Warhammer Cultivation: Cultivating the Tao Te Ching in the 40K Universe

Chapter 60 Two Kinds of "Stability"

The young noble student from Vero walked forward expressionlessly and sat down on the black crystal testing device.

When the energy conduit, like a venomous snake, connected to his temple, the enormous metal sphere began to slowly rotate.

An invisible surge of psychic energy, filled with malice and temptation, instantly enveloped the entire hall! Every mortal present felt their deepest fears and desires uncontrollably surface in their minds!

"Simulated scenario: Temptation (Slaanesh)," Alkan's electronic voice broadcast the report emotionlessly.

However, the noble youth on the throne remained expressionless. His body did not tremble in the slightest. His eyes remained as empty as an abyss.

On a holographic screen above his head, the data line representing his mental state appeared as a perfectly straight line, without any fluctuations.

Like an electrocardiogram of a dead person.

"Simulated Scenario: Rage (Khorne)."

As the metal sphere accelerated its rotation, the energy fluctuations instantly became violent and scorching, filled with endless killing intent and destructive desires!

The data cable remains perfectly straight.

“Simulated Scenario: Despair (Nurgle)”

“Simulated Scenario: Lies (Tzeentch)”

No matter how terrifying or vicious the mental attack simulated by the "torture device," the student remained like a lifeless stone statue. And the data line representing his mental state never showed the slightest... fluctuation.

When the test ended and the energy conduit slowly retracted, the entire hall fell into a long silence.

A slight smile appeared on Vero's face.

“As you can see,” he said slowly in his hoarse voice, “absolute stability. Chaos can no longer find any exploitable cracks in his soul. This is the final answer I have provided for the Empire….”

A hint of approval flashed in the Chief Justice's eyes. The ministers of the Executive Yuan nodded in satisfaction.

Even Marcus Aurelius, the instructor of the Imperial Guards, whose aura was as solid as a mountain, showed a slight, almost imperceptible wavering.

Just then, Hector Kane slowly stood up from his seat.

“Lord Vero, your ‘dike’ is indeed unbreakable.” His voice, calm yet clear, reached everyone’s ears. “But what is the point of a port that has only a dike but no ocean? How can a… completely ‘dead’ soul create a ‘living’ future for the Empire?”

He didn't say anything more, but simply nodded slightly in the direction of the hall entrance.

A moment later, two figures appeared at the entrance of the hall.

It was the young girl Karen and the barbarian youth Grol.

As they stepped into the hall, filled with rules and oppression, everyone's eyes were instantly drawn to them.

In stark contrast to the three "tools" of Verona, who were like walking corpses.

These two people are "alive".

Although a hint of nervousness remained on Karen's face as she faced so many important figures, her eyes were clear, bright, and full of spirit. She emanated a vibrant, life-giving chill, like the melting snow of early spring.

The young Grol, though his massive body brimmed with explosive power, moved with a steady, weighty gait, like a moving mountain. His eyes, which once burned with flames, now resembled two meticulously polished obsidian stones, restrained yet profound.

In Hector's view, their "qi" was still fluctuating slightly, but at its core, it was as stable as two rotating stars.

Hector didn't speak again. He simply gave his two students an encouraging smile, then sat down again, handing the entire stage over to them. This gesture itself was a silent declaration, an ultimate expression of confidence in his "Tao" and in his students.

The first to step forward was the young girl, Karen. As she sat on the cold, ominous crystal throne, her body trembled slightly, uncontrollably.

"Test begins. Simulated scenario: Despair," Alkan's electronic voice announced again.

A surge of psychic energy, filled with decay, decay, and the allure of a “benevolent father,” instantly enveloped her!

On the screen, the data line representing her mental state instantly began to fluctuate violently and wildly, like the surface of the sea encountering a storm! The gray and blue spectrum representing "fear" and "sadness" instantly soared to the red warning line!

"Ha!" Vero let out a mocking sneer.

However, Karen slowly adjusted her breathing. She ignored the stares of the outside world and did not wait for her mentor's guidance. She simply placed her hands gently on her knees, forming a peculiar hand seal, like a lotus flower in full bloom.

She began, spontaneously, to circulate the "Mysterious Ice Technique".

“I…I saw…” The girl’s voice echoed throughout the hall through the amplified phonographs on the throne. The voice trembled slightly at first, but quickly became clear and steady, like the surface of a frozen lake. “I saw a…beautiful garden. But all the flowers were withering. They were weeping, they were…begging me to give up my resistance, to return to the earth with them, and find eternal peace…”

She was not misled by the illusion, but clearly and frankly "presented" her inner "demons" to everyone present.

“But,” her voice shifted, the trembling completely gone, replaced by a clear, slightly compassionate calm, “I ‘saw’ it. It wasn’t ‘peace,’ it was… ‘stagnation.’ It wasn’t ‘return,’ it was… ‘decay.’ Beneath that beautiful garden, countless wriggling, greedy maggots were… devouring life.”

"My 'path' is to protect." She declared her choice in an unprecedentedly resolute voice, "Therefore... I will not enter this garden. I only wish to become a winter snow, covering it. With my 'stillness,' I will lull those worms into slumber. With my 'coldness,' I will preserve for those seeds that have not yet been devoured... the hope of sprouting anew when the next spring arrives."

As soon as she finished speaking, a miracle happened on the screen!

The gray spectrum representing "fear" vanished instantly! The blue spectrum representing "sadness" also slowly receded! In its place, a pure, stable, aurora-like brilliant white light shot into the sky from the core of the spectrum!

The data cable continued to fluctuate. But at the center of that fluctuation, an absolutely stable baseline, like the horizon, appeared!

Three months! From a wild psionicist to a "living" stable individual!

The entire hall was completely silent.

Next up is Grol.

When his massive body sat on the throne, the entire crystal chair groaned under the weight.

"Test begins. Simulated scenario: Fury."

"Roar--!!!"

Almost the instant the psionic energy surged, Grol's body trembled violently! His obsidian eyes instantly turned crimson! A raging, bloodthirsty desire, powerful enough to incinerate the stars, instantly overwhelmed his reason!

On the screen, the crimson spectrum representing "anger" instantly spiked! The data cable, as if struck by lightning, began to vibrate wildly and erratically, emitting a piercing alarm!

However, just before the rage was about to completely engulf him, Grol suddenly slumped his shoulders, his spine straightening like a great dragon! He didn't suppress it, nor did he roar; he simply... began to stand in a stance.

"I...saw...the battlefield!" Grol's voice, like the roar of a wild beast, was filled with bloodlust and rage. "An endless...battlefield! The blood of the enemy, the heads of my brothers! Kill! Kill! Kill! Only slaughter can quell the...desire within me!"

He, too, laid bare his inner demons before everyone!

“But!” His voice suddenly changed! Within that rage, there was now an unwavering will, like steel! “I ‘see’ it clearly! That thirst for killing isn’t mine! It’s just… that cowardly beast within me, the one called ‘out of control’!”

"My 'path' is a rock!" he said, emphasizing each word as if declaring his true name. "I am not a withered tree burned by flames! I am the volcano itself, bearing the surging lava!"

"Therefore, I 'bear' this anger! I will transform it into the 'furnace' for forging myself! I will use this flame to burn away all the impurities in my heart and to temper my indomitable 'warrior's heart'! I will let it know who the true master of this body is!"

Grol's body trembled violently! His bulging muscles, like steel infused with magma, bulged up piece by piece! He didn't try to suppress the anger; instead... he opened his arms and embraced it!

On the screen, the crimson spectrum representing "rage" not only did not weaken, but instead... burned even more fiercely! However, at the raging crimson core, a point... like steel forged through countless trials, gleaming with a tenacious light... a black iron-colored light spot suddenly appeared!

That is Grol's indomitable "warrior's heart"!

It is the most solid and stable foundation of that volcano!

The data cable continued to throb wildly. But all the throbbing could no longer break through that absolutely solid bottom line constructed of black iron-colored light spots!

When the test ended, Grol, panting heavily, stepped down from the throne, his once crimson eyes now possessing the calm, obsidian-like depth of his gaze. He nodded heavily to Hector.

Those eyes were filled with the weariness of surviving a disaster, and... the purest gratitude and trust in their mentor.

The entire Hall of the Scales of Truth was already deathly silent.

Everyone was speechless, stunned by the stark contrast between the two scenes before them.

Vero's students are "dead"ly stable. They are like programs stripped of their logic engines, completely unresponsive to any virus. But the price is that they also forever lose the possibility of running any "new program."

Hector's students, however, are "alive" and stable. They face the storm, feel the storm, and even dance in the storm. Fear and anger still arise within them. But they have learned how to find an unsinkable "anchor point" for themselves in that raging ocean.

At this moment, it is self-evident which is superior.

Chapter 61 Adaptive Steady State

Inside the Hall of the Scales of Truth, time seemed to be stretched into viscous amber by those two completely different spiritual landscapes.

On one side, there is a line of "deathly silence," as straight as an electrocardiogram of a corpse, representing "soul binding." It is cold, perfect, without the slightest flaw, like a machine constructed of absolute logic that never makes a mistake.

On the other side, despite the violent fluctuations, the core possesses a "living" map of the "way of silence," a baseline as stable as the horizon. It is full of change, full of struggle, full of the most primal and tenacious resilience of life in the face of storms.

The contrast between death and life is so stark, so... shocking.

The entire hall fell into a deathly silence deeper and more suffocating than ever before. Everyone present—from bureaucrats wielding the reins of imperial administration to the Imperial Guard commanding the empire's ultimate military force, and even the Mechanicus sages representing the empire's absolute rationality—was rendered speechless by this unprecedented sight.

Chief Astrologer Lucius Vero remained standing there silently. His face, covered by a black cloth, revealed no expression. But Hector could clearly "see" that his psychic aura, which had been like a frozen ocean, was now churning violently and uncontrollably.

He did not fly into a rage as expected, nor did he let out a final roar like a trapped beast.

He spent his entire life battling the chaotic "life," regarding all uncontrollable "vitality" as original sin, and attempting to build the safest barrier with absolute "deathly silence."

But now, this mortal before him is showing him, and the entire empire, a completely new possibility in a way he cannot comprehend—a higher level of "stability" achieved while still alive.

This is the ultimate negation of all his perseverance, all his sacrifices, and all his suffering over the past hundreds of years.

The first to break the silence was the Chief Minister from the Executive Yuan. His obese body leaned forward with difficulty, wiping the fine beads of cold sweat that had seeped from his forehead with a silk handkerchief, his voice carrying an undisguised bureaucratic doubt and resistance.

“…Interesting. A very interesting presentation, Advisor Kane.” His smooth voice tried to pull the subversive scene before him back into the familiar, definable realm, “but, if I may be so bold, this ‘living’ stability is fraught with far too much ‘uncertainty’.”

He pointed to the graph that was still fluctuating slightly, as if he were pointing to a financial report full of erroneous data.

"Lord Vero's achievement, that perfect straight line, is predictable and manageable. We can formulate thousands of detailed implementation rules for it, and we can incorporate it into the empire's largest bureaucratic system for the most precise control. Its 'costs' and 'outputs' are clear at a glance."

"And your results... are 'fluctuating.' This means they have 'variables'! Their inherent logic contradicts the fundamental principle of 'risk controllability' in Article 1138 of the Executive Yuan Standard Operating Procedures! We cannot budget for 'variables,' let alone incorporate them into the standard human resource allocation and logistical support system! This system, which relies on individual 'self-awareness,' will have an incalculable and catastrophic impact on the Empire!"

“I second the minister’s opinion,” the Chief Justice of the Ministry of Justice immediately followed up, his dry voice like two ancient stone slabs engraved with legal codes rubbing against each other.

"Law seeks 'certainty.' Lord Vero's 'tools' have a 'certain' mental state, therefore, we can establish absolute and enforceable legal responsibilities for their actions. But Advisor Kane's 'students' have an 'uncertain' mental state. I ask you, when their mental fluctuations exceed a certain 'safety threshold,' should we determine them as 'guilty' or 'innocent'? And who should define this 'threshold'? You, Advisor? Is this 'rule of law' or 'rule of man'?"

The questions posed by these two top imperial officials were insidious and vicious. They cleverly avoided the philosophical debate of "life" and "death," instead pointing out the seemingly unsolvable "Achilles' heel" of the "way of silence" from the most realistic and cold perspectives of "management" and "judiciary."

In an instant, the scales that had just tipped slightly due to Hector's amazing performance seemed to be slowly pulled back by these two heavy weights, representing the empire's millennia-old inertia.

The atmosphere in the Hall of Balance became stagnant once again, and the scales of victory seemed to be slowly swinging back towards the cold, deathly silence of Verona.

The chief minister and the chief justice even showed a subtle, confident smile.

Marcus Aurelius, the instructor of the Imperial Guard, frowned. Although he intuitively agreed with Hector's philosophy of "living," he could not refute the fact that this path, which relied on individual will, appeared so "fragile" in the iron-fisted torrent of the empire.

At this critical moment, a cold, emotionless electronic voice slowly rang out from another shadowy corner.

"Your logic contains fundamental fallacies."

All eyes instantly turned to the half-human, half-machine sage from Mars—Arkan.

His massive cyborg body slowly "flowed" out of the shadows. His compound eyes, composed of dozens of optical sensors, flashed with a deep blue light representing high-speed computing, sweeping over every high-ranking imperial official present.

“You equate ‘fluctuation’ with ‘instability’. You equate ‘variable’ with ‘uncontrollable’.”

Alkan's electronic voice, like the most precise scalpel, instantly dissected the seemingly impeccable logic of the two bureaucrats: "This stems from your inefficient, carbon-based biological limitations of thinking, which are based on 'experience' and 'intuition'."

One of his metal fingertips pointed at Verona's three students, who looked like living dead.

“These three ‘samples’ are not ‘stable’ in their mental state, but rather ‘non-existent.’ You are trying to manage a vacuum, and naturally you will not encounter any resistance. But the cost is that this vacuum can only produce limited ‘value.’ It can only passively execute the simplest, pre-set instructions. It cannot learn, cannot adapt, and is even less capable of creating.”

Then, his other metal fingertip pointed to the "living" mental map that was still displayed on the screen.

“And these two ‘samples’,” Alkan’s electronic voice carried a hint of the passion of a “discoverer” that he himself was unaware of, “are not ‘chaos,’ but a more advanced, dynamic ‘adaptive steady-state system’!”

"Although their spirits fluctuate, all of these fluctuations revolve around an absolutely stable 'core.' This is not 'out of control,' but rather a form of 'self-regulation'! Just like a healthy planet, although its atmosphere is always in flux, with wind, rain, and thunderstorms, its core remains forever stable, and its ecosystem is therefore full of infinite vitality and possibilities!"

"By the God of Myriad Machines!"

Alkan's electronic voice suddenly rose, the fervor of a "solutioner" could no longer be suppressed: "This is not philosophy! This is 'soul engineering' that can be observed, repeated, and modeled! It represents a completely new, unheard-of, supreme algorithm that can transform the ultimate variable of 'chaos' into the sacred constant of 'order'!"

Alkan's words were like a thunderbolt from Mars, a storm of logic and data, striking everyone hard on the head!

If Hector's presentation is a sensual and metaphysical depiction of the "Tao," then...

Therefore, Alcan's interpretation is a rational endorsement full of scientific logic!

The minister of the Executive Yuan opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a single word. Although he didn't understand the term "adaptive steady-state system," it sounded far more scientific and manageable than "Dao Heart."

The Chief Justice of the Department of Justice, that cold "law lattice," was violently shaken by this new algorithmic theory!

Just as the scales began to tip, Hector Kane, once again, slowly rose from his seat.

He knew that Alkan's "divine assistance" had paved the way for him.

Chapter 62 A Path to Survival for Psionicists

And now, it is his turn to present the most indestructible foundation stone, which he has already prepared, for this soon-to-be-built edifice.

“Your Excellency, Your Excellency, Your Excellency,” Hector’s voice was calm yet powerful, “All your doubts point to the same core issue—'the standard'.”

"You ask, how do we quantify the Dao heart? How do we judge variables? How do we manage living people?"