Liam's Routine

As Huron enjoyed the system data, the Emperor was also enjoying the construction results of Badab.

Because of the solid improvements in daily life, coupled with the Human Evangelical doctrines being normal to the point of jarringly out of place, the religion of all Badab quickly unified, allowing the Emperor's perspective to expand immensely.

Although most of the time it was as crude and lagging as an old movie, for someone whose power wasn't enough to project all the way to Terra, it was already a rare pastime amidst the imprisonment.

Badab's overall improvements were naturally seen by Him, reminding Him of Terra during the Great Crusade.

"That vibrant vitality, that state of all things striving against one another, is still vivid before my eyes."

But then He recalled some of the characteristics of the Imperium of Man He had seen earlier, and felt somewhat speechless.

"I don't understand, how could the Imperium of Man turn into this after just ten thousand years, could it be that the Custodians are just freeloading?!"

Back then, when He created the Custodians, it was to set a benchmark for humanity's future evolution, calling them perfect humans. How could they mess the Imperium up into this ghost of a shape!

The Custodians better be facing massive external pressure and trying to hold the line, leaving them no time to care about the Imperium's internal affairs, otherwise He was going to give this bunch a mouthful of slaps.

While the Emperor was routinely eavesdropping and muttering to Himself, the Astral Claws' Librarian was undergoing routine training.

After over a year of screening, those non-psykers who survived the Emperor's flames were all released.

Aside from Master of Sanctity Damien taking the chaplains every day to hoodwink them into joining the Reclusiam, their daily lives hadn't been overly affected.

In just a year's time, Badab's development made them feel like a lifetime had passed, causing them quite a bit of perplexity.

However, to prevent accidents, the psykers were all forcibly drafted into the Librarius, becoming reserve members of the Chapter's Librarians.

Liam, as a Theta-class psyker, was naturally no exception.

Right now, under the guidance of the Librarian, he was trying to familiarize himself with and develop his psyker power.

"Remember, don't force it. Flow with the feeling of the psyker power, only guide and interfere with it, do not forcibly twist its trajectory. At the same time, pay attention to your own feedback. Once you feel danger, do not hesitate, immediately withdraw from the Warp."

After the Librarian finished stating the precautions, Liam began to meditate, and attempted to influence the Librarian before him.

As he wholeheartedly guided his psyker power, his soul began to shine in the Warp, alerting the Warp Daemons that there was a rift leading to the material realm here.

Yet once a daemon arrived and looked closely, it discovered that his soul contained wisps of golden light.

"Quack! It's a Cursed One fishing, everyone run away quickly!"

A knowledgeable daemon turned pale with fright and bolted like it had seen a ghost, hating only that it didn't grow two more legs.

Although the other small-fry daemons didn't know what a "Cursed One" was, seeing the big shot run away in panic, they also unhappily dispersed.

This made the Emperor, who was indeed fishing in secret, feel somewhat regretful.

Badab's psykers might seem completely normal, but in reality they were all His fulcrums, or rather, His chosen ones.

If any daemon attempted to invade these psykers' souls, He could instantly pull them into His own domain, and then gobble them up to enhance His power.

Pity that after fishing for over a year, these ignorant small-fry daemons had pretty much been eaten up, and the ones remaining were all veterans drawn in by the attraction.

"What a bunch of small fries, why don't they dare to take a gamble? Corrupting one of My chosen ones, wouldn't that give you tons of face?"

The Emperor continued His routine eavesdropping and muttering.

Liam couldn't hear the Emperor's voice, but he could sense that invoking his psyker power was becoming easier and easier, and the frequency of experiencing a sense of crisis was dropping.

Just like now, most of his energy was focused on manipulating the psyker power and influencing the Librarian's thoughts, leaving only a tiny fraction of his energy for self-protection.

Even so, he only felt the Librarian's thoughts before him like a stone, difficult to alter; yet also like a void space, with nowhere to begin.

Among humanity's twenty-six psyker classification tiers, as a Theta-class psyker sitting at the A8 tier, his psychic spell wasn't of much use against the Delta-class Librarian sitting at the A4 tier in front of him, but he still worked hard to find the other party's flaws and train his own ability.

After half an hour had passed, Liam returned empty-handed. Yet he wasn't particularly discouraged, because the whole year had been spent just like this.

"All right, I will lower my mental defenses now, experience your psychic spell." The Librarian relaxed his mind. "Come on."

Liam manipulated his psyker power once again. This time the Librarian put up no defense, and he finally succeeded in influencing the other party's thoughts.

Yet the Librarian acted as if completely unaffected, critiquing his spell: "Hmm... Concentration enhancement, harboring goodwill toward you, a supernatural physical and mental comfort."

After feeling it for a moment, the Librarian shook off the spell's influence.

"It is indeed a telepathic discipline, but your psyker power lacks invasiveness." He critiqued, "If you want to utilize your psyker power on the battlefield, you can only look for grunt troops whose psychic level is far below yours. Facing an enemy of the same level, it will be very hard to break through their mental barrier, and I'm afraid it's still not as good as casting a basic psychic shock."

"All in all, it has no great use for combat. Your best position is instructor, astropath, navigator, or other supporting roles."

Liam accepted the criticism humbly: "I understand, Lord Angel."

The Librarian corrected him: "No need to call me Angel, just call me Astartes Brother. In the future you will also become one of us, the Chapter Master has a huge demand for Librarians."

"Understood, Astartes Brother." Liam smoothly adapted. "Can I go meet my family now?"

"Yes, your daily training is finished." The Librarian contacted the guesthouse. "Right on time, your family has already arrived at the guesthouse."

"Thank you, Astartes Brother." Liam left the training room happily.

As soon as he arrived at the guesthouse, the children who had been waiting for a long time immediately pounced forward: "Big Brother Liam!"

While patting the children's little heads one by one to show comfort, Liam examined their condition.

The skin that had once been sickly pale from a lack of sunlight now had a healthy flush again; the hair that had been scorched and discolored from malnutrition had recovered its original state; and even the original problem of rotten teeth and incomplete gums had improved.

Most importantly, compared to the fearful and jittery mental state of hiding out in abandoned pipes in the past, happy expressions now adorned the children's faces.

Sending the children to Lord Angel's orphanage is probably the best choice I've ever made, he thought silently.

"Big Brother Liam, the teacher took us to visit the cable factory today." A little girl hugged Liam's thigh tightly as she spoke, "Those super hard copper wires can actually be twisted into circles just like spicy strips!"

Liam now knew the manufacturing process of cables, but he was somewhat curious about what "spicy strips" were.

"It's a little snack introduced by the Lord Angels, you know! I heard the teacher say..."

After listening to the children's chattering introductions, Liam roughly understood.

This was a snack with a starch base, added with a large amount of salt, oil, and seasoned with industrial capsaicin. Small shops selling this stuff could be seen everywhere in the Underhive.

This was also a welfare policy pushed by Huron. After industry gradually closed its technical gaps, similar seasonings could be mass-produced, and thus this little snack, which would have been considered a luxury item in the past, came into being.

As for safety issues?

Don't kid the Underhive superman, these folks could eat industrial capsaicin straight as a meal, let alone mere heavy oil and heavy salt.