When I was dropped into the Hive world Baruis with only a simple 'post it note' on the ground saying where I was and realizing that I was in the Warhammer 40k universe I honestly considered killing myself as life in this universe was fraught with naught but suffering and horrific examples of casual cruelty.
Thankfully I had the equivalent of spawn safety as I had been dropped into this universe within a literal vault of some kind or I guess, having large thick metal doors to block out a gene stealer or the smaller bio forms of Tyranids is just a common thing for within a hive city.
But it was only as I was checking my leather jacket pockets to see if I had a fold-out knife to hopefully Isekai myself to literally any universe other than this one that I grabbed and pulled out what looked to be a glowing crystal orb.
"Is this supposed to be my cheat or something?" I muttered as the orb of light gently broke out of my grasp and flew around me momentarily before with a start it shot itself into my forehead.
I was awash with an endless deluge of knowledge as the orb seemingly shattered within my body and reformed my plebian vanilla earth body into a form with far greater potential while also granting me an entire library of knowledge.
And what great knowledge it was...
I was given the complete knowledge of an entire path of cultivation. From simple mortal cultivation up celestial cultivation in which you could grasp the very heavens and bend them to your will.
But rather than some omnipotent main cultivation art that would allow me to ascend to the heavens I was given only a single main cultivation art.
"Heavenly Demon Swallowing Art?" I pondered as I perused the Cultivation art within my mind. In its essence it allowed the practitioner to absorb toxic and malignant energies countless times easier than absorbing natural energies at the expense of almost crippling yourself at absorbing purely helpful energies at any decent rate.
I then realized why I was given this Art. In the Warhammer 40k universe, the entire galaxy it takes part in is shrouded in the veil of the Warp/The Immaterium, A reverse of the real world that was inhabited by endless demons and four demon gods of immeasurable might that could sunder planets with ease.
Point was that the universe itself was filled with Warp energies that bled into the Galaxy at large that regularly warped people into monstrous abominations if they didn't just make their eyeballs explode within their own sockets at the mind-melting images and insanity they may peer into.
Not only did I have my primary cultivation art, but my mind also contained almost endless techniques, spells, and more importantly auxiliary cultivation arts that would strengthen myself in without having to purify myself after absorbing the chaotic energies of the Warp.
"So do I just start cultivating now?" I wondered as I stared at the door and then the 'post-it note' that I still left on the ground as I dropped it in my panic.
Deciding to stick the note into my pocket I picked it up and decided to check its backside just in case and I froze as I noticed the writing on the backside of the note.
'BTW. Baruis is a planet just east on the galactic map of Kreig so enjoy the Ork's and Tyranids inevitably arriving to.' The note read and I even as I began blubbering at the realization that I was on a planet sandwiched between the endless force of the Orks and Tyranids I couldn't help but giggle at the realization that even a ROB 'random omnipotent being' having the inconvenience of running out of space to write on post-it notes...
Realizing the potential danger of this world and seeing one of the walls of the room stocked with food, water, and even a toilet with a pipe heading straight down a mystery pipe of darkness, I realized whoever sent me here and gave me these cultivation arts obviously wanted me to stay here for a length of time, so I don't die to the first gutter trash I run into outside this small vault.
"Well in that case I suppose the first order of business is to refine a set of Kasaya Blood Beads in order to refine my mind and body," I muttered as I went about the painful task of performing a Buddhist ritual in which I stabbed my thumbs and by reciting a mantra, dark black blood would be pulled from my body and would pool within a bowl I set aside.
Buddhist cultivation Arts would be extremely useful in keeping my mind clear of any mental pollution that may slip past my main cultivation art.
The black practically blood was pieces of my body's negative karma and once I folded my hands over the bowl with my bleeding thumbs pressing into my folded fingers, I could feel the blood running down my digits slowly stopping until with a loud clinking noise two tiny pebbles of red crystal fell into the dark blood in the bowl.
I moved my no longer bleeding hands aside as I tiredly watched those two blood crystals absorb and multiply within my blood slowly creating more crystals and eventually a string-like veins connecting the blood beads.
While that was working, I set my cleared mind to follow the Heavenly Demon Swallowing Art, slowly and extremely carefully dangled out a tiny portion of my consciousness outside my body and once I felt something almost nibbling on that tiny portion of my consciousness, I violently yanked it back pulling in the essence of the Warp that was attempting to assimilate my wandering mind into its realm.
With that wisp of the Warp as I was able to open my extremely metaphorically third eye and begin to slowly absorb the ambient Warp energies present.
"This is slow as hell..." I cursed after what felt like ten minutes of slowly guiding the chaotic energies across my body until the energies broke down and assimilated into my body and began elevating into a greater form.
Reviewing my cultivation knowledge, the style I was operating within had a total of nine mortal realms and seven divine realms, though I knew the general knowledge of the mortal realms, I was very quickly enlightened that unless I went to a place filled with negative energies or practiced some auxiliary cultivation techniques to gather the Warp energy more efficiently than myself just mentally throwing my consciousness out into the Immaterial world and absorbing the ambient energies I was going to hit a soft cap in how fast I could cultivate.
Basically, with the first wisp I absorbed I had automatically stepped into the first level of the Elementary realm with each of the Mortal Realms having nine levels within each realm I realized that with this world not having heavenly herbs or whatnot that I would need to absorb energy in some unorthodox manners.
I looked into the bowl and smiled as I saw the Kasya Blood Beads had already absorbed all my blood, so I wrapped light red bloody toned crystals bound with what looked to be blood veins across my wrist and grimaced as they seemingly pierced my skin, and I felt the beads form a symbiotic bond with myself.
Now typically the Blood Kasya Beads were a Devilish Bodhisattvas technique that you would form out of your own blood at the beginning of your cultivation and would then use them as your primary weapon and defensive tool as they grew with the strength of your own body and could even be further strengthened by soaking them in the blood of enemies.
In Warhammer 40k blood is one of the cheapest resources with how people's lives were worth almost nothing here in this Hives city.
I mentally commanded the Kasya Beads and with red flash, they lashed out with a swing of my arm, and with a loud crash the barbed whip smashed against a metal crate and shaved off chunks of the metal as the beads retreated back around my wrist.
I looked over to my food storage and realized I had probably a week's worth of food and even less water if I rationed it out to three small meals a day, so I sighed and sat down with my knees crossed as went over my knowledge of techniques of auxiliary cultivation arts that could enhance my body so I wouldn't die to some random errant bullet being shot out of a homemade pipe rifle or being mauled by some mutant.
"I guess it would be best to start out as simple as possible," I muttered as I realized with my meager food storage I didn't have a solid month to build a strong foundation with a stronger technique like the Nine Yang Suns True Body Technique. Instead, I was going to have to use a simple strengthening technique that will lay a foundation for a stronger technique once I get my feet underneath myself here in this Hive city.
"Diamond body is a go I suppose." I chuckled as I began practicing the barest bone, technique in my repertory, and even half an hour later I could feel my muscles and skin had seemingly tightened up and I realized I had formally laid a foundation in the technique as my skin and muscles had taken on the strength and durability of unrefined iron.
-
Three days later I had almost run out of food as I realized the hard way that strengthening your body beyond mortal limits without strengthening your spiritual core would heighten your hunger and thus, I had little choice but to set out and see what this cursed world had in store for myself.
Finally opening the vault door to my not-so-humble abode after a minor struggle to figure out its method I comically poked my head in out of the door and furtively looked back and forth the dimly lit tunnel that went both left and right before I obviously chose the 'right' way in heading down right from my door.
"Ok, Jake just go down the dark eerily hallways, find a way to get food and water then flee back to your hole where you can cultivate immortality in peace and quiet... Totally easy quest." I said to psyche myself up.
As though the universe laughed at my naive thought, a monstrous scream rang out through the tunnels and a large, mutated spider that came to my chest with its legs hugging the walls of the tunnels came skittering down the tunnel and was about to bowl me over or even eat me.
"Fuck off back to hell!" I screamed mentally ordering my Kasya Beads to do their dirty work and with a flourish, a red line lashed out with a harsh cracking noise as my Kasya beads shattered the spiders exo-skeleton and stopped it in its tracks from the swift blow popping several of its chaotically placed eyes.
With another flourish I sent my whip straight into the previous wound and then with a thought the Kasya Beads lost its flexible attribute as it became straight as an arrow and with a grunt, I shoved the beaded string through the massive spiders bleeding eye sockets and into the brain where the beads began lightly glowing as it greedily drank the blood from the spider as it collapsed to the ground dead.
I stared at the massive spider and back down to the tunnel as I considered my options, and I realized I basically had three options as I realized where I was in the Hive City. For one I was in the Underhive of the Hive city or in other words I was in the lowest levels of Coruscant from Star Wars as I was so deep and under so much stacked upon buildings that I had no way of seeing the sun and the whole area was overran with the worst criminals and worse mutated people and lifeforms.
So, I had the options of basically slaughtering my way up to the upper levels and even killing the security stopping the people living down here in these lower levels from going up. I could join the Imperial Army to be made fodder for the Imperium of Man to get out of the Underhive easily. Or lastly, I take a note out of the doom guys book and slaughter everything within reach to the point where people and the monsters realize my area is a forbidden land.
Seeing as I didnt fancy my chances against auto cannons, tanks and missile launchers that rules out trying to fight my way up to a better place and if I join the Astra Militarum as a cultivator I will certainly be prosecuted as a 'heretic' doing foul warp magic nonsense and once again I don't favor my odds against science fiction military weaponry. So that leaves me with trying to take my own territory down here in the Underhive until I become much stronger.
Seeing the spider had become a drained husk from my Kasya Beads draining its blood I ripped them out and they automatically wrapped themselves around my arm and I noticed the beads were slightly bigger and the rope holding it together had become longer.
Even as I wished I had a speaker to play some loud Doom music to hype myself up as I almost confidently walked down the tunnel in which the spider ran from, I was actually listening deeply for other sounds that could announce whatever I was going to meet.
A couple minutes later I got my wish as I heard a deluge of running water ahead of me and after a bit more walking, I reached the end of the tunnel, and my face couldn't help but freeze and twitch several times at the sight in front of me.
An unholy smell assailed me, and it was only my Cultivator enhanced body control that allowed me to temporally shut off my sense of smell and in front of me was an utterly massive cylinder structure.
The structure looked to be a massive cistern with several waterfalls, and I realized with the smell that this was definitely a major sewer and looking around I noticed all the walls that weren't being drenched in the waterfalls was completely covered in spiderwebs with uncountable massive spiders atop them.
I heard another scream rang out and I looked down like forty meters at the bottom of the cistern and I saw a group of humanoid shapes using what looked to be makeshift weapons to kill some of the closer spiders and taking the corpses into the tunnels.
"Eating massive spiders for food..." I shuddered at the image and then I pulled back into my tunnel as the group of people attracted too much attention and instead of the chest sized spiders, they had been dealing with a semitruck sized monster scorpion fell off the wall and ran into their tunnel tearing into the poor bastards with their dying screams reverberating through the tunnel I was retreating from.
"You know what... I think left was the better option." I said as I carefully locked myself back into my vault.