Chapter 609: The Primarch's Endorsement
Dorn returned to his seat, his deep gaze sweeping across the thirteen young and resolute faces below.
"Sigismund," his voice, like unyielding bedrock, echoed through the grand hall, "your judgment was correct. They have proven themselves worthy of the honor of the Imperial Fists."
These words acted as the final seal, setting the fate of the recruits in stone.
The last trace of lingering doubt vanished from the minds of the thirteen warriors, replaced by a heavy sense of belonging and a noble mission to serve the Chapter.
"Magos Ryo's research has yielded exceptional fruit." Dorn turned his gaze to Sigismund and continued issuing directives: "This modification process drastically improves efficiency while maintaining uncompromising quality. Inform him that the Imperial Fists recognize its value and support his continued optimization. The Imperium needs more warriors like these."
Pausing briefly, the Primarch swept his gaze over the recruits once more before handing down the final arrangement: "As for them, true tempering can only be forged in the fires of war. From this moment on, they fall under your command. Integrate them into the combat sequence and deploy them to the most grueling warzones. Let them prove their worth through real combat and fulfill their oaths to the Emperor and the Chapter."
With that, the audience came to an end.
With surging emotions, the thirteen recruits followed Sigismund out of the hall. From this moment forward, they were official members of the Imperial Fists, their destinies irrevocably bound to this fortress, to the glory of the Primarch, and to the future of humanity.
Meanwhile, far away on Necromunda, Magos Ryo quickly received an encrypted transmission from Sigismund, fully relaying Primarch Dorn's affirmation and subsequent instructions.
The positive feedback from Holy Terra reached Ryo's laboratory on Necromunda at the first opportunity.
The message explicitly conveyed Primarch Rogal Dorn's approval of the first thirteen recruits' quality and his encouragement of Ryo's work, formally authorizing him to deepen the gene-seed optimization research.
For Ryo, this meant the project had secured the highest level of political endorsement, allowing him to allocate resources and expand the scale of his research with far greater ease.
However, his logic core exhibited no emotional fluctuations akin to "joy" or "satisfaction," treating the outcome merely as an expected positive milestone in his overarching plan. His focus shifted immediately toward the four rejected candidates.
The four rejected candidates were transferred to another sector of the laboratory dedicated to analytical research and reverse engineering. They were not failures—they simply failed to meet the uniquely draconian criteria of the Imperial Fists. Their physiological modification had been a technical success, which in itself held tremendous research value.
Ryo's immediate task was to analyze the precise reasons for their rejection:
Candidate A (Weak Willpower): Tech-Priests performed deep brain scans and neurochemical analyses, attempting to isolate the physiological foundations of his collapsing mental defenses and determine whether they correlated with specific neurotransmitter secretion levels or activity in distinct brain regions. This data would refine future memory-indoctrination and mental-fortification modules.
Candidate B (Flawed Combat Instincts): Research focused on neuromuscular connection efficiency, reflex arc speed, and cerebellar coordination, cross-referencing metrics against top performers like Alvaro and Glum to identify critical variances.
Candidates C & D (Lack of Teamwork): Investigations centered on their social cognition modes and mirror neuron system activity to understand why the indoctrinated concepts of teamwork failed to translate into behavioral instincts.
All these studies pointed toward a single objective: refining control over the modification process, minimizing uncontrollable individual variances, and raising both the pass rate and consistency of the "products." Ryo sought not merely to turn ordinary men into Astartes, but to stably produce high-quality Astartes Brother-Marines tailored to specific tactical requirements.
Simultaneously, building on the success of the first batch, Ryo began planning the next phase of experiments.
He directed his subordinates to broaden the candidate selection pool—not limiting it to Necromunda, but expanding recruitment to other loyalist worlds and even recruitment worlds of select Chapters to test the adaptation and optimization of the process across varied genetic baselines.
He also planned deeper micro-adjustments to the gene-seed itself: Could potential genetic expressions tied to loyalty, resilience, and teamwork be amplified? Could specialized gene-seed variants tailored for specific roles—such as assault, reconnaissance, tactical, or heavy fire support—be developed?
The laboratory's operational focus pivoted rapidly from "proving concept feasibility" to "process optimization and mass production." More resources were redirected, new and larger cultivation bays were designed, and a specialized team of Tech-Priests and Biologis Magos began expanding.
Ryo understood clearly that the support of the Imperial Fists and Primarch Dorn rested entirely on the continuous delivery of valuable results. He had to innovate relentlessly and provide increasingly efficient and reliable modification technologies to maintain this backing and ultimately fulfill his long-term goal of building his core military foundation.
In a sense, the four rejected candidates were more valuable than the thirteen successes; within them lay the critical data necessary to perfect the next generation of "products." In Ryo's eyes, they were not failed warriors, but essential milestones along the path to superior modification technology.
The preliminary success and staggering efficiency of Ryo's gene-seed optimization project did not remain confined to the Imperial Fists. Although Sigismund and Dorn intentionally restricted the spread of information, perceptive factions within the higher echelons of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Adeptus Astartes still caught wind of the developments.
The first to react was, once again, the Collegia Titanica—or more precisely, Archmagos Dominus Castian Zoor himself.
Upon learning that the first thirteen Astartes recruits modified via Ryo's methods possessed superior physiological metrics and had received the personal seal of approval from Primarch Dorn, Archmagos Zoor's evaluation of Ryo's strategic partnership value rose yet another tier.
Where the EVA-Titans showcased disruptive efficiency in mechanical manufacturing, the gene-seed project proved Ryo's formidable mastery over the far more sensitive, core domain of genetic engineering.
An ultra-high-clearance encrypted communication request originating from Mars patched directly into Ryo's laboratory on Necromunda.
Within the holographic projection, the massive mechanical silhouette of Archmagos Dominus Zoor materialized once more.