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

"What difference is there between a sword without 'sword heart,' no matter how sharp it is, and a cold, meaningless piece of scrap metal? Is that what the empire truly needs for a bright future?"

He looked around at the young faces who were deeply shocked by his words, which were full of "treasonous" implications.

Don't assume I can provide the answers today.

"You will be the answer the academy provides!"

Hector's voice suddenly rose, resounding throughout the entire academy, exploding in the ears and souls of every student, as he spoke the ultimate purpose that would define the future mission of the entire "Intercepting Sect Academy" for the next ten thousand years...

"I, Hector Kane, have a mission to establish the 'Cultural Monastery'..."

"For the sake of a human empire, let us establish our resolve!"

"Establish a 'heart of heaven and earth'! A truly powerful heart that can encompass all things, distinguish between good and evil, uphold order amidst chaos, and nurture life amidst death!"

"Secondly, for those who cultivate spiritual energy, establish your destiny!"

"Establish a 'destiny for your survival'! A destiny that will allow you psionicists, who are seen as 'outcasts,' 'curses,' and 'tools,' to cease being pathetic prisoners bound by fear, confinement, and 'soul-binding'! A destiny that will allow you to become the true masters of your own power, the Empire's strongest shield, its sharpest sword, and its wisest eyes, to protect this homeland we all deeply love, this homeland riddled with wounds...!"

"This is the 'Dao' of the 'Dao Academy'!"

When Hector finished speaking the last word, the entire "Altar of God" was already deathly silent.

Three thousand young cultivators, like three thousand statues consecrated by a deity, stared blankly at the figure standing beneath the ancient tree, whose slender frame seemed even more majestic than the entire imperial palace.

Their breathing had almost stopped.

Their hearts, however, were pounding wildly and uncontrollably!

An unprecedented and indescribable sense of pride, belonging, and sacred mission, like a plasma reactor that had been detonated, instantly overwhelmed all their confusion and bewilderment!

They are no longer "tools"!

They will become the "heart" of the empire!

They will have their own "destiny"!

"For humanity! For the Emperor! For the Dao Academy!!!"

I don't know who it was, but the first person, with all their might, let out a fervent, soul-deep cry!

Immediately afterwards, a deafening roar of cheers, like a chain reaction that had been triggered, instantly engulfed the entire Sky Garden!

"For humanity! For the Emperor! For the Dao Academy!!!"

Three thousand young cultivators released all their excitement, pride, and hope without reservation!

The sound was so immense, so pure.

Hector watched all this quietly, a relieved smile on his face.

He knew that the three thousand seeds he had planted had finally taken root and sprouted at this moment.

He slowly raised his hand, and the thunderous cheers seemed to be soothed by an invisible hand, instantly turning into a silence filled with anticipation and awe.

“But,” his voice rang out again, like the strictest instructor pouring a bucket of cold, realistic water on these young soldiers who had just tasted the sweetness of hope, “'The heart' needs the protection of 'the law.' 'Life' needs the support of 'strength.'

"Honor is never cheap."

“One year from now, the Dao Academy will hold its second major examination.” His voice turned cold and oppressive. “This examination will be divided into two categories.”

"Firstly, it is the 'Advancing to Qi Refining' stage. All those who pass will officially receive the title of 'Qi Refiner' and become true core disciples of the academy—the same applies to students who passed this test during my seclusion."

“Secondly,” his gaze swept over Karen, Grol, and Tectus, who had already become Foundation Establishment cultivators, as well as the dozens of elite students whose cultivation had advanced to the peak of Qi Refining, “for ‘advancing to Foundation Establishment’.”

"The assessment will be conducted on all students who have mastered the Qi Refining Scroll. They will be awarded the 'Daoist Canon: Foundation Building Scroll,' which contains the techniques and supernatural abilities for breaking through from Qi Refining to Foundation Building and for subsequent cultivation."

"I must emphasize that this will be more brutal and more...real than any trial you have ever experienced before."

"You all know what happened at the 'Pivot Point.' I'm telling you clearly, advancing to the Foundation Establishment stage means either success or being possessed by a demon... and being taken away by the great sisters of the Silent Sisters."

"And the reward, too, is unprecedented." He slowly threw out the ultimate bait that was enough to drive everyone crazy.

"All those who successfully advance to the Foundation Establishment stage will be qualified to become the first batch of 'Teaching Assistants' of my 'Intercepting Sect Academy'! You will receive official positions recognized by the Empire and enjoy the same salary and honor as ordinary Astartes!"

“And among them, the most outstanding…” He paused, and a rare glint of expectation flashed in his dark eyes, which seemed to contain the birth and death of the entire universe.

"You will have the opportunity to become my... personal disciple."

The entire "Altar of God" fell into a deathly silence once again.

These four words, like a law bomb detonated at the core of a supernova, filled with supreme glory and ultimate temptation, struck the hearts of all the students fiercely!

They knew what that meant.

That means they will have the opportunity to truly touch the origin of the "Tao," which is as vast as the universe, of this mentor who is as powerful as the Primitive Being and as divine as the God!

That means they will no longer be students.

They will become the "inheritors"!

An unprecedented fire of competition and desire, powerful enough to melt steel, blazed fiercely in the hearts of three thousand young cultivators at this moment!

Just before the turbulent sea erupted completely, Hector calmly turned and slowly walked toward his own absolutely tranquil library.

He knew that his "preaching" was over.

Or rather, it was the beginning.

But another, even more important construction awaits them. It concerns the future of "Tao" and "Iron," and whether the entire "Jiejiao Academy" can truly possess its own "backbone"... the material foundation.

On either side of the main gate of the Taoist temple, two lines of text that should have appeared silently emerged:

To establish a foundation for a human empire.

To establish a destiny for psychic cultivators.

Chapter 191 Mass Production Bottlenecks

When the grand opening ceremony of Wenxinzhai was like a depth charge dropped into the abyss of Terra's power, and the violent shock it caused had not yet completely subsided, a request from Mars bypassed all conventional bureaucratic channels and appeared directly on Hector's private data board.

The communication was not initiated by General Kelbo Hall.

Rather, it was the sage, Alkan.

When that cyborg figure, composed of pure data streams and imbued with the cold beauty of logic and rationality, appeared, he cut to the chase without any pleasantries.

"Dean Kane, our collaborative project has encountered a bottleneck."

His electronic voice remained cold, but now carried an unmistakable passion belonging to the "creator."

With a sudden wave of his hand, three holographic projections of hexagonal crystal cores, crafted from a strange metal shimmering with eerie blue arcs of electricity and adorned with intricate runes and gears, appeared before Hector.

"The first batch of 'logical truth' prototypes has been completed."

Alcan's electronic voice carries a hint of a scientist's affirmation of existing achievements and a rigorous approach to future challenges.

"The data proves that their performance is a hundred times more stable than when we first started working together; their accuracy in sensing psionic fluctuations has even reached the limit of Planck's constant. From the perspective of 'devices,' they are perfect."

“But,” he changed the subject, his passionate electronic voice tinged with a hint of honest helplessness, “they are also full of ‘flaws’.”

"These three new prototypes have exhausted the entire computing power and rare resources of the 'Silent Forge' over several months. According to our most precise calculations, the cost of each one is enough to arm a full-strength Astartes squad. This cost is far from our true goal."

He projected a report filled with massive amounts of data and intricate graphs in front of Hector.

"Our ultimate goal is to control the cost of each Jade Talisman to a level comparable to the cost of equipment for a standard Astartes warrior. Only in this way can your grand plan of 'Preaching the Stars' become a reality. But now, we're stuck."

Alcana's compound eye, composed of dozens of optical sensors, was fixed on Hector, its gaze filled with a pure desire to explore the unknown truth.

“My ‘logical truth’ is missing the most crucial ‘catalyst’.”

“That is… the ‘Dao’ of you Daoist cultivators, and I need… to fully analyze it!”

"Only by perfectly analyzing and combining my most sophisticated 'instrument' with your 'Tao' which is full of 'harmony' and 'balance' can we truly solve the problem of mass production and meet the immeasurable strategic needs of the Empire's future!"

He performed an ancient salute to Hector, a salute belonging to the Mechanic Order, filled with the clanging of gears.

"Therefore, in my capacity as the chief researcher of Mars at the Imperial Psionic Political Department, I formally extend an invitation to you and to the Jiejiao Academy."

"Let's work together, Dean Kane."

"Let us work together to create a truly perfect 'work' for this universe that is unprecedented."

......

Fulcrum space station.

This is the most "neutral" location of the Psionic Political Department in the solar system.

It does not belong to the power-hungry and intriguing imperial departments of Terra, nor to the cold temples of Mars constructed of steel and gears.

It was established by the personal decree of the Imperial Regent Macado, an isolated island existing solely for "truth" itself.

At this moment, inside the core of this isolated island, in the joint laboratory codenamed "The First Furnace," a debate that would overturn the empire's technological tree is silently unfolding.

This is the land of "iron".

The walls are made of an unknown black alloy from the depths of the Martian "labyrinth" that can shield all energy fluctuations, forming a seamless whole.

The air has undergone hundreds of filtration processes, making it cold, dry, and filled with pure ozone and the scent of sacred engine oil, without a trace of "pollution" belonging to carbon-based life.

Countless data screens, shimmering with a deep blue light, floated in mid-air like loyal stars, upon which flowed a waterfall of binary hymns filled with absolute logic and mathematical beauty.

Dozens of uniquely shaped, state-of-the-art material analyzers and psionic wave detectors, filled with precision probes and energy conduits, stand silently around the laboratory like steel deities, awaiting the arrival of that "miracle."

In the heart of this scientific temple, filled with the radiance of absolute rationality, Hector Kane and the logician behind him, whose aura was already perfectly harmonious and self-consistent, were like two ancient philosophers who had strayed into a steel forest, completely out of place.

“Dean Kane,” the sage Alcanna’s cold, electronic voice broke the tense silence.

His massive cyborg body, like the master of this laboratory, was connected to all the surrounding instruments by countless shimmering data cables, forming an inseparable and vast "perception" network.

"According to the agreement we reached, all preparations have been completed. Mars is eager to witness the logic of the 'Tao'."

Behind him stood ten enlightened technical priests from the very core of his "Silent Furnace," who had also fused most of their bodies with machinery.

They are the most advanced "data eyes" on Mars; their logic engine is capable of analyzing all the physical data of an asteroid from its birth to its destruction in an instant.

But at this moment, their optical sensors, gleaming with a faint blue light, looked at the calm, mortal-like black-haired boy before them with an undisguised mixture of doubt, curiosity, and a hint of... the instinctive wariness of scientists towards "heresy" theories.

Hector did not answer immediately.

He slowly walked to the center of the laboratory, to the absolutely sterile white jade workbench that was suspended by an anti-gravity field.

“Sage Alkan,” he began calmly, “before we begin, please allow me to correct a minor ‘logical error’ in your logic.”

Alcana's compound eye, composed of dozens of optical sensors, flickered slightly.

“What you are about to witness is not the logic of the ‘Tao’.” Hector slowly shook his head, his dark eyes, which seemed to contain the birth and death of the entire universe, gleaming with wisdom.

"Because the 'Tao' itself transcends logic. It cannot be defined, quantified, or even... 'analyzed'."

"What you and all the sages can witness today is merely the vast and boundless ocean of the 'Tao' casting its shadow upon our fragile three-dimensional material world..."

He paused, a thoughtful smile playing on his lips.

"—An extremely faint, yet incredibly real 'ripple'."

Having said that, he said no more.

He took out a piece of obsidian from the Noktun volcano, which was only the size of a palm, jet black, and as smooth as jade.

It was a blank canvas.

He gently placed it on the cold jade workbench, a surface imbued with scientific and rational meaning.

Then he closed his eyes.

"—Activate the 'All Things' protocol! All logic probes, operate at full power! Capture energy fluctuations and changes in material structure in every Planck time unit!"

Alcan's electronic voice instantly became full of passion!

He had already witnessed Hector's true essence and understood that its nature was some kind of ordered energy in a higher dimension.

But he firmly believes that as long as the instruments are precise enough and the computing power is strong enough, every "ripple" must have a "waveform" that can be captured! His goal today is to analyze this "waveform" and then... replicate it!

Chapter 192 Explaining the Dao Through Tools

A deep, resonant hum, like the awakening of a giant beast, instantly echoed throughout the entire laboratory!

Dozens of state-of-the-art detection instruments were activated simultaneously!

The quantum fluctuation scanner creates an invisible net around Hector that can capture the motion of the most minute particles!

The time-series spectral analysis array began recording the wavelength and phase changes of all light in this space at a frequency of billions of times per second!