The underground core industrial zone of Castle Horizon was hot and crowded.
Andy stood before a newly laid final assembly platform, staring gloomily at a half-finished robotic arm. This arm was intended for assembling the chest armor plates of "Sentinel" power armor—a task requiring extreme precision and load-bearing capacity.
According to the standard process defined by the STC, this specific joint required a high-viscosity vacuum damping grease codenamed "Z-40." This grease ensured a stable damping effect under high loads, preventing the arm from shaking.
That was the problem.
Andy didn't have any.
While he possessed a "Molecular Matter Reconstructor" capable of turning scrap metal into high-purity alloys or plastic into carbon fiber, as powerful as the reconstructor was, it couldn't directly synthesize such a complex mixture of organic compounds. To make this oil, Andy would first need to build a chemical plant, set up an oil fractionation tower, and then debug the formula.
Andy could build it if he really wanted to. But—for a bit of oil, opening an entire chemical production line? What kind of interstellar joke was that?
But reality was right there. Industry is a vast and redundant system. In this system, sometimes what chokes you isn't a core chip or reactor technology, but a specific screw, a particular model of glue, or, as it was now, an unremarkable bucket of lubricant.
This was the importance of the supply chain. Without one, even with the universe's greatest blueprints, you could only stare blankly at a pile of parts. Holding Dark Age black technology but being defeated by a bucket of oil—theoretically, it could happen, especially when supporting facilities were non-existent and the great task of "farming" had just begun.
He needed a shortcut.
"Zor."
Andy turned his head to look at Magos Zor, who was squatting nearby debugging a servo-skull. "Do you happen to have any... damping oil that doesn't evaporate in a vacuum and resists high temperatures?"
Andy didn't hold much hope; such specialty materials were scarce even in the Hive's Mid-spire.
Zor paused, his cybernetic eye spinning a few times as if searching his database. "You mean the Z-series vacuum grease?" Zor stood up, patting the dust off his robes. "I have it."
"How much?" Andy asked.
"Three standard containers. Roughly fifteen tons," Zor replied nonchalantly. "It was stock the Helios Group wanted but I refused to sell to them. I thought it might be useful later, so I kept it."
"..."
Fifteen freaking tons!
Looking at Zor, Andy suddenly found the semi-mechanical old man quite adorable. "Have someone pull it over. All of it."
Problem solved. The robotic arm was soon coated in thick grease, running silky smooth. But this was only the beginning. Over the next few days, Andy truly experienced the meaning of the phrase, "An elder in the house is a treasure in the home."
Andy: "Zor, I need high-precision grating scales to calibrate the laser cutters."
Zor: "I have them! Two boxes in the warehouse, salvaged from old Upper-spire equipment. I've refurbished them."
Andy: "Zor, do you have any acid-resistant O-rings? The rubber plant isn't built yet."
Zor: "I have them! Fluororubber, five thousand units. Is that enough?"
Andy: "Zor, I need an M36-era binary protocol converter interface—"
Zor: "I have it! Container C, bottom left corner, third box. Send someone to get it."
I have it! I have it! I have it!
It was ridiculous. Aside from core components and industrial motherboards, the shuttles Zor had brought from the Mid-spire were filled with industrial consumables and intermediates—things ordinary people would call junk, but engineers considered treasures.
After talking with Zor, Andy realized this was actually part of the Mechanicus' internal culture. A significant portion of "cog-boys" believed every creation of the Omnissiah was sacred. Even a single screw, as long as it was functional, could never be thrown away. Discarding it was sacrilege—a waste of the Machine God's blessing.
Thus, over long centuries, they acted like hamsters, dragging every piece of industrial goods they found back to their nests. It didn't matter if the item was currently useful or if it had been out of production for ten thousand years. They stored it anyway, just in case.
This habit usually seemed pathological, filling warehouses until there was no room to walk. But now, in this era of broken supply chains and wasteland reconstruction where everything needed to be built from scratch... Andy could only say it was overpowered. Too overpowered!
Legend has it that the Primarch Roboute Guilliman, clad in blue power armor and wielding the Emperor's Sword, had a Great Sage named Belisarius Cawl by his side. When "Blueberry" needed soldiers, "Dorae-Cawl" pulled out a bunch of Primaris Space Marines. When he needed guns, Cawl produced a batch of new Bolt Rifles. When he needed ships, Cawl pulled out a Mechanicus Ark fleet—well, maybe not that last one.
Regardless, Andy felt he was receiving Primarch-level treatment. Though the things Zor pulled out weren't as high-end as Cawl's—and mentioning them out loud might get him laughed at—for the current stage of Deep Space Industry, these items were more useful than any divine artifact.
With the support of Zor's human-shaped "magic pocket," the construction speed of Castle Horizon took flight.
On the surface, the once-empty industrial plaza had become a massive construction site. "Lift—drop!" Heavy engineering drones suspended prefabricated concrete slabs, fitting them together with precision. Row after row of standardized worker dormitories were finalized.
The design lacked any aesthetic beauty; they were square matchboxes, the outer walls unpainted, exposing the raw grey cement. But they were sturdy, warm, and came with a complete water recycling system. For workers used to Under-hive shanties and sleeping in oil-scented workshops, this place was practically a five-star hotel.
Next to the dormitories, rows of modular storage centers held the finished products flowing steadily from the underground production lines. The entire base radiated a vibrant, surging vitality.
However, Andy couldn't celebrate too early. While productivity had increased, it exposed a new danger—the fragility of the supply chain. Andy's current "smooth sailing" was largely due to the blood transfusions from Zor's treasure chest; once used, they were gone.
Once Zor's stock ran out, if Andy hadn't successfully unlocked the corresponding chemical and material science tech trees, those seemingly invincible assembly lines could grind to a halt in minutes for lack of a single part. This was why achieving complete self-sufficiency on a wasteland was harder than ascending to heaven.
Of course, what Andy had achieved in less than a month was already supernatural. Yet even so, if one were to look down at Castle Horizon from high above, they would see that the area controlled by Deep Space Industry was merely the tip of the iceberg of this grand ruin of a city.
Castle Horizon was too big. This colonial outpost city, built during the Golden Age, was designed to house at least five million people. Andy currently had, at most, fewer than seven hundred. Seven hundred people scattered into this city were like a handful of sand thrown into the ocean—they wouldn't even cause a ripple.
Except for the small cluster of lights in the core industrial zone, over 95% of the city remained shrouded in silent darkness. Soaring skyscrapers, vast central parks, and bottomless underground transit networks remained unknown forbidden zones.
Andy wasn't in a hurry to expand. Biting off more than one can chew is a mistake. On this dangerous wasteland planet, blindly expanding defensive lines only thins out troops, giving predators lurking in the shadows a chance to strike. He chose to play it safe: build the walls of the core area first, set up the turrets first. Once this small plot of land was managed properly, then he'd worry about exploring the map.
"Gamma-9." Andy stood atop a newly built watchtower and pressed his communicator. "Call back all the scouting teams."
"Huh?" Gamma-9's confused voice came through the comms. "Sage, we just found a batch of well-preserved vending machines in an abandoned trade center. They might contain drinks from the Dark Age of Technology—"
"Don't you drink machine oil? Why do you care about sodas?" Andy interrupted. "Magos Zor just opened a new container. It has two tons of compressed nutrient blocks and five hundred sets of individual self-heating rations. They're much better than those expired drinks of yours."
"The production lines are short-handed, and we're about to expand capacity again. I need to pull back everyone who can move."
"Understood!" Gamma-9 executed the order immediately.
Shortly after, over a dozen off-road vehicles and motorcycles drove back from various corners of the city, kicking up trails of dust. Although the workers were disappointed to stop their "mystery box" exploration, the moment they heard the canteen was serving canned meat contributed by Magos Zor, they ran faster than anyone.
Watching another batch of products roll off the line and into the warehouse, Andy felt an unprecedented sense of satisfaction. His previous military base had been successful, even producing drones and heavy artillery, but in truth, that "base" was just a heavily fortified workshop. Back then, Andy was essentially in the "hand-crafting" stage.
Even with STC assistance, it was small-scale precision work, with output relying entirely on a few pathetic core machines. Why else would he have been running around the world patching up production?
But now, the nature of things had changed. This L-shaped underground industrial zone in Castle Horizon was Andy's first true industrial park with a complete system and hardcore planning.
What did that mean? It meant that as long as raw materials were sufficient, production growth would no longer be linear—it would be exponential!
This was the joy of "farming." At this rate, it wouldn't be long before the scale of Deep Space Industry's park skyrocketed.
Of course, if he could find a few more "Doraemons" like Zor who brought their own supplies, that would be even more perfect.