Chap­ter XV begins with a sim­ple sug­ges­tion from Zee that car­ries a deep­er intention—she encour­ages me to adopt the cloth­ing of the Vril-ya. With­out their sig­na­ture wings, I would pass among them as a trav­el­er of less­er rank, avoid­ing unnec­es­sary atten­tion. Don­ning their attire was both an invi­ta­tion and an initiation—a way to observe their soci­ety more inti­mate­ly with­out caus­ing dis­rup­tion. The gar­ments, though ele­gant in design, were sur­pris­ing­ly com­fort­able and tai­lored for both grace and ease. My appear­ance now blend­ed with theirs, yet inter­nal­ly I remained marked by dif­fer­ence. As I moved through their city, I noticed a lay­out both func­tion­al and beautiful—large, well-struc­tured, and rich in cul­ti­vat­ed lands that seam­less­ly fed the pop­u­la­tion. It was not built to impress with grandeur, but to sus­tain and ele­vate life in all its forms.

What struck me most was their treat­ment of ani­mals. There were no crea­tures kept for labor or status—no bark­ing dogs guard­ing gates or hors­es pulling car­riages. Instead, birds flit­ted freely, admired for their song, not caged for amuse­ment. The Vril-ya’s bond with life did not stem from dom­i­nance but mutu­al respect. Their machines, pow­ered by vril, made beasts of bur­den obso­lete. Air-boats drift­ed across the sky with­out smoke or sound, and land trans­ports glid­ed smooth­ly over road­ways with qui­et pre­ci­sion. Their econ­o­my relied on neu­tral zones of cul­ti­vat­ed land shared peace­ful­ly between set­tle­ments, facil­i­tat­ing trade and inter­ac­tion with­out ten­sion. Noth­ing was for­ti­fied. Noth­ing guard­ed. Trust, not fear, held their com­mu­ni­ties togeth­er.

Zee described their agri­cul­tur­al tech­niques, which required less effort but yield­ed more nutri­tion than any­thing I had seen above ground. Even in their gar­dens, artistry met prac­ti­cal­i­ty. The food tast­ed clean and rich, with no excess or waste. Their focus on bal­ance extend­ed to their bod­ies as well. Every cit­i­zen appeared strong, healthy, and sym­met­ri­cal. Age did not erode beau­ty. Wrin­kles and frailty seemed near­ly absent. Phys­i­cal decay had been slowed not through van­i­ty, but through care and sci­ence. Their homes reflect­ed the same har­mo­ny: bright, open, filled with air and light. Each room felt like an exten­sion of the mind—clear, undis­turbed, and unclut­tered.

Their edu­ca­tion mod­el fas­ci­nat­ed me. Chil­dren were not crammed with facts or test­ed through com­pe­ti­tion. Instead, instruc­tion focused on inter­nal development—morality, rea­son­ing, and empa­thy formed the core of their learn­ing. From an ear­ly age, they were taught not only how to think, but how to live. With this foun­da­tion, dis­putes became rare, and pun­ish­ment unnec­es­sary. Teach­ers guid­ed rather than com­mand­ed. Dis­ci­pline came not from fear but from under­stand­ing. In such a sys­tem, learn­ing felt like growth rather than sur­vival. They did not aspire to con­quer oth­ers, only them­selves.

Lat­er that evening, we dis­cussed the phys­i­cal evo­lu­tion of the Vril-ya. Their skulls were slight­ly larg­er, fore­heads high­er, and facial fea­tures more refined. Com­pared to the rugged con­tours of human­i­ty, their faces car­ried seren­i­ty with­out soft­ness. Aph-Lin traced this to their peace­ful his­to­ry and delib­er­ate social shap­ing. Con­flict had not shaped their bone struc­ture; con­tem­pla­tion had. Their cul­ture reward­ed calm­ness, and their fea­tures slow­ly reflect­ed that val­ue over gen­er­a­tions. Zee remarked that moral char­ac­ter and phys­i­cal form had long been inter­twined. The more sta­ble a soci­ety, the more its peo­ple began to look the part. Beau­ty here was not orna­men­tal. It was an echo of har­mo­ny.

As our con­ver­sa­tion deep­ened, I couldn’t help but defend the ener­gy and pas­sion that define human civ­i­liza­tion. Zee lis­tened but did not agree. She argued that ambi­tion with­out pur­pose leads to decay, and that con­flict, though once nec­es­sary for growth, should not be mis­tak­en for progress. The Vril-ya had moved past it. Their soci­ety did not fear dif­fer­ence, but had learned to live above divi­sion. They no longer competed—they con­tributed. Indi­vid­ual achieve­ment mat­tered, but not at the expense of oth­ers.

To them, real advance­ment came not from inven­tion or wealth, but from peace of mind. Their con­cept of utopia was not mythical—it was engi­neered. They did not dream of heav­en; they built it, slow­ly and patient­ly. Zee’s clos­ing words lin­gered with me: true civ­i­liza­tion was not the con­quest of nature or oth­ers, but of self. And in mas­ter­ing them­selves, the Vril-ya had found what most humans still chase with­out end—order with­out oppres­sion, free­dom with­out chaos, and knowl­edge with­out arro­gance. For the first time, I saw a vision of soci­ety that was not just dif­fer­ent, but per­haps wis­er.