How can a retired savior be considered retired if he drops to 40,000?

"Perhaps so." Curze did not comment, and obviously did not want to talk about it. "I noticed that you have a very impressive guard. What's it called? The Ever-Victorious Army? How enviable. If you can return my Black Armored Guard Commander in time, then maybe there will be some corresponding figures on the opposite side of them so that they won't feel lonely."

"If Yago Sevitarion hadn't been so fond of embellishing his testimony, perhaps he would have returned earlier."

"How can you blame him for such a small thing? Sai just likes to talk to people."

Guilliman realized that the topic was being led away by the other party in a unreasonable way, but his anger made him unable to help but continue to pester: "All I need to know is the facts themselves-"

"clang--"

This time, it was the sound of the eagle on the scepter hitting Curze's shoulder armor. The sound of adamantium colliding with adamantium was very familiar to everyone present, and they also knew that this slight collision would not have any effect on the adamantium objects themselves, but considering that the two objects that collided were the eagle scepter and the shoulder armor of the traitor primarch, and the scepter itself was held in the hands of a seemingly harmless mortal girl, this scene still made people feel anxious for a while.

"...Okay, my little warden is angry." Surprisingly, Curze really stopped because of this blow that he himself probably didn't feel. The pale ghost leaned back comfortably on the chair behind him, raised his hand and made a "please" gesture to the entire round table: "I know that a traitor like me has no right to speak in this occasion. The 'Last Loyal Heir of the Emperor' is busy with all kinds of things, and he should allocate his working time to matters that are more beneficial to the Empire. So, please. Whatever you want to ask, I will try my best to tell you everything I know."

Guilliman sat in his chair as straight-faced as possible, but he couldn't help but feel that the politician's mask on his face was about to be completely shattered by this overly fantastic scene.

Mi (no more).

Water for a day, leopard sleeps...

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 89: Guilliman, the Reliable Adult

"Let us start with the most basic question - how did you come back to life?" Guilliman asked.

He did not forget that he had already received the answer from his previous inquiries to the representatives who came up from the Lion's Mane, but he still wanted to hear the person's own opinion.

But Coze laughed inexplicably again: "You asked the wrong person about this. Just like when ordinary people die, they can only have a rough guess about the cause of their death, I can only have a vague idea of ​​how I was inexplicably dragged back from my quiet and dreamless sleep to this bustling and noisy world. If you want a precise answer, I suggest you ask the person next to me."

Guilliman's first reaction was doubt, but this time, there was no significant knocking sound in the meeting room, so this statement was probably true - at least it was recognized by Fujimaru Ritsuka who was sitting on a chair nearby.

"I can tell you." The mortal girl holding the Sky Eagle Scepter said with a fearless expression, "As long as we have three and a half to four hours to spend on this matter alone, I can explain the entire process of the ceremony."

For a moment, Guilliman was a little tempted, but he was sure that he didn't have that much time to spend on this matter. As the person who "makes decisions" in the Empire, he didn't really need to know the details of the principle of why everything worked. He just needed to know whether this thing could be replicated and at what cost.

"No need, Ms. Fujimaru. I just want to know if this is an isolated case?"

The Imperial Regent asked. At this point, he suddenly felt a little out of place - if it were a more normal situation, this meeting would definitely be prepared more formally, with a roll call officer reading out everyone's title and name loudly from the moment they entered the door, not only to declare the distinguished status of the participants, but also to prevent everyone from being embarrassed when addressing each other.

Guilliman usually didn't like this step, just because it was too time-consuming to finish his long list of titles, and he would find out their names and identities before meeting them. But in this meeting room, without the prolonged roll call, the Imperial Regent suddenly felt that it was a bit awkward to call the other person by his name.

"Uh... I kind of understand what you mean by that." Fujimaru Ritsuka paused, then replied without realizing it, "Conrad is only the first one, he won't be the only one. Mr. Ferrus is currently with his offspring, and although his condition isn't very stable, and he can't fully display the strength of a Primarch like Conrad, he's almost there..."

As she spoke, her voice unconsciously lowered, and she shrunk further into her chair. Koz's laughter rang out again: "Honestly, my brother, you should go find a mirror right now and look at your expression - she has never been so scared of me."

Guilliman turned and glared at his brother.

"That's because you're more annoying than scary." Fujimaru Ritsuka muttered softly, and used the data pad placed flat on his legs to send a video record to the Armor of Destiny - it was three minutes and forty-two seconds long, and the content was Ferrus Manus speaking unilaterally to Guilliman, who was not present, through the camera of the Servo Skull.

This video was recorded on the forging world Kono, where Fujimaru Ritsuka hid behind the servoskull and held up a sofa cushion to force Ferrus to record it. Even so, she still felt that... three and a half minutes out of the three minutes and forty-two seconds were completely reporting on his current situation with the attitude of reporting on stage work... It was hard to call it the kind of greeting that should be exchanged between brothers who had been apart for a long time.

But Guilliman still spent about seven minutes on this video, which was only three minutes and forty-two seconds long and had very dry content. Then, with an expression that was hard to tell whether it was melancholy or relief, he sighed, closed his eyes, raised his hand, and gently pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I roughly understand..." The Imperial Regent's voice was filled with a sense of relief and fatigue. He himself was obviously aware of this mistake, and after a pause of half a second, his voice returned to normal again, "So, the next stage of the Chaldean Bureau's mission is to resurrect Sanguinius?"

This shocking question also caused some emotional ripples in the Ever-Victorious Army. Their professionalism was indeed very good, and they were able to remain motionless and maintain the dignity that the Primarch's guards should have even though they were shocked, but Curze could not hide their inner fluctuations.

He was about to speak to have some fun, but a small knocking sound reminded him that his little tricks could not be hidden from Fujimaru Ritsuka. The Primarch of the Night Lords regretfully swallowed back the words he was about to say, and watched the little girl speak:

"Although there is a plan on paper, the 'resurrection of the Primarch' can only be considered a byproduct of the 'Chaldea Lighthouse' plan." Fujimaru Ritsuka replied, "As for what we should actually do... You know that we are an organization under the Astronomican Hall, right?"

She lifted the datapad from her lap, obviously with something she wanted to show but couldn't transmit wirelessly, but then she was stopped by an obvious and ever-present obstacle: the round table in the Lion's Mane's Great Council Chamber was really big.

In other words, it can be seen that the straight-line distance between Fujimaru Ritsuka and the Imperial Regent, who were sitting opposite each other, was about eight meters.

Fujimaru Ritsuka didn't say anything, but her expression clearly showed the condemnation of "Why do you always make your Empire's things so big?" She could of course choose to jump off the chair, walk around the table in a semicircle, hand the data pad to Guilliman, and then return to her chair. In that case, a new problem arises: it is really difficult for her to climb onto this raised chair in an elegant manner.

This delicate and difficult question for Fujimaru Ritsuka left her stuck there, until Curze, who had been laughing about this for a long time, finally reached out with mercy, pulled the data tablet from her hand, pushed it along the plane of the table, and made this heavy product of Imperial technology slide directly into Guilliman's hands.

"Look, you have to admit that I am useful sometimes." Koz said sarcastically.

Fujimaru Ritsuka did not choose to let him go here: "But you are the Primarch. As a Primarch, the functions you have been able to operate perfectly so far are so crude that I am surprised."

"This is an issue I'm continuing to improve, perhaps my brother would be willing to take the time to check on the progress?"

"Thank you." No matter what Curze said, Guilliman decided that he had to be very cautious in refusing. "I am fine now and do not need your 'help' in any sense."

"Is that really the case? This was not your reaction when you heard that our brother with the iron hands had returned. I'm beginning to suspect that you were ostracizing me."

Guilliman was getting a little angry, but before he lost his temper, Fujimaru Ritsuka had naturally taken over the task of scolding Curze:

"You deserve it." She threw a straight punch. "It's because you don't have even the slightest talent in management and coordination, but you are gifted in causing trouble. You are only useful as a vanguard when fighting against the enemy. If I let you go here, you will only make Ultramar's food expensive."

"——This is a complete injustice. I can live well without eating now."

"Who on earth has been sneaking into the kitchen and eating the coffee mousse cake in the refrigerator for half a month?"

"Why don't you ask Somni?"

"..."

Guilliman stared blankly at the bizarre scene before him that was taking a sudden turn for the worse, then blankly turned his gaze to the data tablet in his hand.

He is the Regent of the Empire, an important part in maintaining the operation of the entire Empire, and a steady and reliable Primarch. He will not and cannot participate in such a quarrel at the level of elementary school students.

Especially in front of his own genetic offspring.

Meow (six o'clock)

Why do people go to work...

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 90 Chaldea Lighthouse

After briefly reading the contents of the data pad, Guilliman quickly understood why the contents were not sent directly to his armor via wireless data transmission like the previous video.

First of all, it contained a lot of content. Although the Armor of Destiny could indeed project the received documents directly onto his retina, even a Primarch like Guilliman didn't really want to rely on retinal projection to read a 2,433-page document when he had the choice.

Secondly, its importance is indeed worthy of such cautious treatment. Although Guilliman himself had secretly allocated an expedition team during the Indomitable Crusade to go to the dark side of the Empire that lost the Astronomican navigation after the Great Rift opened, and tried to build a "Second Astronomican", but compared with this "Chaldean Lighthouse" plan, he found that his plan was still conservative.

The "Chaldea Lighthouse" plan does include a plan to build the "Second Astronomical Torch". Perhaps this is why the Chaldea Bureau, which is responsible for promoting this plan, was assigned to the Astronomical Torch Office. However, the "Second Astronomical Torch" is not the entire plan - specifically, the summary, discussion, deduction, proof, engineering design and budget quotation of this part of the construction work only occupy the first 270 pages of the entire document.

Even the first thirty-two and a half pages out of the two hundred and seventy pages were used to discuss "why the location of the 'Chaldea Lighthouse' was chosen on the main planet of Baal".

The end-of-chapter summary of this section states that since Holy Terra already has an Astronomican, it wouldn't be difficult to borrow the concept and make a similar one.

The Imperial Regent frowned and stared at the data tablet in his hand without saying a word.

To be honest, he was a little confused when reading this plan. First of all, although he was a Primarch, he was not the kind of Primarch who had extraordinary talent in precision machinery. His wisdom and computing power far exceeded that of ordinary people, and he often performed exceptionally well in logistics coordination, but he was not very impressive in this kind of thing.

Secondly, the discussion and deduction part of this document contained too many concepts and technologies that he had never heard of before, and even if they were shown to the Imperial Inquisitors, they would suspect that the concepts and technologies were of illegitimate origin. Guilliman suspected that even if Ferrus or Perturabo were to read this plan, they would encounter many obstacles in understanding it.

But the politician Guilliman knew how to grasp the key points. Since Fujimaru Ritsuka's title of "Emperor's Personally Chosen, Envoy of the Throne (omitted below)" was endorsed by the joint certification of the Throne Room and the Astronomical Torch Room, he assumed that the other party would not fool him with any plan with low feasibility. He was the one who made the decision and did not need to know all the technical details. Therefore, he began to simply select the part of the document about the expected performance of the various components of the "Chaldea Lighthouse" after completion:

Module No. 1: "Second Star Torch";

Module 2: "Echoes of Fate"

Module 3: "Tower of End"

Module 4: “Beautiful Journey”;

Module 5: "Longinus"

Module 6: “Humanity and Basics”;

And the module number seven which is yet to be demonstrated.

Guilliman spent half an hour on the two thousand pages of documents. It was not that he could not keep up with the reading speed, but he just could not believe what he saw and inferred from the text. His instinct told him that he should question the too bizarre descriptions of the module effects, but if he flipped forward a little, if the document became a physical paper, there would be a thick stack of related reviews that would block all his doubts.

There was no other reason for his hesitation, but if the lighthouse could be built according to the description in the document, even if the actual output efficiency of each module was reduced by 50%, the dark side of the empire could be basically stabilized. Before seeing it with his own eyes, he really couldn't believe that such a good thing could happen.

The Imperial Regent shut down the data tablet, slowly placed it back on the table, and let out a long sigh.

Curze's repeated provocations failed to break the hard shell of his politician's mask, and the overly fantastical way Curze and Fujimaru Ritsuka interacted with each other just now also failed to meet this challenge, but this 2,433-page document did it. Guilliman put down the data tablet and leaned back in his chair. From his demeanor, he looked exactly like a busy employee who went home from get off work and collapsed on the sofa - he was undoubtedly tired, but he also relaxed because a big stone fell from his heart.

"...What is the success rate of this plan?" His fatigue even seeped through his tone.

"One hundred percent or zero percent." Somehow, within half an hour, Fujimaru Ritsuka, who had started to draw the Emperor Tarot card with Diglis, answered, "Either it will start construction normally after I arrive in Baal and be completed normally without any problems; or I will die before that, and the plan will be immediately contaminated by Chaos."

"What's going on?"

"As long as I exist, I can prove that there is 'no new technology' in this plan. Mr. Think Tank Director should understand that this is very important in today's world. The same is true for the Mechanicus, which needs to spend hundreds or even thousands of years to prove whether a 'new' technology is safe." Fujimaru Ritsuka slowly put away the cards in front of him, put them back into the box, and slid them back to Digris along the table. "Without boasting, I am a necessary and sufficient condition for the entire plan. This is why the Emperor felt that if he released me, I would need--"

She poked Curze's leg armor with the end of her scepter:

"——This is an absolutely excessive amount of security, even including a troublesome Primarch."

"Hmph." Koz rested his elbows on the table, supported his face with his palms, and looked in an empty direction with dissatisfaction.

Guilliman stared at his brother across the round table with suspicion. It was nothing, it was just that the words "Curze" and "security" were linked together... uh... he really couldn't imagine it.

"Then why are you looking at me?" Koz turned back dissatisfiedly after sensing the gaze, "I'm not the only one responsible for her safety."

"Yeah, in most cases you're just causing trouble." Fujimaru Ritsuka commented coldly.

This sentence made Curze turn his head, straighten up dangerously, assess her seriously, and then quickly reach out his hand -

——Using one finger, he gently pushed Fujimaru Ritsuka off the chair.

Everyone who saw this scene had no time to really relax before their hearts fell down in the midst of Conrad Koz's gloating laughter and Fujimaru Tatsuka's angry complaints.

The little girl who climbed up again was obviously not very tall. When she stood up straight, only half of her ginger-red head was exposed at the edge of the big round table. She picked up the cushion on the chair and tried to throw it at Curze's face, but was naturally blocked by the latter. In the end, she could only say angrily: "It was a mistake for me to decide to sit next to you in the first place!" Then she walked around half of the table with the remaining cushion, and chose a chair that was a certain distance away from the two primarchs, and piled her seat on it again.

Guilliman felt that he could accept this kind of program now. He had just read a 2,433-page document that was like a fairy tale, and he felt that nothing could surpass this and defeat him now.

But Curze spoke again: "When do you plan to make the Imperial Regent realize that you are not here to tell him what Chaldea does specifically?"

This sentence made him perk up, and he looked at Fujimaru Ritsuka, who had relocated to his new seat, but was obviously shorter than before. The latter had a guilty look on his face:

"You see, our original route was to slowly drift from the Ghoul Stars to Baal, and we didn't need to pass through the Ultramarine. Our appearance here might be a coincidence, but..."

She thought about it for a while, and simply skipped the ambiguous plot in the middle and went straight to the conclusion:

"The Emperor sent me a message, and here we are," she said simply.

Mi (no more)

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 91 Pause Here

"What the Emperor sent is a star map—"

"——Wait a moment," Guilliman stopped Fujimaru Ritsuka from opening the portable star map projection, "Don't skip the more important part."

Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at him blankly, apparently not realizing that he had skipped any "more important part".

Coates's laughter came from the other side of the room again: "For the model good kid who tries his best to do everything and wants to do everything to the best of his ability, just to get a compliment from his father, this matter is so important: 'If Dad has something to say, why doesn't he just tell me directly? Is there something I did wrong?'"

He obviously had more to say, but everyone present glared at him. After assessing the situation, he chuckled and swallowed the second half of his sentence.

"That's not what I meant." Guilliman tried his best to suppress his embarrassment in the deepest part of his heart, and would never admit that in fact, about one-third of the content of that sentence did express that meaning. "I wish to know why you are sure that it was the Emperor's astronomical message, and not from something else?"

"This feeling is hard to describe..." Fujimaru Ritsuka thought for a few seconds, "It's like when someone punches you head-on, in theory you will naturally see his face. The face is indeed that of an emperor, and the fist is also that of an emperor, so he is naturally the emperor."

At this moment, Guilliman couldn't help but split off a thread to think: Why is it a fist?

"That doesn't sound very reliable." He said tactfully, and it was Curze who responded with a mocking voice:

"You can tell the difference if you get hurt." His brother's gloating tone actually concealed a bit of fear. "I heard that you also went to the throne room and talked to him face to face. I believe you will not forget how impressive it was."

"I must remind you that the current situation is different from before. The Emperor's mental state and control over psychic energy should have improved compared to the turn of the millennium." Fujimaru Ritsuka raised his hand and spoke like a student.

"I can't really say, but the 'communication' I had with him more than half a year ago" - Coze made quotation marks with his fingers when he said the word "communication" in disgust, "- felt like someone was rubbing the inside of my skull hard with sandpaper. It seems very strange to me that you can have a long conversation with him without any reason."

Fujimaru Ritsuka looked dazed and confused.

Guilliman couldn't comment on this, but he felt that he probably had a similar expression on his face, although for different reasons.

"...Anyway, let's talk about the content of Star Language..."

"Can the source of this information be determined—"

"--Honestly, little dove, you should show your shrine to my brother, so that he can shut up his mouth that refuses to admit the reality that 'our father now has a more favorite mouthpiece'."