Warhammer: Rebuilding the Golden Age Starting with Farming.

Although the Titans started their technology late, they are indeed skilled in plasma and shield miniaturization.

Andy plans to reverse engineer this technology to upgrade his drone.

The current Raptors are powerful, but too fragile; they'll shatter after being hit by a single explosive shell.

If you can equip Titanium's deflector shield, your survivability will be improved by several levels.

Finally, Andy found a black fragment in a cabinet sealed with a static field.

The surface of the fragment was as smooth as a mirror, yet it did not reflect light, as if it could devour the surrounding light.

[Item Scan: Blackstone Fragment (Possibly a relic of the Fearful Dead).]

[Evaluation: Extremely dangerous, anti-subspace properties.]

Andy's hand froze in mid-air.

Black Stone.

This is a true weapon of mass destruction; it can seal the subspace and also amplify it.

The obelisk over there in Cadia was made from this thing.

The fact that this thing appeared here shows that Kaka's reach was indeed quite far, and he may have even come into contact with some relics that he shouldn't have.

Andy didn't dare to take it directly with his hands, but instead had the guards move the entire stasis chamber away.

He can't use this thing right now, nor can he modify it, but he'll keep it as a trump card to use against psionicists in the future.

……

An hour later.

The underground vault, once brimming with priceless treasures, is now cleaner than Andy's face.

Andy even had the shelves dismantled because they were made of high-strength alloy, which could be melted down and used to make bullets.

Andy stood in the middle of the empty warehouse, looking at the mess, and nodded in satisfaction.

This wave of "harvesting" propelled his tech tree progress bar forward by a significant margin.

It has solved four major challenges: micro-energy, industrial catalysis, neural materials, and individual soldier shields.

The combat power of the new ship will experience a qualitative leap after this digestion and absorption.

Andy walked out of the vault and returned to his office on the top floor.

Sisyphus had already arrived and, seeing Andy come out, excitedly went to greet him.

"Andy, this is incredible!"

"Kaka is really gone! My God, their entire armed forces have collapsed!"

"The entire port is in chaos right now. The other dukes are all watching and no one dares to make a move."

"Should we...should we take this opportunity to seize the territory?"

A glint of ambition flashed in Sisyphus's eyes.

To replace Kaka and become the new king of the port is the ultimate dream of any merchant.

But Andy shook his head.

“No,” Andy replied, “we don’t need to take up territory, it’s too much trouble.”

"Once you occupy a territory, you have to take charge, maintain order, deal with imperial officials, and guard against attacks from other gangs."

“We don’t have the time or the energy. The power vacuum here is actually a good thing.”

In this dark universe, order often means constraint.

If Andy really gets the position of "Grand Duke," he'll become the scapegoat. The traveling merchants will come after him, the Inquisition will come after him, and the Imperial Navy will come after him even more.

But what if it's chaos?

In the chaos, no one cares what a ship is doing or who has bought any contraband.

What Andy wanted was a chaotic, free market, not a well-ordered haven.

"Sisyphus, listen up."

Andy gave the final strategic instructions.

"You don't need to be a grand duke, you just need to be a good merchant."

“Tell those people outside that we welcome anyone who wants to do business, but we don’t care who wants to take over our territory.”

"But there's only one."

Andy held up one finger.

"I have the right of first refusal to acquire all the non-standard technologies and condensation facilities in the future port."

"Anyone who dares to sell what I want to others, or hide it from me."

Andy pointed to the corpse of the senior deacon at his feet.

"This is what happens."

Sisyphus paused for a moment, then understood what Andy meant.

They take no responsibility, only enjoy the rights.

As long as the highest-end supply is controlled, it doesn't matter who is the apparent boss.

"Understood." Sisyphus nodded respectfully. "I will pass on the message."

Andy nodded and strode outside.

"Let's go, back to the ship."

"Oh right, do you have any deep-sky star maps?"

Chapter 89: Terrible Maps, Terrible Land, Terrible Memory

Shinbang, core bridge.

"Enter, enter all."

A dozen or so storage chips, scavenged from the black market, were inserted into the data interface of the holographic projector.

With a buzzing sound of data being read, the air in the center of the hall began to distort.

Countless points of light converge, attempting to construct a complete three-dimensional star map.

However, what Andy saw was not a clear and detailed navigation map.

Instead, it's a tattered jigsaw puzzle riddled with black holes, fault lines, noise, and gibberish.

Looking at the fragmented light and shadow before him, Andy fell into a long silence.

This stuff cost him dozens of boxes of high-purity antibiotics, plus a huge amount of hard currency he'd stolen from Helios.

Is that all?

It doesn't even qualify as a complete overview of the star sector; it's more like a bunch of vague labels like "maybe there's a star there" or "maybe someone died here."

But this is actually quite normal, since star maps are never objective geographical mapping data.

You think you're buying a map? No, you're buying a logbook that someone risked their life for!

In a time when subspace travel technology is extremely reliant on starlight.

Today's safe passageway may become the epicenter of a subspace storm tomorrow.

A planet that existed last month might be eaten by aliens whose names you might not even know, or blown up by the Inquisition next month.

Therefore, the star charts circulating in the market are often less effective than mutant star charts, and are full of sellers' subjective speculations and false information fabricated to inflate prices.

The fact that Andy was able to buy this batch of data-readable chips shows that these shady dealers in the port city still have some conscience.

Andy reached out and fiddled with the hologram, removing the obviously garbled and duplicate data.

Finally, three relatively clear and fairly well-marked large areas remained.

These three areas extend into the deep Colonus enclave, surrounding their current port of call.

Andy has to choose one of these three options.

He first turned his gaze to the northeast direction of the star map.

A dense cluster of stars is labeled "Pagan Stars" on the hologram.

Just by hearing the name, you can tell that this place is definitely not favored by the empire.

Intelligence indicates that this area has a relatively high population density and is also the most complex in terms of power dynamics within the Colonus expansion.

"Xiao Liu, analyze this area."

Andy gave the order.

Xiao Liu's blue electronic eyes flashed, bringing up relevant entries in the database:

"The Heretic Stars consist mainly of human colonies that have not been formally recovered by the Empire, pirate strongholds that have betrayed the Empire, and a large number of small and medium-sized alien civilizations. They have frequent trade activities, but are extremely lacking in order."

In the context of the empire, the definition of the word "pagan" was very broad.

It doesn't necessarily refer to a madman corrupted by chaos who sacrifices living people every day to summon demons.

In the empire's official dictionary, if you don't worship the emperor, or if you worship the emperor incorrectly, then you are a heretic.

If you accidentally become the disciple of some six-legged emperor... well, what else can I say? Get ready to be bombed.

Most of the humans in the Pagan Stars still retain human technology and live their own lives. Occasionally, they will do business with Eldar, Dwarves, or other aliens that they find agreeable. Similarly, the aliens should be relatively easier to talk to.

To Andy, these guys weren't exactly good people either, but compared to those Chaos believers whose brains were full of shit, they were practically adorable little angels.

Andy stroked his chin: "This place sounds nice."

Having a population means having productivity, and having trade means having resources circulating.

Moreover, because it is not under the jurisdiction of the empire, it is very politically inclusive, and no one cares whether Andy and his ship are unregistered.

As long as he has resources, he can establish himself here.

Of course, this kind of "freedom" comes at a price, and the price is usually very high.

In the pagan world, due to the lack of a unified, authoritarian regime, the most blatant law of the jungle prevails.

You might make a deal with the ruler of this planet today, but tomorrow he might sell you to the Dark Eldar to be a loli.

Or perhaps you've just built a factory on a planet, only to have it destroyed by a passing green-skinned orc the day after tomorrow.

The spirit of contractual obligations is practically nonexistent; betrayal and double-crossing are commonplace.

To survive here, you have to stay on high alert at all times and trust no one.

After careful consideration, Andy has temporarily listed "The Heretics" as a backup option.

Then, he looked towards the northwest direction of the star map.

The area was covered by a large number of red high-risk warning signs.

[The World of Abandoned Babies].

hiss!

It doesn't sound like a good thing just from its name!

Intelligence indicates that this is a death zone filled with ancient curses, excessive subspace radiation, and various unspeakable monsters.

Many planets in this region bear the remnants of human civilization, but there are no living people on them now.

Moreover, the name "World of Abandoned Babies" itself is full of strong religious metaphors and a sense of despair.

In the minds of the Empire's people, these planets were orphans abandoned by the God-Emperor.

A planet that has lost the protection of the God-Emperor is like an infant that has fallen into a wolf's den.

The malice of the subspace will rapidly encroach upon this place, blurring the lines between reality and illusion, and distorting the laws of physics.

When you venture into such a place, you not only have to face the harsh natural environment, but also the monsters that crawl out from the depths of people's hearts.

Andy zoomed in on the map.

At the edge of the world of abandoned babies, directly west of the port of arrival, there is a very conspicuous sign.