[Experiment No. TS-002 (Khayon)]
[Age: 16]
[Experimenter: Magnus]
[Experiment Name: Psychic Iterative Evolution Experiment]
[Experiment Objective: Verify the feasibility of psychic-guided genetic iterative evolution]
[Experiment Record: Second heart functioning stably, perfect synergy with primary heart, no obvious rejection reaction.]
[Bone enhancement organ and muscle enhancement organ functioning normally. Bone density and muscle fiber strength increased to expected levels, no abnormal hyperplasia.]
[Haemopoietic organ developing normally. Red blood cell regeneration efficiency matches theoretical values.]
[Lyman's organ still gestating; further observation required.]
[All current vital signs normal.]
Caelan meticulously recorded the subject's various vital signs and experimental data. Izara was responsible for transcribing with a quill and parchment, to preserve a control sample for future comparison to detect whether the experimental records had been tampered with.
The young girl focused intently on her duties. Over this period, she had completely adapted to assisting Caelan.
As for Magnus, he too lay on an operating table, his consciousness deep in the Warp, continuously guiding his son's evolution.
The young girl asked timidly, "Brother Caelan, what will my brother become?"
"A giant, two and a half meters tall, with nanosecond reaction times, capable of tearing an enemy in half with his bare hands."
Izara stood on tiptoe, her gaze passing over Amon's operating table to look at Khayon.
She could barely recognise the young man undergoing the transformation. It was hard to imagine her thin brother becoming like that in the future.
Izara's voice was barely a whisper. "Will everyone become like this in the future?"
"Evolution does not have just one path. Humanity has been evolving for a very long time. Perpetuals and psykers are successful examples of evolution. Astartes are actually a deviation."
According to Magnus's theory, Primarchs are minor Warp gods wearing human skin. Astartes are daemons wearing human skin.
This evolutionary path is actually a deviation. Psykers are the correct evolutionary path.
But even if humanity evolves into a psychic race, not everyone will become overwhelmingly powerful psykers.
Most will only evolve from Rho/Pi-level mortals into Omicron/Xi/Nu/Mu/Lambda/Kappa-level psykers, unable to actively use psychic powers.
Izara's psychic talent was higher than Khayon's. She was already standing at the finish line of human evolution.
Although the Perpetual evolutionary path is safer than the psychic path, its probability of occurring is also lower.
Perpetuals are very rare among humans, and not all Perpetuals can resurrect.
Psykers and Blanks have varying levels. So do Perpetuals.
The highest level of Perpetuals can be resurrected after death. But some Perpetuals can only live forever; once they die, they stay dead.
In extremely rare cases, all three evolutionary paths can also appear in the same person.
Among these three paths, Perpetuals seem the most tempting, but are actually the least capable.
Although Perpetuals are rare, the number born across human history must be considerable.
Among these tens of millennia, many Perpetuals once followed the Emperor.
They too once trusted the Emperor, but they grew afraid and retreated before the Primarch Project.
The Emperor did not blame them. Caelan also felt their retreat was blameless.
The Emperor's plan was indeed very crazy. It would be abnormal not to be afraid.
They had assisted the Emperor wholeheartedly. Fear and retreat are only human. As long as they didn't cause trouble like Erda, it was fine.
But even if these Perpetuals were still following the Emperor today, what use would they be?
They have almost eternal lives, but they lack the power to change the world.
The Emperor is the Emperor because he is both a Perpetual and a psyker. Both are indispensable.
If he weren't a Perpetual, he wouldn't have lived this long.
If he weren't a psyker, he couldn't have changed the world.
Malcador is both a Perpetual and a psyker, which is why he can serve as the Emperor's right hand.
Even if other Perpetuals were still loyal to the Emperor, their value would be nothing more than adding a civil servant to the Imperium's vast bureaucracy, or providing a research director for a scientific institution.
Yet the Custodes can perform these duties, even more efficiently than Perpetuals.
Before the Emperor's vast plan, the Imperium's vast territory and bureaucracy, the contributions they could make are pitifully small.
The existence of the Warp also renders all paths other than psychic evolution futile. Yet psychic evolution itself is fraught with risk.
Combining psychic evolution with Perpetual evolution seems like the perfect path.
But humanity cannot handle it.
The Aeldari are a psychic race, yet even they are not immortal, and still created a vicious god like Slaanesh in the Warp.
Psykers themselves have varying degrees of power. Most psykers still lack psychic talent.
But if all of humanity could become immortal, they would only play even more wildly than the Aeldari.
This path is too advanced for mortals.
The Emperor can create Perpetuals, but he also worries about the risks and has never put this path on the table.
Neither Perpetuals nor Astartes are destined to be more than a tiny minority.
They can lead mortals, rule mortals, but they cannot be mortals.
"Father." Magnus held his head and slowly pushed himself up from the operating table.
Caelan rushed to him in three quick strides. "Little Mag, are you alright?"
Magnus lowered his head dejectedly. "No. For now, I cannot cure them."
Izara's face paled. Did that mean her brother was doomed?
"What about the future?"
Magnus did not commit too much. "Maybe in the future."
The Primarchs' genes are too complex. The Emperor created the Primarchs, but the Emperor does not fully understand their genes.
The evolution of these genes has deviated from normalcy, entirely autonomously chosen by the Warp essence, including many inhuman genes.
Even with the Sangprimus Portum, after millennia of research, the results are limited to two and a half organs.
"This is different from my brothers' situation. Their sons' mutations are defects caused by incomplete gene development."
"But the Flesh-Change is not a simple genetic mutation. It is a curse, and I am powerless against this curse."
Magnus is the only active psyker among the Primarchs. This is no coincidence, but a deliberate choice by the Emperor.
Initially, all twenty Primarchs developed autonomously. Their essences were constantly perfecting themselves, becoming able to bear their genes.
The Emperor was the supervisor and guide, responsible for timely correction when gene development went wrong.
But the Emperor also wanted to implant his own bold attempts into the Primarchs' design. He implanted Perpetual genes into Vulkan, and psyker genes into Magnus.
Both types of genes fused perfectly with their essences. The Emperor may have tried to integrate these genes into other Primarchs.
But before he could promote it, the Primarchs were released by Erda.
Yet, when the Emperor implanted the psyker genes into Magnus, Tzeentch also acted.
He "bestowed" a blessing upon Magnus, further enhancing his psychic talent.
Sons inheriting his genes could also enjoy the same talent. Even if they were not originally psykers, they could transform into psykers.
And mortals who were already psykers would be further enhanced by the genetic talent.
That is why all Thousand Sons warriors are psykers.
But even among the Thousand Sons, powerful psykers are very rare. Many warriors have talents indistinguishable from mortals.
The essence of the Flesh-Change is that these warriors cannot withstand Tzeentch's blessing.
Many Chaos followers who crave to ascend to daemonhood, who devoutly offer sacrifices to the Changer of Ways, instead mutate into Chaos Spawn.
It is also because they cannot withstand Tzeentch's blessing. The blessing becomes a curse instead.
The Thousand Sons' Flesh-Change is actually a degraded form of Chaos Spawndom. It's a different kind of weakest-link effect.
It's not as terrifying as becoming a Chaos Spawn. But when the Thousand Son's genes cannot keep up with the evolution of the psychic genes, the water carried by the psychic genes spills out, wetting all the other weaker genes and prompting them to further develop to adapt to the psychic genes' evolution.
But this development is disorderly. The massive proliferation of tissue is the Flesh-Change.
As long as the psychic genes exist, this development cannot be stopped.
You can't stop genes from evolving towards better genes, can you?
But removing the psychic genes would also cause mutations, because it would destroy the integrity of the genome, triggering even more uncontrollable risks, possibly even more dangerous than keeping the psychic genes.
Even if Magnus could remove the psychic genes without triggering more loss-of-control risks, he would still struggle to decide.
Psychic ascension is humanity's only choice. Would actively removing his sons' psychic genes be abandoning them outside human evolution?
The Thousand Sons' genes are stuck at this awkward point.
Advancing is worrying. Retreating is also worrying.
To solve the mutation, the genes must be further perfected, allowing the other genes to keep up with the evolution of the psychic genes.
Only then will Tzeentch's "blessing" truly become a blessing.
"I don't understand," Izara murmured.
These days, she had been constantly assisting Caelan in recording experimental data. She had gained a deep understanding of many theories, but some questions always lingered in her mind.
Magnus said, "What don't you understand?"
The young girl's thin shoulders involuntarily shrank. She was a little afraid of Magnus.
Caelan smiled gently, encouraging her in a relaxed tone. "Ask if you don't understand. We'll try our best to answer, unless we don't know either."
Izara asked timidly, "If our psychic talent comes from the Warp, why does it depend on genes?"
Magnus replied, "The material universe and the Warp exist on opposite sides of a mirror, reflecting each other yet inseparable."
"When the material universe gives birth to something new – a thing, knowledge, or an idea – the Warp simultaneously produces a corresponding concept."
"Just as the material universe has diseases like septicaemia, the Black Death, the Warp also manifests Warp entities of the same name."
"For the gods worshipped by humans, their faith and emotions also flow to the corresponding god's domain."
"When a life is born in the material universe, a corresponding soul-projection is born in the Warp."
"When a person dies, their soul is extinguished. When a soul is extinguished, the person dies."
"The stronger the psychic talent, the brighter the soul-projection."
"This influence is two-way."
"When something new is born in the Warp, a corresponding concept is also born in the material universe."
"If a certain concept is born in the Warp, that concept will spontaneously spread in the material universe."
"For a life in the material universe to establish a connection with the Warp, it must possess a specific medium trait."
"In the Warp, these traits manifest as psychic power. In the material universe, they must comply with the laws of the material universe. These are the psychic genes."
"If the psychic genes are removed from the material universe, the psychic talent in the Warp will also disappear."
"But there are exceptions. Powerful psykers, even if their psychic genes are damaged, can often rely on their strong psychic power to repair them."
Izara racked her brains to barely understand. She asked worriedly, "But if our souls are always in the Warp, won't those predators be able to devour us at any time?"
Caelan answered, "The soul-projection is not the soul itself. It's more like a reflection in water. Our true soul exists within the body."
"Only in two situations does the soul completely enter the Warp."
"Either when the body dies, or when a psyker actively breaks free from the body's restraints and projects their consciousness into the Warp."
"You can think of the soul-projection as another body of ours, existing in the Warp."
"Only when our soul completely leaves the physical body and enters that other body do the Warp's predators have a chance to devour us."
This is also the source of a psyker's loss of control.
They often lack restraint, greedily seizing power, making the connection between their two bodies too tight and lacking any isolation measures.
Those hungry daemons can then take advantage of the open gate to invade, seizing their material body for themselves and causing havoc.
Both the physical body and the soul-projection are just vessels.
When a Warp daemon invades reality, its true body cannot directly descend. It can only enter the material world as a soul-projection.
Killing the soul-projection only banishes them back to the Warp. It does not directly kill the daemon.
When psykers explore the Warp, even if targeted by dangerous Warp predators, in theory, they can withdraw to their material body at any time to avoid danger. The predators are powerless against this.
But most psykers are inexperienced beginners, weak and ignorant.
They cannot skillfully travel back and forth between the two worlds. Even if they do, they are prone to being taken advantage of by experienced predators.
Both sides can invade each other's worlds, but the gap in experience and power makes it difficult for material beings to contend against Warp entities.
Izara seemed to half-understand. "If that's the case, why do so many psykers still lose control?"
Caelan answered, "The principles aren't difficult to understand. The difficulty lies in sticking to them."
What's the use of understanding many principles?
Everyone knows staying up late is bad for your health. How many people can restrain themselves?
If you can't even restrain staying up late, when faced with the temptation of power, everyone will take the bait.
Magnus nodded, "Father is right. We must hold onto our humanity. But don't overestimate humanity, and don't test it."
....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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