Chapter 35: Drawing a New Monster, Yapool’s Experimental Notebook

Rhode sat in the cockpit of the King Joe, exhaling a deep breath of relief. The invasion by the Hive Fleet had been decisively thwarted. With the hive ship destroyed, the swarm below was now devoid of both supplies and a central command system.

Rhode used the Pedan ship to retrieve the King Joe, then boarded the upgraded vessel. Before the upgrade, he had transferred all spare equipment into the King Joe’s chassis, and the latest iteration of the Pedan ship had refreshed its own stores. The vessel now stood several stories tall, spanning five levels. The top level housed the command deck, featuring ten pilot seats, one captain’s chair, four adjutant stations, and one first officer’s station. Both the captain and the first officer possessed teleportation bracelets, bringing Rhode’s total collection to four.

The second level served as the crew quarters and lounge; the third was dedicated to storage; the fourth contained miscellaneous supplies and a secure vault; and the fifth level had been converted into a massive external hangar. This bay could store a standard King Joe or use a tractor beam to pull in a starship of up to 60 meters in length—much like the Pendragon had been captured in the stories.

The ship’s personnel capacity had swelled to a thousand, and the vast array of newly generated equipment, combined with the existing armory stocks, was sufficient to outfit an army of two thousand.

After touring the ship, Rhode tallied his gains: four hive ships destroyed had yielded over 80,000 system coins. This was the real prize. He began weighing his options. Summoning new monsters was a priority, but he also considered pushing the King Joe to its absolute limit. Enhancing the metal armor to its maximum would cost 16,000 coins, and an additional 10,000 would upgrade it to its ultimate main cannon, totaling 26,000 coins. He could also upgrade the Pedan ship, but as it was currently sufficient, he decided to hold off.

Rhode chose to commit the 26,000 coins to max out the King Joe. However, he decided to perform this upgrade back on the surface, in plain sight of humanity, to manifest the grandeur of a divine miracle. For now, he spent 50,000 coins on a new round of monster summoning, opting to specify "Space Monsters" rather than mechanical ones.

He already possessed three fragments of Bemstar and was eager to summon the Super Space Monster—the adorable, voracious space bird. The system store was still in its primary stage; it would require 1,000,000 coins to reach the next tier, which would likely unlock even more formidable summons. The road ahead was long, and he would need to continue making life difficult for the Tyranids, or perhaps try his hand at harvesting Orks and Chaos Daemons.

With 50,000 coins, Rhode earned 55 pulls. A golden light erupted from the store interface as the gacha machine churned, spitting out monster fragments. After 55 attempts, he had secured six more Bemstar fragments, along with various minor monster components. Combined with his previous three, he now held nine fragments of the "Bem-Bird." He only needed to fuse ten more fragments from lesser monsters to complete the summon.

Beyond the fragments, Rhode received an unexpected windfall. The store had a minuscule chance of dropping items other than monster fragments, and this time, it yielded a massive book—six meters tall, five meters wide, and over four meters thick. It was covered in strange, alien symbols; a tome of such titanic proportions could only be used by giants. It certainly couldn't pass as a relic from humanity's Golden Age, as humans had no use for records of that scale.

Using his current strength, Rhode pried the book open. Inside were bizarre linguistic symbols, complex synthesis formulas, and detailed anatomical diagrams of monsters. The system identified it as the experimental notes of Yapool, containing comprehensive data and synthesis formulas for Choju—the Super Beasts.

This was an incredible discovery. Choju created by Yapool could easily crush ordinary monsters. Their combat effectiveness depended on the materials used for synthesis, and he believed the Warhammer universe offered no shortage of candidates—Orks, Dark Eldar, Necrons, Space Marines, or even, if he dared, Chaos Space Marines.

Rhode flipped through the pages with excitement, only to realize he understood none of it. While he was the owner of the tome and could perceive the alien script, he lacked the knowledge of blood-flesh synthesis formulas, extradimensional energy extraction equations, and monster genetic data.

He cursed his luck—if only he had specified "Aliens" instead, he could have summoned Yapool himself and acquired the formulas with ease. But summoning Yapool required a higher store level, and that option was currently unavailable.

He would save the Yapool summon for later. Besides, just because he couldn't understand the notes didn't mean no one in the Warhammer universe could. The galaxy was home to brilliant bio-engineers—though the likes of Fabius Bile might be difficult to persuade. Perhaps the Haemonculi of the Dark Eldar, or Belisarius Cawl, the creator of the Primaris Space Marines, would have the expertise.

Wait—he had overlooked the greatest master of all: the Emperor of Mankind. As the supreme expert in bio-engineering and genetics—having created the Primarchs, Astartes, Thunder Warriors, and Custodes—he was surely the most qualified mind in the galaxy to decipher these secrets.