8: Chapter 8: Emperor's Mirror Upgraded, Unlocking the Manufacturing Module

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Under the gray-purple sky, several flying creatures circled in the distance—whether they were birds or something else, he hadn't yet learned to distinguish most lifeforms on this planet.

Lin Mo was awakened by that stream of golden light.

‘Awakened' isn't quite accurate—he wasn't asleep at all. He had been organizing the notes he'd collected during the day under the oil lamp: an optimization plan for black powder production, a manpower allocation chart, an inventory list of supplies. Halfway through writing, the golden light at the edge of his vision began flickering uncontrollably—not the previous kind of one-time, elegant flash, but like a faulty old monitor, stuttering five or six times in rapid succession, so fast it gave him a brief moment of dizziness.

He steadied himself against the table edge, waiting for the dizziness to pass. The golden light didn't disappear—it stopped, becoming slightly brighter than before, like a steady golden star fixed in the upper right corner of his vision.

Then the information came.

Not a complete, elegant infusion of knowledge. It was more like a book with its pages scattered, drifting into his mind piece by piece—he had to piece them together himself.

The first fragment: a standardized production plan for flintlock muskets. Not the 'rough sketches drawn from memory' he had previously shown Old Tom, but a complete set of engineering drawings with dimensional parameters. From barrel length to trigger mechanism to firing pin angle, every measurement was precise down to the millimeter. Accompanying it was a standardized procedure for loading ammunition—powder charge, bullet size, loading depth, all rigidly specified.

The second fragment: a structural diagram for a simple lathe. A simplified lathe blueprint that didn't require steam power, operable by hand-cranking—a lathe made from these drawings could roughly triple Old Tom's barrel machining speed.

The third fragment: something he couldn't understand. It resembled a string of coordinates, or perhaps a timestamp. It flashed through his mind—too quickly for him to have any time to decipher it.

Then the golden light dimmed. Not extinguished, just returning to its previous brightness—the star remained at the edge of his vision, but was no longer glaring.

It took Lin Mo the entire morning to digest the information in his mind and transcribe it into drawings on paper. When he took the new drawings to Old Tom, the old man only glanced at them once before cursing under his breath.

Old Tom examined the drawings back and forth three times, each period of silence longer than the last. Finally, he spread the drawings out on the workbench, traced his finger along the dimension lines of the barrel, and asked in a low voice:

"What in the world... is living inside your head?"

Lin Mo couldn't answer that question.

By evening, the first flintlock musket modified according to the new drawings was finished. The barrel was shorter, the loading mechanism simpler, the stock's curve better suited for shouldering. Locke took the gun, looked it over, raised it, and aimed at a wooden stake forty paces away—the sun was nearly set, the lighting conditions weren't ideal.

The air was thick with the pungent smell of saltpeter mixed with rust, a dry, burning sensation scratching at the throat.

He pulled the trigger.

A crisp gunshot rang out. A fist-sized hole appeared in the wooden stake—not a bullseye, but at forty paces, this accuracy was more than sufficient.

Locke froze for two seconds. Then he did something completely at odds with his 'rough and reckless brute' persona: he lowered the gun and carefully wiped the dust off the barrel with his sleeve.

"This thing... how many can we make?"

"Fifty," Lin Mo said.

"When did you decide that?"

"Just now."

During dinner, a young man walked up to Lin Mo, bowl in hand. Yang Shitou, Old Yang Tou's son. He placed the bowl on the table, standing ramrod straight.

"My father's gone. I'm here in his place."

After saying this, he turned and left. Lin Mo noticed he was wearing his father's shoes—a size too big, making a slapping sound with each step.

Late that night, Lin Mo sat alone in the Archon's office—really just an empty room with a desk and a chair—organizing the new batch of drawings. The oil lamp burned low, and he replaced the wick. The golden light at the edge of his vision glowed quietly.

Then he heard the voice.

Not through his ears. A vibration that appeared directly in his mind. Very brief. Only two syllables.

Once spoken, the voice vanished, as if it had never existed.

He tightened his grip on the pen, its tip hovering above the paper.

He didn't write those two words down. But he knew it wasn't his hallucination.

Chaos Attention: 15.

He recalled a sentence he had read in the archives before crossing over: The Imperium of Man spanned The Galaxy for a million years, yet never truly conquered a single planet. They were merely occupied, forgotten, and then rediscovered at some dawn—if anyone remembered to look.

At least here, under the oil lamp in the deep night, in this small room with only a desk, a chair, a stack of drawings, and a faintly aching head—he was alive. That was enough.

*At the break of dawn,*

*the formula for iron and fire finally found its author.*

The cannon barrel casting process was compressed to its limit. Old Tom practically stood guard by the furnace day and night, stirring the molten iron with a long iron rod at regular intervals. He didn't tell anyone what he was thinking while doing this—he remembered his father's dying words: 'A blacksmith deals with fire all his life, but a truly good smith isn't one who knows how to stoke a fire, but one who knows how to *read* the fire.' He hadn't understood then. Now he did. When he watched the color changes of that molten iron, he saw more than just temperature—he saw time.

When Old Tom hauled that makeshift cannon to the village entrance for a test fire, the entire population of Blackstone Village came to watch. Wang Defu stood at the front of the crowd, leaning on a sharpened wooden stick—the spear he used in his youth in the Imperial Guard had rusted and snapped; he couldn't bear to throw it away, so he whittled it down to use as a cane.

[What is this thing?] Someone poked the metal fragment on the ground with a gun barrel.

[Don't touch it,] Lin Mo stopped him, [It might be a Chaos sigil.]

When the cannon fired, everyone was startled by the tremendous roar, taking a step back. The cannonball flew about two hundred meters, smashing into a rock. The sound of the rock shattering was louder than the cannon blast itself—fragments of shattered stone flew out, hitting the trunk of a dead tree, leaving a dense cluster of impact marks.

The sound of flying gravel echoed against the wall, like someone hammering a stone drum.

After a few seconds of silence, Blackstone Village erupted into the first laughter and cheers Lin Mo had heard since his arrival. Old Tom stood beside the cannon, his face not smiling—but the corner of his mouth twitched. By his standards, that counted as a smile.

The success of the cannon test boosted Blackstone Village's morale to its highest point since Lin Mo's arrival. The villagers lit a bonfire in the square, and someone brought out mead they'd been hoarding for a long time. After a few bowls, Locke began boasting about his exploits during his service on the Imperial border—most of it clearly embellished, but no one called him out. Lin Mo sat at the edge of the crowd, holding a bowl of mead he barely touched. Watching the smiles on the faces lit by the firelight, he suddenly realized something: these people hadn't smiled in a very long time.

On the third day of cannon barrel casting, a problem arose. Midway through the pour, a tiny crack appeared in the mold. Molten iron seeped out, solidifying on the sand into a dark red iron flower. Old Tom squatted down, staring at the iron flower in silence for a long time, then picked it up with tongs and plunged it into cold water. A sharp *hiss*—steam billowed. He placed the cooled iron flower in a corner of his workbench, not throwing it away. Later, that iron flower remained on his workbench, becoming the Arsenal's first non-functional piece of art.

At dawn on the fourth day of casting, Old Tom discovered an issue while inspecting the cooling cannon barrel—a tiny bubble defect on the inner wall. If left untreated, this defect would expand into a crack after continuous firing, causing the barrel to explode. He didn't tell anyone about the problem, just silently carried the barrel back to the furnace, reheated it, and recast it. It cost an extra day. No one rushed him. When the second barrel was removed from the mold, its inner wall was smooth as a mirror. Old Tom ran his finger along the inner wall, feeling only the texture of the metal itself. He nodded. This was something fit for the battlefield.

He didn't disturb him. He stood at the workshop entrance for a few seconds, watching Old Tom's back—bent, hunched, sweat-soaked shirt clinging to his spine. That back reminded him of his own grandfather back on Earth. An old man who worked in a machinery factory his whole life. He left in much the same posture.

*Someone turned over in their sleep, the corner of their mouth lifting slightly.*

*Weapons can be bought, but trust cannot.*

*Using a blank Imperial Guard requisition form,*

*Lin Mo gained the first group of people in Blackstone Village willing to watch each other's backs.*

*Weapons can be bought, but trust cannot.*

*—Lin Mo, After the First Material Transaction*

Outside the window, the night wind blew from the north. He heard the footsteps of the changing guard on the distant watchtower, light on the wooden planks but carrying far in the silence. He didn't close the window. Let the wind in—this town was still alive, it needed to breathe.

*[Fine wine in golden cups of jade we yearn to drink,*

*But the pipa summons us to horse ere cup is drained.*

*If we lie drunk on the battleground, pray laugh not at us!*

*How many warriors ever came back safe and sound?]*

*—Wang Han, 'Song of Liangzhou'. A memory fragment sealed within the mirror of the emperor, quietly surfacing in the darkness.*

The patterns on that wall—they weren't decoration. They were coordinates. Coordinates etched into metal, pointing to a location not found on any map.