67: Chapter 67 System Restart

The wind stopped. The entire valley was as quiet as if someone had pressed the mute button, leaving only the sound of footsteps from sentries changing shifts in the distance.

Deep in the night after the dinner party ended, he did not sleep.

He sat at the steel-topped table in the Intelligence Center, with reconnaissance photos of the Chaos arcs and reconstructed data of the ancient marching routes of the Ultramarines spread out before him.

Two pens—one red, one black—had drawn several connecting lines between the two maps, but every single one broke off inside the arc.

The encirclement logic of the Chaos Allied Forces was sound.

It wasn't about pushing forward with brute force, but rather cutting off supply lines to force the defenders to disperse—if Lin Mo were the Commander, he would have deployed them the same way.

But there was one problem that kept him awake until late at night without an answer: Where did the Chaos Allied Forces get their intelligence?

The way time passed on this planet was not quite the same as on Earth.

There were no mobile phones to remind him of meetings, no calendars to tell him what day of the week it was.

There were only sunrises and sunsets, only battle and peace, only alive and dead.

He used vertical lines in his notebook to record the days, drawing a horizontal line across every five.

This primitive counting method made him feel grounded—at least he knew which day it was.

The direction of the arcs precisely bypassed the position of the Ultramarines fleet, cutting towards the supply route between Blackstone Town and the outer star systems.

This required extremely precise intelligence—not just "roughly knowing," but precise to the duration of stay in specific shipping lanes.

Intelligence of this precision could not be obtained independently by a temporarily assembled Chaos Allied Forces.

He was drawing the third line on the map when the palm of his left hand suddenly felt hot.

It wasn't physically hot.

It was a sensation of heat seeping from his bones, as if someone had placed a red-hot iron nail into the palm of his hand.

He subconsciously let go of the pen and looked down at his left palm—there was nothing there.

No burn marks, no redness.

But the "mirror of the emperor" mark in his palm, which had always been as quiet as a stone, was emitting a faint golden shimmer.

The light was very weak.

So weak that if it hadn't been in the middle of the night, he wouldn't have noticed it at all.

But it was definitely there.

After a few breaths, the light stabilized, and a line of text appeared in his consciousness.

———

** [mirror of the emperor · Self-test Complete] **

Number of sleep cycles: Unknown

System status: Partially online

Currently available modules: Basic Analysis · Knowledge Base

Anomalous energy fluctuation source detected: 1 location

Location: 75 meters underground · Level 2 restricted area

Recommended priority: Low priority · Can be checked at a later date

———

Lin Mo looked at that line of golden text, motionless for several seconds.

mirror of the emperor.

After activating on the first day he crossed over, this system had appeared a few times in the first few chapters—the analysis module helped him quickly understand crises in a strange environment, the knowledge base helped him understand the Empire's basic technological system—but since Blackstone Town began operations, it had been silent.

No upgrade prompts, no accumulation of energy points, no new module unlocks.

He once thought its energy had been exhausted in the intensive use of the early stages, or that its functions were limited to that initial stage.

But now it was back.

He stood there, looking at everything before him, and suddenly felt a very strange sensation—if someone had told him a month ago that he would be on a planet countless light-years away from Earth, using high school chemistry knowledge to make gunpowder, university club experience to build guns, and product manager logic to plan a village's defense system—he would definitely have thought that person was crazy.

But now he was standing here, and every single thing was happening in reality.

He looked down at the golden mark in his palm, hearing his own heartbeat thumping rhythmically in his eardrums.

He didn't immediately get up to go to the Underground Shelter.

He did one thing first—he put away the two maps on the table, pulled open the drawer, took out the notebook that had been locked away, turned to the last page, and wrote a line:

"System online. New movement on the second level."

Then he closed the notebook, stood up, and walked toward the entrance of the Underground Shelter.

The night wind blew from the north, carrying the unique sulfur scent from the depths of the mineral veins, mixed with the smell of firewood from cooking smoke; it smelled like the unique, slightly unsettling dinner aroma of this world.

The metal wall of the Underground Shelter automatically lit up with a faint warm light as he approached—the same as when he left last time.

He walked to the wall and stood still; the moment the mark in his palm touched the wall, a rune structure he had never seen before appeared on the surface.

It wasn't a way to trigger a mechanism, but more like a form of identification—the wall was confirming his identity.

Confirmation complete.

A thin crack appeared in the center of the wall, then slid open to both sides, revealing a passage to the level below.

The passage on this level was longer than the one above.

The end was not a secret room, but a door.

A door about three meters high, cast entirely from silver-gray metal.

There were no patterns or carvings on the door surface, only a line of text engraved in standard high gothic, the handwriting neat and steady, as if the person who engraved it had a very steady hand at the time:

"Human Civilization Continuation Laboratory · No. 00"

Below it was another line of small text, the font size clearly one size smaller than the title above:

"If you found this door through an unauthorized path—you have been recorded."

Lin Mo stood before that door, looking at that line of text, not speaking.

Unauthorized path.

Then what was an authorized path?

He looked down at the golden mark in his palm.

The faint light of the mark seemed dimmer in the metal reflection of the door—but also a bit firmer.

He did not force the door open.

He could feel that this door could not be opened by brute force.

He stood at the doorway for a few minutes, read those two lines of text a few times, then turned and returned along the way he came.

The golden mark dimmed as he walked out of the entrance to the Underground Shelter, but he knew it hadn't disappeared—it had just returned to the depths of his palm, waiting to be awakened next time.

The chaos attention level dropped from seventy-eight to seventy-five.

It wasn't that the threat had weakened, but because some force in the Warp had sensed the brief activation of that mark—and had become more cautious as a result.

The night wind blew from the north, carrying the unique sulfur scent from the depths of the mineral veins, mixed with the smell of firewood from cooking smoke; it smelled like the unique, slightly unsettling dinner aroma of this world.

When he returned to the Intelligence Center, it was not yet dawn.

He marked the newly discovered location of the Underground Shelter in his notebook, drew a question mark next to it, and then drew an arrow—pointing to the answer he was not yet ready for.

Before closing the notebook, he wrote another line on the title page:

"The system is not dead. It just took a nap."

"A mark that had been asleep for many years,"

"Lit up again in his palm."

Lin Mo stood before the metal wall of the Underground Shelter, his palm pressed against the warm surface.

The rune structure deep within the wall flowed slowly in the darkness, like the growth rings of a tree growing deeper.

He knew he shouldn't be spending time on a wall that couldn't speak at this moment—Guilliman's reply was waiting for his response, the Chaos arcs were tightening, and the grain in the granary was decreasing day by day.

But he came anyway.

He needed to confirm one thing.

Confirm that the return of the mirror of the emperor was not his hallucination.

Confirm that the mark in his palm had indeed lit up that night.

Confirm that the door labeled "Human Civilization Continuation Laboratory" actually existed.

He pressed his forehead against the cold metal wall and stood with his eyes closed for a long time.

The golden light flashed on the inside of his closed eyelids—not a system prompt, but some kind of older, quieter confirmation.

Like a lamp you know is still there, just no longer needing words to describe.

He opened his eyes, and his palm left the wall.

As he walked out, the first rays of morning light at the entrance of the underground passage shone exactly on his face.

The chimneys of the Arsenal in the distance had already begun to smoke.

A new day.

A new decision.

Those walls wouldn't run—but time would.

The first thing Lin Mo did after the system reboot was not to rush into the Underground Shelter.

He sat in the chair in the Intelligence Center, extending his left hand to look at the golden mark in his palm.

The mark was not glowing, but he could feel its existence—a faint temperature from being awakened after a long sleep.

He closed his eyes, waiting to see if the mirror of the emperor would provide more information.

He waited for a few minutes, and nothing happened.

But he wasn't disappointed—the fact that this mark could light up again was the biggest piece of information itself.

He stood up, took the key from the wall, and walked toward the entrance of the Underground Shelter.

This time he wasn't going based on a guess—he had received a clear location prompt.

When Lin Mo stood at the entrance of the underground passage, the temperature of the mark in his palm was higher than before.

It wasn't caused by the ambient temperature—it was that the closer he got to that metal door, the higher the temperature of the mark became.

He reached out in front of that silver-gray metal door but didn't touch the surface.

He stopped his hand about a palm's width away from the door surface.

Then he felt it—something on the other side of the door was responding to his mark.

It wasn't a sound, it wasn't an image, it was a pure confirmation of existence.

There was something behind the door.

Still alive.

Or at least still operating.

"— Lin Mo · The night of the system reboot · Underground Shelter investigation record"

It was late at night.

The lights of Blackstone Town went out one by one, leaving only the torches on the watchtowers flickering in the wind.

He stood by the window watching for a while, then returned to the table to continue writing his plan.

"[The clothes are getting loose, but I have no regrets, I grow haggard for her sake.]"

"— Liu Yong, 'Die Lian Hua'. Fragments of memory sealed within the mirror of the emperor, quietly emerging in the darkness."

The golden mark in Lin Mo's palm lit up once that night.

It wasn't information from the mirror of the emperor—it was an image: Under a giant glass dome, countless silver containers were arranged.

In each container, a person was sleeping.

He saw one of the faces—it was exactly the same as his own.