soulium types. In reality, soulium materials were often adapted to local conditions—there was no single fixed composition.