26: Chapter 26 Triumphant Return and Conferment of Titles: Viscount

Seven days after a makeshift communication relay station was established in Hope Star's orbit, Cassius visited again. That relay station was assembled by Marcus and Old Tom in nearly ten days—using communication parts salvaged from a crashed transport plane, coils handmade by Old Tom, and a solar panel dug out from an abandoned mine. The signal emitted wasn't strong, but it could barely cover several surrounding star systems at orbital altitude. The fact that Cassius received this signal and found his way here indicated that the Empire's communication network in the Eastern Star Sector had not completely collapsed.

This time, he arrived in an Imperial communication ship in very poor condition—the hull was rusty, and the left engine's cowling was patched with wire. As he jumped off the deck, he clapped his hands to remove the rust, surveying the expanded outline of Blackstone Village, his gaze lingering for a moment between the newly built walls and chimney. The man's face was expressionless, but Lin Mo noticed his jaw tighten slightly when he saw the white smoke rising from the chimney—that was the scent of industry, a rare sight in the Empire's frontier star sectors.

Lin Mo received him in the newly built Town Hall—which, in truth, was just a larger wooden house with a tiled roof and real glass windows. Inside, there was a conference table, assembled from the first batch of steel plates produced by Old Tom's Arsenal. Its surface was unpainted, showing a cold gray metallic texture, and hammer marks were still visible along the edges of the tabletop. Cassius sat at the steel table and pulled a new document from his briefcase—stamped with the dual seals of the Imperial Eastern Star Sector Quartermaster Department and the Terra Administrative Council.

Lin Mo noticed the second seal.

The Terra Administrative Council. That was the Empire's central administrative body. If this document had indeed passed the review of the Terra Administrative Council—even if only nominally—it meant that Blackstone Town's reputation had exceeded the scope of the Eastern Star Sector and entered the Imperial bureaucratic system's purview. Cassius read the promotion order: due to his outstanding performance in frontier defense, Lin Mo was promoted from Baron to Imperial Viscount, and his territorial authority was expanded from "a surrounding area" to "the entire territory of Hope Star and the management rights of three surrounding star systems."

The night wind blew again. This gust was cooler than before, carrying a mixed scent of metal and earth. He pulled tighter the rough cloth coat he was wearing, which was already frayed—it was given to him by the villagers and was much warmer than the T-shirt he wore when he transmigrated.

As Lin Mo took the document, he noticed the paper's temperature—it was cold. But the inkpad of the Terra Administrative Council's seal hadn't completely dried. He placed the document on the table, his finger lingering for a moment on the words "Imperial Viscount." The weight of these four characters was heavier than anything he had carried since his transmigration. This was not a title in a game; it was a real rank within the Imperial bureaucratic system, one that could be traced, questioned, and revoked. He looked up and asked Cassius, "Who signed this document?"

The paper was cold. But the inkpad of the Terra Administrative Council's seal hadn't completely dried. This meant that the seal had been stamped no more than a few days ago—yet communication round trips from Terra to the Eastern Star Sector would take at least much longer. Someone had prepared this document in advance.

Locke stood guard at the Town Hall entrance and only entered after Cassius left. He didn't look at the promotion document, only Lin Mo's expression, then asked, "Good news or bad news?" Lin Mo thought for a moment and said, "Good news. But not necessarily free good news." Locke didn't ask further and turned to continue leading troops at the training ground. He paused at the door, saying without turning back, "I never trust anything free. But if you think it's worth it, then I'll believe it."

He looked up at Cassius. Cassius did not meet his gaze. He didn't ask again—he didn't need to ask to know: the mere fact that the Terra Administrative Council knew about Blackstone Town was a signal in itself. Either someone at a higher level had noticed him, or someone in the Imperial bureaucratic system was using his file for some transaction unrelated to him. Neither possibility was comforting.

After seeing Cassius off, Lin Mo stood at the Town Hall entrance, watching the dilapidated communication ship wobble into the sky and disappear into the grayish-purple expanse. The golden glow of the mirror of the emperor flickered slightly at the edge of his vision—not a warning, but a confirmation of its presence, as if reminding him: you are heading in the right direction, but those standing behind you are also starting to watch you. Lin Mo looked at the freshly stamped Terra Administrative Council seal on the document, realizing a truth he was unwilling to admit: from this moment on, he was no longer a gray dot without coordinates on the Imperial map. He was a chess piece—but the Imperial chess players didn't yet know how many pieces he held in his hand.

As he turned and walked back into the Town Hall, he passed the training ground. Locke was training new recruits, his shouts echoing in the twilight. Yang Shitou was calibrating the sights of his flintlock rifle at the shooting range, noting down a data point after each shot. The windows of Alice's medical station were still lit—she probably wouldn't sleep tonight either. Lin Mo slowed his steps as he passed that light, paused for a second, then continued walking.

Someone saw him. And that person was in a higher place.

Territory written on paper,

Power held in hand,

—Lin Mo's casual notes on the night he received the promotion order

38→

39→That night was exceptionally quiet. As Lin Mo walked back to his residence alone from the Town Hall, moonlight streamed through gaps in the clouds, illuminating the photocopy of the promotion order. He held the paper up to the moonlight, looking through the translucent surface at the words—Imperial Viscount, the entire territory of Hope Star and three surrounding star systems—the ink shimmered with a faint silvery-blue under the moon. He didn't know if he could turn these words into something tangible on the ground, but he knew that if he didn't try, they would forever remain just words on paper.

After the contents of the promotion order spread in Blackstone Village, it triggered different reactions. Locke's first reaction was to check if Lin Mo's guards were in place—he worried that Terra's attention would bring him mortal danger. Old Tom's reaction was to put an extra lock on his workshop door—he didn't trust the people from the Imperial Administrative Council.

Lin Mo's own reaction was the calmest. He locked the promotion order in a drawer, placing it alongside the octagram pendant. He paused before closing the drawer, looking at the pendant and the promotion order lying side by side at the bottom of the drawer—one from an unknown power after his transmigration, one from official Imperial recognition. They were unrelated, yet he placed them in the same spot. Perhaps one day they would be used together.

Three copies of the promotion order were printed. One was given to Locke for filing, one was locked in Lin Mo's drawer, and one was placed in an archive bag at the Intelligence Center. Before locking it in the drawer, Lin Mo reread the words on it—Viscount. Territory expanded to the entire territory of Hope Star and three surrounding star systems.

Every word was standard Imperial bureaucratic phrasing. But Lin Mo noticed one thing—the document did not mention any plans for dispatching Imperial garrisons, Imperial administrative officers, or Imperial tax collectors. The Empire gave him a piece of paper, but no substantive support. This meant the Empire acknowledged his existence but had no intention of paying for it. Lin Mo locked the document in the drawer. This was a conditional letter of trust—the Empire was willing to see how far he could go, but would not pave the way for him.

As he closed the drawer, his fingertip touched the chain of the octagram pendant. A cold sensation spread from his fingertip. He suddenly thought of a question: the Empire's communication network in the Eastern Star Sector was shrinking, the Terra Administrative Council's operational efficiency was declining, and Guilliman's attention was on more distant star sectors—in an era when the Empire was shrinking inch by inch, how much weight did a viscounty on a frontier planet truly hold? The answer depended on how deeply he could establish Blackstone Town's foundations before the Empire withdrew its attention.

He extinguished the oil lamp. In the darkness, his vision diminished, but his hearing became more acute—the footsteps of the night watch in the distant training ground, the steady thud of Old Tom's steam hammer in the Arsenal, the whistling wind through the valley. Blackstone Town had its own pulse at night. Lin Mo closed his eyes amidst this pulse.

—Self-check System · Automatic Supplement

Late at night. The lights of Blackstone Town went out one by one, leaving only the torches on the watchtowers swaying in the wind. He stood by the window for a while, then returned to his desk to continue writing his plan.

He stood there, looking at everything before him, and suddenly had a very strange feeling—if someone had told him a month ago that he would be on a planet an unknown number of light-years from Earth, making gunpowder with high school chemistry knowledge, building guns with university club experience, and planning a village's defense system with a product manager's logic—he would have thought that person was crazy. But now he stood here, and every single thing was genuinely happening.

[To draw a bow, draw the strongest; to use an arrow, use the longest.

To shoot a man, first shoot his horse; to capture a thief, first capture the king.]

—Du Fu, "Frontier Songs." Fragments of memory sealed within the mirror of the emperor quietly emerged in the darkness.

There was a detail at the bottom of the promotion order that Lin Mo hadn't mentioned to anyone—the position of the seal was not in the official format of the Imperial Administrative Council, shifted two millimeters to the left. Those two millimeters were either an accident, or someone wanted to tell him something.