Warhammer: Rebuilding the Golden Age Starting with Farming.

"What's wrong?" Andy frowned. "Aren't most of the Skinners dead?"

"No... not."

Gamma-9 took a breath, its single eye flashing with unease.

"It's the Helios Group."

"It seems something happened to their new factory."

“Our sentries discovered a transport vehicle that had escaped from the other side while patrolling the border.”

"The train was full of dead people, and..."

Gamma-9 lowered his voice, as if he were talking about something taboo.

“The bodies of those dead people were covered with purple crystals.”

Andy's heart sank.

Purple crystals?

Could it be a characteristic of a gene stealer infection, or... some kind of more terrifying biochemical mutation?

What kind of monster did those idiots in Helios create in that completely enclosed processing plant?

"Take me to see it."

Andy didn't hesitate at all.

This matter cannot be delayed. It could be either a gene stealer going berserk or some kind of biochemical virus leaking.

With the shelter's current assets, it could be drawn into trouble in no time. If things really get to that point, we'll have to figure out how to escape.

With farming as his greatest ambition, Andy's biggest fear now is natural disasters and man-made calamities.

Soon, Andy strode out of the workshop and jumped directly onto the newly modified "Happy Car".

"Gamma-9, assemble ten combat personnel and bring heavy weapons!"

Chapter 28 Amethyst and Farming Artifacts

After a two-hour drive, the "Bottom Nest Happy Car" finally stopped at the edge of a ruin.

With both engines shut off, the radiators emitted a crackling sound as they cooled down.

Although this car is ugly, unpainted, and covered in weld marks, it is really tough.

It's ridiculously hard.

I just crashed into several concrete walls that were half a person high on the road, but it didn't even leave a dent.

Andy pushed open the heavy armored door and jumped down.

The air was filled with a strange smell he had never smelled before—a faint, sweet smell with a hint of ionized ozone.

Gamma-9 followed behind with several guards, his hand tightly gripping the automatic gun, his one eye darting around rapidly.

Fifty meters ahead, a Helios Group transport vehicle lay overturned in a huge crater.

The front of the car was completely crushed, obviously caused by a high-speed impact after losing control.

This vehicle has a very high level of protection, with a fully enclosed cargo box, and even the driver's cab windows are made of thickened bulletproof polymer.

But now, the heavy cargo door is twisted and deformed, and a pool of purple stuff is flowing out from the gap inside.

Andy moved closer.

The liquid on the ground was very viscous and was still bubbling slightly.

When this thing came into contact with the gravel on the ground, the stones were not corroded; instead, a layer of shiny crystals appeared on their surface.

"Om Messiah above..." Gamma-9 cried out in alarm from behind, "What on earth is happening here?"

Andy walked straight to the driver's seat.

The driver's cab door had fallen off, and three purple corpses were crammed inside.

Or rather, three crystals forcibly fused together.

These three unfortunate men were wearing Helios Group worker uniforms and fully enclosed breathing masks.

But by then, their uniforms had already been torn.

Countless sharp, purple hexagonal prism crystals grew out of their flesh.

It's not just on the surface.

Andy could see that one of the drivers' eyeballs was gone, and his eye sockets were filled with clusters of purple crystals.

His arm bones were also completely crystallized, exhibiting a translucent texture, with the blood vessels and nerves inside sealed within the crystals and clearly visible.

Gamma-9 glanced at it and almost threw up.

He retched as he backed away, his gun trembling.

"Heretical! This must be heretical witchcraft!"

Gamma-9 roared angrily:

"Is this a plague spread by Nurgle? Or is it Slaanesh's chaos magic?"

"Don't go over there, Sage! This thing is cursed; if you touch it, your soul will turn to stone!"

Andy didn't back down; the electronic eye was scanning him frantically.

When it comes to the unknown, the Iron Man never believes in superstition; he only looks at the data.

A red laser beam swept across the eerie crystals.

The STC analysis module is operating at full power.

If it is warp magic, the readings will show psionic fluctuations or residual radiation that defies the laws of physics.

But the result surprised Andy slightly.

Because... the readings are very clean, even excessively so.

[Sample Analysis: Carbon-based biological tissue (reconstructed).]

Main components: silicate lattice, carbide crystal.

[Anomalous residual radiation: None.]

[Subspace reaction: None.]

[Conclusion: Cellular-level physical phase transition caused by prolonged exposure to a high-energy molecular reconstruction field.]

It appears that the molecular bonds of these three people's bodies were forcibly broken by some extremely powerful energy field, and then rearranged and recombined according to another set of rules.

In this way, their carbon atoms are forced into the lattice of silicon atoms.

Andy extended his hydraulic mechanical arm and pried off a crystal from the driver's shoulder.

"Click".

It appears to be extremely hard.

"Wow, the Helios Group is really playing some tricks."

Andy held the crystal up to his eyes.

This technology is absolutely beyond the reach of the current Empire or the Cult of Machines.

Of course, Andy doesn't deny that the Empire and the Mechanicus are quite advanced in basic materials science and biotechnology, but Andy is certain that they don't understand this kind of microscopic material reconstruction at all.

To put it simply, the current Imperial technology tree, whether it's the massive Titan weapons or the genetically modified Space Marines, is essentially still operating within a macroscopic framework, and is essentially about processing and piecing together existing materials.

The reconstruction of matter at the microscopic level doesn't involve forging processes; instead, it reaches directly into the atomic level, disassembles protons and electrons, and then rearranges and recombines them according to requirements.

To understand this thing requires an extremely advanced understanding of quantum physics and unified field theory.

But for the modern Mechanicus, this knowledge has long been a forgotten "dark taboo."

They have to fiddle with even a plasma coil for ages, so how can you expect them to understand how to mold carbon atoms into silicon crystals?

This is not just a technological gap, but a cognitive discontinuity at the level of a civilization!

Just as Andy was pondering what exactly this "molecular reconstruction field" was...

"Ding--!"

A crisp notification sound exploded deep within the core of his logic.

The radar image in the upper right corner of Andy's field of vision was originally completely dark.

Now, a golden dot of light is flashing wildly, with an extremely strong signal, even within a 30-kilometer radius.

Andy's body trembled!

That direction leads directly to the newly built, fully enclosed factory of the Helios Group!

[Signal from the same source detected...]

[Signal Feature Matching: STC Standard Construction Template - Fragment - Material Molecular Reconstruction Instrument.]

[Status: Running (Parameters severely off-target/Safety threshold invalid).]

Upon seeing this line of text, Andy's processor nearly overheated.

Material Molecular Reconstruction Instrument!

This is an industrial marvel from the golden age!

In an era of abundant resources, humans invented this thing to solve the problems of waste disposal and raw material recycling.

Its principle is simple yet powerful. No matter what you throw in—scrap iron, plastic, stone, or household waste—its high-energy field inside will directly break the matter down into atomic states and then, according to a preset template, recombine it into pure raw materials.

If you throw in a ton of garbage, you'll come out a ton of pure iron, pure copper, or pure carbon.

This is basically the pre-processing stage of an all-purpose material printer!

Andy instantly understood everything.

Why did Helios go to the bottom of the nest to build the factory?

Why do they need to implement a complete lockdown?

Why did the drivers end up in such a terrible state?

Helios unearthed this STC fragment, which is the matter reconstruction device.

But they had no control over the black box, nor did they know how to regulate that terrifying energy field.

The "Safety threshold failed" message on the panel says it all: the machine's radiation field has been leaked for some reason.

Under normal circumstances, the reconfiguration device is protected by a force field shield, and the operator is safe outside.

But these guys probably dismantled the shield generator, or it was simply broken and not repaired.

As a result, the entire factory was filled with this reconstructive radiation that could turn people into crystal.

If an ordinary person goes in, their cells will begin to crystallize within minutes, and they will eventually die a painful death.

That's why they need gene stealers!

Those cunning, bald, purple-skinned hybrids possess the abnormal adaptive genes of the Tyranids.

Their cells regenerate extremely quickly, allowing them to withstand this radiation for a longer period of time.

Helios's executives treated these cunning individuals as disposable commodities.

Let them operate the machines in the radiation; if they die, drag them out and replace them with the next batch.

This transport vehicle was probably carrying some kind of newly produced "special product," or perhaps it was carrying a few infected individuals who weren't quite dead yet, intending to send them to higher authorities for research. However, halfway there, the infected individuals completely crystallized and went out of control, causing the vehicle to overturn.

"What a waste! What a terrible waste!!"

Andy was so angry he wanted to curse.

What did these people take such precise and magnificent creations of the Golden Age for?

Was it a man-eating monster? Or a witchcraft altar used to produce this disgusting purple crystal?

They had no idea of ​​the machine's true value!

With this, why would Andy need a blast furnace to make steel?