Warhammer Fanfic: Starting with a Core Cabin

In the end, Duanmu Huai decided to pretend he had never seen that specialty, that he didn't know anything about it—yep, if people don't know, they won't have so many worries.

With that burden off his mind, Duanmu Huai began rummaging through the ruins to see if he could find anything useful.

As a player of his level, Duanmu Huai was more than familiar with Old One ruins. After a brief exploration, he confirmed that this ruin had once been an administrative department of the Old Ones—in simpler terms, something like a government facility.

But... that was actually perfect!!

Normally, you'd think only secret bases or military research labs would have the most advanced tech. But players are clever, and the Old Ones weren't fools either. Surely they were afraid that Chaos would discover their secrets, right? So when they evacuated, the Old Ones destroyed all their classified data and equipment. Unless you were absurdly lucky, players searching those places would find nothing good, no matter how thoroughly they turned the place upside down.

Government offices, however, were a different story.

They obviously didn't have top-secret Old One weapons or blueprint tech, but what they did have was all the stable, mass-producible, widely implemented technological products. In fact, places like this were often more likely to contain intact Old One tech artifacts.

It's like when a city is invaded by aliens—if the government can't hold the line and has to flee, the first thing they'll destroy are the secret weapons in research labs and military bases.

But who the hell would care about stuff in the police station or the grain bureau?

To the Old Ones, these things were probably trivial, not worth worrying about, easily discarded—but to future generations, even a claw machine built with Old One tech would be considered top-tier advanced technology!

According to player rankings, in the Old One tech tree, energy, biological modification, space travel, and shield technology were all T0-tier ceiling technologies. After all, the Old Ones had fought Chaos for so long that nearly all of their tech had maxed-out Chaos resistance. And when it came to bioengineering, the Old Ones were absolutely top of the line—just look at this planet. High Elves, Dwarves, Lizardmen, Ogres, Humans, Goblins... all of them were created by the Old Ones. That alone showed how terrifyingly advanced their biological modification technology was.

On the other hand, their offensive firepower tech wasn't exactly top-tier. Well, that made sense. If the Old Ones' weapons were really at ceiling-breaking levels, they wouldn't have been running from Chaos—they'd be chasing Chaos down and beating the hell out of it.

What Duanmu Huai wanted most at the moment was the Old One's energy core technology.

Of course, he didn't expect to get his hands on the top-tier stuff. It was like nuclear-powered aircraft carriers or nuclear submarines—those power systems weren't something you'd find just lying around.

But in this era, forget nuclear power—they didn't even have steam engines. Duanmu Huai wasn't asking for some ultra-classified military-grade power system, but at the very least, couldn't he get something like an internal combustion engine?

A police car doesn't run on nuclear energy either, but it still works just fine, right?

Fortunately, hard work paid off. After tirelessly searching, Duanmu Huai finally found a fragment that looked like a crushed shipping container in the ruins. Although the thing had been flattened by a giant boulder and looked no different from a squashed soda can, Duanmu Huai instantly recognized it—this was likely a type of transport vehicle once used by the Old Ones!

This is it!

His eyes lit up as he looked at the wreckage buried under the rubble.

"Alright, let me take a look… Hmm, no radiation leaks, readings are within normal range… Excellent!"

Glancing at the readouts on his power armor's display, Duanmu Huai clenched his fists in excitement. No radiation leak meant the transport vehicle's core power system was very likely still intact!

The only problem was… most of the transport was buried under rubble. It was going to be a hassle to excavate. Fortunately, Duanmu Huai had help.

"Olgis, help me cut and move these rocks."

Duanmu Huai pointed to the rubble covering the transport vehicle and gave the order. Olgis nodded, then extended her hand. Immediately, the massive boulders—some two or three stories tall—were sliced into smaller chunks and pulled aside, wrapped in threads. Duanmu Huai, protected by his power armor, dove into the wreckage and began digging out the remaining debris.

Soon, he found the cockpit of the transport vehicle. It was just as much of a mess inside. There was even a shattered skeleton buried in the dirt—it seemed a poor, unfortunate frogman hadn't managed to escape back then, leading to this tragic outcome.

What a shame.

Duanmu Huai paused for two seconds of silent mourning, then crawled into the cockpit. It was an oval-shaped chamber, devoid of steering wheels or control sticks—clearly, the Old Ones had their own piloting methods. But Duanmu Huai didn't care about that. Like a hunter dealing with unconscious prey, he roughly tore off its outer layer, forced open the tightly shut defenses, and drove deep inside...

"Found it!!!"

Feeling the familiar texture in his hand, Duanmu Huai's heart leapt with joy. He quickly steadied his mind and carefully extracted an object from within.

It was a polygonal sphere, slightly larger than a basketball. It looked like a transparent glass orb, with a faint light flickering inside—so dim it seemed about to go out, like a candle in the wind.

But Duanmu Huai knew that was just a superficial illusion. Because when he scanned it, the system had already given the answer:

[Antimatter Energy Core (Unanalyzed)]

"Tut tut tut, tech archaeology really is amazing."

Seeing this, Duanmu Huai couldn't help but sigh. The Empire's tech line used plasma reactors, essentially a kind of nuclear fusion device. But look at the Old Ones—they were using antimatter just to power a transport vehicle! The technological gap between the Empire and the Old Ones was like comparing a horse-drawn cart to a spaceship...

And not only that, Old One technology was incredibly reliable—after all, their history proved that even when they couldn't beat Chaos, they could still run away.

The Empire, on the other hand, suffered massive losses every time they faced Chaos. Almost every war led to a technological regression. Others advanced through war; the Empire regressed with each battle… to the point that in the end, they barely had anything left.

In any case, with the [Antimatter Energy Core], Duanmu Huai had effectively unlocked the Old Ones' energy tech tree. Considering the Old Ones' proud tradition of mixing science and sorcery with zero discrimination, this haul was an absolute win—no losses whatsoever!

(End of this chapter)