After finishing his conversation with his parents, Zeke left the Royal Court of the high king. He now had to go see his student.
Ultimately, Khorasys, the Fabricator General of the Adeptus Mechanicus on Aelfins Forge Star, was a student Zeke had personally nurtured, so he still felt some affection for him.
It was a bit improper to have just given him a sword imbued with Heavenly Machine Engineering to research earlier.
Now that he was back, he naturally had to properly guide his student, especially since he still possessed some talent, and more importantly, to modify his bionics.
Those idiots in the Adeptus Mechanicus were simply imbeciles; they transformed their human-like forms into a chaotic mess of things. In Zeke's eyes, this was an extreme heresy and blasphemy.
This was a desecration of humanity itself. Why would such a perfect human form be altered into such a jumbled mess?
Therefore, after leaving his parents' Royal Court, Zeke headed towards his original asteroid research base.
Ever since his last trip to fight the orks, which eventually turned into a battle with chaos, his student had been conducting various researches in his asteroid research base.
Zeke had allowed it, as he didn't have time to teach his student personally, so he let him use his laboratory. However, before leaving, Zeke had given him a research topic.
During his absence, he was to research how to restore his body to a sufficiently presentable state, rather than being as ugly as he was now.
And now it was time to check his student's homework, Zeke thought, quickening his pace towards his shuttle.
Along the way, he naturally had to greet various people, accept their courtesies, and display elegance. This series of events indeed left Zeke quite exhausted.
However, all of this finally allowed him to breathe a sigh of relief once Zeke entered the shuttle. So, the shuttle took off, and he returned to his asteroid research base after a 6-month absence.
Everything inside was so familiar to him. He had slowly crafted all the items there by hand. Although there was a huge gap compared to the technological equipment brought by the Dominion, these were, after all, things he had built from scratch, little by little.
Moreover, the technological equipment he possessed could be said to be far superior to the technology of the Warhammer Universe. While it might not surpass the necrons or humanity's Golden Age, it at least left the Imperium of Man's technology far behind.
As Zeke approached, the asteroid base continued to operate in an orderly fashion. The family's soldiers still maintained order, and the Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii also protected the base alongside the family soldiers.
After all, since the Fabricator General was here, how could the Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii not be present?
Upon Zeke's arrival, everyone saluted him. Afterwards, as Zeke departed, they all returned to their tasks, and Zeke entered his own base.
Although the Imperium explicitly prohibited AI, as the saying goes, 'when there are policies from above, there are countermeasures from below.' While it was prohibited, it could let AI impersonate machine spirit.
Therefore, his base had an intelligent AI. Upon entering the base, Zeke spoke.
"Little V, Little V, find out which lab my student is experimenting in and get a vehicle from the base to transport me there."
["Command confirmed. Welcome back, Master."]
The voice of the base's intelligent AI, "Little V," echoed in the air, its tone light.
The next second, a silent hover-transport slid from the end of the corridor, stopping steadily in front of Zeke.
Zeke stepped onto the transport, and the vehicle immediately adjusted its height, allowing him to stand in the most comfortable posture.
The transport moved quickly along the base's alloy corridors, with real-time data streams projected onto the walls on both sides—the base's energy status, defense systems, experimental progress, and... Khorasys's real-time location.
["Fabricator General Khorasys is currently in Laboratory B-7, conducting his 137th biomechanical reconstruction experiment,"] Little V reported. ["According to your instructions, he is attempting to restore his bionics to the 'Human Standard Aesthetic Framework,' but progress is... interesting."]
Zeke raised an eyebrow: "Interesting?"
["Yes, Creator,"] Little V's tone carried a subtle hint of amusement. ["He is attempting to restore human facial features while retaining the functional modifications of the Adeptus Mechanicus. But... his aesthetic standards still seem to be off."]
The transport passed through several airlock doors, finally stopping in front of a spacious laboratory. The identification system on the door scanned Zeke's biological features and immediately slid open.
Khorasys—the Adeptus Mechanicus Fabricator General who was once covered in tubes and had his head modified into a hemispherical data terminal—was now standing in front of the experimental bench, his back to the door. His figure was indeed much more "humanized" than before, at least having a complete torso and limbs instead of a pile of mechanical tentacles and hydraulic arms.
But the problem lay in his "face."
Khorasys's head still retained the style of the Adeptus Mechanicus, but it did "restore" human facial features—only the proportions and positions were completely jumbled. His left eye was a standard mechanical bionic eye, while his right eye was a spherical sensor protruding from the center of his forehead.
His nose had been modified into a retractable sniffer, which now stood upright next to his cheek like an antenna; his mouth was divided into upper and lower metal mandibles that opened and closed like a guillotine when he spoke.
Even more absurdly, he still had a servo-skull decoration on top of his head, symbolizing his Adeptus Mechanicus status—but the skull was painted pink and wore a bow.
"Master! You're back!" Khorasys turned around, his metal mandibles opening and closing, his voice filled with joy. His right eye (the one on his forehead) spun excitedly, while his left eye flashed red.
Zeke took a deep breath, trying to control the twitching at the corner of his mouth.
For a moment, he even wanted to just pull out his gun and eliminate his student.
"Khorasys..." he said slowly, "I told you to 'restore human aesthetics,' not to turn yourself into a living specimen of the uncanny valley effect."
Khorasys's mechanical mandibles opened and closed, seemingly confused: "But Master, I strictly followed the data from the 'Human Facial Structure Manual'! Look—"
He brought up a holographic projection showing a standard human facial anatomy chart, with his design next to it.
Zeke glanced at it and nearly suffocated.
Khorasys had indeed "restored" human facial features—only he had randomly scrambled the positions of all the organs and added "Adeptus Mechanicus special improvements" to each part.
For example, he had modified his ears into rotatable sound wave receivers but installed them on his chin; his tongue was replaced with a data probe that extended from his nostrils.
His main goal was to retain the convenience and speed these special modifications offered before completing his teacher's task. But Zeke clearly couldn't accept it.
He interrupted what the other party was about to say.
"Enough! Stop what you're doing now. I will personally operate and change you. As for your homework, I'm giving you a zero!"
After Zeke's bionic modifications, a new Adeptus Mechanicus appeared, having been restored to a human form by Zeke.
He wasn't very handsome, but at least he had regained his original appearance.
As for his Adeptus Mechanicus functional equipment and the functions they required, Zeke refined and improved them, ultimately integrating them all into a small module.
All these probes and a series of other things were all summarized into his eyes; his bionic eyes could scan these things for him.
Because he needed more hands to help him with tasks, Zeke silently added some small spatial devices behind him, allowing his tentacles to emerge from there.
However, they had to be retracted when not needed; they were simply too ugly, and he didn't want a tentacle monster as his student.
After Zeke completed the modifications on his student, Khorasys, feeling the changes within his body, began to shout.
"A miracle! A miracle! This is a miracle from the Omnissiah!"
Khorasys's exclamations echoed with electronic reverberation in the laboratory. His trembling hands (real, bio-skin covered hands) caressed his cheeks—warm, with a subtle pulsing sensation of blood vessels.
He ran to a high-precision reflective panel on the wall. What was reflected there was no longer a distorted mechanical monster, but a slightly pale, ordinary human male with light blue electronic bionic eyes, regular features, and at most, a sense of fatigue from long-term confinement and research obsession.
"I... I..." He was too excited to form complete sentences, his fingers tracing his eye corners, bridge of nose, and lips, feeling an unprecedented human touch. The precise blue bionic eyes in his sockets even simulated a moist effect.
"Praise the Omnissiah! No! Praise you, Master! This is simply a miracle! This touch, this precision of visual feedback... absolutely no obstruction! It's even more flexible than that broken body before!"
He raised his hand, and as the thought arose, the sapphire-like bionic eyes flashed. In an instant, an almost invisible scanning wave spread out, and the laboratory's temperature, air pressure, metal fatigue, energy flow distribution... even the ingredients of a small biscuit a Cult Guard soldier was secretly eating in the next room, instantly transformed into a waterfall of data flowing into his consciousness.
The speed and precision were far superior to any ugly probe he had used before.
"Look! Look, Master!" Khorasys excitedly gestured like a child with a new toy. "All the sensors are integrated into these eyes! No delay! Efficiency has increased by 3,270,000%! Oh my, this is what the glory of the Machine God should truly look like! Redundancy! Bloat! Those are all blasphemies against sacred technology!"
He subconsciously tried to wave his arms in ecstasy, but several wriggling lumps suddenly swelled beneath the skin of his arms—those were the compressed and stored mechanical tentacles activating.
"Stop!" Zeke commanded with a low shout.
"Only bring out the mechanical arms when you need to use them. Don't perform as a tentacle monster in front of me; it's too ugly."
"Your next task is simple: thoroughly study the bionics on your body, understand them well, and I will conduct a spot check when I return."
With that, Zeke left.
Although this was his student, and he could understand the situation of the Adeptus Mechanicus, it was truly embarrassing.
He might as well just throw something at him and let him research it here.