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

He would select some promising talents from the two hundred students—such as a boy from the mining world who was born with an affinity for the earth, or a girl from a war-torn orphanage who could unconsciously use her sadness to comfort others—and then, based on their unique Qi attributes, he would fine-tune the Profound Ice Technique and the Rock Heart Method to create a more universal cultivation method.

He regarded the entire training system of the Jiejiao Academy as his grandest and most sophisticated experiment in the universe.

With the Empire's almost limitless resources fully supporting him, he calmly assessed that it would take about two to three years for a wild psionicist selected and trained through this system to go from zero to a qualified and stable state certified by the Empire, sufficient to safely serve in various positions.

This is an astonishing efficiency that would drive the Executive Yuan and the Ministry of Justice crazy, far exceeding all records set by various departments over the centuries.

After all, the final step of the soul-binding ritual requires the Emperor himself, while the Jiejiao Academy only needs Hector, and may even be able to do without him in the future.

But Hector knew that this was only the beginning.

His ultimate goal was not to train a group of more efficient tools for the empire.

What he truly cared about was whether these souls, having undergone the baptism of the "Dao," could truly embark on the path of body refinement—a path that defies the heavens and belongs to cultivators—as he envisioned.

This is the final deciding factor in his high-stakes gamble. Perhaps, it also requires a little bit of "chance" from fate.

"Two hundred trainees..." Lord Thorne looked at the list, his sneer growing stronger. "From the tens of thousands of 'cargo' on the black warship, only two hundred were selected. Such a low 'conversion rate,' yet it consumes a huge budget enough to equip an entire mortal legion. Dean Kane, your 'efficiency' truly...opens the eyes of the Executive Yuan."

He finally revealed his true colors.

“Lord Thorne.” Hector, the supreme leader of the “Intercepting Sect Academy,” was sitting leisurely under an ancient tree, holding a cup of tea in his hand, like a hermit enjoying his garden, detached from worldly affairs.

Hearing this barbed question, he didn't even turn around, but calmly said, "The Executive Yuan measures efficiency by 'quantity.' But the 'Intercepting Sect Academy' measures efficiency by 'quality.' A scalpel that has been forged through countless trials is always more valuable than ten thousand rusty wood-chopping axes. I think you understand this principle better than I do."

"Besides, we're still a 'trial operation' organization, so we have to be cautious, right?"

"What a silver tongue." Lord Thorne's smile finally turned completely cold. He knew that pretense was pointless.

He stepped forward, his voice becoming sharp and oppressive, “Then let’s talk about ‘quality.’ As far as I know, just a month ago, the patriarch of the Ironhead family, one of Terra’s oldest noble families, personally recommended his grandson, whose psionic talent was enough to be assessed as a potential ‘Mu’ level, to your ‘Inquiry Hall’, and promised to provide your institution with all the tax revenue of the entire Hive City world for the next fifty years as ‘sponsorship’.”

“The tax revenue of an entire Nest City world!” he emphasized, his small eyes gleaming with greed. “That would be enough for us to increase your student numbers tenfold! But you… you refused. Not only did you refuse, but you also, based on your so-called ‘Legalist standard,’ impartially designated that promising young man as a ‘high-risk observation subject’ and recommended… permanent isolation!”

"Right now, the entire noble class of Terra is talking about it."

Lord Thorne's voice was like the hiss of a venomous snake, "They say that a mortal of unknown origin is wielding the supreme power bestowed upon him by the Imperial Regent, using 'silence' as a pretext to exercise 'dictatorship'! They question whether your 'yardstick' truly measures the students' 'heart of the Dao,' or... your personal 'likes and dislikes'?"

"You are abusing your power, Mr. Advisor! You are creating a dangerous, unsupervised... enemy for the Empire!"

Faced with such a scathing remark that would make any high-ranking imperial official pale, Hector simply put down his teacup.

He stood up, turned his head, and his dark, calm eyes, as deep as an abyss, met the imposing Minister of the Executive Yuan's gaze.

“I’ve been waiting for months, and finally someone has come to say these things to me.”

Chapter 70 The "Seeds" of Subspace

"Lord Thorne, I apologize for what is about to happen, after all, this is our first meeting." He spoke calmly, but his incomprehensible words concealed an extremely dangerous message, and the lord suddenly felt a sense of crisis that made him want to run away.

"You're right. Power does indeed need oversight."

Hector did not refute, but instead... admitted to the accusation. This instantly choked Lord Thorne's prepared, even more vehement words.

“So,” he snapped his fingers lightly into the air, “let us, right here and now, undergo the most open and transparent 'supervision' ever possible.”

As soon as he finished speaking, a soft light flashed across the trunk of the ancient tree behind him, and a huge holographic projection composed of data and color instantly unfolded.

At the center of the projection was the personal file of the heir to the "Iron Head" family. And at the very core of the file was his ominous and chaotic...spectrum of soul energy.

"Look, Your Excellency." Hector's voice, like that of the most composed scholar, was giving a public "lesson" to everyone present, including all the bigwigs of Terra behind the Lord who were secretly spying on this place through various channels.

"This candidate's psychic talent is truly one in a million. His total 'qi' even surpasses that of most of our regular students. But..."

With a gentle tap of his finger, the spectrum was instantly magnified, its core colors clearly revealed to everyone.

It was a... nauseating, twisted color, a mixture of a morbid purple and a dark red like congealed blood.

“...However, the essence of his ‘qi’ has long since rotted away.” Hector’s voice turned cold. “In his soul spectrum, the white representing ‘humility’ and the gold representing ‘protection’ are almost zero. On the other hand, the dark purple representing ‘arrogance’ and ‘cruelty’, and the dark red representing ‘selfishness’ and ‘destructiveness’ account for more than ninety percent.”

“In his ‘Introspection Report’,” Hector switched the projection, and passages filled with violence and blasphemy appeared on the screen, “he likened his power to ‘divine punishment.’ He believed that all those inferior to him were ‘ants’ who should be at his mercy and crushed at will. He even…more than once, in his dreams, enjoyed the pleasure of dragging the entire world into the ‘art’ he created, filled with pain and wailing.”

“And the most crucial point,” Hector’s gaze, like two merciless probes, pierced Lord Thorne’s face, which was already beginning to bead with cold sweat, “is that we detected a trace of… extremely faint, yet incredibly deadly 'noise' in his true essence fluctuation frequency diagram.”

"After repeated comparisons by the Sage of Alkan, we finally confirmed that the fluctuation pattern of that 'noise' is more than 99.9% similar to the frequency of the mental whispers of a certain subspace being already recorded in the Empire's archives."

"Your Excellency, having worked in the Executive Yuan for many years, you must be familiar with those heretical beings marked 'The End' in the Imperial Archives. You need me... in front of everyone..."

"Say the name of that being from the subspace?"

The words "existence of subspace" exploded like a bomb in the minds of all those who were watching!

“So, Your Excellency,” Hector’s voice was like a final verdict, “do you still believe that my refusal of him was an abuse of power?”

"No. I was just doing my duty. To remove a... a cancerous, deadly tumor from the body of the empire."

Lord Thorne's body trembled violently. His fat face was ashen white. He opened his mouth, but no word came out.

He knew he had lost. He had lost miserably.

He intended to use the Empire's "rules" to attack Hector, but instead, the other side used a more advanced, more sophisticated, and more... irrefutable set of "rules" to turn the tables on him.

He was utterly nailed to the pillar of shame for his stupidity and ignorance by that cold weapon called the "Legal Ruler".

However, it's not over yet.

Hector continued, “The moment I submitted this report, the secret representatives of the Silent Sisters, the Assassin’s Court, and the Inquisition jointly proposed to immediately conduct the most thorough soul dissection on this psionicist and to launch the highest level of loyalty investigation into the ‘Ironhead’ family behind him… and even, if necessary, to carry out the ‘extermination purge’ agreement.”

His voice was calm, but every word was like a heavy hammer, pounding hard on Lord Thorne's already fragile nerves!

The Silent Sisters! The Assassins' Court! Extinction and Purge! For any nobleman in Terra, these words are tantamount to a final, unquestionable death sentence!

"I convinced them."

Hector looked at Lord Thorne's pupils, which were constricted violently with extreme fear, and his voice became as cold as the Siberian wind, "I told them that taking direct action would be efficient, but it would only cut off one branch. I am more interested in the tree that has already begun to rot from the roots."

"I tell you, my lords, a family that dares to disguise a descendant parasitized by a Warp 'seed' as a 'genius' and attempts to pave the way for him with the wealth of an entire Nest City must have a vast network woven from interests, corruption, and betrayal behind it. And this network must be teeming with countless imperial parasites like you, willing to act as accomplices for their own selfish gain."

"So, all we need to do is reject this child and then wait quietly." Hector's lips curled into a smile full of wisdom and ruthlessness. "Let's see who will be the first to lose their temper and jump out to speak out for this 'seed.' After all, since its establishment, my 'Intercepting Sect Academy' has rejected at least eight thousand, if not ten thousand, applicants. Why is it that this one case alone has warranted your personal 'inspection' as the Second Minister?"

"Don't you think this... is interesting?"

Lord Thorne could no longer stand; his legs buckled, and he collapsed to the ground, his magnificent robes now covered in dust and looking utterly disheveled. Trembling, he tried to explain, "I...I just...just for the Empire's taxes...for the treasury..."

Chapter 71 Makado's Ask-When-to-Ask

"Finance?!" Hector suddenly raised his voice, and a highly concentrated aura of true energy, full of "order" and "rules," instantly enveloped Lord Thorne!

It was a higher form of "suppression," like the law itself! Lord Thorne felt as if his soul was being gripped tightly by an invisible giant hand constructed of pure law, so that even his breath stopped!

“Lord!” Hector’s eyes were like two bottomless ancient wells, staring directly at Thorne, as if he were looking through him at the unseen shadows behind him!

"The place where you stand is a sacred special zone designated by the Emperor and Regent as a trial area for the 'Nicaea Code'! It is not a private garden where you can buy and sell power at will!"

"Outside the Special Economic Zone, I have no special privileges! Inside the Special Economic Zone, I need not explain myself!"

"And you, and all of you, don't forget something else!"

Hector's voice was icy cold: "Even the Chief Astral Speaker, Vero, a few months ago, in this very place where you stand, when he tried to provoke me with his reality-distorting psychic powers, ended up with tears of blood streaming from his eyes, and was 'invited' out by the Commander of the Silent Sisters!"

"Are you prepared for the consequences?"

An old, weary, yet comforting voice came from behind Hector.

The Imperial Regent, Macardo, had silently appeared beneath the ancient tree sometime earlier. Beside him was Marcus Aurelius, the Imperial Guard instructor as imposing as a golden mountain.

“It seems that the Jiejiao Academy has learned how… to protect itself.” Makado watched as Lord Thorne, overwhelmed by extreme fear and humiliation, dropped the data tablet that symbolized his status and power, shattering it on the ground with a 'crack'. A barely perceptible glint flashed in his eyes.

"Take it with you."

“Well done, child,” he said, his voice hoarse like that of an ancient parchment scroll, yet containing an undeniable power.

He nodded slightly, and surprisingly, a genuine smile appeared on his face, which was covered with deep wrinkles like a dried map.

That smile was so rare that it instantly melted away the solemnity of the room. "You have not only forged a 'yardstick' for the Empire to measure loyalty and betrayal, but you have also earned for yourself an 'authority' in this game that no one can question."

“It’s nothing more than a necessary warning to others, Your Excellency.” Hector maintained a perfectly measured humility as he poured Macardo a steaming cup of tea, the amber liquid rippling in the rustic earthenware cup.

“Endless concessions will only breed more greed and temptation, which will make every step of my subsequent plans incredibly difficult.” He stated calmly, as if expounding an obvious truth.

“A clever child always knows when to bare his fangs,” the Regent’s praise was succinct. Then, the smile on his face vanished like the tide, replaced by his usual solemnity, and his tone abruptly changed, “You have never sought an audience with me. Don’t you have any questions, any concerns?”

Hector raised his head, his clear and resolute gaze meeting those insightful eyes without flinching. "No, my esteemed Regent," he replied decisively, "because I know that the questions that perplex me at this moment are not yet open to answer."

This time, Macardo revealed a genuine smile, a smile filled with satisfaction, appreciation, and even a hint of the pleasure of meeting a worthy opponent. "You're even smarter than I imagined… Hector." He picked up his teacup, the rising steam blurring the emotions in his eyes. "Yes, some doors are not yet open for you. But some storms are already imminent, about to sweep across the entire galaxy."

Marcado did not continue the topic, but instead gestured "please" to Hector.

"Walk with me, child."

Hector didn't ask any questions, but silently followed behind this living legend. They didn't head towards the futuristic teaching and research area, but instead followed a winding path paved with bluestone towards the deepest part of this sky garden, an area that had never been open to outsiders.

The deeper one ventures, the more ancient the surroundings become. The genetically modified, psionicly glowing exotic plants gradually disappear, replaced by plants Hector had previously only seen in the oldest botanical atlases—pine, bamboo, plum… These “living fossils,” extinct for tens of thousands of years in the outside world, are carefully nurtured here by an invisible force, radiating a tranquil yet resilient life force that seems out of place in this brutal era.

Finally, they arrived at a small pavilion built of black volcanic rock. In the center of the pavilion, there was only a stone table, also carved from a single block of rock, and two stone benches. Nothing else.

This is the only sanctuary in Makado's heart that he has carved out for himself in this vast imperial palace, a place filled with power and intrigue, where he can temporarily return to his "mortal" identity...

"Sit down." Makado sat down first, his thin figure appearing so lonely in the shadow of the ancient pine.

Hector did as he was told and sat down opposite him.

“Aren’t you curious?” Macardo looked at Hector, his ancient eyes seeming to pierce through time and space, staring into the deepest secret of his soul. “About the name ‘Intercepting Sect Academy.’ And everything you’ve seen.”

Hector's heart skipped a beat. But his expression remained calm and composed.

“Curiosity is ‘movement’,” he answered slowly. “But my path lies in ‘stillness’. Before the answer is ready to be revealed, any speculation or exploration will only breed unnecessary ‘inner demons’.”

“Well said.” Macardo nodded, a hint of approval flashing in his eyes. “‘Originally there was nothing, so where can dust settle?’ It seems that child Loga has learned a lot from you. But you, Hector, are different from him. You are not ‘originally nothing.’ And if this ‘cause’ cannot be completely digested by your current ‘Tao,’ it will sooner or later become your greatest ‘effect’ of calamity.”

"Some things should be asked when they need to be asked; the longer they are kept hidden, the greater the trauma will be."

Hector fell silent. He knew that in the face of someone of Macado's caliber, any attempt to conceal one's thoughts was nothing more than a child's game.

Chapter 72 Reality is "This Moment"

"How...how should I digest this?" For the first time, he asked this question, which had troubled him for months, in a tone that was almost like "asking for advice."

“It’s very simple.” Makado extended a withered finger and gently tapped the indestructible stone table in front of him, which was made of black volcanic rock. “Look at it, feel it, acknowledge it.”

“What you see... is real, but it has nothing to do with our 'now'.”

"You may not understand this statement, but it is true."

“They are some ‘fragments,’ some… ‘possibilities.’” Makado’s voice became distant and profound, as if he were telling a myth long forgotten by time.

"The result was that the stars went out of control, and 'psychic energy'... let's call it that for now, completely spiraled out of control, turning into a chaotic tidal wave that devoured everything."

"It is a 'possibility' that is older and more vast than the Milky Way itself, and it concerns the entire universe."

“Our ‘reality’ grows on the land where ‘they’ have turned into fertilizer, just like trees and soil, which are ultimately different ‘things’.”

Hector listened quietly, his heart churning with turmoil.

"The birth of the Emperor... was not accidental, child. It was merely a possibility. All the surviving fragments of consciousness, all the souls struggling in the long night, harbored the most primal and frantic yearning for 'order' and 'survival.' And a part of his soul, forever, bears the imprint of that ancient... fragment." (Adapted from the Shamanic Soul Fragment Theory)

"We only know fragments of that 'past,' only the outline and direction, but no details."

"So when he stood up and decided to create a completely new future for mankind, he chose the path he is on now."

"He no longer believed in the variable 'human nature' and instead embraced absolute rationality. He no longer tried to integrate the uncontrollable 'divinity' but instead used the harshest 'imperial truth' to ban all faith and superstition."

"He wants to forge an indestructible, absolutely rational, and infallible steel body for humanity. To this end, he is even willing to... personally sever the umbilical cord called 'myth' that connects us to the past."

"But we forgot, or rather... had to choose to forget at the beginning, an even older truth: too much rigidity leads to breakage. Unrelenting force may have cut off all the branches reaching towards us, but it also made us, this great tree, lose all the 'resilience' to cope with the storm. The empire is already too big, so big that... it can no longer bend down."

Makado sighed, his gaze returning to the sturdy stone table.

“Now, do you understand, child? What you see is neither the ‘future’ nor the ‘past’. What you stand on, this cold empire filled with iron and blood, is your only and the one you must protect… ‘reality’.”

"Reality is this moment, this place, the empire of mankind."

“You are not a pawn in our carefully planned game. At least to me, you are an unexpected surprise, a ‘variable.’ Your philosophy and your abilities are unique in my long life. Don’t try to guess what we have seen before.”

"The Emperor did not tell me why you appeared, and perhaps... it has nothing to do with him either. Our conversation was not at his behest."

"All I know is, child, I need you, the human empire needs you, especially after the Ulano Celebration, my feelings have become even stronger."

"The name of this academy comes from the Emperor's honesty towards you after you have completed the test—we know 'you' and we support you."

"It is also our expectation of you, as a precious 'variable'—we hope you can seize a glimmer of hope."

"Your 'path' is excellent. It brings a long-lost touch of 'softness' to the empire's overly rigid steel body. But you must remember, your mission is not to replicate anything. Your mission is to infuse this steel body with a completely new soul that allows it to 'live.' So that it won't suffer a great disaster one day in the future because of its own 'excessive rigidity and fragility.'"