35: Chapter 35 Ancient Colony, Repairing the Omnic Program

Xiao Wu's funeral was held in the early morning, and few people knew—as Locke requested. Old Tom stood at the back of the crowd, clutching something in his hand. When Lin Mo passed the Arsenal after the funeral, he noticed that the sound of the forge hammer was heavier than usual. It wasn't that the rhythm had changed—it was that the force behind every strike was greater than before. Old Tom didn't speak, nor did he stop. Beside the anvil lay an unfinished dagger—the edge had been tempered once, but the hilt had yet to be fitted. It was the penultimate item Xiao Wu had worked on before his death. Old Tom didn't throw it away, nor did he finish it. He just let it lie there.

Marcus's second message arrived a few days after the ambush. He had found the abandoned communication station—and something else. Beneath the station was a sealed hangar, housing something that looked like it could still fly: an Imperial standard raven reconnaissance drone. The aircraft's overall condition was worrying, but its core components seemed intact. Marcus added a line after that: 'But I can't open its onboard Machine Intelligence system.'

The onboard Machine Intelligence system—a chime rang in his mind when he saw those words. It wasn't a metaphor; he truly felt a flash of golden light at the edge of his vision. He took Old Tom and a set of engineering tools and personally rushed to the abandoned communication station. When he saw the reconnaissance drone, he understood why Old Tom had brought three extra crates of tools—the aircraft had been abandoned for too many years; a thick layer of dust had settled on the cockpit canopy, one side of the landing gear had collapsed, and large patches of paint were peeling off the wings. But its engine core was intact.

The moment those words flickered at the edge of his vision, he felt the mark of the mirror of the emperor on his palm warm slightly—it wasn't a warning, but more like a synchronization. It was as if the system was telling him: this thing comes from the same era as your mark.

The way time passed on this planet was different from Earth. There were no cell phones to remind him of meetings, and no calendars to tell him what day of the week it was. There was only sunrise and sunset, only battle and peace, only the living and the dead. He used vertical lines in his notebook to record the days, crossing every fifth line with a horizontal one. This primitive counting method made him feel grounded—at least he knew which day he was on.

It took Old Tom several days to find the interface for the Machine Intelligence system—a data pad embedded beneath the dashboard. Its surface coating had cracked, but the core structure had not yet corroded. He used a self-made signal converter to connect his reading device—a line of code appeared on the screen.

It wasn't Imperial standard code.

It was a language Old Tom had never seen before. Simple, clean, and without any redundancy—like a system that had existed for long enough to strip away everything unnecessary, asking the person standing before it in the most concise way: 'Who are you? What are your permissions?'

Concise, elegant, and devoid of any redundancy, as if someone had deleted all the nonsense before speaking. Old Tom stared at the characters under a magnifying glass for a long time before saying, 'This is the language of the Golden Age.' He didn't know if he had guessed right or wrong—but his hands were shaking when he said it.

Lin Mo stood before the reconnaissance drone that had slept for centuries, watching the line of code flashing on the screen. He knew that if this aircraft could fly again, it would change everything for Blackstone Town. Because with it, Blackstone Town would no longer be just a besieged outpost—it would be a fist that could reach into the stars at any time.

An iron bird forgotten in a hangar,

Waiting for who knows how many years for someone to light up its screen.

Lin Mo looked away from the map and glanced out the window. Under the grey-purple sky, the Arsenal's chimney was still quietly emitting smoke. Every day he spent on this planet taught him the same lesson: in this universe, there are no permanent victories, only a defense that never slackens.

—Record of Old Tom's first activation of the raven reconnaissance drone's Machine Intelligence system

The moment the raven reconnaissance drone's Machine Intelligence system was activated, Lin Mo heard a voice—not through his ears, but directly in his consciousness. The voice said only one sentence: "Authentication passed. Welcome aboard, citizen." It wasn't the standard Imperial confirmation. It was a more concise, older version. Lin Mo stood beside the repaired drone for a long time amidst the roar of the engine. Old Tom asked him what was wrong. Lin Mo said, "Nothing." But he knew it wasn't nothing—the aircraft's Machine Intelligence system had recognized him. Not as the Archon of Blackstone Village—but as the bearer of the mirror of the emperor's mark.

[What is your name?] Lin Mo asked.

The soldier in the tattered uniform grinned—he was missing a front tooth, making his smile look a bit silly, but there was light in his eyes: [Rex, of the Seventh Legion. And you?]

[Lin Mo.]

[Good name. Glad to see you alive.]

After the Machine Intelligence system's core program was activated, Lin Mo stood at the cockpit door of the raven reconnaissance drone, not entering immediately. He looked at the control panel on the seat that Old Tom had repaired—the screen was lit, and the cursor flickered emotionlessly, as if waiting for a command it had anticipated for a long time. He leaned against the cockpit door frame for a while before entering the first command. It wasn't a takeoff command, but a question: 'Who are you?' The cursor on the screen flickered several times before giving a response—answering beside the point: 'Authentication passed.' Lin Mo repeated the question and received the same reply.

He braced his hands on both sides of the cockpit door frame and lowered his head in silence for a moment. He wasn't asking a technical question—he was asking if the Machine Intelligence core of this machine still retained memories of the Great Crusade era. And the answer it gave was a refusal to answer. He didn't press further—sometimes an aircraft's choice to remain silent is an answer in itself. The blue light of the engine had already lit up, leaving a dark blue afterimage in his vision.

The map of the Eastern Star Sector hanging on the wall of the Intelligence Center now had dozens more markings than it did a few months ago. Each mark represented the expansion trajectory of Blackstone Town—new outposts, new farms, new settlements. But this expansion also meant a longer defensive radius, meaning Chaos had more gaps to exploit. Lin Mo would sometimes stare at that map for a long time, not looking at the occupied areas—but at the unmarked blanks. Blanks were not no-man's-lands. Blanks were the unknown. And in this universe, the unknown is rarely empty.

Locke believed in one thing: there are no perfect plans on the battlefield, only perfect habits. Therefore, his way of training recruits wasn't to teach them how to execute tactics, but to make their bodies remember what to do even when they were too exhausted for their brains to function. Changing magazines, crawling forward, judging cover—these actions had to be practiced until they could be done without thinking. Because Chaos won't wait for you to be ready before attacking. They will appear at the moment you are most tired, most relaxed, and most want to give up. What Locke had to ensure was that when that moment came, everyone in Blackstone Town would have bodies faster than their minds.

—Self-check system · Automatic supplementary recording

Locke discovered a problem on the training ground—the shooting qualification rate for recruits was less than forty percent. It wasn't because they weren't working hard enough, but because the firing mechanism of the flintlocks had a sharply increased failure rate in humid environments. The air humidity on Hope Star was nearly double that of Earth, and the firing mechanism designed by Old Tom required more frequent maintenance in such conditions.

The smell of blood and gunpowder mingled together, lingering in this windless canyon for a long time.

The wind blew from the north, carrying the characteristic sulfur scent from deep within the mineral veins. He took a deep breath, letting the pungent smell suppress his sleepiness. On this planet, being awake was much more important than sleep.

Locke didn't complain. He split the training time into two segments—shooting practice in the morning and melee training in the afternoon. He erected a wooden sign on the training ground with a line written in charcoal: "When the bullets run out, use your knives. When the knives break, use your fists. When your fists are spent, use your teeth. In short—no retreating."

The recruits looked at the wooden sign, and not a single one laughed. They had learned not to laugh on Locke's training ground—not out of fear, but because they had seen Locke's own fist strike an Ork's bone plate; the plate shattered, and his hand didn't pull back.

Yang Shitou discovered a hidden mountain path while on patrol that day—it had been covered by bushes for at least several years, but if the bushes were cleared, it could serve as a secret transport line to avoid the main road. He knelt down to measure the width of the road with his hands—it was wide enough for a handcart to pass. He made a mark on the ground with a stone and then ran back to report. Locke was silent for a few seconds after hearing it, then patted him on the shoulder: "Good eyes." Yang Shitou swayed slightly from the pat, but after standing straight, he grinned. In Blackstone Town, someone who had been patted on the shoulder by Locke would unconsciously walk with their chest a bit higher.

After training, he passed by the Medical Station. The door was half-ajar, and Alice's voice drifted from inside—she was changing a child's bandages, her tone as gentle as if she were coaxing someone: "Tell me if it hurts, don't hold it in." He stood outside the door for a moment, listening, but did not push the door open. That voice, after a whole day of the smell of gunpowder and sweat, suddenly made something cool down—it wasn't disappointment, but a sense of exhaustion that had finally found a place to rest.

Night deepened. 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.

[Lying stiff in a lonely village, I do not mourn my lot, still dreaming of guarding the frontier for the state.]

[Deep in the night, I lie listening to the wind and rain; armored horses and frozen rivers charge into my dreams.]

—Lu You, 'Stormy Weather on the Fourth Day of the Eleventh Month'. Memory fragments sealed within the mirror of the emperor quietly surface in the darkness.

The old military doctor, who had lost two fingers, opened his worn medical bag in the middle of the night. There was a hidden compartment at the bottom. Inside the compartment was hidden an unnumbered psychic inhibitor ring—exactly the same as the one on Alice's wrist.