Chap­ter XVI explores the awe-inspir­ing tech­no­log­i­cal and phys­i­o­log­i­cal advance­ments of the Vril-ya, draw­ing par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to their abil­i­ty to har­ness vril with a degree of mas­tery that ren­ders our most destruc­tive inven­tions obso­lete. The nar­ra­tor learns that the vril-pow­ered instru­ments can oblit­er­ate a tar­get hun­dreds of miles away with pre­ci­sion, all cal­cu­lat­ed through their sophis­ti­cat­ed math­e­mat­i­cal sci­ences. These cal­cu­la­tions deter­mine the charge and tra­jec­to­ry with such detail that entire cities could be erased in moments, should the Vril-ya ever choose to do so. Their destruc­tive capa­bil­i­ty, while held in restraint by a strong moral frame­work, evokes a chill­ing sense of con­trol. Pow­er here is silent, pre­cise, and absolute. It is not flaunt­ed but rests like a sheathed blade, too sharp to test.

At the pub­lic muse­um housed with­in the Col­lege of Sages, the nar­ra­tor is shown rem­nants of ancient tech­nolo­gies once revered by humanity—cannons, steam vehi­cles, and ear­ly aircraft—all now dis­card­ed as prim­i­tive relics. The Vril-ya view such inven­tions with amused dis­dain, rel­e­gat­ing them to his­tor­i­cal curios­i­ty. Zee, with the com­posed con­fi­dence of her kind, ges­tures to these devices as mark­ers of her people’s evo­lu­tion­ary jour­ney from phys­i­cal to men­tal and ener­getic mas­tery. She stands as a strik­ing fig­ure of this transformation—towering in stature, grace­ful yet for­mi­da­ble. The nar­ra­tor watch­es in qui­et dread as she manip­u­lates heavy machin­ery at a dis­tance using only her vril staff, ani­mat­ing met­al with what seems to be pure will. Her pres­ence is both ele­gant and ter­ri­fy­ing.

The young Gy, Zee, explains that the human hand lacks the struc­tur­al devel­op­ment need­ed to con­trol vril effec­tive­ly. Our thumbs are small­er, our palms coars­er, and our nerves under­de­vel­oped com­pared to the refined phys­i­ol­o­gy of the Vril-ya. A vis­i­ble nerve run­ning beneath her skin reveals itself as a bio­log­i­cal adap­ta­tion born over gen­er­a­tions of vril use. She pro­pos­es that through focused effort, future gen­er­a­tions of humans might devel­op sim­i­lar abil­i­ties, but only after mil­len­nia of inten­tion­al evo­lu­tion. Her rea­son­ing is deliv­ered with a mix­ture of sci­en­tif­ic author­i­ty and serene supe­ri­or­i­ty. The nar­ra­tor, unable to refute her, remem­bers a fable about debat­ing an emperor—realizing that argu­ment against some­one who pos­sess­es both force and log­ic is, at best, unwise.

When they arrive at a room ded­i­cat­ed to the archae­ol­o­gy of Vril-ya his­to­ry, the nar­ra­tor is struck by the vivid­ness of por­traits that are thou­sands of years old. Many dis­play faces rem­i­nis­cent of Renais­sance art—marked by strug­gle, ambi­tion, and emo­tion­al depth. These belong to an age before the dis­cov­ery of vril had changed every­thing. As soci­ety became more peace­ful and per­fect­ed, the expres­sions in the por­traits shift­ed. The faces grew more serene, more beau­ti­ful, and yet more dis­tant from human warmth. Along­side this visu­al evo­lu­tion, the painter’s art itself became less dramatic—less inspired by inner tur­moil, and more focused on exter­nal pre­ci­sion. With peace came still­ness. With per­fec­tion, a kind of artis­tic decline.

The great­est curios­i­ty in the gallery, how­ev­er, is a trio of por­traits that claim to trace the ances­try of the Vril-ya to a time before his­to­ry. One is a philoso­pher, draped in armor of fish-like scales, with webbed hands and a broad, unusu­al face. The sec­ond and third—his grand­fa­ther and great-grandfather—appear increas­ing­ly amphib­ian. The last resem­bles a giant frog. A fable tied to these images pro­claims: “Hum­ble your­selves, my descen­dants; the father of your race was a tad­pole.” The nar­ra­tor laughs off the tale, but Aph-Lin insists it was once seri­ous­ly debat­ed dur­ing a peri­od known as the Wran­gling Age, about 7,000 years pri­or.

Philoso­phers then were sharply divided—some argued that the An evolved from frogs due to shared phys­i­cal traits, inter­nal struc­tures, and a resid­ual swim­ming blad­der in the An’s anato­my. Oth­ers claimed the frog was actu­al­ly a more advanced evo­lu­tion of the An, cit­ing its aquat­ic dual­i­ty, smooth hair­less skin, and social har­mo­ny. The argu­ments spilled beyond acad­e­mia and fueled gen­er­a­tions of war, final­ly cul­mi­nat­ing in the rise of a dynasty that claimed descent from a tad­pole. With the arrival of vril, such dis­putes fad­ed, and the age of vio­lent wran­gling end­ed. Now, only chil­dren find amuse­ment in these tales.

Zee reflects on this philo­soph­i­cal tur­moil with clar­i­ty. She sug­gests that the form doesn’t matter—what mat­ters is the divine capac­i­ty grant­ed to the An: the gift to under­stand cre­ation, rec­og­nize beau­ty, and aspire toward truth. That intel­lec­tu­al spark, not the struc­ture of the hand or the tex­ture of the skin, defines human­i­ty. She says that no mat­ter how advanced the An becomes, they will nev­er be able to recre­ate that divine begin­ning. Her log­ic, paired with Aph-Lin’s approval, leaves the nar­ra­tor silent. Not because he agrees entirely—but because he sens­es, more than ever, the qui­et author­i­ty of a race that left con­flict behind and replaced it with con­tem­pla­tion.