52: Chapter 52 continues to entice motorists to work their lives away.
After finalizing the cooperation details, Fu Haoran summoned his Chief Technology Officer.
"Father Karen, please come over. There's an important mission."
Karen unhurriedly put away his tools and walked toward the bridge.
Half of his face was covered by a polished cybernetic, his right eye was a mechanical ocular flashing red, and the three fingers of his left hand had been replaced by micron-level mechanical manipulators. On his Tech-Priest robes was embroidered the faded holy sigil of the omnissiah.
His back was ramrod straight, his expression rigid, yet deep in his eyes lay the reserve and pride ingrained in the bones of a Tech-Priest.
Karen Greer was born in the Hive City of Sub-Level Nine on the Forge World of Lucius.
His parents were assembly line workers; his mother died in an accidental mechanical failure when he was five.
No one was held accountable, and there was no compensation, for a worker's life was worth less than a gear.
At age ten, he was chosen to be a technical apprentice.
Not because of any extraordinary talent, but because he was more obedient than the other children during testing.
He polished a standard part a thousand times, and he was the only one who didn't doze off.
For the next two hundred years, he worked his way up from apprentice to Tech-Priest.
No miraculous encounters, no benefactors—it all relied on his sheer endurance.
He endured seventeen Hive City riots, outlasting his fellow apprentices until they were either dead or insane, leaving only him.
He endured countless sleepless nights, memorizing obscure dogmas, wiping sacred components, recording tedious parameters, and suffering the scoldings and corporal punishment of high-ranking Fathers, all just to learn a bit more technology and get one step closer to the machine spirit.
Archmagos Varrok took him as a "half-unregistered disciple," not because he valued him, but because he needed an errand boy.
It took him a full two hundred years to go from the lowest component-wiping apprentice to technical assistant, and finally to being granted the title of Tech-Priest.
During those two hundred years, he saw fellow apprentices stripped of their status for misremembering a single parameter and saw others burned as heretics for questioning dogma.
He remained cautious throughout, yet he still couldn't suppress his inner curiosity about the essence of technology.
This curiosity eventually became the original sin for which he was abandoned.
Karen knew very well that with his talent and ability, becoming a Tech-Priest in this lifetime was already a manifestation of the omnissiah.
He didn't dare ask for more, but a promotion invitation email from a former junior betrayed his heart.
A junior brother who had entered at the same time as him, whom he had personally mentored back then, had leaped to become a Forge World Magos just by excavating half a set of STC fragments, surpassing him for a full two hundred years!
Despite his resentment, Karen knew clearly that being expelled from the Forge World meant he had been abandoned.
Karen remembered vividly the evaluation Archmagos Varrok gave him during their last meeting:
"Karen Greer, you are too obsessed with the essence of technology, attempting to explore the underlying logic of machine spirit operations, and refusing to blindly believe in the 'unfathomable' prohibition. You lack the absolute obedience and piety expected of a follower of the Adeptus Mechanicus."
"I do not need thinkers, only executors. Someone with your traits does not deserve to stay on a Forge World; being exiled to a remote planet is the greatest mercy for you."
When Archmagos Varrok said this, he didn't even look at him, his eyes fixed on the data slate in his hand, his tone as flat as if he were stating a diagnostic report for scrapped equipment.
That day, Karen felt abandoned by the Machine God, the omnissiah.
With nowhere else to go, he ended up on this Hive City planet ruled by Fu Haoran, becoming a Tech-Priest here. To him, which Planetary Governor he served didn't matter; it was just a change of location to perform mechanical maintenance tasks.
He would never forget the day he was expelled from the Forge World, when the conservative Fathers threw the data slate containing his lifelong research on the underlying logic of machine spirits into a thermal furnace in front of everyone in the Forge Plaza.
He watched helplessly as his two hundred years of hard work turned to ash, without even the right to reach out and save it.
Combat servitors glared menacingly from the side.
The heat from the thermal furnace made even his mechanical ocular hot, yet not a single tear could fall from his eyes.
Back when he became a Tech-Priest, he had his tear glands removed and replaced with a humidity-regulating cybernetic; he didn't even have the right to weep for his life's work.
He looked at the flames and told himself: Karen, you don't need to think, you only need to execute.
From then on, he no longer explored the underlying logic of machine spirits or questioned the irrationality of dogma. He simply performed the technical maintenance tasks assigned by the Planetary Governor mechanically, strictly adhering to every prohibition of the Adeptus Mechanicus, his face showing no further emotion, only rigidity and numbness.
He buried all his longing for the technology of the golden age deep in his heart, using his identity as a Tech-Priest to wrap around his already shattered faith—it was the only dignity he had left.
As for ideas?
That thing had died long ago.
In fact, his greatest obsession in life was never becoming a Magos, but figuring out the underlying logic of machine spirit operations and reclaiming the omnipotent technological glory of humanity's golden age.
But the prohibitions of the Adeptus Mechanicus had nailed his lifelong pursuit to the pillar of shame as heresy.
...
"My Lord, you sent for me?" Karen greeted him formally. Over the years, he had grown accustomed to this cold manner of keeping distance to avoid being abandoned and hurt again because of his differences.
Upon learning that Fu Haoran wanted him to cooperate with the people of Blue Star to share Powered Armor and controllable nuclear fusion technology, Karen's expression shifted instantly, his tone firm and even resistant:
"My Lord! Absolutely not! This is a desecration of the omnissiah!"
"The sacred technology of the Empire can only be open to Fathers blessed by the machine spirit. How can it be shared haphazardly with these unbaptized mortals? This violates the dogma!"
Fu Haoran was prepared and didn't argue. He simply stood up, took a small silver machine from his storage bag, placed it on the table, and pushed it toward Karen: "Look at this. What is it?"
Karen looked down, staring at the machine, his pupils shrinking suddenly, a rare shock showing in his mechanical voice: "This... is an automatic baking unit? I've only seen it in archive illustrations. I heard it can produce food automatically; it's a product of the golden age!"
Fu Haoran didn't explain, just gestured for him to try it.
Karen examined it closely and found that although it was slightly different from what was recorded in the archives, the principles were the same.
"Where did this come from?" Karen looked up at Fu Haoran.
"Right here in this world." Fu Haoran opened a tablet and clicked on a video. An automated production line appeared on the screen, from raw material input to finished product output, with no human intervention throughout. The machinery ran smoothly, without tedious prayers or complex rituals, only pure mechanical logic.
"Look, the industrial technology here is a shadow of the pure, uncorrupted golden age of humanity. Even if it only reaches the early levels, it's a monumental discovery."
"We didn't come here to share the Empire's sacred technology with mortals; we are using this world's industrial foundation to recover, replicate, and perfect technology fragments from the golden age."
"This is not desecration; it is a pilgrimage to the omnissiah."
"I have always believed that the omnissiah will not abandon followers who seek the truth. Those old-fashioned conservatives who cling to dogma are the true false believers."
These words struck Karen's lifelong sore spot. His eyes grew brighter as he stared intently at the video on the tablet.
All Tech-Priests spend their lives seeking golden age technology. Seeing it now with his own eyes, his inner faith suffered a massive shock.
Fu Haoran struck while the iron was hot, his tone seductive, like a devil's whisper: "There is no Adeptus Mechanicus here, no technical prohibitions, and no one will punish you for being flexible."
"As long as you provide the technology and cooperate with them, they can help you replicate these golden age fragments. Even if it fails, we lose nothing."
"Conversely, you can personally recreate those lost crafts and fulfill the expectations of the omnissiah. Isn't this what you've sought your whole life?"
"Here, you can recreate them with your own hands and let the light of the machine spirit shine once more. Is this not the omnissiah's guidance for you?"
Karen fell silent. The information flow in his brain was in disarray—on one side was the dogma he had upheld his whole life, and on the other was the golden age technology he had dreamed of.
After a long time, he looked up, his tone still stubborn but unable to hide his wavering: "I... I agree to cooperate, but I am not being duped by you, nor do I approve of this desecration."
"I just want to prove that you are wrong. I want to see for myself if this really is the early stage of the golden age and personally recover those sacred technical fragments so they aren't lost."
Fu Haoran smiled. He knew that while Karen was talking tough, his heart had already wavered.
As long as he could get him to cooperate in setting up the production line, the goal was achieved.
As for Karen's behavior—following steps, sticking to standard procedures, and not tolerating even the slightest parameter error—in Fu Haoran's eyes, these weren't weaknesses, but strengths!
He didn't need an innovative Tech-Priest; he just needed a technician who could perfectly replicate the technology he brought.
Little did Fu Haoran know, once the fire that had been suppressed in Karen's heart for two hundred years was lit, it would burn more fiercely than anyone else's.
A repressed Tech-Priest is a terrifying thing.
Especially one who has been holding it in for centuries.