Black Box Fabricator

Helping the Waste Mine Society establish production capabilities had been part of Gu Hang's plan from the start.

He had little regard for the meager mineral output of the Waste Mine Society. Its people could barely feed themselves. What surplus value could they possibly offer?

Only by developing them could he achieve his goals.

And Gu Hang's goals went far beyond simply making sure these people could pay their taxes. He wanted to make the entire planet more prosperous. He needed more troops, more weapons and equipment, and a stronger material foundation...

The Waste Mine Society was a starting point, but also an important model. If it worked, he planned to replicate the same approach elsewhere.

But first, he had to make this model work.

His original plan had been to rely on the starship Quintet, hovering above them.

When Gu Hang set out from the sector capital to take up the post of governor on Nuxiao Planet, he certainly hadn't arrived alone. He was one of the current core members of the Gu Family, an old political dynasty in the Pegasus Sector.

A Watchman-class Strike Cruiser belonging to the Imperial Navy of the Pegasus Sector, the Quintet, had carried him all the way from the sector capital.

After completing its mission to escort the governor, the Quintet hadn't left. It would spend two years on assignment in orbit around Nuxiao Planet, following the governor's orders and serving as the strongest support for his efforts to rebuild the planet.

Gu Hang was the only one to receive such treatment. The previous governors had made do with a single frigate.

In theory, with the Quintet in orbit, Gu Hang could do whatever he wanted on Nuxiao Planet. Nothing on this wasteland could threaten the ship. On the contrary, the Quintet could unleash terrifying orbital bombardments anywhere on the planet's surface.

At the same time, the Quintet could provide Gu Hang with tremendous help in other ways.

The eleven-kilometer-long spacefaring giant carried a crew of over a hundred thousand. Among them were Servitors, slaves, combat personnel, technicians, elite Marines, mechanics, and Psionic Power specialists...

All sorts of people, each with different duties.

In a sense, a giant ship like this was like a city drifting through the sky.

Most of the crew were recruited and replenished from various planets, but space voyages were so long that opportunities to leave were few. Many crew members were simply the children of other crew members. They might be born aboard the ship, die aboard it, and never leave it in their entire lives.

This vast city in the sky could provide Gu Hang with many things. The three thousand slaves, three hundred Servitor soldiers, and thirty Marines he'd brought down with him had all come from the ship.

He'd originally planned to get the supplies needed to build up the Waste Mine Society from the ship as well.

The Quintet could provide manpower and weapons. Gu Hang hadn't been bluffing when he said he'd select a hundred soldiers from the Waste Mine Society and arm them. He planned to get the guns and ammunition from the ship.

Some of the production equipment in his plans, however, wouldn't be so easy to obtain. He'd intended to get it from Revival City. After all, he was the Planetary Governor and the head of the Alliance on Nuxiao Planet. Even if his control over the Alliance was limited, he could surely find a way to skim a little off the top.

But now it seemed he wouldn't need to.

The things the system's [Technology] function provided were far more useful than anything he could skim.

Without a second thought, he summoned Patel and told him about setting up a production line. The Waste Mine Society's leader was thrilled.

After sending Patel away, Gu Hang left the Waste Mine Society and headed outside.

His soldiers were camped out there, and the Waste Mine Society's people had begun emerging in groups to build a ground camp, led by a man named Old Butch. Patel, meanwhile, began selecting the hundred Waste Mine Society soldiers who would soon undergo training. He had their names picked out in no time.

To be honest, Gu Hang wasn't satisfied with the Waste Mine Society's people as a source of recruits. They were used to hard labor, but suffered from malnutrition, making it difficult for them to develop strong, impressive physiques. They looked somewhat scrawny, and years of grueling work had left them with plenty of old injuries.

They had the grit to endure hardship, but that still didn't make them outstanding recruits.

For now, though, he had no other choice.

The three thousand slaves brought down from the ship and stationed at the temporary camp weren't much better.

Gu Hang left a hundred Servitor soldiers behind, then took the rest of his people, along with the hundred newly recruited Waste Mine Society youths, and headed for the temporary camp.

He didn't plan to wait for Yan Fangxu to return from hunting down the remaining Prisoner-Dead. The man was unlikely to run into trouble. After completing his mission, he would also need to leave behind a squad of elite Marines to command the Servitor soldiers guarding the Waste Mine Society.

Those brainless Servitor soldiers weren't capable of operating independently.

It took Gu Hang several hours to return to the temporary camp.

The whole camp was still a bustling construction site. After roughly leveling the ground and using local materials to build a crude wall and some basic structures, most of the slaves were busy with one task: building a landing field.

The landing field was for the starship—not for the starship to land in its entirety, of course, but to let shuttles flying down from the ship dock with the ground.

This wasn't a particularly efficient way to transport goods. On planets with better infrastructure, space elevators and orbital ports were the mainstays of interstellar transport.

But that was a matter of circumstances. How could Gu Hang afford to build a space elevator or an orbital port right now? He had to rely on the ship's shuttles to transport people and cargo between the ground and space.

That meant he needed a landing field—or even an airport—to improve efficiency.

The finished project would be fairly substantial, but there was no need to do everything at once. For now, it was enough to build something functional.

After taking a quick look at the construction progress, Gu Hang found an empty patch of ground outside the camp and materialized two Black Box Fabricators.

The two fabricators really were black boxes.

The two square, pitch-black boxes were made of some unknown material.

One was larger than the other, and both were about the size of houses. Each had two doors, one in front and one behind: one for feeding materials in, and the other for dispensing products.

Gu Hang scratched his head, a little dumbfounded.

The system hadn't mentioned that the black boxes would be this big.

How was he supposed to move them?

They'd need heavy machinery. Moving them by hand would be ridiculous.

But then Gu Hang reconsidered. He didn't actually have to transport the two machines to the Waste Mine Society. He could use the Finished Product Black Box to process ore imported from the Waste Mine Society. That would go somewhat against his promise to Patel to establish a production line for them.

But the two plans didn't really conflict. The Finished Product Black Box would produce the most advanced Alloy Plasteel, and its output wouldn't be very high.

As for the Waste Mine Society's production line, they could use the various components produced by the Mother Machine Black Box, transport them to the Waste Mine Society, and assemble them there to build a smelting plant.

It was easy to imagine that as both camps continued to develop, they'd need to transport goods between them frequently. They would need roads, of course, but transport equipment was important too.

He didn't want his subordinates pushing handcarts back and forth, taking eight hours to make a single trip.

Vehicles and construction equipment were both badly needed.

He looked up at the sky.

It seemed he'd still have to skim some resources from the Quintet, including the hundred sets of weapons and equipment he'd promised the Waste Mine Society.

But just thinking about dealing with that woman gave Gu Hang a headache.

Though this chapter was still short, I hope you'll all support the new book instead of saving it for later. New books need everyone's support!

It'd be even better if you could recommend it to others!

I've always wanted to write a story with a Warhammer-inspired setting. I'll do my best with this one and hope it does well, so I won't let you down!

Hong Bu thanks you all!