Your war hammer is too fake

"As Atum promised you, I will escort you to Marienburg," the governor said. "Don't worry that we will break our promise. The relationship between me, Atum, Ewen, and the others is closer than you can imagine. It doesn't matter who you work for, as long as you work for one of us."

"Thank you for your honesty. To be honest, I still find it hard to imagine that they actually legalized mages," said Fuzrek. "And the bigwigs who made this decision were the chosen ones of Sigmar and Ulric... I'm curious about how His Majesty Magnus convinced those bigots who have deep-rooted prejudices against magic."

Aside from the electoral system, many things in the Empire did not exist from the beginning. The history of the Empire spans 25 centuries, but it was not until two hundred years ago that the Empire opened the Imperial School of Magic at the insistence of Magnus the Pious, and from then on the Empire had official, legal spellcasters.

For Fozrek, who lived in the early Three Emperors era, when the shadow mage Ian told him that he was a so-called "battle mage" with a legal identity, Fozrek thought it was some kind of street joke that he, an ancient man, could not understand. He was very curious about the empire described by Ian and others, and asked about the details he cared about over and over again. In the end, when Ian proposed to recruit Fozrek on behalf of his own elector, the old mage only asked one question: "Are you sure there is really an elector who wants to recruit a mage? And a dead spirit?"

After receiving a positive answer, Fuzrek did not agree directly, but proposed to go to Marienburg first and then decide whether to accept the invitation. Naturally, Ian would not refuse.

"Speaking of which, where are the things I ordered?" Atum looked over Xiao Yiyue's head and towards the Grasshopper transport boat. The gangplank at the stern of the transport boat was slowly lowered, and an Aurora soldier came out with a lantern and waved to the skeleton slaves waiting outside.

"All of Xuanshui's inventory is here," Xiao Yiyue replied, "That being said, there aren't many things here. After all, we don't usually use this stuff..."

Under the watchful eyes of the two Lords of the Holy Scripture, the skeleton slaves with Huk's face carried out a dozen boxes from the cargo hold. All the boxes were of the same size and shape. After opening them, there was a slightly smaller exquisite wooden box inside. The gaps between the wooden boxes were filled with straw, filling every gap to prevent the wooden boxes from shaking during transportation.

The wooden boxes were all painted, and the surface of the boxes was painted with a variety of Aurora delicacies with superb painting skills. I just don't know why, although the paintings are all normal food, these patterns look inexplicably... eerie.

"Xiao An always seems to be able to come up with all kinds of weird but useful things," Atum sighed, stretching out his paw and gently stroking one of the lacquer boxes presented to him, "It's been more than half a year, and I finally got it."

Then the priest king said to Susay: "Send someone to inform the old man and others that the feast will begin tomorrow night!" Then he turned his head and looked at Fuzrek: "You can come too."

"Let's try the food for the dead."

……

Note 1: India has the least official information among the three Eastern countries. The flying ship here is a secondary design I made based on Indian mythology such as Vimana.

The author says:

Author's words: While others were busy delivering food to Tiger Pioneer, I had to lie in bed because of a cold, and I lay there for the whole day... (paralysis

Answering the reader's question "Small inheritance":

The background information only mentioned that when the floating city took off, Fuzrek also entered the floating city.

Chapter 446: The Secret of the Machine Soul (Part 1)

Marienburg, Coast Heavy Industries (formerly Elf Town), a factory area.

As a state-owned military-industrial complex, Coast Heavy Industries is the largest arms manufacturer in Westland. Its products range from helmets to flying gunboats, covering all industrial products needed by an army.

Even if we look at the entire empire, the scale and production capacity of Coast Heavy Industries are second only to Nuln, and its technological level is obviously higher. All this was achieved in less than two years: Evelyn concentrated the best resources and invested massive amounts of manpower, material resources and financial resources to create the current situation.

Even the overall production capacity of Coast Heavy Industries is lower than that of Nullen, mainly because Egwene does not pay much attention to the arms business. Coast Heavy Industries' largest customer has always been West's army, and 95% of the former's production capacity is supplied to the latter, so there is no need to always produce at full capacity like Nullen, and it is enough to maintain the production line.

"Except for the airship-related workshops, the production plans of most departments of Coast Heavy Industries are deliberately controlled to a level that can just maintain the operation of the production line," Aiwen said. "If Coast Heavy Industries switches to full-load production, the production capacity will surge to ten times the current level, no more, no less... If something happens to Nunn again, I can maintain the military supply of the entire empire with Coast Heavy Industries alone. Or in other words, from the beginning, I built Coast Heavy Industries according to this standard."

An Jiyue, who was walking side by side with the Knight, nodded. The Jiedushi looked around. The steampunk-style factory was filled with steam and smoke. Steam cars were "grunting" and "grunting" as they carried raw materials across the flat ground. The figures of workers in groups of two or three were like some kind of scenery.

"Nun is a magnet, always attracting wars," An Jiyue said. "They were attacked by ratmen five years ago. If it weren't for the invincible Gao Ye and his Auto-Secretary Doll, Kagaba's old lover, the Elector of Wisen, Aiman ​​Loli, would have almost lost his life... Calculating the time, it will be Tamur Khan's turn in a few years."

"I remember you said that Nullen was destroyed by the ratmen at the end of time, and it was Chairman Chuan who led the team," Evelyn said in confusion. "It's ok that Chuan Kuro didn't fail this time, but why do I feel that Nullen has no defense against a possible second attack after suffering a large-scale attack by the ratmen?"

"Don't ask. If you ask, it's a plot kill. Think about Tyrell, Estalia, and Araby. These background forces died as casually as they wanted, and it was Shushu who was responsible for sending them to death. I can only say that if the Supreme Evil God GW wants you to die in the third update, how dare it keep you alive until the fifth update? Compared with them, the fall of Nuln is already quite 'reasonable'."

An Jiyue complained: "After all, the imperial people were defeated in a fierce battle."

"Speaking of which," the knight suddenly stopped, and Sir Almalik and Sir Bayar, who had been following her closely, also stopped where they were. "Tamur Khan, what are you going to do?"

"What else can we do? If they dare to show their heads, we'll just kill them," the governor shrugged. "The Khan's body is dormant somewhere deep in the Chaos Wasteland. Not to mention that we don't know the exact location, even if we knew we wouldn't be able to interfere. So we can only wait for the Khan to show up, and then find a way to deal with him. Having said that, the original plot of Throne of Chaos can only be used as a reference, after all, Drazhos has already been sent."

The Lord of the Black Fortress, the Warlock Prophet, "Ashes" Drazhos, first suffered heavy losses when he joined forces with the Sorcerer to attack the Mountain Kingdom, and was forced to return to the Black Fortress to lick his wounds. When the signs of the return of the floating city became more and more obvious, Drazhos, who wanted to restore his strength, naturally set his sights on the floating city and the treasures inside it. For this reason, the Warlock Prophet, who was defeated in the cruel political struggle of Zar-Naggrond and exiled to the Black Fortress, decided to lead the army to attack personally.

As a result, when Drazhos led the main force of the Azog Legion to the expedition, his lair, the Black Fortress, was destroyed by Xiao Yiyue. The Chaos Dwarf Lord did not even see what the floating city looked like, and was forced to lead the legion to urgently rescue, and was ambushed by the coalition forces of the Plateau Fort and the Dragon Ridge Mountain Dwarves on the way.

There was no suspense in this battle. An Jiyue had already given the dwarves a detailed introduction to the Chaos Dwarves' military composition, military characteristics, combat methods, and other intelligence. Since they were fighting in a preset battlefield selected by their side, and with the help of the Shuofang Army Air Force to transport equipment and supplies, the dwarves deployed heavy cannons of the fortress level in this battle. The Chaos Dwarves who were ambushed lost more than half of their artillery in the first ten minutes after the battle started.

Lacking heavy firepower support, the Chaos Dwarf soldiers were extremely powerful individually, but their numbers were their biggest weakness. The Hobgoblin slaves were the first to fail to withstand the pressure and fled, abandoning their masters, while the stubborn Chaos Dwarves were surrounded by their Order cousins ​​who outnumbered them five to one. In desperation, Drazhos tried to turn the tables with magic, but the leader of the Dwarfs was Delgim o Forgefire, the Rune Lord of Plateau Castle.

When the Runemaster's forge hammer struck the newly made Doomsday Anvil, the last struggle of Azog's army was crushed. Drazhos, who had a flaming golden bull as his mount, had a chance to escape - due to some dwarven stubbornness, the dwarves rejected the North Army's proposal to send an air force to cooperate in the battle before the battle began, and the gyroplane could neither defeat nor catch up with the flaming golden bull.

In the end, the Warlock Prophet did not choose to flee. After his spell was countered and he suffered the backlash of the Wind of Magic, and suffered serious internal injuries, he roared and demanded a duel with the commander of the ambushers.

Delgim agreed, even though every chieftain around him was vehemently opposed to this decision and wanted to be the champion instead of the Rune Lord. In the end, Drazhos was smashed in the head by a hammer in the duel, and Delgim proved that he was not only a skilled runesmith, but also a brave warrior.

The Azog Legion was annihilated in this battle, and the dwarves paid a heavy price for it. Of course, the dwarves thought it was worth it, as the existence of the Chaos Dwarves was a disgrace to all dwarves!

"Given the Chaos Dwarves' similar style of holding grudges as their Order cousins, Zar Naggrond will certainly seek revenge, but that is a matter for the future. In short, the Dragonspine Dwarves have won great honor for their clan and ancestors in this campaign to eradicate their fallen relatives. They have finally stopped clamoring to fight back to the Bottomless Steps," An Jiyue said half helplessly and half relievedly, "Perhaps only Krag is not very satisfied."

"Kraag? The 1600-year-old dwarf?" Hearing a certain name, Egwene tried hard to recall who it was: "I remember that he failed to protect the Anvil of Doom and indirectly released Amon Chaka, so he became a butcher?"

"To be exact, he became a butcher only recently. At that time, he decided to make up for the losses he caused no matter what. To this end, he followed Master Kurgaz to learn the art of forging the Doomsday Anvil. After successfully forging a new Doomsday Anvil, he took the Butcher's Oath. Krag also went to the battle that ambushed Drazhos, but unfortunately he didn't die."

As they were talking, the five of them came to a relatively isolated factory area with few people, and stood in front of a warehouse that looked quite ordinary. Just as Nishikori Shigeru was about to walk over to open the door with the key, the five of them heard a sudden and powerful roar from the steam engine.

The two Holy Grail Knights immediately protected their master behind them. In an instant, the true energy flowed through most of Jin Zhifan's meridians, further strengthening the Jinyiwei deputy commander's already superhuman physical functions to a completely inhuman level.

With a roar, a steam tank crashed through the thickened wall amidst the flying gravel and dust, and braked suddenly beside An Jiyue. Jin Zhifan's eyes condensed, and he reached out to touch the belt around his waist, and grabbed a mixture of curse salt and talisman paper ash from a brocade bag with talismans on the surface.

"Don't do it!" An Jiyue shouted, "She means no harm."

As he spoke, the Chief of the Outer Gods stretched out his right hand and touched the armored plate near the front of the steam tank.

The next moment, a loud roar erupted from the exhaust pipe of the steam tank.

The author says:

Author's note: There was a power outage yesterday... I've only moved to this place for a month and a half, and this is the third time the power has gone out. The first two times it was fixed quickly, but this time I waited for two hours and it still didn't come back on, so I had to go to sleep. I'm increasingly feeling that choosing this rental house was a wrong decision, but unfortunately I don't have the energy to move again in this short period of time.

Answering readers' "excuses for loneliness":

You can directly refer to the transformation of Horus in "Gods of War: Eye of Thrones". It is worth mentioning that the actor who plays Horus in this movie is Jaime from Game of Thrones.

Answer to reader "Reader1716651849":

Reality is a joke in the e-sports circle. The Terran player in StarCraft 2, "Reality", is nicknamed "Reality". Please search Baidu for details.

Chapter 447: The Secret of the Machine Soul (Part 2)

A moment later, in the administrator's office next to the warehouse.

"Yes, uh, yes, I mean," a senior engineer in charge of the warehouse explained while carefully observing the face of his Elector, "In the name of the God of Killer Whales, I am very sure that the Pioneer has absolutely no refueling. Since the end of the most recent test, we have emptied her fuel tanks."

Although he had long known that all the engineers of Coast Heavy Industry, whether they were from system units or "locals", had basically joined the currently fledgling Mechanic Order, An Jiyue, who was sitting next to him, still felt a little embarrassed when he heard this.

"In other words," Aiwen glanced at the governor subtly. The latter was holding a cup of herbal tea and seemed to be considering whether to drink it, "the Pioneer suddenly started without any fuel and crashed through the thickened wall that could withstand a direct hit from a six-pound cannon?"

A steam engine does not start running immediately after it is started. Based on its working principle, any steam engine must work for a period of time after it is started, and only after the boiler has burned enough steam can other things be considered.

“As a matter of fact,” the engineer said, with a constipated expression, “Yes, sir.”

"You should leave first," the Elector said after thinking for a moment, "today's events must be kept secret."

"Yes, my lord."

After sending the engineer away, Aiwen was about to speak when she heard An Jiyue say, "The Pioneer does have a soul. Although its form is completely different from that of a flesh and blood body, I am sure that it is a soul."

"What is the basis for your judgment?" asked Evelyn.

"She can use psionics," said the governor, who is also the most powerful psionic user in existence. "Remember the performance test report on the Pioneer? I originally thought that her ability to exceed the design specifications was due to some kind of magical amplification effect, just like a buff spell, but I found out that it was actually caused by psionics."

Knight Ji asked curiously: "Speaking of which, how do you distinguish between psychic power and magic?"

"There is actually only one core criterion, which is to look at the source of power," the Jiedushi explained. "Magic power comes from the outside world, and is exogenous, while psychic power comes from oneself, and is endogenous. The former is actually a temporary blue bar similar to the rage of the warriors in the mountains, while the latter is the traditional blue bar that we are more familiar with."

Knight Ji asked again: "I remember that the alchemists of An's Zhendan also used true qi, right?"

"Our true Qi only acts as a 'fire starter', and the 'firewood' required to cast spells still comes from the warp. The advantage of this method of casting spells is that it does not require the caster's spirit to directly contact and guide the wind of magic. In my setting, the alchemists of An's Zhendan do not have the side effects of using spells like the Imperial Battle Mage (Note 1), and are much safer in every sense... although those who are destined to fall will still fall."

"In other words, the reason why this steam tank was able to 'happy its soul' and start directly from cold without any alcohol added was all due to the power of psychic energy, right?" Evelyn concluded: "This is so Om Messiah."

"The Faceless's psychic system excels in the spiritual realm because the Faceless's point allocation method is biased towards the spiritual realm. Theoretically, as long as the 'quantity' is sufficient, psychic energy can achieve any effect that magic can achieve," An Jiyue continued to explain, "Of course, since psychic energy comes from the psychic himself, it naturally cannot compare with magic in terms of 'quantity'. Well, back to the point, didn't I just say that the Pioneer can use psychic energy?"

"Although the specific usage is completely different from that of the Faceless Men, and is incomparable to the psychic barbarians of the Brood, it is undoubtedly a brand new way of using psychic energy. Let's not talk about the Machine Souls on the 40K studio next door. All the Machine Souls here are psykers, born psykers. As long as they want, they can instinctively use psychic energy to enhance the performance of the machine. I have a hunch that they can do much more than that."

"Well, there is actually something that has been bothering me since a while ago," Aiwen raised her hand and asked, "You have been using the word 'she' when referring to the machine spirit. Does the machine spirit have a gender?"

The Lords of the Holy Scriptures do not always communicate in their native language. Due to the influence of the new living environment after the time travel, except for the three members of the Aurora faction, other members often subconsciously use their second native language, which is the language of the faction they chose when they were in the car.

It is worth mentioning that Egwene has two second languages, Breton and Rexroth. In daily communication, unless she deliberately controls it, Egwene sometimes mixes these two languages.

"Of course machine spirits don't have biological genders, but they do have psychological genders. At least the only machine spirit I've seen so far has one," An Jiyue answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "Besides, do you like machine girls or machine boys? To be frank, machine girls are the public's aesthetic. The people love them, so who do you think you are if you don't like them? As for machine-sexual love, that kind of XP, in my opinion, is beyond the scope of human beings, so it's another matter."

"Indeed." Evelyn nodded in agreement.

"Anyway," the governor raised a finger and shook it left and right, "after seeing her in person, some of my questions were answered. As to why the gear boys of the Adeptus Mechanicus were blessed, while I knew nothing about it, I have some guesses, and I will verify them later."

"Tell me?" Knight Ji showed a curious look. Behind her, Sir Almarik and Sir Bayar looked at each other first, and then looked at Jin Zhifan standing behind An Jiyue.

"Please step aside for now," An Jiyue said without turning back, "I'll call you in later."

After the two Holy Grail Knights and a deputy commander of the Imperial Guard left, An Jiyue said, "In fact, I had my doubts the last time I had the dream. I... may have more than one body."

"……What's the meaning?"

"Except Zhaoming, I have asked every dragon god I have seen. Well, that said, I have only asked Yuanbo and Guiyin," An Jiyue frowned, as if she was troubled by the explanation. "I asked them what I look like in the eyes of real dragons. Yuanbo said that he could only perceive that I was definitely not a mortal, and my essence was another kind of existence; while Guiyin told me that she could vaguely see a cold moon through my human appearance."

"This is very strange, isn't it? Guiyin saw a cold moon, but I was clearly a simple and happy killer whale in that dream. Why are there two completely unrelated images?"

What the Outer Gods didn't know was that there was an unlucky Tzeentchian named Jin Huizhi who had the "luck" to see her true form (see Chapter 386). Jin Huizhi first saw the cold moon, then saw a killer whale, and then was severely injured on the spot because he saw something he shouldn't have seen, and almost died.

"Now I have almost guessed the answer - because I have one soul and two bodies, and the 'killer whale' is the body I don't use very often. The faith of the gear boys points to my other body, and the blessings on them obviously come from my other body. As for more in-depth information, it depends on the results of my verification."

"You can give blessings now. Are you sure that your killer whale half really has no independent consciousness?" Evelyn asked.

"I can really confirm this," An Jiyue said very confidently, "It was still that dream, although in that dream, my self-awareness and thinking consciousness became quite vague for some reason, otherwise Tzeentch would not have been beaten up by me... In short, I can confirm that my other body has no such thing as autonomous consciousness, and giving blessings may be some kind of instinctive reaction of the body itself."

"Then I'm relieved. How exactly do you plan to do your verification? What do you need me to do?"

"Just call Kaul over for me. I don't want to appear in front of him for now."

……

Note 1: Although I think many people should know this setting, I still want to explain it here. In the world view of Warhammer, human magical talent is quite ordinary. Long-term exposure to the wind of magic will produce various side effects for human mages, both physiologically and psychologically. For example, a flame mage will become enthusiastic, impulsive, irritable and easily angered, and the hair on his body will turn red and orange.

Of course, some human mages, such as the Saint and Prophetess of Bartor, do not have this side effect, but that means there is a god protecting you. After all, the Saint/Prophetess is essentially a clergyman who just knows how to use magic.

Chapter 448: Feast of Fragrance

Somewhere in the northern Badlands.

In the deepest part of the camp surrounded by countless ancient tombs, the royal slaves from Khemri, under the command of Khemri Kala, decorated the open-air banquet hall with silk, tapestries, and gorgeous gold and silver utensils. This tedious and precise work, in which every detail could not be neglected, began when the sun rose. Hundreds of skilled slaves were busy until the evening, and only then did Nekaf, who was in charge of supervising this matter, reluctantly recognize the results of their labor.

For political reasons, Settra was responsible for the preparation of the banquet, except for the food and drinks provided by Atum, who proposed the banquet. The guests of today's banquet were either Tomb Kings or their second sons (Note 1). Even the great Immortal King had to be careful when dealing with these backbones of the dynasty, especially not being impolite.

As the sun slowly sank below the horizon, the skeleton slaves poured refined whale oil into the braziers, soaking the chopped wood that had been placed in them in advance. Then, the braziers surrounding the banquet were lit one by one, and the rising flames provided a brightness that was better than nothing in Atum's opinion, even though they were undead and could see things without any lighting.

The yellowness of the setting sun faded away completely at some point, and the Tomb Kings and Princes, covered in gold and jewels, came here in twos and threes with their closest attendants and sat down behind their own low tables. Soon, except for the two separate low tables at the first place, everyone else arrived and sat down.

Asaph's Wisdom, the Voice of Vengeance, the Lioness of the Hills, the Commander of the Legion of Arrows, the High Queen, the Defender of Cursed Lahmia, the Vigilant Spirit, the Serpent Queen... A female Tomb King with titles including but not limited to the above, Khalida, the ruler of Lybaras, sat in her seat, looking at the things in front of her with the cautious eyes of a sharpshooter: more than a dozen shiny silver plates filled the table, three silver wine jugs in the corner, and a lit red candle was placed closest to her.

All the utensils were of the familiar Nehekhara style. What was unfamiliar was the things on them. Whether it was a silver plate or a silver pot, there was a thing inside... something that Khalida didn't know how to describe. It looked like a long, thin stick, made of some kind of wood or something similar. The surface of the stick was covered with a thin layer of something that looked like dried ointment, but even with the outer shell, the stick was still extremely thin, at least much thinner than a reed. In addition, only the very end of the stick was not covered with this mysterious substance.

Although they were placed on silver plates of different shapes, to Kalida, all the sticks were exactly the same in shape and color. The only difference was the part at the end of the stick that was not wrapped in the "ointment". There was a piece of cloth only one finger wide? Like the "ointment", Kalida could not identify the material of this thing. She picked up a stick and found that there was some mysterious rune written on the "cloth" that she did not recognize.

The Warrior Queen picked up different sticks and put them down again. The runes on the "cloth strips" of each stick were different. Not only were the runes themselves different, but the number of runes was also different. Some "cloth strips" had only three runes, some had four or five. The sticks in the wine pot had the fewest runes, all of which had only two runes.

"This seems to be the writing of the Chinese," Kalida heard someone say nearby. "I have seen this before."

She looked in the direction of the voice and found that the person who spoke was Bihodes. The king of Zandiri still looked gloomy, but it was better than being autistic all day. "Zhendan people?" Khalida asked, "The country that produces dragon staffs?"

"I thought you would know more," said Bihodes, "after all, you rule Lybaras."

"Then I'm afraid I'll disappoint you," Khalida shook her head. "I know no more about these mysterious Eastern peoples than you do. Can you decipher the meaning of these words?"

"I only recognize this one," Bihodes pulled out a stick from a wine jug in front of him and pointed at the "cloth strip" on it, "This symbol means 'wine'."

"Wine?" Khalida said in surprise. "But it's not even a liquid."

King Zandiri was silent for a moment. "I don't know," he said irritably. "I can only tell you what I know. What I know, and I am sure of."

Kalida stopped talking, because she knew that what Bihodes needed now was not comfort, but some quiet time alone. She looked around and saw that more than one king or prince was attracted by their conversation, but no one dared to disturb Bihodes who was in a negative mood.

The horn sounded, and Setra and Atum, who were the center of attention, appeared in front of everyone. The former sat at the main seat, while the latter did not sit down immediately, but led Susayb to the center of the banquet venue.

"OK, brothers, everyone look at me, I have something to announce!" As soon as Da Guda opened his mouth, many old-fashioned Tomb Kings wanted to frown, even though their faces were no longer able to make any expression.

Amidst all kinds of gazes, the calm Atum held a stick in his left hand, or the incense used by the Chinese people for worship, followed closely by Susaybu holding a candlestick in both hands. "This thing, yes, is the strange stick in front of you," the Lord of Ka-Sabai said loudly, "The Chinese people call it 'Xiangxiang', also called 'Yanyinxiang'." When talking about the two proper nouns, Atum used his native language: "Light it, and then smell it, and you will know what a miracle is."

After that, Atum held the incense in his left hand and stretched it back to burn the red candle that had been lit in advance. As soon as the first wisp of smoke came out of the high temperature burning, Atum leaned over and took a big puff.

"Well, it's 'roast chicken'," Da Guda nodded with satisfaction, "It tastes good!"