"You're back."
Romulus greeted him without looking up from the navigation routes he was organizing. A brief glance caught Arthur's mission briefing, prompting an involuntary quip.
"You can actually decipher that? Great Seeker of Secrets."
"I couldn't at first."
Arthur shook his head, casually tossing a candy wrapper into the wastebasket.
Their shared abilities had begun to specialize, diverging based on their individual behaviors and habits.
Lately, after dissecting so many bodies, he could discern the level of physical wear and tear on a human at a single glance. Coupled with the specific focus of his work, his scanning logic allowed him to deduce the production date of objects with an incredibly low margin of error.
Even when looking at an Adeptus Astartes, he subconsciously identified their traits and physical inclinations. This made instructing the Angel's Progeny much easier; at the very least, he could spot any physical issues immediately.
It certainly validated Rameses's initial theory of "establishing cognition, gathering information, and completing the entry."
For instance, if presented with a highly advanced tank from the Great Crusade era, Romulus would see its combat data. Arthur would perceive its production serial number, manufacturing date, and estimated lifespan before breakdown. Karna, on the other hand, would just see a pile of basic descriptive tags.
As for Rameses, heaven only knew what his divergent mind would perceive.
"Where is Karna?"
Romulus asked.
"Spending time with the Angels."
Arthur replied.
Karna was tasked with managing the psychological issues of the Progeny, while Arthur's responsibility was to ruthlessly drill the Angels in combat.
Arthur was the one who had selected this specific batch of Blood Angels to accompany the expedition fleet. Since Karna had become far too friendly with them, Arthur had no choice but to play the bad cop.
Basically, he was just fooling around on Baal.
Romulus nodded.
"And Rameses?"
"Catching Daemons in the Warp, and spying on Vashtorr."
Arthur continued, "Rameses took an interest in Daemon Engines. He plans to study their operating mechanisms so he can hand control of war machines over to Mortal Souls. However, the ultimate goal of this research is to decrypt the interaction model between the materium and the Warp."
"Secondly, he is also compiling the latest edition of the Librarius training manuals."
Basically, he was just fooling around in the Warp.
Romulus nodded again and immediately returned to sorting his data.
"How is the proliferation of the initial Primaris surgeries progressing?"
"Very smoothly. As long as it doesn't involve the powers of the Warp or genetic-level alterations, the various Chapters are highly receptive to it."
Arthur pulled up the information he had on hand for another review.
"Also, some of the Blood Angels' Apothecaries are already attempting to research specific biological organs to replace the Magnificat system. They are trying to use these organs to suppress their genetic thirst for blood. The exact data hasn't been submitted yet."
"Dante's workload must be skyrocketing."
Romulus opened his mouth, unsure of what else to say.
He could only muse that these were indeed the Blood Angels Apothecaries—the same ones who, in the future, would listen to Fabius Bile's nonsense and create those fast-growing Blood Fiends, leading to the assault on the Angel's Sanctum and the theft of Sanguinius's blood.
Such extreme behavior was a proud, unbroken lineage.
"I feel like the Primaris Space Marines we've introduced seem rather conservative to these Chapters?"
Romulus asked.
"Exactly."
Arthur nodded. While instructing those Apothecaries, he had thoroughly peered into their thoughts and discovered that his own moral baseline was actually the highest among them.
At the very least, the degraded version of the Primaris Space Marine modifications they introduced had stripped away all Warp elements. Every single one of those Apothecaries wanted to tinker with the genetics, or consult the Librarius to perform some ritual and mess around with dangerous Warp sorcery.
Needless to say, there was a good reason why Apothecaries were always the first to fall to corruption in a Chapter.
They knew too much and demanded too much. The crux of the issue was that their mental maturity and understanding of the universe simply couldn't support the vast amount of knowledge they wielded.
"These are the materials compiled post-investigation, classified by the severity of the offenses. It's primarily concentrated within the Blood Angels' lineage."
Arthur handed over the report.
"No matter how vibrant the flower, we shouldn't let a toddler run to the edge of a cliff to pick it without stopping them."
Scanning the cases detailed in the report, Romulus decisively forwarded all the reckless experiments these Apothecaries were planning straight to Dante.
"Very few people are capable of discarding those naive and ignorant ideas to do what is right."
Arthur nodded. He almost suspected that the people the four of them encountered right after transmigrating had been handpicked by the old man on the Golden Throne. Almost every single one of them was capable of standing on their own without pulling any disastrous stunts.
Ever since arriving at Pierde, and up until now, the humans they encountered had gradually begun to act more like typical, flawed humans.
"..."
The atmosphere between the two cooled down once again. With their brief exchange concluded, all that seemed to remain was an endless state of work.
Arthur fell deep into thought, vanishing from time to time. Whenever he returned, he brought entirely new intelligence to his companion.
Romulus meticulously reviewed their gains from Baal one more time. Thanks to the trust of the various factions, he had been involved in nearly the entire reconstruction of Baal, allowing him to obtain firsthand data in real-time.
The future developmental framework for the Blood Angels had already been established. With Dante keeping a watchful eye on things, there was no fear of any mishaps.
The Primaris Space Marine technology had successfully proliferated and had even passed the Inquisition's audits. Now, it was entirely up to the individual Chapters to utilize it.
Arthur had also thoroughly run the Angel's Progeny through the brand-new combat paradigms. Their own simulated battles hadn't stopped either. Any remaining issues would simply have to be discovered and corrected during higher-intensity warfare.
The indigenous entity on Baal capable of instantaneously draining the moisture from carbon-based Organisms, known as the "Thirsting Water", had also been cataloged. There was no longer any meaningful reason for them to remain on this planet.
Not long after, Romulus's voice broke the silence once more.
"It is time for us to depart."
Arthur paused for a moment, then nodded.
Things truly had been a bit too relaxing lately. Their combat operations mostly consisted of leading Space Marines to beat up inconsequential riffraff.
Sometimes, he couldn't help but fantasize that if humanity's opponents were all Xenos of this pathetic caliber, the Imperium wouldn't be living in such Dire Straits.
But clearly, those entities that had long since taken root alongside humanity were not something you could ignore just because you wanted to.
The war had never truly ended.
"I'll leave the offline communications to you. Let me know if you need any data; I need to focus on planning the expedition's route."
The expedition fleet's destination was undoubtedly Macragge, but that didn't mean the massive armada would do nothing along the way.
The Emperor directly clearing a path through the Warp was an extreme exception. According to standard expedition protocols, no matter how critical the destination was, the fleet still had to do its best to eliminate enemies of the Imperium along the route. After all, everyone understood the treacherous nature of Warp travel.
It was an excellent opportunity to build a reputation. Such a colossal fleet only needed to divert a tiny fraction of its Combat Power to effortlessly crush invasions and rebellions that plagued various sectors. In return, the leaders of the fleet would reap the friendship of those sectors.
One should never dismiss these so-called favors and friendships as useless. The Imperium's debts of honor were absolute bonds that could not be betrayed. When you were short on manpower, funds, or ships, or when you were being investigated by various Imperial factions, a single call for aid could prompt these sectors to pull out all the stops to support you.
Supreme High Marshal Ledodes had already tacitly agreed that the fleet would be led by the four elders. Since he, the one most familiar with expedition protocols, had yielded, the other members naturally had no objections.
Faced with the Black Templars actively guiding them by the hand to farm goodwill and debts of honor, Romulus naturally couldn't waste this enormous favor. He had to plan everything perfectly.
The fleet couldn't remain in Warp transit indefinitely, or half of it might be lost by the time they arrived. Nor could they allow themselves to get bogged down by any single incident, lest the local Imperial forces at their destination be wiped out before they got there.
At the same time, they had to maximize the benefits for all participants. Preparing war contingencies, charting routes, rationally distributing Combat Power, and securing supply lines were all responsibilities the fleet's navigators had to guarantee.
Earning this reputation wasn't going to be easy.
"Understood."
Arthur's figure blurred, and then he vanished from sight.
"Sigh, it feels like this work is never going to end."
Romulus accepted a beverage delivered by a servo-skull, took a light sip, and plunged back into his endless toil.