Armor-Piercing Munition: Face Me, Carbon-Based Monster!
Chapter 69: Inheritance

Chapter 69: Chapter 69: Inheritance

The equipment left by the Mechanical God Sect in Yellow Stone City wasn’t much, mostly consisting of single-shot rifles and small-caliber smoothbore cannons.

In a heap of weapons, Chen Jian found a few usable Type 81 rifles. Upon firing, he was surprised to find the full auto mode still functional, although the jamming issue was quite severe, almost needing a bolt pull every two shots.

He couldn’t help but admire the robustness and durability of these weapons. It was hard to believe they’d been taken from somewhere after over three hundred years, and aside from some problems with the recoil spring and gas system, they could still maintain a relatively good working condition.

No doubt these were high-quality replicas of Mao-era relics, perhaps truly meant for nuclear war preparation...

However, he didn’t have time to marvel much, as the most pressing issue at hand was how to distribute these weapons.

According to his analysis, since it’s been confirmed that the monster named "Mongolia" was related to the Mechanical God Sect, Yellow Stone City’s strategic importance was quite significant.

It was no longer just an ordinary settlement; it might actually be a secret base and source of troops for the Mechanical God Sect.

This could be corroborated by the fact that Yellow Stone City’s population had drastically decreased over two years.

Therefore, as he had said, retaliation from the other side would come swiftly.

In fact, what they might face might not just be retaliation from Han Shui City but the collective vengeance of the entire Mechanical God Sect.

The situation was dire, and everyone needed to be armed quickly.

Thus, Chen Jian ordered the more than a hundred people who had returned to Yellow Stone City to receive weapons, prioritizing them for capable adults.

He was slightly surprised to find that a large portion of the adults who stepped forward to collect weapons were women.

They had no intention of stepping back; in this apocalyptic world, women truly could hold up half the sky...

Once the weapons were distributed, Chen Jian continued discussing the city defense plan with Huang Yu.

And after everything was basically arranged, Chen Jian realized that Huang Yu was not actually a novice in this area.

At the very least, he could draft a reasonable schedule and even know where to position sentries most appropriately.

This proved he actually had a basic level of military competence—albeit limited.

"Have you served in the City Defense Army?"

In the temporary command post set up in the Mechanical God Sect’s church, Chen Jian asked.

Huang Yu immediately nodded and replied:

"I was originally part of the City Defense Army in Yellow Stone City and had worked with the Mechanical God Sect’s Church Protection Army."

"But I quit three years ago."

"That’s when the Mechanical God Sect started trying to convert the creature called Mongolia into a weapon, tricking many people into going to their deaths with them..."

"Tricking?"

Chen Jian interrupted Huang Yu with surprise, asking:

"Not coercion?"

"It started as deception; many thought it was a genuinely good way to resolve their predicament."

Huang Yu sighed and continued explaining:

"But later, things slowly changed."

"We realized the Mechanical God Sect was just using us as free tools, sometimes resulting in several deaths within a day due to their so-called ’new method of controlling monsters’ experiments."

"We began to resist, but our resistance was rather feeble against the Mechanical God Sect..."

"In the end, some people reached a compromise with the Mechanical God Sect, agreeing to continue cooperating in exchange for their protection over the ancestors’ graveyards."

"It was a temporary measure; everyone knew that if we did not cooperate, everyone here would become slaves..."

"Understood."

What Huang Yu described wasn’t much different from what Chen Jian had suspected, the only surprise being that the "ancestor worship" in Yellow Stone City seemed even more profound than he had expected.

After a moment of thought, Chen Jian asked:

"Are the ancestors’ graveyards that important?"

"...Actually, we don’t know."

Huang Yu shook his head and frankly responded:

"But here, when we are born, the elders tell us to guard the ancestors’ graves."

"That’s what we do."

"At least for over two hundred recorded years, that’s what we’ve been doing."

"Two hundred years?!"

Chen Jian suddenly stood up.

"Are you saying that Yellow Stone City has existed on this island for over two hundred years??"

"Yes."

Huang Yu looked slightly bewildered, not understanding why Chen Jian was so surprised.

But looking at the other’s expression, he felt this matter might be of grave importance.

So he quickly asked:

"Is there a problem?"

Chen Jian waved his hand, frowning, not answering immediately.

He was simply lost in thought.

Two hundred years, two hundred recorded years.

Could it be that people from Yellow Stone City have lived here since the great catastrophe?

Is it possible they were the original inhabitants who survived the catastrophe?

Why protect the ancestors’ graveyards?

Maybe they hid information about the great catastrophe in the graves?

"Take me to see your graveyards!"

Chen Jian immediately said, and Huang Yu, fearing delay, led Chen Jian and He Shuo and a few others to a forest on the outskirts of the island.

Upon entering the forest, Chen Jian immediately sensed something unusual.

The forest was indeed full of signs of human maintenance; though lush, it was evidently pruned.

As they walked, Huang Yu explained:

"Actually, since as far back as I can remember, people have stopped being buried here after passing."

"There are too many graves, too little land, nowhere to bury anymore."

"Some graves also collapsed or couldn’t be found for various reasons."

"Moreover, due to restrictions from the Mechanical God Sect, all we can do is maintain annually a portion of the most important graves..."

"How do you determine which graves are important?"

"By looking at the stele."

Huang Yu answered without hesitation:

"The bigger the stele, the more important the grave."

"Understood."

By now, they had reached the graveyard filled with steles, and Huang Yu pointed to the obviously tallest one in the center:

"That is the ancestral grave."

Chen Jian hurried forward, wanting to read the inscriptions on the stele.

Unfortunately, under the erosion of time, even stone inscriptions had largely decayed, leaving only small areas where a few characters could still barely be distinguished.

"....Died on October XX, 2067."

"Aged...sixty-seven."

"....Yellow Stone Village...population has.....XX79 people."

"The Huang family....descendants remember."

.....

This section seemed to describe the life of the grave owner, but most of it was illegible.

Chen Jian moved his gaze to the left and immediately recognized new text.

"...If there are more....open the tomb, hide underground..."

".....Avoid doing so unless absolutely necessary, do not..."

Open the tomb?

Chen Jian pushed the stele instinctively, only to find it had been split in two long ago as if opened before.

There indeed was a sizable space inside. Illuminating it with a tactical flashlight revealed an empty interior.

What was originally placed in here?

Chen Jian continued to the left of the stele, noticing some small discernible characters.

"....Physics, math, chemistry..."

"Textbooks placed.... Please have Huang Qin preside over education..."

"Study well in number and reasoning, traverse the world...."

"...The three great theories....."

"...Newtonian mechanics, relativity, quantum...."

Chen Jian took a deep breath.

He could see that the grave owner was trying to leave as much scientific information as possible on his stele.

Thus, it could be deduced that what was originally in the tomb was probably also related to scientific education.

He even mentioned quantum mechanics, indicating the knowledge and technology level here at that time wasn’t low.

So, in 2067, the transmission of knowledge here was still complete, even forming a systematic education system?

How, then, did Yellow Stone City end up like this?

There was no more information on the largest stele, so Chen Jian had to rise and continue following Huang Yu’s lead, reviewing the steles one by one, from the oldest to the newest in chronological order.

Almost every stele’s last few words would leave behind a snippet deemed as the "essence of wisdom," representing the highest level of technology here at that time.

It was as if they feared their descendants would forget, so even with various data transmission methods available, they still inscribed what they considered most important on the stele.

This seemed to be their tradition.

"The most crucial step in hybrid rice technology is parental choice."

"Don’t be afraid of my corpse, I’m still your teacher."

"If you cannot make an internal combustion engine, start with a steam engine."

"I’ve engraved the process for creating high-manganese steel here."

"A transformer is an iron core and winding; let Huang Xuchu continue researching silicon steel sheets."

...

The series of inscriptions indicate that technology here was rapidly recovering, and the number of steles also demonstrated a gradual increase in population.

----Until seeing the last stele made of marble, where the situation suddenly turned dire.

The steles on the fringes turned into crudely made mountain rocks, both in terms of elegance and sturdiness, drastically declining!

Yet, their number sharply increased.

Chen Jian sensed an event had occurred, finding a significant crude stele, with a deeply etched inscription impervious to erosion.

"If you see colored stones, burn them in a furnace."

Adjacent to this stele, similar inscriptions were found on all other steles.

"Remember to wash your hands after touching sick people or dirty items."

"Round things are wheels."

"Boiling willow bark cures headaches."

"Divide the food into needed portions; the last to divide chooses."

"Trust the ancestors, don’t trust religion."

...

Chen Jian deeply inhaled.

He realized that during this period, Yellow Stone City must have faced a significant crisis.

----No, perhaps it wasn’t just them; it might have been the entire civilization facing a crisis once more, leading to the near-destruction of emerging civilization and instantly regressing developed technology to the most primitive stage!

This crisis might have been a secondary disaster due to the Great Catastrophe.

Indeed, such a huge "catastrophe," how could it lack secondary disasters?

Perhaps this related to the origins of the monster?

Chen Jian felt his mind going blank, realizing he shouldn’t think further and opted to keep reading.

"Iron ore can be used to manufacture ironware, forge it red-hot into knives."

"Weaving fishing nets can catch fish; I’ve left shipbuilding blueprints."

"You can plant a second rice crop after the flood season each year."

"Fired red clay can be made into jars for storing water."

"There are many useful things outside; remember to explore if you have the capacity."

....

All valuable steles had been reviewed, and now only a few relatively new ones with longer intervals remained.

They offered no new or more useful information.

But Chen Jian was sure the civilization here was still recovering.

Even after experiencing two cataclysms.

Chen Jian admired their resilience while growing increasingly angry about the Mechanical God Sect’s reprehensible acts.

Clearly, the current generation of Yellow Stone People’s inability to comprehend the significance of the stele inscriptions was undoubtedly connected to them.

Luckily, he arrived in time.

Chen Jian exhaled long and deep, finding a phrase flashing through his mind suddenly.

Passing the torch, striving for eternity.