Warhammer: Rebuilding the Golden Age Starting with Farming

Chapter 136 Living Metals and Nanobeetle Swarms

During this period, Andy's movements were very consistent.

Basically, it's a straight line between the studio and the underground east area.

The expedition team, composed of elite soldiers, brought back far more spoils from the Institute of Dark Works than the naked eye could see.

The situation was quite chaotic at the time, and the soldiers were in a state of extreme excitement, buying whatever they could find.

The magnetic storage bags in their hands, though they look only the size of a large military backpack, actually have an astonishingly large carrying capacity.

This involves the issue of technology reuse.

When Andy analyzed Joka Technology before, he mainly focused on reverse engineering that kind of miniature high-energy battery technology.

But after upgrading to the "Commander-type" Iron Man and experiencing a surge in computing power, Andy re-examined the energy loop and discovered a very interesting phenomenon.

The algorithm structure used by the Joka family to handle energy folding is highly overlapping with the underlying logic of spatial folding technology.

Energy and mass can be converted into each other under certain extreme physical conditions. Storing high-density energy is essentially folding space at the same time.

Andy understood this.

So he added a simple space expansion unit to those storage bags. Although it couldn't be as exaggerated as Doraemon's pocket, it was perfectly capable of stuffing in all the parts of the entire laboratory.

This has resulted in a situation where the amount of "condensate" currently piled up in the East Warehouse is so large that Andy is having trouble handling it.

So for the past few days, Andy has been spending all his time at the analysis station.

As the analysis progressed, Andy discovered a very obvious technological gap.

Among the many alien races, the paths of their technology trees are incredibly diverse.

Based on the samples that Andy has encountered so far, Titanium's technical architecture is most similar to that of humans.

They also use plasma and physical ammunition (albeit with railgun acceleration), but they also build mechs and use AI assistance.

Aside from different aesthetic styles, the underlying physical logic is almost identical to that of humans, which is why Andy was able to easily reverse engineer Titanium's anti-gravity module and shield generator.

But the spare ribs are a little different.

The technology tree for pork ribs has grown to a completely different dimension.

Andy tossed a still-wriggling black metal fragment into the analysis table.

This is a sample taken from a broken ghost of a ghost worker.

Nanobots swarmed forward and began to decompose.

The data stream is scrolling.

[Material Analysis: Nano-beetle swarm.]

There is a very easily confused concept in it.

Most of the Necromancer's advanced technologies are not actually based on living metal.

Although living metal itself has self-repairing capabilities, it covers almost 99% of the physical form of the space undead.

However, at the level of creation, space necromancers possess a more universal carrier form: swarms of nanobeetles.

This thing is not a miniature mechanical insect; it is a programmable, semi-liquid smart fluid.

When a necromancer unit dies and the "Rebirth Protocol" is activated, the metal does not regenerate on its own.

Instead, they are countless invisible nanobeetles frantically transporting atoms at the microscopic level.

They disassemble the surrounding material, extract the necessary metal atoms, and then fill the damaged areas to rebuild the crystal lattice.

That sounds pretty awesome!

But when Andy looked at the analyzed data, he was speechless.

"This thing is too rigid."

Andy used tweezers to pick up a clump of grayish-black nano-beetle fluid that had been separated from the analysis station.

The thing was still trying to wriggle on the tweezers, trying to flow back onto the fragment.

Andy originally thought that the Necromancer's high-tech materials should have similar or even stronger performance than his "Mimetic Multi-Alloy".

After all, the Necromancer is a veteran player who has been playing for tens of millions of years!

Upon comparison, Andy realized he had overestimated them.

Nanobeetle swarms have absolutely no mimicry ability.

It is "locked up".

These nanobeetles were programmed with a fixed morphological code at the beginning of their manufacturing process.

The materials used for each beetle are also different.

If it's used to make scarabs, then it can only ever be made into scarabs; if it's used to make gauss generators, then even if it's broken ten thousand times, it can only ever be reassembled into a gauss generator.

It cannot be like a mimicry multi-alloy, which can be a shield one second, a data probe the next, and then a liquid flow the following second.

In terms of flexibility and adaptability, this necromantic technology is completely outclassed by the mimicry multi-alloy of the Golden Age.

"No wonder the ribs have been the same for millions of years, without any improvement."

Andy flung the mass of fluid back onto the pedestal.

Of course, this wasn't the most troublesome thing for Andy.

What truly angered him was the "multidimensional geometric lock" that came with this thing.

To verify this hypothesis, Andy conducted an experiment yesterday.

He threw a relatively intact necromancer scarab into the analysis station, forcibly disassembled it using nanobots, and then reassembled it into a standard, universal necromancer mechanism.

Andy plans to use this thing to tinker with some technology.

When this board was first made, it was indeed a board.

It has a smooth surface, extremely high hardness, and a modular structure.

Andy put it on the worktable and turned to do something else.

About an hour later.

When Andy came back to look, the board had changed.

It did not maintain the shape of the board.

It twists, folds, and stretches on its own on the worktable.

The edges of the board began to curl, the middle bulged, and it slowly pieced itself back into the shape of a scarab beetle!

Although it cannot move without a core energy source, its physical form has reverted to its original state!

This is what makes multidimensional geometry locks so nasty.

The materials of the necromancer possess a cross-dimensional "shape memory".

This memory is not stored in the chip, but locked within the geometric logic of each nanobeetle.

No matter how you physically deform it, even if you melt it, given time, it will stubbornly revert to its original form according to that locked geometric coordinate.

This means that Andy cannot directly use these spoils as general-purpose materials.

If he uses these living metals to repair the starship's hull.

It's possible that while flying, a bunch of scarab beetle legs will sprout from the hull, or it might suddenly turn into a giant undead head.

The scene was so beautiful that Andy couldn't even imagine it!

"How are we supposed to play like this?"

Andy stared at the metal lump that had transformed back into an insect shape, feeling a surge of confusion.

His original plan was to use the materials he had looted to quickly produce a batch of advanced equipment through the analysis station, and then go and attack the space well.

It now appears that the plan has stalled.

Unless Andy can crack this multidimensional geometric lock and erase the shape memory inside.

or----

He simply carried the analysis platform to the battlefield, converting data while fighting.

That's obviously unrealistic.

"To use this thing, you must first learn the geometry of the necromancy."

Andy sighed and searched through the database for information on multidimensional geometry.

However, the Golden Age did not leave behind many technological paradigms in this regard because the path taken by humans at that time was completely different from that of the undead.

Andy had to figure out those obscure and difficult alien runes and waveforms on his own.

These past two days, aside from eating (to recharge), he's been doing this.

The progress is very slow, extremely slow.

"The communicator beeped."

It was an encrypted report sent by Father Zor.

"Your Excellency, I have new information to report regarding an individual named Hully Campbell."

Zor's voice sounded somewhat complex, containing both dissatisfaction and an undeniable admiration.

In order to focus on his research these past two days, Andy forced Hughie into the dormitory and then handed her over to Zor to work as his assistant.

Ostensibly, it was to "punish" her previous arrogance, but in reality, Andy wanted to see what she was really made of.

So later, Andy secretly gave Zol some necromancer components.

"explain."

Andy continued analyzing the waveform while responding.

"This girl—although she has an extremely wicked personality, no respect for machine spirits, and even tried to dismantle the sacred prayer generator—"

"But she does have an incredible talent for the repair and adjustment of machinery."

"Just now, she fixed a locked phase transition node by hand."

"She just drew a few sketches, then placed her hand on them, and the nodes automatically reassembled."

"Moreover, she seems to be able to directly see" the logical locks hidden within the multidimensional geometry.

"She casually refreshed the locking protocol, and now that node is compatible with our interface."

Andy looked up at the communication screen.

In the scene, Hughie sits amidst a pile of parts, fiddling with a complex necromancer component.

Her green eyes showed no emotion, only focused concentration.

He studied geometry here so hard that he almost went bald.

So, it turns out that they just have a built-in unlocking cheat?

Isn't this a ready-made decoder?

Since she can bypass the protocol of the phase node, she can definitely unlock the geometry lock of the nanobeetle swarm.

If she were to operate it, this pile of scrap metal could be transformed into valuable raw materials for cutting-edge technology!

but----

Andy hesitated again.

Although Hughie seems quite docile now, she is, after all, a necromancer and harbors a deep resentment towards that tomb engineer.

What if she ruins these precious, irreplaceable undead samples due to emotional instability or operational errors?

They might even deliberately sabotage these treasures, turning them into uncontrollable killing machines?

Although the probability is extremely low, it's not impossible.

The samples Andy has are becoming increasingly scarce.

He would be heartbroken if those two genuine living metal plates were ruined!

Should we trust her skills and give her more authority?

Or should we continue to tackle it ourselves, proceeding cautiously but slowly?

"Trial and error—it's not a bad thing."

Andy muttered to himself.

"How about giving her some scraps to try?"

"What if it works?"

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