Chapter 6: Becoming a Beyonder
In the foundry, after a furnace that had been idle for hundreds of years was cleaned, Nimrod drove away everyone within a hundred meters and also shut down the monitoring room.
Holding a rubber spoon, he began to concoct the potion.
Brewing a potion didn't require any profound technique, only the accurate and sequential addition of ingredients according to the recipe—first the auxiliary materials, then the main materials—followed by stirring.
Nimrod poured 1100 milliliters of black Lhas-Felt into the furnace and simultaneously ignited the fire.
Then, he threw in one spire crystal. As the crystal cluster crackled in the furnace, he tossed in the unconscious two-meter-long hive city giant rat.
He stirred it a few times with the rubber spoon, watching the giant rat melt at a visible speed. This was not only the effect of thousands of crystal shards cutting it but also the magical reaction of the potion ingredients.
Nimrod knew that a slight excess or shortage of auxiliary materials didn't matter, but the main materials couldn't be off by even a little bit. He had already repeatedly confirmed the length of the wiregrass.
He threw in the 1100-millimeter wiregrass. Corrosive acidic fluid splashed, further accelerating the reaction. A gurgling sound immediately arose within, and the surrounding light took on a faint black hue.
By the time he tossed in the chemical dog's tongue, only about half a meter of churning liquid remained in the furnace.
As soon as the long tongue entered the furnace, black mist instantly billowed out, shrouding the area around the furnace in a haze.
A few seconds later, the black mist dissipated, and Nimrod used the rubber spoon to scoop out a viscous black liquid.
The liquid had a strange property: the droplets connected to each other and would never separate. Not a single drop remained in the furnace.
Nimrod knew this was a unique characteristic of potions. The "Lawyer" potion had been successfully brewed.
Someone unfamiliar with the potion formula couldn't possibly brew a potion by chance, not only because the order of the ingredients had to be correct, but also because the quantities had to be just right.
If the giant rat was added before the spire crystal, only a pot of stewed rotten rat would result.
If there was even a little too much wiregrass, going mad would be the best possible outcome after drinking it.
Nimrod poured the black liquid into a bowl. He knew that the more he hesitated and feared, the worse the subsequent absorption would be. As a gene-sire, he wasn't worried about poisoning and directly tilted his head back and drank it.
Immediately, he felt a cold sensation fill his mouth, like swallowing a mouthful of ice cream, then it slid down his esophagus and into his stomach.
The cold sensation instantly burrowed into every cell. His vision rapidly blurred, and all colors intensified.
The gray furnace became even grayer, the red flames even redder...
The color blocks were rich, like an oil painting.
At the same time, a massive influx of information flooded his mind.
Having experienced it once before, he quickly adapted.
Gradually, Nimrod saw the surrounding scene clearly. All colors were distinct and overlapped, and black mist permeated everything.
He also "saw" his body standing still below, trembling. His consciousness suddenly sank and merged with his body.
Nimrod felt his head swelling, his temples throbbing.
He knew this was the overflowing power of the potion, and he lacked a way to control it.
He needed to imagine a common, simple, and familiar object in his mind. He chose the chainsword.
As he gradually shifted his focus to the imagined chainsword, the double vision in his eyes slowly merged and became clear again.
Nimrod picked up the prepared mirror, reflected his eyes, and found that his entire eyeball, including the white sclera, was pitch black.
He knew this was an external manifestation of the potion's power. Once he learned to meditate and control it, his eyes would return to normal.
He immediately tried. He stepped behind the furnace, turned off the overhead lumen lamp, and plunged his location into dimness.
The first step of meditation was the same as before. He closed his eyes and sketched the chainsword in his mind.
When trying to imagine something that didn't exist in this world, Nimrod found it difficult. With so many worlds in the galaxy, he couldn't even imagine a suitable object.
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck his mind. He imagined the symbol of the "Black Emperor" pathway in his mind.
He first sketched the chaotic black arcs, followed by the surrounding wings, spikes, and the abstract crown above.
As Nimrod gradually replaced the chainsword with the "Black Emperor" pathway symbol, he also merged with the transcendent "I," the infinite "I," and the cosmic "I," gaining knowledge that only he could comprehend.
In the field of mysticism, this was called "mystical experience." The Thousand Sons called it aetheric voyaging.
Nimrod emptied his mind, and both his body and soul became quiet. The black mist reappeared, and his spirituality gradually extended.
Like a stone thrown into a lake, ancient Terran texts like the Napoleonic Code and the Imperial Codex established by the Emperor flashed through his mind, as well as the physiological structure of humans, the composition of mechanical constructs, and even the physiological structure and weaknesses of xenos like Orks.
Nimrod understood that the former obviously stemmed from his "Lawyer" Beyonder identity, while the latter must have been implanted into the gene-sires by the Emperor using a combination of genetic science and psychic power. He had absorbed a portion of it during his "mystical experience."
Moments later, after his superhuman brain absorbed all the knowledge, he decided to take advantage of the present moment to practice the most common ability in the mystical field, one that most Beyonders could master—spirit vision.
Nimrod raised his hands and placed them in front of his eyes, index fingers facing each other but not touching.
He opened his eyes and instantly adapted to the darkness. He focused his gaze behind his hands and slowly moved his fingers.
Once, twice...
Nimrod saw a fiery red color appear between his fingers. He knew this was the initial stage of spirit vision, and the color he saw was his aura.
In the mystical field, each person's non-physical part was divided into four layers. The core part was the "spirit body," also called the soul, which when it overflowed was called spirituality.
The resilience of the "spirit body" determined a person's resistance to the Warp and various horrors.
The "Lawyer" potion strengthened spirituality, granting Beyonders the ability to discover and exploit loopholes in rules and weaknesses in opponents, using order to strike their enemies.
Both were about exploiting weaknesses, but what the Emperor granted him was to kill enemies, while what the "Lawyer" granted was to use rules to strike opponents.
Outside the "spirit body" was the "astral body," the means of communication with the spirit world and the starry sky, the external manifestation of the former, directly related to one's will and current emotions.
The scenes seen after consuming the potion were the images seen by the "astral body" wandering the spirit world, a place that did not obey the rules of the material world, where past, present, and future could overlap.
Through experience and the knowledge gained in the gestation pod, he knew that the so-called spirit world was another name for the Warp.
The "astral body" was the focus of the Thousand Sons' cultivation—the mind. Magnus created the method of cultivating this aspect—mindset—and taught it to his sons.
He also knew that Ahriman and other Thousand Sons would detach their "astral bodies"—which they called bodies of light—from their physical forms and travel through the Warp.
The "Lawyer" potion did not strengthen the "astral body," but he knew that the essence of the Warp was integrated into the creation process of every Primarch. He had gained knowledge from the Warp during his first attempt just now.
Further out from the "astral body" was the "mental body," which involved the mind.
The "Lawyer" strengthened and enhanced his logical reasoning.
The outermost layer was the "etheric body," which was the manifestation of life energy and physical state.
Different parts of the body had different colors. The hand he had just seen was red, the head was purple...
If the color was wrong, it meant there was a problem with the body.
Nimrod checked each part one by one. They were all healthy, and the overall aura shone with a dazzling light, while ordinary people's was white.
Then, he practiced the method of exiting spirit vision, focusing his attention, switching to a meditative state, closing his eyes, controlling his spirituality, and repeatedly telling it to stop.
Opening his eyes again, he found that spirit vision had ended.
Through several repeated practices, repeatedly suggesting to himself, and repeatedly influencing his spirituality, Nimrod established a simple on-off action.
He lightly tapped his brow twice to activate spirit vision. The surrounding furnaces, machine tools, etc., showed no difference and no brilliance.
Most inanimate objects had no spirituality.
When his gaze swept over the chainsword, he noticed a blood-colored glow within it.
[Hmm? There's a residual spirituality on "Vulture's" chainsword, possibly even a potion ingredient.]
Nimrod had felt that this weapon was somewhat special before. He wasn't surprised to find it contained spirituality after activating spirit vision.
He tapped his brow twice again to deactivate spirit vision, preparing to observe the auras of others later.
Nimrod then recalled the extraordinary abilities he had gained from drinking the "Lawyer" potion.
This explanation combines the non-physical aspects of Warhammer and Lord of the Mysteries. In fact, both originate from mysticism and have many similarities, with only slight differences in terminology. For example, the spirit world, like the Warp, is not bound by physical laws, and past, present, and future intersect. Furthermore, the official novel Horus Rising uses the term spirit world to refer to the Warp.
Considering the readers, subsequent chapters will mostly use Warhammer terminology, with the exception of spirituality.
(End of this chapter)