Absolute isolation

The facilities around the desert were dismantled one after another, including the bodies and wooden signs. All entrances were officially closed; only the medical zone still saw aircraft coming and going.

Grand Duke William finally breathed a sigh of relief. Those ten shiploads of ammunition had not been given away for nothing. Most, most, most, most, most, most, most importantly, his son had made the cut!

Forget ten shiploads of ammunition. Even another ten wouldn't hurt... probably.

Duke William hurried home, taking the steps through his magnificent gates two at a time. Never before had his sprawling estate felt so large. His wife had already spent two days kneeling on the broken stones, seeking the Emperor's forgiveness. The Grand Duke's arrival finally put her mind at ease, and she told him everything.

Even Grand Duke William paled when he heard of the intrusion of a warp daemon. Local psykers were swiftly summoned to perform the necessary examinations, checking everyone nearby, cats included.

Grand Duke William gazed at the shattered ancestral relic, overcome with emotion. Even after hundreds upon thousands of years, his ancestor still protected his descendants.

"All right, stop kneeling. Let's do something more practical."

Grand Duke William ordered the servants to level his back garden and erect an enormous statue of the Emperor.

Nearby Ecclesiarchy officials hurried over and entered into extensive, multilevel discussions with Grand Duke William on several key subjects, including the investment, the statue's design, and subsequent publicity.

Grand Duke William waved a hand. Just build it. If his son became a Space Marine, he would even pay for an enormous statue of the Emperor in the very center of the desert, one visible from space.

Had those unpleasant incidents not happened earlier, Grand Duke William would gladly have paid a price to send his son a message telling him to withdraw from the remaining trials. After all, his achievement in the desert trial was already enough to boast about for a lifetime. Now, however, the Grand Duke dared not make a move. He could only find various ways to grease the palms of the Imperialis Militia, asking them to pay closer attention and respond faster if anything happened.

Those selected were overjoyed, while those who failed were naturally devastated, especially the families of the boys who could not be saved and lay buried forever beneath the yellow sands.

Since many of the selected boys were in poor condition, Evan waved a hand: treat the sick, give the healthy more food, and let everyone rest for thirty days. Of course, each boy lived alone, and even food deliveries were handled by robots.

This was a trial disguised as rest: enduring solitude.

After all, you never knew what might happen in battle. Even someone as powerful as Primarch Guilliman had once been knocked out into space and left drifting for a very, very long time.

It was also necessary to protect these outstanding children. If they were actually sent home, what if someone assassinated them to eliminate the competition? They were only children. If they were all Astartes recruits, that might have been worth considering, turning assassination into another selection trial.

Evan also had to consider how to conduct the next stage. In the past, they would have been dumped onto an alien planet teeming with xenos to survive in the wilderness, or required to retrieve a particular item to qualify.

But that was generally done when there were enough Astartes available to ensure the boys could be rescued quickly if they encountered something beyond their ability to handle.

Clearly, Evan did not know the Multi Shadow Clone Technique, so he could only devise a trial that the Imperialis Militia could manage alone.

He couldn't just toss them into a zoo to play survival games. If he really did that, their Chapter might be nailed to the Space Marines' wall of shame.

The candidates who had survived the desert trial were generally sound in both willpower and physical strength, with one exception.

Evan took out Xiao Lan's file. According to the medical examination just performed, the boy was severely malnourished. His feet had been badly rubbed raw, and his entire body was covered in abrasions. Judging by his blood loss alone, he should never have reached the finish line.

How strange.

Evan put down the file and continued considering the next trial. Resistance to the warp and loyalty to the Emperor definitely had to be tested. Come to think of it, should I recruit the especially loyal ones or the especially disloyal ones? My next project doesn't seem particularly... loyal.

According to the Green Templars' Chaplain, there were apparently also stages testing perception and control? What a shame. If only the Chaplain were still alive.

The Chaplains of the White Scars and their successor Chapters were exceptionally capable compared with those of other Chapters. During the Emperor's great crusade, four Legions had spent extended periods far from the Imperium, operating within enemy territory: the Night Lords, the Alpha Legion, the White Scars, and the Raven Guard.

The first two were responsible for assassination, fomenting disorder, spreading terror, and the like. Both Legions had now betrayed the Imperium and turned to Chaos-or at least the Night Lords' betrayal was certain. Meanwhile, as the Imperium's finest scouts and decapitation-strike specialists, the White Scars had long roamed its darkest corners. They had the finest Chapter Chaplains, capable of keeping the entire Chapter loyal.

In the style of Jaghatai Khan's sons, a motorcycle race was practically mandatory. But there was more than one kind of gene-seed now, so he had to consider well-rounded development.

I can't exactly hold an Olympics, can I? Deciding on the next trial is such a headache.

Let's look at the files first.

Evan picked up a few more files.

Kazhaniv. Ugh, what a mouthful. Oh, this is the tough kid who beat the hell out of a desert wolf. If I belonged to the Space Wolves Chapter, I'd definitely take you. Excellent physical condition, good ideas too. I wonder how your learning ability and warp resistance are.

Gorgon. Why does that sound like a shaman's name? Apparently an outstanding son of some great noble family. Huh, his grades are this good? You really can't judge a book by its cover.

Enke. What's this? Nicknamed "Little Computer"? Always likes analyzing data. Shouldn't a Techmarine snap him up? Guaranteed admission to a Forge World for a hundred years of study abroad?

William woke in a daze and shot upright.

"Where am I? I think I passed the trial. What's happening now?"

Before him was a cramped, completely enclosed room containing only a bed, a table, and a toilet. There wasn't even a chair; he had to sit on the bed.

An electronic screen hung on the wall, explaining his current situation.

"I passed? I passed the trial? I made it to the next round!" Little William was beside himself with excitement before he even finished reading the first line.

This was an immense honor for his William Family, and the finest expression of loyalty to the Emperor.

In an instant, Little William brimmed with ambition, ready to drive out Chaos and restore the Imperium of Man.

He calmed his excitement and continued reading the screen. It displayed an assessment of Little William's physical condition, which amounted to nothing more than overexertion and nutritional deficiencies.

Next objective: Rest here and await the next round of selection. Waiting period: Unknown.

If you wish to withdraw from selection, press the red button above the screen.

Food will be delivered through the mechanical hatch. Consuming all of it is recommended to maintain your physical condition.

Food had already emerged from the mechanical hatch and been placed on the table. It consisted of a week's supply of food blocks and bars containing all the nutrients the human body needed, along with emergency water pouches. As an Upper Hive noble, Little William had never eaten anything like this.

Ugh, this tastes awful. It's sticking in my throat. Better have some water.

This was a completely enclosed little room with its own ventilation system and not even a clock. Day and night depended entirely on whether he switched the light on or off.

Lights off. Sleep.

He had no idea how long he slept. When Little William woke, he ate again. Once he had eaten and drunk his fill and put away the remaining food, what was there to do? Exercise, perhaps. He went through every exercise he could perform on a bed, then fell asleep again in exhaustion.

Elsewhere, Enke had truly sunk into extreme boredom. There was no data, no information, and nothing he could do. Every day, he ate, drank, and calculated the time.

It was unbearable. Yet he did not know that he possessed an overwhelming advantage in this seemingly simple trial.

Enke's friend Frosa was still lying unconscious in bed.

Xiao Lan, meanwhile, had plunged into utter bliss.

What kind of life is this? No scavenging through rubbish for food, no stealing every day and risking being caught, chased down, and beaten? I can just lie in this comfortable bed and food comes out on its own?

Is this the heavenly life rich people live? This is wonderful.

To him, these nutritious food blocks and bars were already far better than the corpse starch blocks he could normally obtain only when he was lucky.

Ah, bliss.

Had Evan not replaced all the text with spoken announcements to accommodate his limited literacy, he would have finished the week's food in two or three days.

Evan had laid a trap here. Since this was a completely sealed environment, none of them knew the exact time, so he ordered seven days' worth of supplies to be delivered every six days. He was sure many of their body clocks would end up in some truly bizarre states.

The first food and water delivery had arrived right at the beginning. Nobody thought anything of it, assuming they would rest for a week. Most paid little attention to the second delivery, believing they had been unconscious for too long upon arrival. By then, many of their body clocks were already disrupted. Sometimes they slept for three hours but thought an entire night had passed; sometimes they had been awake for only seven hours and assumed the day was over. When they tried to take a short nap, they might accidentally sleep for ten hours without realizing it.

Nobody knew what time it was. They tried to rest, only to discover that the more they rested, the more tired they became. It was almost counterproductive.

Some clever ones had begun trying to keep time, such as letting water trickle into the bathroom sink and treating each full basin as one cycle. But they still could not keep track of how long they slept.

By now, the little rest rooms were like solitary confinement cells, driving people mad.

When the third food delivery arrived, even those trying to calculate the time lost their composure. Their calculations were twenty-seven hours short-a day on this planet lasted twenty-seven hours-which meant they believed they had underestimated their sleep by twenty-seven hours.

Only a few remained unaffected.

William was one of them. His method of keeping time was highly unusual: he used exercise.

His usual training had instilled a routine in him, and he roughly knew how long each set of physical exercises took. Thus, he followed an unshakable cycle of training, eating, training, eating, and sleeping. His sleep was especially regular, since he pushed himself close to exhaustion almost every day, and his body required a certain amount of rest to recover.

The fine qualities passed down through Little William's family were fully reflected in him: constantly growing stronger, constantly seeking to surpass himself, and improving both his physical and mental resilience through exercise.

Enke, meanwhile, was deeply puzzled. His timekeeping was extraordinarily precise, almost identical to the actual elapsed time, yet the food rations delivered every six days still confused him.

So he began calculating the probability that this was a trial, the probability that the food rations were a trap, and even the probability that the objective of this trial was to escape this little cell.

He searched the tiny space available to him for anything that might help him escape, or for cleverly concealed mechanisms.

Confidence and powerful, precise calculation were Enke's greatest advantages. He did not doubt his own calculations. He could be counted among the few candidates who had guessed Evan's intentions.

Xiao Lan continued living his heavenly life, occasionally wondering how his old friends in the Underhive were doing. What a shame. If only they had dared to take a chance too.

Xiao Lan had a "long-term partner" in the Underhive, nicknamed Wild Rat, whose dream was to die from eating too much. If only he had come too.

This trial was ineffective against another type as well: the "brainless and heartless" boys-not in the literal sense, of course. They simply didn't care about such "minor details." They slept when tired and ate when hungry, following their bodies' instincts.

Huh? Extra food? Fantastic! Let's have a late-night snack.

Perhaps only prolonged boredom could break them.

Otist was both delighted and troubled. The large-scale selection had left quite a few people dead, and opposition to him had grown. The public dared not direct its anger at the Astartes, so Otist, the planet's effective ruler, bore most of their fury.

What delighted him was that Evan was currently staying at his residence. From now on, seal that room up and preserve it!

Whenever a distinguished guest came to visit in the future, he would assign them the second-best room. When they asked why they couldn't stay in that other room, he could invoke Chapter Master Evan and show off-beeeep. The guest would instinctively understand Evan's exalted status, then settle into the second-best room. Without doing anything overt, Otist would stand a rank above them.

Ah, just thinking about it feels wonderful.

I'd better take good care of Evan. All that public resentment outside is no problem at all. The longer Chapter Master Evan stays here, the greater my prestige and the more secure my position.

Evan was now living in sumptuous luxury, surrounded by beautifully carved beams and painted pillars. He just found the entirely Western artistic aesthetic a little difficult to adjust to. It had something of a German flavor, mixed with a touch of French taste.

Coming from an ancient Eastern nation in the human world of 3k, Evan suddenly had a heretical thought: What would a portrait of the Emperor look like in ink wash?

As Evan's thoughts wandered, his communicator began beeping.

"What? The fourth food delivery, and someone pressed the red button to withdraw? It's only been nineteen days."

An Upper Hive noble had finally been unable to endure any more "rest" and withdrawn. He could go home and live comfortably as a noble anyway, with his advancement through the desert trial as political capital. Withdrawing during "rest" to return home and inherit the family estate was a decent excuse.

This group was often the most outstanding, but it was also often the least steadfast.

They had a way out, and the boys from the middle hive also had homes to return to.

Only the Underhive boys, though few in number at just over a hundred, had not lost a single candidate to withdrawal.

Of course, there was no telling what the others were thinking. Xiao Lan simply intended to keep eating for as long as he could. After these days of meals, his malnourished body had improved enormously. He was finally no longer skin and bones.

Several more Upper Hive boys withdrew afterward, preparing to inherit their family estates. When the fifth food delivery arrived, dozens pressed the red button.

With no sense of seasons or passing time, nothing to do, and overwhelming boredom, these boys at the most energetic stage of their lives were nearly driven mad.

When the sixth and final food delivery arrived, the selection would actually end that very evening, yet more than a hundred noble boys suddenly withdrew.

Even Evan was surprised. The steadfast will these boys had shown in the desert was entirely absent here. Was having a way out truly the greatest stumbling block?

Could the finest children from across the planet, who had come to become Astartes, really not endure even thirty days?

Evan arrived that night at the "dark little room" zone established for the selection. He wanted to see the children's condition for himself.

Of the more than fifteen hundred candidates who finally emerged that night, almost all had disrupted body clocks. Only a tiny handful, Enke among them, still maintained stable physical conditions. The others had suffered severe blows to both body and mind.

"Congratulations on passing the second round of selection. I believe you are now capable of enduring solitude and a life without day or night in space. Next, we will conduct tests related to Psyker Power to assess your loyalty to the Emperor and your resistance to the warp."

A squad of soldiers guided the candidates toward the prepared venue.

Rest? Haven't you just finished resting?

Many psykers had been invited here. They would simulate warp fluctuations, even producing simulated temptations from a Dark God. Naturally, these would not be whispers viciously cursing the Emperor; that would probably get the psykers themselves hauled before the Inquisition.

Instead, they would draw out the desires within the boys' hearts, including family conflicts, friends and enemies, cravings for fine food and power, desires for battle and slaughter, and so on.

The vast space was filled with Amplifier Arrays used by the psykers. These would ensure every subject received identical Psyker Power fluctuations, guaranteeing fairness.

Powerful Greater Psykers stood guard around them, reportedly borrowed from an Astra Militarum general. They were probably figures on the level of a Psyker Mentor.

The boys each found a seat and prepared to begin meditating.