Warhammer: Angron Training Manual

Chapter 300: Weaknesses of Living Things

"Oh, he likes to be a bitch."

Qin Xia glanced at the quadrant beside him, then looked back at Kelbo.

"What do you like to do as a mentor? Let me guess."

"You like to find trouble, but this is not your favorite."

"What you like most is to be like a big idiot and speak bad words to people who still have a little affection for you, just like the worst kid in a family, who either speaks bullshit or says bad words that hurt the hearts of his brothers, sisters or parents."

After hearing these angry insults, Kelber was silent for a long time.

After holding it in for a long time, the Forging General only said slowly: "As the adoptive father of a Primarch and a high-ranking member of a legion, your speech is totally ungraceful..."

"I didn't speak to you as the adoptive father of a primarch or a high-ranking official of a legion. I spoke to you as a close friend of the quadrant." Qin Xia interrupted, "You are not qualified to listen to me as a forging general, or to comment on anyone or anything here, because you are just a prisoner now."

"If you were a wise man, you would realize what I can bring." Kelber shook his head, "What I can bring is not a threat or destruction, at least not only that. This is the difference between me and those prisoners."

Hearing this, Qin Xia pondered over Kelbo's intentions.

The interrogation room fell silent.

Kelbo, who had a deeper meaning, did not continue to insult Quadrant, but asked: "I asked you to return to Mars in four months, why didn't you come back? You didn't even imprint my words in your memory? How dare you not carry out such an easy-to-carry order of mine?"

"You exiled me," Quadrant replied calmly. "You signed the order yourself, I know, so my logical processor determined that you exiled me and were disappointed in me."

"I am disappointed, but not exiled." The device on Kelbo's mouth flashed twice but no sound came out of it, which seemed like he wanted to say something but stopped.

Quadrant stared at the mentor and continued, "I still regard you as my mentor out of respect. This is a judgment and behavior driven by a complex biological emotion. Calling you a mentor does not mean that I will still obey your orders, or that I will leave my current job and continue my previous job at your beck and call."

As he spoke, Quadrant suddenly recalled the past.

That past is the source of what he calls his "complex biological emotions."

……

Quadrant had no memory of being picked up from the amniotic fluid tank by slave workers, no memory of all newborns being screened out for genetically inferior children through standard screening procedures, and no memory of being injected with growth hormones to accelerate maturation and then learning to walk while being beaten...

It wasn't until one day when he saw how a newborn was born that he realized what he had experienced as a child.

After learning to walk, Quadrant remembered that he was sent to a factory like all newborns... Not all of them had to go to factories. Some newborns were beautiful or smart, and they would be sent to be servants, while the rest had to work in factories.

Mars is full of factories.

Those who produce battleships, Titans, and all kinds of miscellaneous things.

Quadrant's memory of that factory was the air filled with thick smoke that smelled of sulfur, huge black and ancient machinery that filled most of his field of vision, and then the boiling molten iron or lava in his field of vision that divided the black into several parts like a red line.

The child laborers worked day after day, year after year. The only disturbance in their lives was that one day a child laborer's organ was damaged in a harsh environment and then replaced with an artificial organ, and the child laborer was burdened with a debt to the Mechanicus.

When they went back to sleep at night, the child laborers entered a small room under the supervision of the robot servants... Quadrant remembered that his room was the gap under a large mechanical equipment. The room was not big, but it could accommodate forty-eight child laborers.

I climbed into a drawer-like bed with the child laborers, and then spent a night in stuffiness and confinement, being awakened intermittently by heat or thirst.

This goes on day after day, year after year.

Until one day... Quadrant will never forget that day.

That day, he took the breathing filters made of the collected parts and had them put on his companions. Then, Kelbo, who was not yet a casting general but already in a high position of power, came to inspect the factory.

A child laborer accidentally walked in front of him, and his robot servant began to beat the child laborer. During the beating, the breathing filter was hit and blood came out along with the nose.

Kelber saw it and went forward to pick up the filter.

"A neat little gadget... implanted in the respiratory system using simple and crude modification surgery. Interesting."

Kelber asked who had made it, then followed the children's gaze to the shivering Quadrant in the corner.

After that, Quadrant remembered that his fate had taken a turn for the better.

No more sticks from overseers that could fall on their heads at any time, no more stuffy rooms with forty-eight children living in drawers, no more tasteless starchy food...

A clean room with only one person living in it, an air filtration system, and you can even see the weed that Mars bought from the Terra Himalayas in the room.

Then comes learning.

Quadrant remembered that Kelbo would use a polyhydroxy aldehyde compound as a reward for himself after learning certain knowledge.

When he began to practice and learn the skills that Kelbo had mastered, Kelbo taught him step by step...

Patience, peace, and tolerance.

Just like when Qin Xia taught the young think tank of White Knight.

Until one day, when Quadrant went to the factory to do something, he found that the supervisors and the person in charge of the factory where he had worked were bowing and greeting him. The supervisor apologized for his past behavior in fear. Only then did Quadrant realize how lucky he was.

As for the fact that he was subjected to a crude transformation surgery by Kelber because of his insistence on humanity and biology... that happened later.

He really hated this mentor. After all, his original body had been cut into pieces and thrown away. Without biological signals to drive this ugly and bloated body, he could only stay in a jar and do nothing.

But I am truly grateful to this mentor, because the moment I came face to face with Kyle Bohar was the dividing line between the hellish stage and the beautiful stage of my life.

This is complex biological emotion.

Quadrant didn't think that when someone faced someone like Kelbo, they could simply hate him or be grateful...

"Look at you," Kelber said, "you've fallen into the state of mindless memory retrieval again. Why can't you change? Remember when I took out one of your organs as punishment every time you fell into memory retrieval? Pavlov's dogs all had conditioned reflexes, but you don't."

"I call it biological weakness."

"Quadrant... Even if you give yourself such a ridiculous name, it won't free you from your own weaknesses and bad habits." Listening to the insults from his mentor, Kelbohar, Quadrant was speechless.

He remembered that he might have been quite eloquent in the past, but being transformed would change a person's biological habits.

"Who doesn't have weaknesses and bad habits? For example, your weaknesses and bad habits are acting on impulse and being mean to people who still have a glimmer of hope in you."

Qin Xia spoke for the quadrant again.

"You're lucky, Mr. Hal."

"If your mentor was a bastard like Mr. Kelber, people like you would have been thrown into the casting furnace on Mars to add carbon to steel."

"But maybe not. After all, I think you are the kind of person who flatters the superiors and bullies the subordinates. You must be more filial to your mentor than a normal human grandson is to his grandfather. You dare not say a single bad word to him."

Hearing this, Kelber nodded, shook his head, and slowly looked towards the quadrant: "Tell him that your good mentor is the kind of person who flatters the superiors and bullies the subordinates? Remember how I responded to my damn colleagues and superiors when they belittled me by belittling you? I didn't just talk, I took direct action to retaliate against their insults to my apprentice! I..."

Qin Xia hit Kelbo's head with an uppercut, causing it to hit the wall. "I can also take some practical action for my friend. I didn't do it before only because I thought you still have some dignity."

Kelber was silent, just looking at the quadrant.

Qin Xia was very puzzled. Why did Kelbo tell Quadrant so much...what was his motive?
He wanted to awaken the quadrant's gratitude towards him and then let him out?

Or are you hoping that the Quadrant will stand on the side of the Mechanicus at this time?

Qin Xia felt that if Kelbo was sane, he would not expect the Quadrant to do anything.

However, Kelbo's inner thoughts were not as complicated as Qin Xia imagined.

He took advantage of the fact that he was in the interrogation room and no one else was present to insult the disappointing apprentice without caring about his manners and vent his dissatisfaction with the apprentice.

"I pulled you out of the factory, fed you, clothed you, taught you knowledge and skills, and you ignored my orders and hated me just because I gave you a small punishment? You are such a heartless person. I was so blind to choose a heartless ungrateful person like you as my apprentice."

This was Kelbo's idea.

So what I said before was just to vent my emotions.

Now that he had almost vented his anger, Kelbo straightened his collar, sat upright, and displayed the aura of a forged general.

"Grateful to me, you and the Primarch should be grateful to me, because my actions have given us a legitimate reason to talk in a private place."

Kelbo said something that puzzled Qin Xia.

"And I should thank the master of the empire."

"If he hadn't still held on to the ridiculous fantasy of unifying the Mechanicus through non-violent conquest, I wouldn't have been able to leave Mars in a fair and honest manner."

Qin Xia raised his hand to interrupt when he heard this: "A ridiculous fantasy? This is your evaluation of the emperor..."

Kelber spread his hands, not caring at all.

Qin Xia thought about it and felt that if he were Kelbo, he wouldn't care either.

So think of something else.

Thinking about Kelbo's attitude just now, it seemed that everything he did was just for this conversation, as well as Kelbo's life, thoughts, and attitude.

Qin Xia could easily guess Kelbo's intention.

That is to come to Nuceria and find a way to get an opportunity to talk in a private place, with the purpose of winning over the 12th Legion.

As for why Kelber did this...

Qin Xia had heard some recent comments about the 12th Legion.

The reputation of the 12th Legion had indeed improved somewhat, but in the eyes of some other primarchs and legions who were determined to obey any arrangements made by the Emperor, the 12th Legion was still a rebel.

The reason for this was that Angron openly insulted the Emperor on the Day of His Coming, and after the two had fought in a gladiatorial contest, Angron demanded the right to rule on his own.

In addition, there is the current Nuceria sector plan and the legion expansion and reform plan.

As a future rebel and someone who has long been dissatisfied with the empire, it is obvious why Kelber came to him.

As he thought about it, Qin Xia suddenly felt something was wrong.

"broken……"

“We’ve become a rebel faction.”

"It's starting to attract the rebels!"

Qin Xia exclaimed in his heart, but still asked tentatively: "So what do you want to talk to me and the Primarch about?"

"Talk about something we both care about," Kelber replied.

"Can you please stop telling in riddles?" Qin Xia asked tentatively.

"Let's talk about the ridiculous thing about me infiltrating your Nu planet and trying to assassinate you, but there's no way out. I'm defeated in your hands. Bring the Primarch here and we can negotiate terms." If Kelber could make expressions on his face, it would definitely be a sly smile at this moment.

What he said was irrelevant.

But the two people in the conversation knew each other's intentions.

You know what I want to say, and I know why you ask.

No matter what attitude one of the two people who have never met has towards the other, at least at this moment their thoughts are in sync.

(End of this chapter)