If you treat every day as if it were your last in this world, you'd be amazed at how much humans can accomplish. None of the Chosen Ones know what day they'll board the time capsule back to Earth, so everyone is hustling for benefits and finishing their missions.
Time flies by, and everyone is making progress in their own way.
The frequency of Level 4 Kaiju attacks is about the same as Level 3, which means the aliens inside the wormhole haven't hit their production limit yet. All sorts of Level 4 Kaiju pop up, cause trouble, get killed, and then donate another meat core to Jill Young. On average, Jill uses less than ten of these a month, but she gets forty or even fifty. The pile of meat cores in her storage space is enough to make anyone jealous.
If life could go on like this for a year, Jill could probably stockpile enough XP potions for Dragon Elephant Level 10 and above—she’d be grinning in her sleep. But unfortunately, even though she doesn’t know exactly when she’ll be sent back, Jill has a hunch she won’t get to stay that long. That’s why she’s pushing hard for the counterattack plan.
Why sit around waiting for XP to come to you, when you can just go out and harvest it yourself? If the wormhole entrance in this world were as adorably dumb as the one in the movies, Jill would’ve already piloted her mecha through and started bossing the aliens around on their own turf.
On the global front, as more and more sixth-generation mechas roll off the line, things are starting to stabilize. People are even talking about a coming 'Golden Age.' Jasper Xiao and Li Yuncong got new mechas, and to honor Mark Long, Jasper named his machine 'Howl of Fury.' This paladin charges into battle at the front lines, and when he’s not fighting, he’s big on charity. The pretty-boy reputation is really starting to stick.
But Jill can tell that the more good deeds Jasper Xiao does, the stronger his Holy Light gets. Looks like he really wants to walk the path of Holy Light and carve out his own future. Li Yuncong tags along as his sidekick, and he wants to learn Holy Light too, but this blockhead just can’t figure it out—no real progress so far.
As for the other Chosen Ones, Xu Peng is climbing the ranks in the command system and quickly made it into the top brass. Jill didn’t go out of her way to help him—she just wasn’t in the mood. But she didn’t try to hold him back either, because there was no reason to. Everyone’s on their own, and however far they get is up to fate. Jill can’t be bothered to interfere.
Blue Wolf and King Kong teamed up and became mecha pilots too. Even though they’re partners now, they still don’t get along, which is pretty rare among pilots. Their compatibility isn’t great, so the only reason they got sixth-gen mechas is because Xu Peng pulled some strings for them. There’s always a back door somewhere, and Xu Peng, who’s been in the system forever, knows exactly how to work it.
Swallow still hasn’t turned up—no sign of her alive or dead. The Hong Kong base was trashed pretty badly that day, so there’s no video footage or anything. The gang that beat Skell and his crew to death hasn’t shown up again, like they’re not planning to stir up any more trouble. That assassin called Sting has also vanished into thin air. For someone who managed to sneak inside Mark Long’s mecha, Sting’s skills must be off the charts.
But Jill Young couldn’t care less about all that—she’s got bigger fish to fry. She’s discovered a whole new way to cultivate: mecha cultivation. Every day, Jill pilots Fist King out to the edge of the sea and sky to practice her punches. Yep, she has the mecha working on basic boxing moves, throwing fists in the middle of crashing waves and howling winds. It might look pointless, but Jill always feels like she gets something out of it.
Whenever the twins have one of their epic battles, Jill’s boxing skills seem to improve a little bit. It’s hard to explain, but the boost is real—and it packs a punch. On the flip side, as Teacher Yang advances his Insight Technique, his Advanced Internal Martial Arts are getting stronger too. He used to go down after one hit, but now he can take two and still stand.
Two months later, Teacher Yang’s Insight Technique officially reached the sixth level: Read Ten Lines at a Glance.
This time, Jill barely noticed the breakthrough—she just woke up one morning and boom, Insight Technique had leveled up. She was happy, but also kind of baffled. Back in the day, every Insight Technique breakthrough was a near-death ordeal, but now, ever since coming to this world, she keeps leveling up like it’s nothing. Even Jill has to admit, it’s a little ridiculous.
Sometimes Jill wonders if all this progress is going to come back and bite them later—maybe their foundations are getting shaky. But no matter how she checks, Teacher Yang’s mental sea has only gotten bigger, and it’s still cold, solid, and crystal-clear—like a block of ancient ice, totally unruffled. So in the end, Jill just lets it go. If she let a little doubt stop Teacher Yang from leveling up, that’d be ridiculous. If you can’t stop it, just go with the flow.
Look at it another way—people do all kinds of impossible stuff when they’re sleepwalking. Maybe the fast progress with Insight Technique is just a sleepwalker perk. No need to get all paranoid about it.
Not long after the Insight Technique breakthrough, the research institute sent good news: they’d made a breakthrough studying the wormhole. Scientists from every field teamed up, worked around the clock, and finally came up with something big: entry requirements.
At a high-level meeting with all the board members present, a nervous-looking Dr. Herman (the numbers guy from the movies) gave his report:
"The wormhole has strict entry and exit requirements. Aside from Kaiju, nothing else—no objects, no energy, no waves—can get inside. The wormhole is basically a space-time vortex, a super-advanced entity, so nothing we’ve tried has had any effect. Same goes for the exit: there’s no defense force because there’s nothing we can do. We just have to take the hits and can’t hit back."
Dr. Herman started off with a real downer, but honestly, it matched his total nerd vibe.