Warhammer, I really didn't intend to form a second empire!

Chi You's experimental data was impressive, even exceeding Zhao Zheng's expectations. The black mass was pulsating steadily within his body, and Zhao Zheng was certain that it was inextricably linked to him.

Bone density, muscle strength, nerve reflex speed...

Chi You's physical data all jumped to a level far exceeding that of ordinary people, and there were no signs of rejection or deterioration.

The experiment was very successful, and although the process was thrilling, there was no danger to anyone's life throughout. The only advantage was the physical fitness of the candidates.

This means that Zhao Zheng's plan is feasible.

In the future, his legion will first undergo this genetic modification, and then use the Astartes surgery to fully upgrade them. Zhao Zheng will try his best to complete the original casting surgery or see if he can add a few more surgeries on top of that.

Just how strong will my own legion be by then?

Zhao Zheng couldn't say for sure, but he was certain that if the emperor really wanted to take action, he would make sure the emperor understood that he was not someone to be trifled with!

Zhao Zheng pushed open the door to the observation room next door.

Xiang Ji and Li Cunxiao sat on a metal bench, their backs straight and their faces resolute, like a long spear, its sharpness fully revealed.

"His Majesty."

Upon seeing Zhao Zheng approach, the two stood up simultaneously, their movements swift and precise, displaying the disciplined training honed at the military academy.

"Chi You's transformation went smoothly."

Xiang Ji's eyebrows twitched, and a glimmer of light appeared in Li Cunxiao's eyes, but neither of them spoke up to ask further questions.

"It will be your turn soon. The process will be more painful than you can imagine. Anesthesia can only slow down your perception at the conscious level, and we cannot suppress the reactions deep within your body."

"You can choose to postpone or withdraw; this will not affect your rating in the college."

"unnecessary."

Xiang Ji spoke first, his tone filled with unparalleled confidence, his head held high, his eyes sharp.

"Yes, Your Majesty, we have waited so long for this moment."

Li Cunxiao then nodded, his tone slightly softer than Xiang Ji's, but equally without the slightest hesitation.

Zhao Zheng looked at the two teenagers in front of him, his gaze lingering on each of their faces for a moment, and then nodded.

"Then get ready, both of you together."

"Yes."

Chapter 5 CMC

When Zhao Zheng pushed open the iron-cast explosion-proof door on the third basement level, the acrid smell mixed with disinfectant that had been lingering in the air had mostly dissipated.

Five months ago, when Chi You sat up from the operating table, everyone in the laboratory saw how his 2.5-meter-tall body easily twisted the solid steel bed frame into a pretzel.

Since then, the gene laboratory in Chiyang City has never lacked voluntary test subjects.

The news spread much faster than Zhao Zheng had anticipated.

The day after the first twelve modified individuals emerged from the recovery pods, the registration area of ​​the military academy was so crowded that the door frame collapsed three times.

The young people crowded in the corridor, clutching their newly issued ID cards, their expressions a mixture of excitement and a kind of reckless determination.

Zhao Zheng knew why they were like this; everyone wanted to become stronger and wanted to become part of his own guard.

After all, it's really prestigious to follow His Majesty.

Even though they were only as tall as Zhao Zheng's thighs when they followed behind him, that didn't stop everyone from wanting to stand behind the Primarch.

Almost all the children wanted to get this spot, so they all trained hard. Everyone had a dream, and every child followed Zhao Zheng to fight for it.

Being able to stand beside the Primarch is already a great honor, let alone being able to fight alongside Zhao Zheng in the future.

This is the allure of the Primitive, and also the allure of a monarch.

If you are genuinely good to your people, they can feel it.

He stood before a large metal workbench, its surface covered with parchment and thin alloy plates, upon which were drawn an extremely rough yet incredibly precise mechanical structure.

This was a plan he had been conceiving for months, inspired by a vague memory in his mind—an armor system that had proven to be extremely cost-effective on countless interstellar battlefields.

But Zhao Zheng's task was not simply to move the items; he also needed to make some modifications.

After all, this is Warhammer, not a pleasant place. Even if the CMC series can already be made, he still needs to modify it.

After all, they will be the support force that will be fighting on the interstellar battlefield in the future. No matter how many times Zhao Zheng optimizes the Astartes' power armor of the Legion in the future, CMC and this batch of modified mortal support soldiers will always be the real main force.

As Zhao Zheng placed the last charcoal sketch on his desk, the city of Chiyang outside the window was already shrouded in the deepest darkness before dawn.

His fingertips had just left the graphite pen, the pen still retaining the slightly warm touch of his body heat.

The blueprints spread out on the table were nine meters long, extending from the cross-sectional view of the power core at the far left to the foot joint linkage structure at the far right. Every detail was densely marked with the languages ​​and mathematical symbols of the ancient Terran dragon kingdoms.

He spent a month completely replicating the blueprint of the CMC-300 power armor in his mind, and then spent another half month gradually modifying it into a warhammer-like form.

The design concept of the CMC armor has proven to be an extremely efficient and inexpensive mass production solution; the armor is cheap, and the pilots inside are even cheaper.

Its structure is simple, highly modular, and has undemanding requirements for materials. The core of the entire system is the compact cold fusion reactor, which can provide 300 hours of high-intensity combat endurance.

It can't compare to Astartes' power armor in this respect, but it's the only one that can be mass-produced, is cheap enough, and is easy to use.

Is there any other race that can rival humans in numbers?

When millions of his comrades appeared on the battlefield, Zhao Zheng had reason to believe that even the Imperial Guard's 10,000-man regiment would have to think twice before taking action.

However, Zhao Zheng also has many issues to consider.

While I may have many good brothers, I do have ways to make the people here physically superior to them.

But the enemies in the Warhammer universe are never Zerglings or Hydralisks. The things that rush towards you on the battlefield may be the minions of bizarre aliens, the power claws in the hands of the Greenskin leader, or even a set of "magical tricks" thrown directly at you by a psyker.

No matter how many good brothers you have, you can't afford to waste them like this. Besides, Zhao Zheng can't bear to see these remnants of the Dragon Kingdoms, who have survived with great difficulty, die on the battlefield.

Therefore, he added three layers of composite armor to the original design.

The outer layer is a hardened ceramic steel coating to resist the ablation of energy weapons; the middle layer is a honeycomb alloy buffer structure to absorb kinetic energy impact; and the inner layer is his latest carbon fiber woven mesh, which serves to block fragments and provide secondary protection.

Furthermore, he changed the location of the power core.

The original CMC's power backpack was worn on its back, which offered an advantage in battlefield mobility, but that position was far too conspicuous on the Warhammer battlefield. If it were hit by a precise strike, the entire armor's energy system would be paralyzed.

Good brothers aren't like Astartes; they don't have the reaction speed and ability to dodge enemy attacks, nor can they drag heavy power armor and charge straight in to fight the enemy like the Astartes' tough guys.

Zhao Zheng divided the reactor into two miniaturized units, which were embedded on both sides of the chest armor and covered with multi-layer composite armor plates. Each unit could operate independently, and even if one was destroyed, the other could still maintain the basic operation of one-third of the armor's power.

This way, you'll at least have enough reaction time and increase your chances of survival on the battlefield.

Moreover, he also left a slot in the very center of the breastplate.

The slot's caliber and depth were designed according to the standard model of a bomb magazine, but its function was unrelated to the ammunition; Zhao Zheng had pre-installed a simple psionic resonator inside.

This thing is a crystal he cultivated by mixing a bit of his own blood with refined quartz. It can react to Zhao Zheng's own psionic fluctuations. If the commander releases a wide-range psionic command on the battlefield, all armored units wearing this resonator can receive the signal instantly.

In other words, this will be a true army that can synchronize with the will of their commander, and this army will naturally be a cut above the rest of the auxiliary armies.

Moreover, this psionic resonator can effectively defend against psionic attacks from psionicists below the gamma level, which is already quite good. Zhao Zheng has not yet been able to develop a more efficient one.

Psionic energy is truly unreasonable; anyone who uses it knows. Although it has drawbacks such as burning out one's head and being corroded by the warp, its practicality and power are undeniable.

The current pinnacle of psionic energy in the physical universe is the Emperor, and it goes without saying how powerful the Emperor is.

Chaos, bean sprouts, green skin... Anyone who has ever fought with the Emperor knows just how overpowered this golden giant really is.

We should take precautions if possible. There aren't many powerful psychics, and what Zhao Zheng has given us so far is enough.

Zhao Zheng rolled up the blueprints, tucked them under his arm, and walked out of the design institute.

The corridor was dimly lit and warm. The patrolling guards immediately stood at attention against the wall when they saw him. Zhao Zheng nodded to them, but did not stop walking. He headed towards the private workshop on the second basement level.

The master foundries there had been waiting for him all night.

The workshop is three times larger than the design institute, with six rows of high-powered arc lamps hanging from the dome, illuminating the entire space as bright as day.

Assembly platforms had been erected in the central open space, surrounded by newly delivered raw alloy plates and prefabricated hydraulic fittings, and the air was filled with the smell of industrial agents and steel.

Zhao Zheng unfolded the blueprints on the assembly stand, smoothed out the wrinkles on the paper with his palm, then turned around and looked at the row of engineers and foundry workers standing behind him.

These people were handpicked by him from hundreds of thousands of artisans in Chiyang City, and each of them had proven their talent and resilience in the rapid evolution since the outbreak of the Industrial Revolution.

Several of the young men's talents caught Zhao Zheng's attention.

One was named Mo Xie, another was named Lu Ban, and there was a middle-aged craftsman who said his name was Ou Yezi.

These individuals are the most talented geniuses Zhao Zheng has ever seen in the fields of weaponry and engineering.

Ou Yezi, in particular, was a genius born for close-combat weapons.

"Today we will assemble the first CMC armored vehicle."

Zhao Zheng's voice wasn't loud, but the Primarch's unique vocal resonance made every word clearly reach everyone's ears.

"Starting with the skeleton, then the power unit, and finally the outer armor, if all goes well, we can build it within three days."

"After that, we will make some optimizations, and after experiments to confirm that the performance is fine, we will start to build the first production line for components and parts and start mass production as soon as possible."

"Everyone, I hope you will all be on your best during this period."

No one spoke; everyone simply nodded in unison before rushing to their respective workstations to begin studying their assigned tasks.

When the first main beam of the frame was hoisted into place, Zhao Zheng personally tightened the first fixing bolt, and a crisp metallic hiss was heard the moment the threads meshed.

Without lingering, he handed the wrench to Lu Ban beside him, then turned and walked to the workbench at the other end of the workshop, where more complex hydraulic pipeline drawings were piled up that needed his confirmation.

For the next three days, almost no one in the workshop slept, and Zhao Zheng assisted the group of casting masters.

Ou Yezi's intuition about the quenching temperature of alloys was astonishingly accurate; Lu Ban's understanding of the power armor structure far exceeded Zhao Zheng's expectations of a blacksmith from a feudal background; and Mo Xie handled all the precision welding and surface treatment, her hands so steady they were practically a precision instrument.

Late on the third night, the click of the last armor bolt being tightened echoed in the workshop.

All the craftsmen and foundry workers looked up at the three-meter-tall metal behemoth in the center of the platform.

The cold gray outer armor gleamed with a dark light under the arc lamps, its sharp, angular outline resembling a crouching steel beast. The sides of the chest plate bulged slightly, encasing the two miniaturized cold fusion reactors.

Zhao Zheng walked around it, his fingertips brushing against the fine welding lines at the seams of the armor, feeling its smooth and dense texture.

He finally stopped directly in front of the armor, reached out and gently supported the right shoulder edge, and shook it. The entire armor remained firmly planted on the ground, the frame and armor perfectly integrated.

Zhao Zheng nodded subtly. Although there was still room for improvement, the fact that they were able to build this CMC armor on their first try was enough to demonstrate the exquisite skills of these craftsmen.

Although Zhao Zheng was the main force among them.

"You've worked hard, go and rest for a bit. I'll be upgrading this armor by myself next. You can stay and watch, or go back and rest first, and then continue learning later."

No one moved, because they knew how rare it was to witness the creation of a groundbreaking casting master in person.

And most importantly, this was their emperor, a craftsman emperor who was willing to bow down to them, his artisans.

Zhao Zheng glanced at them, said nothing, turned around and unfolded the blueprints again, placing one of the parchment sheets labeled "Firepower Module Optional Scheme" on top.

He sketched a new outline in the blank area at the bottom right of the drawing; it was a set of modular weapon slots that could be mounted on the shoulder platforms on both sides of the armor.

The standard model is armed with two fixed explosive guns, and its caliber and belt-fed ammunition system are completely compatible with the first-generation product line of the Chiyang City Arsenal.

But he drew another set of lines next to it, which were reserved expansion interfaces, with the caliber and power contacts designed according to the standard specifications of heavy laser weapons.

……

Zhao Zheng's graphite pen moved the new line drawing line by line on the drawing paper.

After finalizing the improvement plan, Zhao Zheng went straight to the forging area.

The furnace fire illuminated his chiseled, rugged face. He casually picked up a piece of alloy billet, weighed it in his hand, and then tossed it into the heating furnace.

The firelight and welding arc in the workshop were lit again, and the hum of the arc lamps was mixed with the rhythm of the forging hammer rising and falling.

The armor was disassembled and reassembled from three meters away. The quick-release buckles on the shoulder platform had an additional ring of precise locking teeth. Copper microwires with etched circuits were embedded inside the eyepiece lens. The armor plate on the outside of the right forearm was thinned to create a groove that could just accommodate the chainsaw hilt. The magnetic hanger on the back was reinforced with three welds.

As dawn broke, the dim morning light slanted in through the workshop's high windows, illuminating the newly embedded psionic resonance crystal on the chest of the armor.

Zhao Zheng took two steps back, his gaze sweeping over the metal outline of the car that had been modified overnight.

The cold fusion reactor emitted a deep, resonant hum, and a pale blue light flashed on the goggles. The entire suit of armor began to operate from its silence, like a steel behemoth slowly opening its eyes.

……

On the morning of the fourth day, at the training ground in the eastern suburbs outside Chiyang City.