A Light Within Darkness.

Going from the equivalent of a ghetto favella to ghetto Detroit was definitely a decent change especially when we

went from pipe and machete-wielding muggers to gun-wielding muggers.

"I believe that I am coming to hate your human worlds... Why are your people so damn uncivilized?" She grumbled after I dumped the third corpse of a mugger into one of the nearby trash chutes rather than just leaving them on the ground.

"I much rather be mugged a hundred times than spend a couple minutes with your peoples dark Eldar." I pointed out and her mouth flapped open a couple times before she closed it and huffed being unable to argue my point.

Speaking of the Drukhari/Dark Elfs I am terrified with this planet being in the southern half of the galaxy is typically a target for the Coven Raiding Tribe and their Haemonculi love to raid the general area, especially for space marines and other special lifeforms for them to work their monstrous flesh sculpting.

But so long as I get some arrays up and we are behind them, we won't be caught in any raids that may come as the raids are quick and they don't spend weeks rooting through the worlds they raid.

Finally, we arrived at a warehouse, and I looked to Elesmere. "I thought you said this was going to be an apartment building?"

"Hello! Oh, a couple looking to rent?" A voice called out and then a metal door opened up and another old lady tottered out using a walking stick to guide her steps.

"Yes? We were looking for apartments, is this whole warehouse supposed to be an apartment?" I asked and then realized such a large area would be perfect for me to setup the side disciplines of cultivation rather than trying to homebrew some alchemy in a cramped kitchen I could actually make a decent setup for stuff.

"Well, you could make it into an apartment hehe?" The old lady chuckled before straightening up. "I want to sell off this particular property and frankly with my age, I want a good bit of money to have a night on the town before I keel over. Now I want two thousand credits up front now and I give you the deed and the keys to a reinforced rockcrete building you can do what you wish with."

I frowned at the price as that would leave me with only a few hundred credits, but I eventually nodded and took out the credits. "Here," I said simply handing over the twenty hundred credit chips making the woman cackle in glee before she handed me a large metal key and a plaque that probably served as a deed to the place to some form of scanner.

The old lady then gleefully walked away from the warehouse as Elesmere nudged me. "Didn't you want somewhere more comfortable?"

I nodded before lightly shrugging as I opened up the large metal door into the warehouse. "Yes, but I will need a good deal of space to create cultivation artifacts and other things that will boost our progress..., Also having our own warehouse will allow me to ward the area off with Arrays that will block people's perception of the area. Lastly, I have a plan to create a portal system, and having a heavily protected area is the first step to that." Hearing my plans to create a spatial archway that could eliminate the human way of galactic travel obviously made her skeptical.

Simply put the way in which a species here in Warhammer 40k traveled the galaxy determined their strength in a lot of ways, and with humanity's method of traveling through literally hell every time they wanted to hop to the next planet. Obviously left the people traveling through the warp vulnerable to the predations of the monsters in the Warp.

If I managed to make something like a large tunnel that when activated would send whoever walked the length of the tunnel to another Imperium-controlled planet? The Astartes and other elite forces would protect undoubtedly take this planet as another 'home' world for them to recruit and I would merely need to fill them up with Qi once before people could use special warp materials like a Waystone as fuel.

Maybe once I reach the divine ranks and if this planet is even still around by that point, I can try to fix this grimdark universe with such things but for now, should I allow others to learn of my ability to create such world travel it would piss off a great number of people with great power like the Navigation Guild who guides ships through the Warp.

Having one of the Imperium's super assassins sent after us would be a death sentence should they find me.

I couldn't help but wish I was actually an Eldar as they would welcome my nonsense with open arms. As they were pragmatic enough to recognize its value and wouldn't attempt to kill me in the cradle before I could gain power.

Looking around the warehouse I could only shrug at seeing some of the mold in the corners and a couple of the lights were clearly broken. "I will clear out the mold and other debris while you go get some materials for us to build some rooms," I said throwing the leftover credits pouch to her.

"Alright, I will be back soon," Elesmere said and quickly left the warehouse seeing me pull my jacket over my nose as I sent a weak deluge of flames into the mold and other stuff.

After literally burning the rockcrete clean of contaminates I used a ratty broom to sweep the ashes and dust from my cleaning outside before I left the doors to the warehouse before I went back in and considered my options for how to ward the now cleared-off walls.

"I think a total aversion ward would be too much... Maybe an Anxious Chill ward to make people nervous so they will just avoid the area?" I muttered as I went over the Arrays and various methods of protecting a territory in my mind.

The problem was the fact that my cultivation knowledge didn't have a lot of 'low grade' stuff so the knowledge on something to ward off a small warehouse was much rarer compared to knowledge that could block off a whole mountain range in order to establish a Sect.

Obviously, I wouldn't establish a Sect here in a warehouse in any case...  Actually, doing so would be hilarious especially as I would be using my disciples to make charms and other artifacts like it's a damn sweatshop.

"Just a general aversion and physical forcefield array will work for now." I finally grumbled before I took out a screwdriver and coated it in my Qi as I used it as a chisel to engrave the array system onto one of the walls.

After feeding the completed Array with my Qi a pulse of dull blue light spread across the warehouse as though mapping it out before the light faded with the ward going into resting mode.

"Wait... I know I forgot something?" I muttered before I facepalmed at an awkward realization.

I forgot to tell Elesmere that I was going to be warding the building while she was gone.

"Meh, she can just knock on the door when she gets here," I muttered shrugging as I went about generally reinforcing the building with more arrays before I thought about the ramifications and shrugged as I went about creating a more important Array.

"Ok, so a Spirit Qi Condensation Array takes the universe's Qi or Heavens and Earth energy and condenses it for the user's easier absorption. But does it simply gather some spiritual energy, or will it be gathering the ever-present Warp energies of this universe?" I muttered before cursing as this was obviously very important information, but I wasn't sure if my actions would instead open a Hellgate or something that I couldn't close with my cultivation.

"Well, I can always just destroy the Array and just fight the demons until the Warp Gateway loses its power with my Demon Summoning Pool ability." I said before sighing as I was reminded of the fact that sure I could spend a few years not abusing all the cultivation cheats I have to get to the True Realm by simply meditating and slowly absorbing energy. Or I could use all the short cuts like pills and in this case opening a possible hellgate and absorbing the energies.

Before I could ruminate on the subject more, I felt a sort of knocking on the wards and I quickly went to the door and saw Elesmere standing awkwardly with an angry face in front of the open door with its invisible ward.

I couldn't help giggle seeing how red Elesmere's nose was. Obviously, she must have walked face first into the ward.

"Sorry I should have probably been sitting outside waiting for you. Here gimme a drop of your blood so I can attune you into the array permanently." Once I got her permission to enter the wards, I helped her drag in a large cart filled with building supplies and more importantly a couple mattresses that weren't stained with a variety of bodily fluids that we could sleep and meditate upon.

I don't know what those other cultivators are smoking but laying down to cultivate on a jade/rock bed did absolutely nothing for your concertation and energy absorption, other than make your back and ass sore. And in the argument that the Jade bed was some heaven and earth treasure? You can just as easily stuff a mattress with something like demon beast feathers to get the same damned effect.

Thankfully setting up some simple square rooms with the large square plywood boards equivalent and some other wooden beams was rather easily and rather than going through the effort of painting it and deal with the fumes we simply nailed some blankets to the plywood walls in the interior of our rooms to decorate.

"Wow just a nice soft blue wall makes it feel so much more at home." I said as I finally collapsed into the sinfully soft mattress and just stared up at the ceiling of my room that had a white blanket nailed to it.

Then I realized why I was so comfortable. I had basically unconsciously recreated my old apartments tiny bedroom from my past life down to where I had a 'writing desk' at the foot of my feed and a dresser that was close to the head of my bed in order to block out the early morning sunlight...

I couldn't help but sigh as I felt intense melancholy at the simple life I had before the intense desire for the simplicity of my bland earth was swallowed up by my prior mental defenses that saw such weakness as anathema to being a successful cultivator.

"Jake you alright? I heard you sighing?" Elesmere asked as she moved aside the drape, we both had as makeshift doors.

'Well, a hot elf definitely makes this situation a lot better.' I thought before I sat up a bit and replied. "Yeah, just the bed is surprisingly comfortable especially in comparison to our prior little hideaway."

Elesmere nodded and then gracefully strode into my room and crawled into my bed and laid her chin on my should as she kept eye contact with me the whole time. "How big could those Arrays get? Could they scale up to defend something like a Craftworld ship?"

Remembering the literally continent sized massive spaceships a good deal of the Eldar raced lived upon I did some mental gymnastics before firmly nodded as the mountain ranges my Array systems were engineered for could reach the size of planets themselves.

"Do I have such Arrays? Yes, I do but the biggest issue would be how they could fuel the arrays, as it would require a great deal of Psychic energy or otherwise would need to be by Warp Storms for them passively absorb enough energy to sustain the undoubtedly great number of abilities your people will obviously want."

Elesmere nodded as she understood that for Eldar being around Warp Storms was just asking for, She who Thirsts to begin nibbling at their souls, even if my Arrays could block an eldritch entity like her from doing it, it would only cost more energy making going around the Warp Storms a net negative in energy.

"Think we could get our own super-sized ship from your people?" I asked as although it was not possible for Eldar to rely on my Arrays to guard there ships on their own, I could on the other hand control the arrays and be able to fuel the arrays in much greater ways so I could use the continent sized ship to make a beachhead into the Eye of Terror where the Chaos God Slaanesh was born so I can absorb the area's rich Warp energies.

"A whole craftworld? I cannot say, as the methods you can provide to my people have unmentionable value, but to be blunt, we don't have any free ships of similar size and to build a new one with my diminished people would take literally centuries to complete." She said wryly as she wrapped her legs around mine and seemingly giggled at being able to so freely enjoy the warmth I provided and the general affection without Slaanesh's attention being drawn to her having some joy in her life.

"Doesn't need to be half as big as a craft world really. I just want something that can fly and having a ship you can control as we seed the galaxy with spatial passageways would frankly be the most convenient." I grumbled and she nodded.

"In that case its certainly possible and with us being in the southern half of the galaxy its possible we could catch the Biel-Tan craft world armada but... They are the most militant of my craft world people and you will need to prove the greater warrior for them to even entertain the thought of negotiating with them regardless of your feats of avoiding She who Thirsts gaze."

Not to mention was the fact that I would need to get out into space using a human vessel to communicate with them to begin with and who is to say they wouldn't just blow up the ship I come to speak with them rather than speaking with a dirty Mon-keigh as they will undoubtably see me as.

In the end I needed more power, I needed to reach the True Realm, the next realm before I could bother imagining running around between worlds as this one was just fine for my needs.

"Get some sleep Jake. I see the weight of the battle with the Genestealers still weighs upon you mentally and I shall be here for you while you dream." Elesmere gently coaxed and I pulled her svelte form closer to me as I relaxed into my bed.

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