In the following period, David's Terminator disassembly plan encountered many crises. The complex internal components seemed to actively resist his efforts, resulting in sparks and damage.
Nolan had to temporarily stop David's risky actions. It wasn't that he felt sorry for the Terminator Power Armor. Nolan was afraid that David would accidentally destroy the subatomic fusion reactor in the power backpack, sending the entire base and half of Manhattan Island sky-high. That would definitely draw unwanted attention.
So Nolan began a series of salvage operations, hoping to bypass the need for dangerous disassembly. He tried to salvage things related to the Adeptus Mechanicus. If he was lucky enough to get an STC (Standard Template Construct) related to power armor, then he would only need to put in the corresponding materials to create the power armor step by step. A completely fool-proof operation, saving worry, effort, and iron.
However, Nolan seemed to have underestimated the lower limits of the simulator. In other words, the items recovered through salvage could only be lifeless, dead objects, often of dubious utility.
[Salvage harvest: dead green-skinned orc (one)]
Annotation: Ancient remains from the Beast Wars... Dig a hole, bury some soil, count one, two, three, four, five, next year the land will be full of greenskins.
[Salvage Harvest: Dead Eldar Ranger (one body)]
Note: Fresh remains from the Ark Eldar... Wow, a white bean sprout with red hair, white skin and long legs... Come on, brother, while it's hot.
[Salvage harvest: long-dormant servo skull (one)]
Note: Produced by Tech-Priest Reditus himself, this is a servo skull made from his skull... It can talk, sing, and curse, but it has no brains.
[Salvage Harvest: machete (one)]
Label: Produced by Armageddon, a melee weapon weighing several hundred kilograms and with an exaggerated shape... Where is my big chop? Where's the machete you just threw on the ground?
[Salvage Harvest: Brand new servo robotic arm (one)]
Label: Produced by the Forging World of Underworld No. 8, a universal tool loved by everyone in the Adeptus Mechanicus... Of course, it is also common to use it to tear up a handful of Astartes.
· [Salvage Harvest: Partial Remains of a Tech-Priest (upper torso), adrift for centuries]
o Note: Low-ranking member of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Body is badly carbonized. No functional bionics or data-cogitators remain. Dispose by ritual incineration.
[Salvage Harvest: Avenger Shuriken Catapult (1 unit)]
Note: Aeldari-manufactured standard infantry weapon, commonly carried by Dire Avengers. Extremely lethal at short-to-mid range. Power cell duration reduced when operated by non-Aeldari users.
Nolan, frowning slightly, glanced at the series of salvage harvests expressionlessly. He took all the items that weren't corpses. Nolan sorted out the ammunition, supplies, food, and fuel he had obtained.
In the end, only two usable items were screened out. A servo skull made from the skull of a Tech-Priest from the Adeptus Mechanicus named Reditus, and a brand new servo robotic arm.
"Three hundred times of salvage, and I got these two useful things..." Nolan subconsciously narrowed his cyan wolf eyes, and the fangs in his mouth slightly poked out from his lips. His nose twitched.
He actually scrolled the page and selected designated salvage again. This time, he directly chose the powered armor STC as the scope of the salvage. Moreover, Nolan invested 500 hours of resource time in one go. It wasn't that he didn't want to complete a thousand hours. Rather, Nolan believed that the chance of success in a second designated salvage would be greatly reduced. He just wanted to try his luck. Naturally, he would be happy if he succeeded, but if he failed, it would just be a waste of hundreds of firearms.
[Specified salvage countdown: ninety-nine hours, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-nine seconds.]
Nolan glanced at the countdown for the designated salvage. Then, he directly extracted the servo robotic arm and servo skull.
A heavy servo robotic arm fell to the metal floor in the break room with a loud bang. Immediately afterward, the servo skull that emerged instantly activated its anti-gravity engine and floated into the air.
Nolan squinted his eyes and looked at the gadgets in front of him. A metal plate with a name and position engraved on it was nailed into the forehead of the white skull. The eye sockets, framed with metal, seemed to be equipped with mechanical equipment that could emit light. A pair of basic mechanical pliers protruding from the bottom of the skull slowly expanded and contracted a few times, as if running some kind of self-test program. At the same time, the lighting device installed on the side of the skull also flickered a few times.
A few seconds later, a cold mechanical sound came from the speaker.
"The body is weak and the machine is eternal..."
"The question and answer mode is on..."
"The presence of Brother Astartes has been detected..."
"Hello, I am Tech-Priest Reditus."
Accompanied by the subtle sound of the anti-gravity engine, the servo skull, blue light emitting from its eye sockets, slowly came closer to Nolan.
"Tell me about your function?" Nolan opened his cyan wolf eyes wide and asked curiously.
"Lighting mode, simple surgery mode, equipment maintenance mode... If you want to enable reconnaissance mode, please install weapons." The servo skull answered in a mechanical voice.
"Equipment maintenance mode?" Nolan's eyes suddenly lit up. "Can power armor be repaired and modified?"
"Hello, I am the Tech-Priest Reditus."
"Hello, I am the Tech-Priest Reditus... Tus... Tus..."
Just when Nolan was about to ask in depth, the mechanical sound of the servo skull trembled slightly. It repeated the same sentence over and over again, as if it was stuck. Then, the servo skull suspended in the air suddenly fell silent. Only the blue light flashing in its eye sockets and the subtle sound of the anti-gravity engine remained.
Nolan frowned again with a puzzled look. He muttered to himself: "Is it broken? Is the quality of the Empire's products so bad?"
Nolan slowly stood up. He leaned in front of the servo skull and looked at it for a long time. He did not find any visible problems. In the end, Nolan could only leave the servo skull suspended in the air. He walked out of the lounge. He planned to let David repair it and extract the data from the skull's system. Perhaps there was technological knowledge hidden in it to soothe the machine soul and repair power armor.
However, just after Nolan left the lounge, a strand of black mist as thick as a hair slowly penetrated the metal wall. It seemed to detect the existence of the servo skull. It drilled into the servo skull suspended in the air without hesitation!
"Hello, I am the Tech-Priest Reditus..."
Accompanied by the flickering blue light in the eye sockets of the servo skull, the mechanical voice that had just disappeared reappeared.
"Hello, I am the Tech-Priest Reditus..."
"Hello... where the hell is this?"
"Emperor preserve us. The Machine God witness this moment."
"I, Reditus, am alive again!"