Tempering

Fu Qinghai was assigned to an empty room belonging to a fallen Space Marine, right next to Ogedei.

A private individual rest cabin was a high-tier luxury on a warship, as ordinary crew members were typically housed in cabins of two to four people.

Fu Qinghai was hauled out of bed by Ogedei very early.

There was no concept of morning or night in space, but Fu Qinghai simply felt he hadn't slept enough.

Bleary-eyed, Fu Qinghai followed Ogedei as they walked through the bright, narrow crew corridors.

Ogedei spoke as they walked: "According to the Legion's standard procedure, hundreds of age-appropriate boys selected by the Stormseer undergo years of closed-door training at the Legion Monastery. Only the top few who excel in their performance are eligible to receive the Ascension Surgery."

Ogedei looked straight ahead, his expression stern, and said: "I am not a man who likes to break rules or pull strings. Since you have no one to compete against, you must achieve the standards of the top three from the Monastery in the past before I will allow you to participate in the Ascension Rite. Furthermore, Master Kunto has a method for accelerated cultivation of super-organs, so I will not give you two or three years."

"Within one year, you must possess the prerequisites to undergo the transformation."

Fu Qinghai asked: "And what if I don't possess them within a year?"

Ogedei turned his head and gave a grim smile: "Then I'll give you an escape pod, throw you off the ship, and you can swim back to Cheslatan yourself."

Fu Qinghai swallowed hard. They were already an unknown number of light-years away from Cheslatan; swimming back in an escape pod was hardly a viable plan.

As they walked, the two arrived before a bulkhead marked with a danger warning sign.

Ogedei verified his identity, and the bulkhead opened.

Inside was a massive steel cage, surrounded by various blades, clubs, and the dark muzzles of ranged weapons.

Ogedei shoved Fu Qinghai into the steel cage, then pressed a few buttons on the side, and the cage slowly closed.

Ogedei said calmly: "Setting, lowest intensity level, stop threshold: minor injury."

"Initiate."

As Ogedei's voice fell, a mechanical iron fist swept horizontally from Fu Qinghai's left.

"Bang!" Fu Qinghai screamed as he was sent flying, crashing into the side of the cage before bouncing back to the floor.

"Task complete, minor injury," a cold, emotionless electronic voice announced.

Fu Qinghai lay on the ground, groaning.

Ogedei curled his lip and laughed: "Too weak."

In the frigate's mess hall.

Ogedei and Fu Qinghai sat opposite each other. Ogedei crossed his arms, looking at Fu Qinghai before him, and said:

"Your stomach is still that of an ordinary human; you cannot ingest the specialized supplements for Space Marines, but eating more to store energy is never a mistake."

Fu Qinghai lifted his head from a pile of food, his face bitter, and said:

"But I can't eat anymore, I'm stuffed to the brim."

"Keep eating. You only stop when I say so," Ogedei's emotionless voice rang out.

Nearby mortal crew members glanced over from time to time, whispering to each other.

"I really can't eat any more, it's stuck in my throat," Fu Qinghai said with a mournful face.

"Bang!"

Ogedei reached out and pressed Fu Qinghai's head into the pile of food, making the plate and table tremble.

What followed was day after day of devilish special training.

Training before ascension was primarily focused on physical conditioning and the tempering of mental willpower. Skill-based training and tactical studies came mostly after ascension; after all, Space Marines possessed near-infinite lifespans, and as long as they successfully ascended, they would have plenty of time to learn military skills.

But even if it was just physical conditioning and mental tempering, by Ogedei's high-intensity standards, it was still more than enough for Fu Qinghai to endure.

Under the constant, high-intensity grind that lasted day after day and month after month, Fu Qinghai's sense of time became blurred. He could no longer perceive the passage of time, his memories grew hazy, and he gradually began to forget that he came from Earth in his past life, forgetting that he was still in a reincarnation world.

During this period, that voice from the reincarnation world never sounded again.

Thanks to the advanced medical technology of the Warhammer world and the occasional care from Master Kunto.

No matter how Ogedei tortured Fu Qinghai the day before, he would be restored to his original state by the next day, though the memory of the pain did not fade with the recovery of his flesh; it remained branded in his mind.

Except for a brief Warp Jump conducted just after leaving the outer orbit of Cheslatan, the entire frigate had so far relied on its Sub-light Engine to crawl through the vast, empty space at a "snail's pace."

The dull, monotonous voyage also gave Ogedei plenty of time to torment Fu Qinghai.

Every Legion had different standards for screening Space Marine candidates. Some Legions liked to play deadly battle royales with elimination rounds; others used specific types of giant beasts as targets for assessment.

Fu Qinghai could sense that Ogedei also harbored an obsession. His act of recruiting new soldiers on a frigate did not conform to the rules of the Empire or the Legion, so he hoped Fu Qinghai would be outstanding enough to prove that his judgment was sound.

Before he knew it, four months had passed.

In the training cage.

Wearing only training shorts, naked and covered in scars, Fu Qinghai stood in the center.

Head bowed, back hunched, he gasped for air.

"Beep—low-level intensity, one hour, completed."

A cold, emotionless electronic voice rang out overhead.

Ogedei watched the exhausted youth from outside the training cage, a satisfied smile on his face.

He had not told Fu Qinghai that the training cage was a piece of auxiliary equipment designed specifically for Space Marines; even at its lowest intensity setting, it was not something a mortal could endure.

Mortals were strictly forbidden from entering the training cage, and in past selection processes for Space Marine aspirants, there had never been a training phase involving the cage. Even those candidates who ranked at the top of the Legion Monastery had never stepped foot in one before undergoing their transformation surgeries.

It wasn't that Ogedei was intentionally trying to torture Fu Qinghai to death; it was simply that the conditions on the frigate were rudimentary, lacking the specialized training facilities found in the Legion Monastery, so he had to make do with what he had and try putting Fu Qinghai in the training cage.

He hadn't expected the boy to actually hold on.

The towering Talal appeared silently beside Ogedei at some point, both of them watching Fu Qinghai as he gasped for air inside the training cage.

"Master Kunto says he is ready. What about this child? Is he ready?"

Ogedei chuckled softly. "He is quite good."

The hulking A-Fu, sitting in his wheelchair, continued, "The kid's baseline physical condition is decent. No radiation poisoning, no messy hidden injuries, no strange drug addictions."

"For a boy from the slums of the lower hive city, that is quite rare."

Ogedei narrowed his eyes and said, "The most important thing is, despite his usual cheeky attitude toward me, he has actually persisted through all this training. His tolerance for pain, his mental willpower... I don't know what is going on in Locke's head, but I know there is something supporting him, something I cannot understand."

Talal remained noncommittal, saying flatly, "Everyone who can become a Space Marine has strong willpower."

Ogedei hummed twice and said, "He has talent in other areas as well. You will see later."

Meanwhile, Fu Qinghai, slumped in the training cage and gasping for breath, could not hear a word the two were saying, even though he was only a few meters away.

His black hair was matted with sweat, hanging down over his forehead.

His ears were ringing, unable to hear any sound, and his entire brain felt dizzy, almost incapable of thought.

Having just been released from the relentless, saturated attacks coming from all directions, Fu Qinghai was on the verge of collapse.

This was his longest record yet.

After resting for a long while, Fu Qinghai finally raised his head to look at Ogedei outside the cage.

Ogedei nodded, signaling that he could come out.

Fu Qinghai stood up shakily and followed Ogedei out of the hatch.

Four months of high-intensity training had pushed Fu Qinghai's body to its breaking point.

Every organ and component of the human body has a different lifespan.

Excessive training and use lead to premature wear and tear.

Professional fighters and soccer strikers are more prone to dementia after retirement; similar issues plague the knees of sprinters, the elbows of tennis players, and the ankles of basketball players.

But neither Ogedei nor Fu Qinghai worried about this problem.

Because once the promotion and transformation surgery began, these issues would ultimately be resolved.

The transformation surgery for a Space Marine is not merely a matter of artificial biochemical organ replacement.

Artificial biochemical organ modification had already appeared during the savage technological era of the warlord conflicts on Earth, where various uncontrolled genetic technologies developed wildly, leading to all sorts of modified warriors clashing fiercely across Terra.

However, it was only the Emperor who led his Thunder Warriors—the unstable, first-generation version of the Space Marines—to conquer and unify Earth.

It is rumored that the genetic modification technology for Space Marines originated from a deal between the Emperor and the Chaos Gods of the Warp, rather than being a simple technological invention or innovation.

Furthermore, legend has it that the Emperor ultimately cheated the Chaos Gods of the Warp. No one knows what promises the Emperor made to them, but he did not fulfill his end of the bargain.

Consequently, the Chaos Gods used an accident to banish the blueprints of the Space Marines—the embryonic incubation tanks of the twenty Primarchs—to the far corners of the universe.

That, however, is a story for another time.

The point to be made here is this: the transformation surgery of a Space Marine is different from ordinary biochemical organ modification.

In a sense, it is truly an elevation of one's level of existence.

In a dim, cramped cabin, there was a table and two chairs.

Fu Qinghai sat upright two meters away from the table, while Ogedei and Talal sat on the other side.

"Ahem..." Talal cleared his throat and said, "According to standard procedure, an official from the Administratum should be conducting this screening, but we..."

Ogedei raised a hand, cutting Talal off, and said:

"No need for such formalism. I am not interested in your life experiences in the lower hive city. I have only one question for you, Locke."

"How did you know about the internal rebellion within the White Scars Legion?"

After asking, Ogedei stared intensely into Fu Qinghai's eyes.

It's finally here, Fu Qinghai thought.

The fact that an internal rebellion had occurred within the White Scars was known throughout the Legion, but the expedition fleet included not only mortal crew members belonging to the Imperial military but also chroniclers from various worlds. They were civilians who didn't understand military discipline or confidentiality protocols, but that didn't mean information about the White Scars' internal strife was circulating everywhere.

Communication across the Warhammer 40K universe was difficult enough as it was; Space Marine Legions could only rely on the intermittent, fragmented messages of Astropaths to communicate. When would it ever be the turn of a lower-hive slum dweller like Locke to enjoy Astropathic communication services? Moreover, as soon as Horus launched his rebellion, the Chaos Gods in the Warp stirred up Warp storms, effectively severing almost all Astropathic communication across the galaxy.

When he failed to bait any information out of Ogedei that day, Fu Qinghai knew this Space Marine would eventually force him to reveal his source of information. He just hadn't expected him to be so patient, waiting until now to ask.

Fu Qinghai took a deep breath and said:

"I dreamed it."

"Dreamed it?" Ogedei and Talal asked in unison.

Clearly, they were not mentally prepared for this answer.

"Yes, believe it or not, I saw it in a dream, and I firmly believe in what I saw."

I'll just say whatever comes to mind; believe it or not, that's your problem.

Ogedei and Talal frowned and exchanged glances, seeing the unspoken words in each other's eyes.

A psyker?

Ogedei and Talal both thought of this simultaneously.

There are many types of psykers, and divination is one of the major categories.

Ogedei said in a deep voice, "Kid, you'd better be honest and stop playing games; this concerns whether or not you can participate in the promotion."

Fu Qinghai shrugged, leaned back against the chair, and stopped talking.

He wore the look of someone who couldn't care less about the consequences.

"Divination can show fragments of future scenes; do you think this counts as divination?" Talal asked, tilting his head.

"If he is a psyker, things get more complicated... it involves the Black Ships, Navigator houses, the Scholastica Psykana, the Legion Librarius..." After asking, Talal began to mutter to himself while rubbing his chin.

"..." Ogedei knew what Talal was trying to express. He was silent for a moment before saying:

"When Locke boarded the ship, didn't our Navigator say anything?"

Talal replied, "That is exactly what I was about to say. If Locke had psychic potential, Vanriel would have spoken up long ago."

Ogedei asked, "Could it be that he's only a Navigator apprentice, so it wasn't detected?"

"Who knows." Talal curled his lip.

Affected by Warp storms, this Navigator had been unable to perform his duties for a long time, causing the Dagger to be unable to perform a Warp Jump and forcing it to travel at sub-light speeds.

The communication and transportation of the Imperium of Man are heavily dependent on the Warp. Human psykers are mutated humans capable of communicating with Warp energy. Psykers are unwelcome in most parts of the Imperium because they are dangerous and uncontrollable, but two types of psykers are exceptions: Astropaths, who communicate between all planets and fleets across the Imperium's territory, and Navigators, who rely on the third eye on their foreheads to see the light of the Astronomican, guiding fleets through the treacherous Warp.

Watching the two of them chat right in front of him, Fu Qinghai didn't say a word.

One lie requires countless more to cover it up; the more you say, the more mistakes you make.

The history of the White Scars Legion came from novels he had read in his previous life, which, for his current self, was nothing more than a fleeting dream, so saying he dreamed it was technically correct.

After discussing for a while and asking a few more questions about Fu Qinghai's dream, Ogedei made up his mind to proceed with the original plan.

He made the final decision, saying, "Forget about those bureaucratic institutions. It's not even certain whether Locke has psychic potential. This kid is one of us now; we can deal with the psychic matter when we rendezvous with Lord Yesugei in the future."

And so, this crude political vetting meeting came to an end.