Shipping goods from the game to the World of Warhammer

Sure enough, when the tech enthusiasts heard the word "STC," it was like a cat seeing catnip; these standard manufacturing templates held an extraordinary appeal for the Cult of Machines.

As Rhodes watched Casal's two optical prosthetic eyes almost pop out, he silently sighed. These guys' mechanical eyes spun faster than anything else when they heard STC, just like a 40-year-old bachelor seeing a beautiful young wife for the first time.

He even began to suspect that the STC templates left over from the Dark Ages might have contained some kind of ice specifically designed to attract members of the Cult of Machines. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain why these guys, who had replaced most of their bodies with metal parts, had such a strong, almost physiologically fanatical reaction to these things.

Even though he was so excited that his two servo skulls were spinning in place, Casal eventually regained the rationality expected of a high-ranking technical priest—at least in terms of mechanical logic. His throat speaker emitted a series of short, crackling sounds, as if forcibly suppressing some emotional fluctuation, before he spoke in a deliberately slowed-down synthesized voice:

"Wandering Merchant, I have no intention of questioning your sincerity, but all reports claiming the discovery of STC must strictly follow the identification procedures of the Mechanicus." Casal's mechanical prosthetic hand tightened slightly at his side, the metal knuckles making a soft friction sound. "This process usually takes several years, and in complex cases, it can even take hundreds of standard Imperial years."

He paused, his gaze fixed on Rhodes' face.

"Of course, if the STC fragments you have can indeed solve Mordax's code-breaking problem, then we can report your discovery to the Great Sage of Mars and request that they shorten the identification period."

Rhodes nodded, outwardly remaining calm, but inwardly he was rapidly calculating.

To be honest, he wasn't entirely confident himself. The SCV engineering robot from StarCraft in the system store is indeed an all-purpose repairman in the game—as long as you have the resources, it can repair not only Terran buildings and mechanical units, but even Protoss motherships and flagships as if they were brand new.

The problem is that the code demon is essentially a projection of subspace energy into the digital realm. It causes not only physical damage but also contamination of the code inside the machine. It's like hiring a skilled plumber to fix your leaky ceiling. He can fix the pipes, but if he looks up and finds a huge hole in the ceiling, he'll probably be helpless.

However, Rhodes thought again, even if the SCV couldn't handle the useless code demons in the Thinkers, the production equipment damaged by the Thinkers' machine spirits going berserk could surely be repaired, right? This alone was enough to significantly improve the SCV's image in the eyes of these machine enthusiasts.

No matter how you look at it, you're not losing out.

“No problem,” Rod replied readily. “Take me to see your Thinker that’s malfunctioning.”

Casal turned to the side, gesturing for Rhodes to follow. The two walked down a spiraling metal ramp, heading deeper into the foundry complex. The further they went, the higher the temperature in the air became, and the stronger the smell of engine oil and coolant grew. The overhead lights gradually transitioned from standard white to a warm, orange-red glow, the residual heat radiating from the underground forges through the walls.

When they finally arrived at the third level where the Thinker, designated "Alpha-7," was located, the first thing Rhodes saw was a group of blacksmiths in red robes surrounding the giant computing device.

The Thinker was far larger than Rhodes had imagined. Its three-story-high ceramic steel casing was covered with a dense array of data ports and heat dissipation grids. Thick cables, like giant pythons, extended from its base in all directions, connecting to the nerve endings of the entire forging city.

Its main display panel is nearly ten meters wide. At this moment, the content on it is jumping back and forth between normal green data streams and dark red gibberish. Each switch is accompanied by a dull rumble coming from inside the Thinker, like a wild beast trapped in a cage constantly banging against the iron bars.

A dozen blacksmiths stood in a semi-circle in front of the Thinker's control panel, each holding a scroll of data paper soaked in holy oil, on which purification prayers were densely copied in binary characters.

The lead blacksmith's face had been completely replaced by a bronze panel. He began chanting in a low, rhythmic electronic buzzing sound, and the other blacksmiths followed suit. Several binary languages ​​intertwined, soothing the raging machine spirit.

At the same time, two blacksmiths hung a bronze incense burner filled with holy oil on a hook on the Thinker's outer shell. Thick smoke from the holy oil rose from the openwork lid, slowly climbing up the terracotta steel shell and seeping into the Thinker's crevices.

Another blacksmith knelt beside the Thinker's base, feeding stacks of data scrolls filled with purification procedures one by one into the offering slot beneath the outer shell. The scrolls were ignited by the high temperature inside the slot, turning to ashes, while the binary prayers on them were "input" into the Thinker's outer code.

The entire ceremony lasted for nearly twenty minutes. At one point, the dark red gibberish on the Thinker's main display panel did indeed show a brief decline. The distorted abnormal characters receded like the receding tide, and the green normal data stream once again occupied about two-thirds of the screen area. The blacksmiths' chanting also became more urgent and louder, attempting to press their advantage.

But this improvement lasted for less than three minutes.

Rhodes witnessed the dark red code that had just retreated surge back from the edge of the screen, even faster than before, like a swarm of locusts that had been briefly dispersed and then returned with a ferocity that was almost retaliatory, instantly engulfing the green area that had just been reclaimed.

A dull, metallic groan emanated from inside the Thinker, and the entire device trembled violently, with tiny arcs even flashing at the interfaces of several connecting cables.

The leading blacksmith stopped chanting and silently lowered his head.

Casal stood beside Rhodes, the light in the two optical eyes dimming slightly.

"You see," his mechanical voice said with a hint of helplessness, "this is the situation we're facing. The ritual can temporarily suppress the symptoms, but it can't reach the root of these broken code demons. After each purification, they always come back, and each time they're more stubborn than the last."

Rhodes looked at the behemoth struggling amidst the dark red gibberish in front of him and took a deep breath of the air, which smelled of Mechanicus incense.

It was his turn to go on stage.