34: Everything is difficult at the beginning.

Twelve hours.

On the light screen, two progress bars representing the lifeblood of the civilization finally crawled toward their completion.

[Military Construction: Bolter Mass Production Line (Simplified Version)]: 99.9%.

[Construction Project: Primarch Gene Laboratory (Prototype)]: 99.9%.

Li Cang sat before the control console, his hands clasped, his knuckles slightly pale from the prolonged tension.

Three.

Two.

One.

[00:00:00]

The progress bars filled instantly, turning emerald green. Two crisp notification pings rang out.

At almost the same instant, a grand and majestic voice boomed directly deep within his mind.

[“Epoch” Universal Broadcast:]

[Attention all contestants!]

[The three-standard-week ‘Civilization Incubation Period’ has now officially ended!]

[From this moment on, the ‘Civilization Evolution Period’ has officially begun!]

[PVP matching restrictions lifted. Public star sector exploration permissions upgraded.]

[Announcing the theme for the first season of the ‘Evolution Period’—]

All interfaces on the light screen were forcibly overridden.

Amidst a chaotic darkness, two large characters burning with pale flames emerged.

—[SURVIVAL]—

[Theme Description: Global suppression of resource output. Probability of extreme environmental events significantly increased. Unknown threats from the void will frequently roam.][Season Objective: Stay alive.]

The voice receded.

Leaving only those two characters radiating an ominous aura—[SURVIVAL].

Li Cang looked at those two words, his lips twitching into a dry, cold smirk.

“Suppressed resources... harsh environments... unknown threats...”

“Isn’t this just daily life on Terra?”

For the “Standard Civilizations” in their greenhouses, this was a natural disaster. For his “Imperium of Man,” this was home turf.

Surviving amidst radiation and acid rain was a brand etched into the very genes of this civilization.

He waved away the season announcement and pulled his attention back to the civilization panel.

Those two green “Completed” notifications gave him more peace of mind than any grand narrative.

“Open internal inspection view for the [Bolter Mass Production Line].”

The light screen switched. The image became a massive workshop filled with a cold, harsh industrial aesthetic.

Hum—!

The piercing alarm transitioned into the low thrum of machinery in operation.

The massive fluorescent tubes on the ceiling lit up one by one, casting a deathly pale light.

Beneath the light was a forest composed of steel, conveyor belts, hydraulic arms, and semi-biological machinery.

This was not unmanned automation. Beside the roaring machines floated withered Servo-skulls with red lights flickering in their eye sockets, monitoring the tolerance of every part with electronic eyes.

At the end of the conveyor belt, several Servitors with lobotomized frontal lobes were using thick mechanical arms to move ammunition crates.

This was the industry of the Imperium.

Labor was cheap; automation was expensive.

Li Cang’s perspective glided through the production line like a ghost.

To the left, the [.75 Caliber Shell Stamping Module].

A mechanical arm grabbed [Refined Steel] plundered from the Crystal Energy Federation and fed it into a heavy stamping machine.

Amidst deafening crashes, high-temperature steam erupted.

One after another, .75 caliber shell casings gleaming with a cold luster were precisely stamped into shape.

They were much larger than ordinary bullets, resembling miniature artillery shells.

In the middle, the [Solid Chemical Propellant Synthesis Module].

The walls were painted with red explosion-proof stripes.

Glass tubes and metal pipes crisscrossed.

What was produced here wasn't gunpowder, but the core of the bolt shell—self-propelled rocket Fuel.

It could ignite a second time after the projectile left the barrel, granting the bolt shell terrifying sustained acceleration.

To the right, the [Mass-Reactive Fuse Assembly Module (Simplified)].

Countless micro-mechanical claws, at speeds exceeding the limit of the naked eye, were carefully installing Mass-Reactive Fuses smaller than a fingernail onto the tips of the projectiles. This was the soul of the bolt shell.

It allowed it to detonate from within after drilling into an enemy's body.

Finally, the three assembly lines converged.

Shell casing, propellant, and the fused projectile.

A blue electric arc flashed, and the three were perfectly sealed.

“Clack.”

With a soft sound, the first freshly manufactured bolt shell fell into the collection bin.

It lay there quietly, its brass-colored casing reflecting the cold light, brimming with a lethal industrial beauty.

“Access the firing range. Test fire,” Li Cang said calmly.

The perspective switched to a closed firing range.

The mechanical arm picked up that bolt shell and loaded it into a brand-new standard-issue Bolter fixed on a stand.

Fifty meters away, a super-alloy target simulating the thickness of Space Marine chest armor slowly rose.

[Test fire beginning.]

Bang!

A dull roar, distinctly different from traditional firearms.

It wasn't the crisp crack of gunpowder exploding, but the propulsive thrum of a miniature rocket igniting.

A brief flash of fire spat from the muzzle, and a projectile with a grayish-white trail whistled out, visible to the naked eye.

Li Cang’s pupils focused as data streams refreshed frantically.

Muzzle velocity: 850 m/s.

Acceleration phase normal.

Spin stabilized.

The projectile accurately hit the bullseye.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a tiny drill hole.

This was the first stage: kinetic penetration.

The critical moment had arrived.

The Mass-Reactive Fuse was supposed to activate within fractions of a second after penetration, detonating the explosive inside the projectile.

0.1 seconds. 0.2 seconds. 0.3 seconds... The hole on the target remained as quiet as before.

A dud. Li Cang’s heart sank slightly.

A 5% probability, and he hit it on the first try.

“Continue testing,” he said expressionlessly.

The second, third, fourth shot... the mechanical arm fired tirelessly.

The firing range roared incessantly.

This time, the projectiles all successfully detonated after hitting.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Internal explosions rocked the target, and the sturdy super-alloy chestplate was blown to pieces.

This was the true power of the bolt shell.

However, Li Cang’s brow furrowed even deeper.

He replayed the footage and compared the ballistic data.

Although every round hit the target, there were minute deviations in the trajectories, imperceptible to the naked eye.

Like a group of elite marksmen, one hitting the 10.1 ring and another hitting the 9.9 ring. It wasn't stable enough.

“Propellant combustion efficiency... uneven,” Li Cang identified pointedly.

The Fuel manufactured by the [Solid Chemical Propellant Synthesis Module] had slight fluctuations in energy output with every batch.

This fluctuation was only a negligible deviation at a fifty-meter range.

Once the range extended to three hundred or five hundred meters, this deviation would be drastically magnified, leading to missed shots.

This was the price of the “Simplified Version.”

Without the Adeptus Mechanicus's STC standard processes that were precise down to the molecular level, the bolt shells he hand-crafted would always have hidden defects.

Li Cang reached out, commanding the mechanical arm to bring the dud and several fragments of the shattered target. A holographic projection hovered before him.

He looked at this “Simplified Version” bolt shell, which brought both destruction and the hidden threat of betrayal, then looked up at the word [SURVIVAL] flickering in the corner of the light screen.

The road was more rugged than imagined.

He not only had to fight external enemies but also the unreliable weapon in his hand and the foundations of this ignorant civilization.

But that was exactly where the meaning lay. He turned his gaze toward the final project under construction—the [Primarch Gene Laboratory (Prototype)].

That was the hope for the future.

The Bolter was merely a transition.

That laboratory would determine whether he could create flawless Astartes in the future and whether he could eventually make contact with the “Adeptus Mechanicus” that could solve all technical problems.

Only at that moment would the Imperium of Man truly be born.