84: Chapter 84 The Legacy and Obsession of the Chief Executive

In the center of the room's main hall sat a massive desk.

All around, servants were moving with incredible speed, retrieving various scrolls from the massive bookshelves that reached a height of nine thousand meters.

Nearby, the former aides were scattered in various corners, rapidly reading through scrolls, marking annotations, rolling them back up, and handing them to the servants.

The servants then presented these annotated scrolls one by one onto the massive desk.

The atmosphere of the entire Hall of Political Views had completely changed, as bustling as a grand parade; everyone was on the move, picking up and putting down scrolls, and the collective sound of writing was as loud as a horn blowing on a battlefield.

He tilted his head slightly, stretched his stiff body, braced himself, and slowly sat down at the desk.

In the next second, the surroundings instantly fell into a dead silence.

He tilted his head in confusion to listen; yes, there was only boundless silence.

Then, he realized.

This was a field established by the Cogboys; it was kept at a constant temperature and humidity and isolated all background noise, completely separating him from the aides.

A mocking smile tugged at the corner of his mouth; his predecessor certainly knew how to enjoy himself.

Without further thought, he picked up a scroll and began to read carefully, judging whether the plans were feasible based on the aides' annotations.

Finally, he glanced at the timestamp on the scroll—this was actually a request for ammunition supplies from a certain Sector battlefield a thousand years ago.

Only because the demand was so massive had it finally been passed up through the layers to reach his desk.

He raised his hand and approved it.

But a trace of bewilderment rose in his heart: after so much time had passed, had that war already ended long ago?

He didn't know, and had no way of knowing.

After a long silence, a pragmatic thought emerged: how did his predecessors handle these outdated documents?

Perhaps they had unique techniques, some method of priority classification, or some kind of shortcut.

He looked at the attendant beside him, making his tone as steady and authoritative as possible: "The past Lord Chancellors of Administration... did they leave behind any reference work methods?"

The attendant's face remained expressionless as he bowed slightly and spoke words that seemed to have been recited countless times: "My Lord, please follow me."

The young man was led to a small room next to the Hall of Political Views.

There were no mountains of documents here, only a team of aides waiting for him, and dossiers spread out on the table, prepared long ago.

The Chief of Staff respectfully presented the dossiers: "My Lord, this is a summary of the service records of the past Lord Chancellors of Administration. We have organized them for you; every new Lord Chancellor reads these records on their first day."

"Every new Lord Chancellor reads them on their first day."

The sentence drifted faintly into the young man's ears, but he didn't take it to heart. He took the dossiers, sat down at the desk among the aides, and slowly opened them.

At first, his heart was full of respect.

He was looking for the wisdom of his predecessors, looking for those geniuses who could keep this massive Empire functioning normally under such heavy pressure.

He flipped to a Lord Chancellor from two hundred years ago; in his first year of office, this Chancellor had proposed a famous reform plan that was hailed as "highly visionary" in the Empire's administrative history.

The young man examined the contents of the plan closely, and the more he looked, the more familiar it seemed.

He casually pulled out his own carefully perfected rectification plan: although the titles were different and the phrasing varied, the core framework, key steps, and even the priority ranking for resource allocation were almost identical.

His heart stirred, and he continued flipping through.

Four hundred years ago, a Lord Chancellor pushed through an Administrative Simplification Act that caused a sensation at the time.

The contents of the plan... had the same core once again.

Eight hundred years ago, fifteen hundred years ago, three thousand years ago...

He flipped faster and faster, his fingertips sliding across yellowed dossiers.

The names of those Lord Chancellors were different, their backgrounds were different, but almost every single one of them—no, every single one of them—had proposed some version of a "rectification and efficiency improvement plan" early in their careers.

Everyone had implemented them, and everyone had left detailed records of the reforms.

Next, he saw the results of these reforms.

No change at all. The tone of the Court Recorders was as calm and cold as ever, without any evaluation or emotion, only objectively recording the end of the reforms.

His heart held both astonishment and a trace of relief; he silently told himself: Great minds think alike.

Then, a smile played on his lips, the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly as a thought disrespectful to his predecessors echoed wildly in his mind: "These vermin, these dregs! They were clearly on the right path, yet the Empire never changed one bit. These cowards, these bastards!"

A surge of ambition erupted from his heart—the Empire shall be changed by me!

He lightly tapped the scroll in his hand, feeling that the road ahead was incredibly broad; he might even achieve something comparable to his idol, Malcador.

Soon, he noticed another eerie detail: almost every Master of Administratum either retired or passed away after about two hundred years in office.

Every single one of them had voluntarily accepted partial cybernetic augmentation, and every single one had undergone Imperial Rejuvenat treatments.

However, not one of them lived past the age of three hundred.

In his memory, Rejuvenat treatments were famously claimed to allow a mortal to live past four hundred, provided they were accepted!

He fell into a long silence once more, pondering the reasons for his predecessors' failures.

After a long while, he whispered a single sentence: "They're all fucking idiots."

He closed the scroll roughly, slammed it onto the table, and stood up abruptly. The ferocious expression on his face quickly returned to calm, but his clenched fists betrayed the lingering anger in his heart.

In his mind, anger and contempt intertwined and churned incessantly:

"Their stupidity was because they—these vermin—did not have a sufficiently firm will, nor sufficiently thorough methods! They betrayed their faith in the Emperor! But I have it!"

"Their stupidity was because they actually thought a single plan could turn the tide, yet they neglected to win over political allies! But I will!"

"I! I see all of their limitations. I can integrate their strengths and avoid their weaknesses. These vermin, even with the collection of errors in hand... they still... they still..."

Finally, a long sigh echoed in this small room where the Lord Chancellor's work archives were kept.

He lifted his head and strode out of the aides' room, heading toward the banquet hall.

The nobles from Terra and abroad were waiting for him there—the attendant had already reminded him that time was up, and the handover between the current and former officeholders was fully completed.

The Chief of Staff stood by the door of the Hall of Political Views, silently watching the high-spirited young man leave, saying nothing.

He had watched the same silhouette leave so many times that even he could no longer remember the count.

"They're all fucking idiots."

He didn't know how many times he had heard that sentence either.

He was a non-human who had undergone full Adeptus Mechanicus augmentation; only his brain still belonged to his original self, everything else had been replaced by bionics.

Only in this way could he support the massive and complex work of the Chancery.

And the past Lord Chancellors of Administration were all mortals, and could only be mortals—this was an inviolable principle of the Empire.

He had lived for a very, very long time; over thousands of years, every Lord Chancellor had arrived just like this young man, full of ambition and vigor.

But every Lord Chancellor was withered and exhausted when they retired, simply waiting for death; even bionic augmentation could not hide the desolation in their eyes.

Like thieves, they desperately covered up everything within the Hall of Political Views.

Before handing over power, they never wanted any successor to see the truth here in advance; they feared the young men coming to replace them would realize the truth at a single glance and turn and flee.

Although, within the rules of the Empire, this was not permitted, and they would be brought back to duty by Captain-General Trajann Valoris of the Custodes, or even subjected to psycho-indoctrination.

But even leaving here a day later was a form of torture to them.

Power had already turned into a form of execution through the day-to-day operations of the Empire.

It was no longer an elixir of eternal youth; the power to decide life and death with a single word seemed wonderful, but when it lasted for a century, it became a torment, for the world never dances to the will of mortals.

In history, within those documents only accessible to senior Chancellors, there were far more Chancellors corrupted by Slaanesh and executed by the Custodes than those recorded by the recorders in the Hall of Records.