Working Hard, Treating Those Around You Well, That Is the Right Way

Liam continued listening to the chaplain's sermon: Book of Genesis and Mission, Book of Virtues, Book of Laws, Book of Wisdom, Collection of Prayers and Manifestos...

The content of each part was actually quite brief, mostly using around a hundred characters to tell a small story and then admonish people on how they ought to behave. Throughout the process, a fair amount of popular legal knowledge was also interspersed.

Once the sermon concluded, the chaplain put down the scriptures and had the clerics at the back of the preaching hall push out the compressed starch blocks prepared in advance.

"Thank you all for listening today; the Emperor will not let His subjects starve. Please queue up now; each person may receive one portion of compressed starch blocks."

Liam: "?"

This, this, this, using food to win people over? Was this not a desecration of the Emperor?

In a daze, Liam moved continuously forward with the queue of people, accepting a portion of starch blocks from the chaplain's hands.

"May the Emperor protect you, child."

"Praise the Emperor."

Liam retreated to a chair on the side and sat down, waiting for the chaplain to finish his work.

After a while, the hundred or so people in the preaching hall had mostly dispersed, leaving only twos and threes confessing or praying to the sculpture of the Emperor on the preaching platform.

Seeing the chaplain become free, Liam finally found him: "Chaplain, where are the scriptures you preach from sold? I'd like to go buy a copy."

The chaplain looked him up and down: "Are you a new believer?"

Liam nodded.

The chaplain went into the room behind the preaching hall, and after a moment emerged with a copy of the Gospel of Humanity, handing it to him: "This is distributed for free."

Liam accepted the scriptures: "Thank you, my name is Liam, and I'm the deputy director of the Carter District Construction Engineering Team. You can look for me if anything comes up, and I'll do my best to help if I can."

The chaplain raised an eyebrow: "Oh, then we're colleagues. My name is James, and I'm the grand chaplain of the Austr District in Carter District, responsible for managing the religious affairs of this street."

For a moment, Liam was struck dumb: "Uh, James, if you speak like this, won't you desecrate the Emperor?"

James shook his head: "The Emperor isn't that petty. He and we are both human. Working hard and treating those around you well is the right way; putting in effort with just your lips is useless."

He recalled the various heaven-defying questions from the emergency training session earlier and truly felt that Liam was making a fuss over nothing.

A Living Saint who received the Emperor's gaze like Chapter Master Huron could raise heaven-defying questions like that and still provide solutions, so what did his little matter amount to? It was a mere breeze.

Liam did not know how to respond and used work as an excuse to make his escape: "Well, I need to go to work, see you around."

James: "See you around, remember to read the 'Ten Commandments' chapter in the scriptures; that's the content about strict crackdowns in the Badab Codex, don't break the law out of ignorance."

Liam waved his hand and fled in panic.

What kind of blasphemous remarks were these; James dared to say them, but he didn't even dare to listen.

On his way home, Liam looked at the golden scriptures in his hand and thought again about James's remarks, an inexplicable sense of dissatisfaction rising within his heart.

So impiastic, so unprofessional. Spouting utter nonsense, how can they spread the Emperor's gospel? They might as well let me do it myself.

Meanwhile, Liam felt as though someone by his ear was agreeing with his opinion and even offering some viable suggestions.

He nodded repeatedly: "That's right, let's start with the office and the engineering team. First preach in secret, and then let that fake-believing chaplain see what a real chaplain looks like."

No sooner thought than done; his office colleagues basically followed his every word, and as deputy director his voice carried even more weight than the director's, making it just right to serve as the starting point for his proselytizing.

Harboring faith in the Emperor and anger toward the fake chaplain, Liam decided to personally spread the Emperor's true gospel!

Inside the office of the Astral Claws Chapter Master, Huron, who had just concluded a meeting, opened the system panel.

Political Points: 329

National Focus Slot: New Homeland (359/360)

Decision: Unrolled

Civilian Factory: 18

Military Factory: 16

Shipyard: 5

After exercising actual control over the Palatos Hive, the number of factories had increased noticeably.

Especially after the raids on nobles yielded a large quantity of various pattern bolters, chainswords, and production lines, basic weaponry and equipment no longer needed to occupy military factory quotas.

Out of the 16 military factories, 10 were used to produce Cataphractii Terminators, one set per day; 2 were used to produce plasma guns, four per day; 2 were used to produce power swords, one per day; and 2 were used to produce Phobos-pattern Land Raiders, one per vehicle every day.

To be honest, the productivity of military factories was truly heaven-defying; based solely on these 16 military factories, he could arm an entire Chapter to the teeth in a year.

As for the growth in the number of shipyards, it greatly accelerated the void repair progress of the Chapter fleet. Coupled with actual control over the starport and shipyard above Palatos, the actual repair progress was also greatly accelerated.

All 6 Gladius-class frigates had reached a combat-ready state, 2 out of 4 strike cruisers were ready for deployment, and in addition, one battle barge was ready for deployment.

This bit of fleet might naturally fell short of making an impression in a place like Cadia, but in a backwater like the Maelstrom where everyone was at best a petty contender, it was naturally invincible.

This also gave Huron the confidence to execute the pillaging plan.

However, he still intended to drag both the Lamenters and the Mantis Warriors onto his bandwagon to join forces. On one hand, it was for insurance—as long as each of the two chapters contributed a strike cruiser and a small number of frigates, the pillaging fleet could escape even if it encountered a large warband.

On the other hand, it was for winning people over and gaining political points.

Right now the Chapter was very wealthy, but doing business in a place like Maelstrom was extremely troublesome; rather than that, it was better to use the resources to buy off the two chapters.

Moreover, Huron had not forgotten about the "Maelstrom Wardens" faction either.

According to Huron's recent explorations, the system's political point growth depended on factors such as the scale of actual control, the level of territorial development, the firmness of actual control, external influence, and faction influence. To put it simply, the more territory he held, the stronger his control and the greater his influence, the more political points he would receive.

The usefulness of political points went without saying; they were practically almighty, so Huron naturally had to find ways to expand his influence. The best way to expand influence was, of course, fighting side by side.

Unfortunately, the Warp in the Maelstrom was extremely violent and turbulent; the astropaths of the Chapter and Badab Primus had tried hard for nearly a year without managing to contact the Lamenters and Mantis Warriors—it was simply ghost-ridden.

Still, Huron wasn't too anxious; time was on his side anyway.

And now, the national focus he had waited a year for was about to be completed, and Huron was somewhat eager to see what new decisions would appear.

National Focus New Homeland (360/360) completed, gained the 5-year "Building a Homeland" buff, increasing civilian factory efficiency by 10%. Related construction and core-integration decisions have been unlocked, please make your selections.