bookbashuk Chapter 1 Arrival
Chapter 1 Arrival
Consciousness surfaced. First came the sound. A deep, continuous rumble, surging from all around. Then came the smells. Sulfur, rust, rotting organic matter. Finally, the touch. The back of my head pressed against metal, my back against a rough, hard surface.
He opened his eyes.
A grayish-yellow smog drifted overhead. A few dim, yellowish lights shone in the distance. He lay amidst a pile of industrial waste and human corpses. Not just one. Many.
His body reacted before his brain. He sprang to his feet, staggered back several steps, and slammed his back against the metal wall with a dull thud. His stomach churned, but there was nothing to vomit. He only dry heaved, one retching after another.
He was bent over, his hands on his knees, panting heavily.
His mind wasn't entirely blank. One set of memories wasn't his—fragments of the original inhabitants of the Underhive: hunger, cold, fists, running, a heavy blow to the back of the head. There was also another complete set of memories: the life of a twenty-six-year-old named Liu En, another world with sunshine and cell phones, and a fictional universe called Warhammer 40K.
Now the universe has become the air he breathes and the metal grille he stands on.
Fear poured down on me. But beneath that fear, a more primal instinct pressed down: to survive.
Liu En slowly slid down against the wall. He needed to deal with the most pressing problem: food. His body was too weak; even standing was a challenge. His stomach lining rubbed against his muscles, his body was breaking them down.
Within the body's remaining memories, he found the terrain information of the Underhive. The general outline of a hundred-kilometer radius existed in his mind: where the gang's territory was, where the abandoned passages were, and where he couldn't approach. Low Gothic words emerged from the tip of his tongue, carrying a strange sense of familiarity.
He turned his attention back to what was in front of him. Reaching out, he pulled several gray cubes from the ration pouch at the waist of a nearby corpse. The instant his fingertips touched them—
The world has changed.
His consciousness was pulled away from his body and into a place without dimensions or boundaries. All the information about that ration of grain unfolded in his perception: the long chain structure of starch, the folding pattern of plant proteins, the molecular configuration of food additives, the distribution of heavy metal elements in the crystal lattice—all information flooded in simultaneously, was recorded, and archived. A complete "material composition information" was generated in his consciousness.
Then he returned. A portion of the ration had been broken down into its most basic atoms and stored in an invisible space around his body. He could sense their presence.
He gained the ability to decompose matter, obtain information about its composition, restore matter to its atomic state for storage, and then use these atoms to reshape anything.
He spent a few minutes testing the limits of his abilities.
Touching the wall. Information floods in—ceramic steel, a composite material with ceramic aggregate embedded in a steel matrix; plastic steel, a lightweight, high-strength organic polymer. Decomposition. Atoms enter the library.
Touch the pipe. Information floods in—copper, iron, various alloys, each with crystal structures and compositional proportions precise to the atomic level. Decompose. Atoms are stored in the library.
Touch a broken cable. Information floods in—the grain orientation of the copper conductor, the polymer structure of the insulation layer, the braiding angle of the shielding layer. Decomposition. Atoms enter the library.
With each touch, he could sense the process of extracting and storing information about the material's composition. He could actively control the degree of decomposition. The warehouse seemed to have unlimited capacity. Those atoms were stored in an abstract space bound to his consciousness, occupying no volume and having no weight.
Then came the shaping. He sifted through the warehouse, selecting carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms, and constructed in his mind the material composition of a glucose molecule—not from analysis of physical matter, but by building it himself using his chemical knowledge from his previous life. Then he issued the command: Shape.
Atoms were retrieved from the warehouse and directly combined into glucose molecules in an invisible field. A few seconds later, a small puddle of transparent liquid appeared in his palm.
He licked it with the tip of his tongue. It was sweet.
He tilted his head back and drank it down. The liquid slid down his esophagus, into his stomach, and the stomach lining began to absorb it. The weakness of near-death slowly subsided, replaced by a faint warm current. There was no poisoning, no discomfort.
Salt water. Amino acids. Fatty acids. He shaped them one by one, drinking them down one by one. As the last drop of liquid disappeared into his throat, he leaned against the wall, feeling the changes in his body. He was far from healthy, but at least he had gone from "near death" to "extremely weak."
Alright. We won't starve.
Liu En stood up. Based on his terrain memory, he was currently in the edge of the bottom nest, about fifteen kilometers from the nearest gang's activity area. This area was structurally unstable, with most passageways abandoned, and few people ventured there. It was safe, but resources were scarce.
He needs more supplies, more information, and more ability tests. Then he needs to find a safer hiding place.
He moved deeper into the passage. Every few steps he would stop and listen for a few seconds. The smog in the bottom nest was too thick; visibility was less than thirty meters. Vision was unreliable, but sound could provide early warning—footsteps, voices, the roar of machinery.
As he moved, his hands never stopped. The ceramic steel panels on the walls, he removed. The grating under his feet, he removed. The abandoned cables hanging overhead, he removed. The rusted pipes, he removed. The mechanical wreckage of unknown purpose, he removed. He touched everything, gathered information, then completely dismantled it into atoms and stored it in a warehouse.
The warehouse reserves are increasing. Copper, iron, tin, lead, zinc, chromium, nickel, silicon, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen are stored according to their categories.
The information in the database is also expanding. This includes the composite structure of ceramic steel, the molecular arrangement of plastic steel, the internal structure of cables, the flow channel design of valves, and the tooth profile parameters of gears.
Among a pile of mechanical wreckage of unknown purpose, he found a laser gun. The barrel was bent, most of the capacitor was burned out, and the grip was full of cracks. But judging from the remaining structure, the basic framework was still intact. Liu En squatted down and pressed his fingers against the gun.
Information flooded in. The multilayer dielectric structure of the energy capacitor, the optical surface curvature of the resonant cavity, the doping ratio of the excitation medium, the material formulation of the focusing lens. Most of this information was incomplete because the gun itself was severely damaged, but the basic structure and material composition of the parts were still readable. He disassembled the entire gun, stored the materials, and archived the incomplete information separately.
Go deeper.
In a wide main passage, he discovered a pile of armored wreckage—Leman Rustank. At least three vehicles had been dismantled into pieces; the turrets had been removed, the chassis pried open, and the internal equipment had been removed piece by piece, but most of the armor plates, structural frames, and suspension system parts remained.
Liu En stood beside the pile of steel behemoth skeletons, squatted down, and began to dismantle them. Ceramic armor, torsion bars, gears, bearings. When the last piece of debris dissolved into an atomic cloud and was stored in the warehouse, Liu En felt mentally exhausted.
While disassembling the penultimate chassis armor piece, he discovered a small metal box welded into a gap in the interlayer. The box's outer shell was made of ceramic steel, with no markings on its surface. He touched it, and information flooded in—it was a data storage device, its contents encrypted and stored in a format he couldn't decipher. He couldn't understand the contents, but that didn't prevent him from completely storing its material composition information.
The afternoon slipped away as he scavenged. He encountered a mutant. The creature emerged from around a corner, its limbs twisted outwards at illogical angles, its skin grayish-white and swollen, its face marked only by three black holes. Liu En quickly constructed a camouflage shell around his body using plastic steel, its color and texture blending perfectly with the surrounding environment. The mutant passed by him, less than five meters away, without noticing him.
Before it got too dark, he found a place that could serve as a temporary base. It was an abandoned small pumping station, with thick terracotta walls on all four sides and only a narrow entrance. The space was small, only four or five square meters. The ground was covered with a thin layer of dust, but there was no trash or signs that anyone had been there recently.
He sealed the entrance with PVC material, making it look exactly like the surrounding walls from the outside. Then he sat down against the wall.
Today is his first day in this universe. He has gained abilities. He has stored a considerable amount of atomic matter. He has accumulated information on the composition of thousands of substances. He has a fully analyzed laser gun. He has found a safe hiding place. He is not dead yet.
Liu En took some atoms from the warehouse and shaped them into tonight's dinner—a mixture of glucose water, lightly salted water, and amino acids. He sipped it slowly.
In the distance, a low, inhuman whimper drifted from outside the pumping station. He ignored it. He placed the dagger on his knee and closed his eyes.
The grayish-yellow smog seeped in through the gaps in the sealing plate and flowed slowly around him.