1 IB Exams

"落霞与孤鹜齐飞,秋水共长天一色, hehe, I finally recited it properly within a relevant context, that's another thing I won't have any regrets about. This is fine."

Adam's internal monologue gradually became more vivid and complex as he gazed at the crimson, rosy sky with a flock of Canadian ducks galloping valiantly across. Now obviously, he was hallucinating, it was May and the sky was perfectly clear without a trace of anything except the occasional F-18C conducting exercises.

"Oh wait, perhaps that was also an illusion?"

Adam gradually developed a smile across his face, as a foreign and simultaneously friendly and sincere wave of peace washed over his body.

Adam Obama is a 17 year old highschool student enrolled in the IB program, a highly competitive two-year Baccalaureate set during Grades 11-12 (or 12-13 if you're from the UK) that aimed to prepare students for the rigors of academia while also developing an international mindset. It taught courses at a significantly higher and deeper level than regular highschool, required students to do independent research, and ended with a standardized international exam.

It was May 20, Adam had just completed the last of his exams, a wave of tranquility and satisfaction had overwhelmed him when he definitely answered that last exam question, something about the polymerization of ethene.

He felt very confident with his capabilities and was proud of himself. He had received a predicted grade of 45, the highest possible in the IB program, and he was confident he could meet it for the final exams.

But that was not the real reason Adam was feeling so proud. For he wasn't always this strong academically, back in grade 10 he could barely expand binomials, and didn't understand anything about trigonometry ratios or logarithms.

However, with sufficient determination, a ridiculously stubborn ego refusing to give up, hours of tears and sweat, and a crazy level of self-discipline coupled with a brutally efficient schedule; Adam had achieved his goals. He mastered all the concepts taught in IB, Heisenberg's principle, HNMR spectroscopy, Taylor series, they were all child's play to him now.

He even reached beyond and scored 100 on Waterloo's (Canada's strongest mathematics and Computer science university) Euclid Math Contest and 75 on the Canadian Senior Computing Contest, earning him a spot in the Canadian Computing Olympiad. In the end however, he still lost to some super tryhard Chinese kid, and Adam will be eternally salty for that.

What an interesting highschool experience, too bad it was all about to end.

You see, as an excited and joyful Adam jumped out of the school with his friends after the exams to celebrate their graduation, he did not see a strange truck approaching him from behind…

It was on a road near the school, Adam did not expect a vehicle to traversing so quickly. But as the truck neared it was too late to react.

A huge burly man of Caucasian descent, wearing sunglasses and a red hat featuring some fervent political slogan, while also being completely shirtless and having a half-smoked cigarette in his mouth, was currently driving the white van that came at Adam. His only companion in the car being his beloved AR-15 that his great grandfather had dug up from Abraham Lincoln's grave, which their family kept as a heirloom ever since. The man's truck was completely painted with political images, featuring various infantile jabs against different ideologies and individuals, complete with a giant nationalist flag wielded onto the roof of the van.

The man screamed at the top of his lungs, "die you f*cking Chicom piece of sh*t!" As the van rammed directly into Adam with more kinetic energy than any of the questions his IB Physics exam had featured. And he drove off without a trace…

A crowd had gathered around Adam now, his body limp with a pool of blood around it, someone had called an ambulance, others his parents. Many school staff members and paramedics were conducting various first aid procedures and calling out to Adam, asking him to listen.

But they were all blocked out to the young man, who had both of his eardrums shattered from the impact. In reality, he had also received severe brain damage and the amount of blood in his eyes made vision physically impossible.

They say before one's death, their brain achieves a level of lucidity and awareness beyond anything they have experienced, as their bodies release an assortment of hormones, and all their memories from their life begin converging into a few seconds, just like f(x) and h(x) in the squeeze theorem.

Currently, Adam was visualizing a beautiful autumn sky with flocks of ducks gliding through it. He was also remembering that specific line in a Chinese poem written by Tang Dynasty poet Wang Bo.

If you couldn't tell already, Adam has a great fascination for Chinese culture. He was ethnically Chinese himself, and could even be called a moderate nationalist. Oh, but his position is of a peaceful eastern rise, he believed there were merits to both western and eastern civilization, and that co-existence was the best course of action for both China and the US's sphere, only together can we tackle the difficulties of exploring beyond our little speck of dust in the vast universe.

You may wonder how one can be ethnically Chinese when their last name is Obama. Well, it's complicated. You see, Adam's grandmother from his mother's side came from a very prestigious Chinese family, one which strongly cared about face and honor during a period where those concepts were treated a bit more seriously than one would expect. Their family name was "Ma." His grandfather was just from an average family that had the last name "Ba," and an argument followed when they married, the prestigious family did not have any sons in that generation, and wanted their only female descendant to carry on the family name. But it was a great shame in Chinese culture back then for a male to take on the wife's last name. So, they made a compromise and passed on both their last names to their child, giving them the denomination "Bama." As you may guess, the exact same predicament happened when they also had an only child that was a girl, when she married a man with the last name "Ao," they compromised again and Adam ended up with the name "Obama."

Currently, Adam was still thinking about Wang Bo's poem, he had always wanted to use that poetic line, he found an intrinsic beauty in it, but could never find the opportunity or context to do so. So during Adam's last moments, his brain had created the perfect setting that captured the poem to encapsulate the slideshow of his life flashing before him now.

"Eh, this isn't too bad."

"Not a bad way to go."

"I've achieved more academically than most adults anyways…"

"I'm worried at how my family will receive this though, sh*t…"

"If only those edgy asian cultivation novels were real, ah I would have slapped that white supremacist and his stupid van so hard…"

"Wish I could take another jab at life…"

"Why'd I have to die in some North American rainforest city…"

"Wish I could see China one last ti-…."

"…"

"…"

"…"

And then it was bright again. Adam just instantly woke up, and what faced him was just... white, in every direction that he looked. Actually, he was confused at how he was even maneuvering his rotation, for every direction looked the same, and he didn't seem to have eyelids… or anything really.

It was quite strange for Adam, to go from an explosion of emotions to another. First he had graduated IB with a stellar score! Just when he was about to celebrate, he had been hit by a truck and died. And now he woke up in some infinitely stretched three dimensional white space with seemingly no physical body but complete and clear consciousness.

It wasn't his senses confusing Adam, it was the fact that there was no physical confusion. His senses were all so sensitive and crisp, and his mind was completely clear and conscious. But that shouldn't be possible because he had no body, so biologically he should not have any senses.

[What a pity.]

Adam turned around and what faced him was a most peculiar sight.

A man was sitting on a simplistic and simultaneously majestic throne of very fine craftsmanship, the throne was made out of some transparent crystal-like structure, just resolvable from the background from a light blue tint on the material that would usually just be an aftertaste, but was made quite distinct given the stark white backdrop. Looking closely, Adam could see various drawings etched onto the crystal, some he could recognize, a fish, a dove, a strange looking tortoise. Other things were either completely mythical or foreign, a dragon, a phoenix, a humanoid looking figure holding onto what looked to be an opaque blade covered with unrecognizable particles, a variety of strange plants that Adam could not recognize.

The man sitting on the throne was no less peculiar. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, yet he had long and milky white hair that almost blended in with the background, already combining into a strange sight. The man was wearing a black, long robe with a faint purplish taint to it. If observed closely it could be seen that the etchings on the throne were also present on his robe. The only other accessories observable on the man were a pair of dark gray boots and a rosy, white ring on his right middle finger radiating an ominous aura.

The very strange part of the man was how smooth his skin seemed to be. Not in a feminine way, the man was solidly built with a distinctly masculine appearance. But his skin looked like it was polished marble, no wrinkles or any imperfections could be seen, Adam had a feeling that he could take a x100 microscope to the man's skin and still observe no imperfections. Yet it still retained a fleshy texture. Overall, this combined to give him a look that resembled an anime character or 3D model, alien but still certainly human.

The man currently had his eyes closed and was resting his head upon his left fist, whose elbow was relaxed on the arm of the throne. He had a bored expression. For some reason, Adam thought the man looked very familiar, but could not quite place his hand on who. As Adam contemplated all this the man spoke again.

[A disciplined and ambitious youth, with fair achievements in his chosen field. A supportive family and good friends. You had a bright future ahead, but your life was ended prematurely.]

*Silence*

[You can talk.]

Oh yes, of course. It didn't occur to Adam previously, but since he was already disobeying everything he knew in his past 17 years of life by having vivid senses despite possessing no body, what made it so unbelievable for him to be able to talk as well? So he imagined how he normally would open his mouth and gave it a try.

"Hello, I'm Adam Obama, who are you? Am I in the hospital right now? Is this some highly advanced neural simulation designed to help me recover? If so, I-"

[Enough. I know who you are. You are not currently in the hospital. You are dead.]

Wow, so much for consolation.

[But because you died so tragically without fulfilling your potential, usually you would be given another life in another world. I believe in your local culture this was described as "isekai."]

Ok what. Adam felt both ridiculous and ridiculed. Just what even… what? He couldn't believe what he just heard. Isekai? So that self-insert trash was real? Oh, please no! How is that fair for the people who constantly, pro-actively improve themselves and throw away thousands of hours to study, practice, or train in a specialized field just to achieve a satisfactory standing in the world, when NEET losers can just die and be transported to their ideal fantasies?

As you can tell, Adam had very strong political beliefs on social issues. He was a staunch supporter of discipline, and that true individual freedom can only be achieved through meticulous planning and effective execution. He very much detested unearned rewards for those that have the potential to achieve things but choose not to for whatever excuses.

"Welp, if I'm getting Isekaied at least I hope they don't modify my personality to be as dense as those poorly written harem protagonists, actually I just hope in general that they don't transport me into some harem setting." The lad's ego began silently monologuing once again. But then the man continued, based on his timing it was obvious that he could read Adam's mind perfectly, but his response seemed to ignore the young man's rant.

[However, you are different. You are not just a confused, depressed brat who would be satisfied with any fantasy world.]

"Oh, thanks for the compliment."

[You are a slightly less confused and depressed brat with naïve but certain ideological beliefs.]

Damn.

[Anyways, the "gods", in your area usually handle these things according to the individual's personal desires.]

[So although, you died in the west. You are literally a Chinese nationalist, so they wanted to get someone from a similar environment to… settle you.]

"So you're the god in charge of isekaing me? This is starting to sound increasingly stupid and corny, just throw me into "Lucky Star" or something and be done with it."

Just then, the man laughed, for the first time, it was a strong laugh that vibrated through the body with authority, despite Adam technically not having a body. And from what he said following that, it was clear that he was not laughing at the "Lucky Star" joke…

[Hahaha, do not associate me with those people. A bunch of ants that claim to be gods. You see, I have to "leave" soon to commit genocide on an entire dimension because they messed with my wife, it will take a few hundred years. I simply wanted someone to continue my legacy in this universe while I am gone. You are not special, you are just one of many who meet my base requirements. Consider yourself extremely lucky."]

After he said that, the man slowly opened his eyes. Adam felt an impossibly powerful force on himself, the amount of gravitational potential he felt at his current point in space made him question if this was what if felt like to be near a black hole, if he still had a body Adam was sure it would be instantly dissociated into elementary particles. The man's eyes felt overwhelmingly deep, it was as if Adam was staring into the core of a black hole whose size could encapsulate the entire universe several times over, and the only reason it did not rip reality to shreds was because it was not currently in the mood for it.

At the same time a sense of realization swept past Adam. He knew who the man was. He read lots of cultivation novels in his spare time for fun, but there was only one novel that distanced itself from all the other garbage fantasies, and really stuck with Adam because of some indescribable pull. He never guessed it would be because the main character of that novel was a genuine god that was in front of him right now.

[You are correct. I am Chen Beixuan, Tribulation stage Immortal Emperor. But you may know me as, Chen Fan?]