[Loyal to the Emperor Forever]'s last flicker of awareness was followed by a brief void after his ID was confirmed.
Then came a hard, icy sensation and an indescribable feeling of being squeezed.
He snapped open his eyes.
What greeted him wasn't the sci-fi cockpit of a mech he'd expected, nor the login hall of the Starry Sea.
It was... a jar?
A transparent cylindrical container, its interior covered in rough organic textures and giving off a faint, meaty stench.
Murky, pale-green nutrient fluid was rapidly draining through a hole at the bottom, making a bubbling sound.
He could feel the sticky liquid sliding over his skin, unpleasant and chilly against his naked body.
"Shit?!"
He instinctively tried to cover himself, but his arms struck the container's similarly textured inner wall with a dull thud.
The jar—or rather, the curved hatch of the bio-pod—slid upward with a teeth-grating hiss of depressurization.
Wang Zhong shivered and tumbled out of the pod, landing on a cold, rough metal grating floor.
Once he was steady on his feet, he immediately looked down to check.
At least the system had some standards. It had given him the divine light treatment: a hazy but perfectly placed glow concealed his private parts, like the lowest setting on a censorship patch.
Then a drab, coarse, hard-wearing jumpsuit appeared on him, with dark patches at the elbows and knees.
On his feet were a pair of hard-soled boots that looked like they wouldn't fit very well.
The sensation was so real he wanted to curse.
He looked around. It was a dim, cramped space.
About the size of half a basketball court, it had bare metal walls lined with thick pipes and valves of unknown purpose.
Dim fluorescent tubes, flickering now and then, were the only source of light.
The air was murky, heavy with the smells of machine oil, ozone, and... something stale.
Most importantly, at least several thousand identical bio-pods were packed tightly into the space.
Most of the hatches were opening now, and one by one, players in work clothes clambered out, looking utterly bewildered.
"What the hell is this login point? Weren't we supposed to get a mech bay?"
A player with the ID [Schrodinger's Loyalist] rubbed his neck and complained. His voice echoed through the empty chamber.
"Where's my UI? My stats? Skill tree? Map? Quest guide? We don't even get a newbie guide sprite?"
[Mechanicus Oil-Lover on the Run] rapidly made the motions for activating his tactical visor. Of course, nothing happened.
"Levels... there are no levels?"
"Inventory... oh, looks like there's something called an item slot?"
[Emperor's Sword but very dull] narrowed his eyes, apparently concentrating.
Wang Zhong tried to focus his thoughts too.
Sure enough, a ridiculously bare-bones interface appeared in the corner of his vision.
No fancy borders or avatar, just a few lines of faintly glowing text:
[Individual Designation: Loyal to the Emperor Forever]
[Imperial Coins Held: 0]
[Debt: 0]
[Today's Survival Tax: Unpaid (0/0.3)]
That was it.
That was all.
"What about the stats? Strength, agility, intelligence, spirit? Attack, defense, health? Crit, lifesteal, armor penetration?"
Wang Zhong grumbled to himself. And what the hell does 'psychic talent inactive' mean?
"Even more ridiculous is today's survival tax."
"So you have to pay to breathe?"
"0.3 Imperial Coins?"
"I don't even know what these coins look like!"
"Fucking devs! This start is worse than when I woke up in a Lower Hive garbage dump!" A player with the ID [Soul of Cadia] cursed as he stretched his limbs. "At least back then, I knew where to find a piece of moldy bread!"
"That's it?"
Beside Wang Zhong, a short-haired, fit-looking woman finished checking her status and cursed. "Hunger, thirst, stamina? Psychic powers? Imperial Coins?"
"Which Chaos freak designed this UI? Being lazy doesn't mean you can half-ass it!"
"Imperial Coins..."
Another player, a tall, thin man, repeated the term, his expression turning strange. He lowered his voice. "Guys, doesn't this setting... sound kind of familiar?"
"The Imperium, Promethium, psychic powers, and these clothes and this place..."
"Shut up!"
Wang Zhong almost instinctively snapped, speaking in the recently acquired common tongue, still colored by Carl's accent. "Watch what you say! Don't jump to conclusions before we know what's going on!"
His heart pounded.
As a longtime Warhammer fan, he knew those details all too well.
But he forced himself to stay calm.
The game was called Era 40k: Mecha, its CG was sci-fi, and here he was in work clothes on what looked like a worksite.
Don't panic. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe the developers had a twisted sense of humor...
At the same time, deep in the Warp.
Lu Sheng's shifting mass of energy stretched with delight.
Streams of pure emotional energy flowed into him from Realspace, carried along countless invisible threads.
The amount produced by each player was minuscule, but with five thousand of them, it had already become a substantial trickle.
Confusion, curiosity, mild irritation, the genuine discomfort of hunger, and just a little desire to explore because this game seemed kind of interesting...
"Yes, just like that."
Lu Sheng savored the fullness that came from feeling the energy circulate within him, a pleasure more fundamental than any physical gratification.
"Be more confused, more curious. Go ahead and curse the system a few more times... You're cursing the system, not me."
He watched what was happening in the outpost through the system interface.
The players gradually left the living quarters and reached the outpost's small airlock.
"Xiao Zai," Lu Sheng said, using the nickname he'd given the system.
"Put the most basic items in the shop first."
Lu Sheng thought it over. "Synthetic bread, filtered water, basic tools, simple weapons... Set the prices a little high."
"After all, we're a frontier outpost. Supplies are scarce, so high prices are perfectly reasonable."
"Once they unlock the language pack, they'll be able to have complex conversations with the locals."
"But we'll have to filter out any words that could point directly to the names of the Four Gods... Hmm, let's blur them."
"For example, if they want to say Tzeentch, automatically replace it with something like 'deep-space anomaly.'"
"As for them speaking Xia language among themselves in private... Whatever."
"With the system's filters, nobody in the Warp can understand Mandarin anyway."
Lu Sheng was very pleased with this design.
The players could freely complain, conspire, and curse in their hometown dialects without worrying about Warp entities picking up any keywords.
"But the most important thing is to get them moving."
Lu Sheng looked at the surveillance feed. "Mining, scavenging, brawling, exploring the unknown... Anything goes."
"As long as they stir up emotions or gather realspace materials, they're working for me."
"The daily breathing fee and resurrection loans were a stroke of genius."
Lu Sheng didn't hold back in praising himself. "Pressure drives people, and debt makes them work like crazy."
"Don't the common folk in the Warhammer universe all live like this? We're just giving them an immersive experience."
The cold voice rang directly in everyone's minds once more:
[Welcome to Aurelian IV, outskirts of the City of Vodia, Abandoned Pre-processing Workshop No. 7]
[Beginner Tutorial Mission Issued]
[Mission Name: The Worker's First Step]
[Mission Details: Familiarize yourselves with your new identities and basic tools. Focus your thoughts and retrieve the tools issued to you from your personal storage space. Then leave this facility and gather basic resources in the surrounding safe area.]
[Resources and Exchange: For every 1 unit of standard energy material (such as ore, metal scrap, or organic fuel) submitted to the system, you will receive a personal reward of 0.1 Imperial Coins. The system will provide basic material-identification guidance.]
[Mission Objective: Personally earn a total of 1 Imperial Coin]
[Mission Rewards: 10 Imperial Coins; unlock "Aurelian Language (Advanced)" and a preview of the shop's available items.]
[Special Notice: This game encourages exploration, creativity, and survival. You may do anything you deem necessary and are capable of doing, but remember to assess the risks.]
[Additional Core Rules (All units must remember):]
[1. Life is precious. Death is not the end, but it comes at a cost. After an individual perishes, their body may be reconstructed at a designated facility using Imperial Coins. Those without enough Imperial Coins may apply to the system for an emergency reconstruction loan. Interest: borrow 10 coins, receive 9, repay 19.]
[2. Survival has a cost. An environmental maintenance and life-support tax, called the survival tax, is collected daily. Initial tax: 0.3 Imperial Coins/day. The tax will increase as an individual's overall evaluation index rises. Those who fail to pay will gradually suffer penalties to their physiological functions until their body ceases to function.]
[Wishing all drivers success in your endeavors.]
Before you continue