Red Pupils
Jack's 'special university' was built using his personal money; he used his position as president to find talented students but wanted complete control over it, so he didn't build it with government funds.
It was quite small, with only dormitories, classrooms, a gym, and nothing else. There were no labs, libraries, restaurants, etc. Food was prepared outside and delivered to students' dormitories door by door.
Cultivators are a private group of people who usually live alone and trust no one. These groups of students, as future cultivators, were given exclusive rooms equipped with beds, meditation rooms, bathrooms, and a safe for important possessions.
Cultivators in the energy-gathering stage must still sleep, eat, and drink; only in core formation can they finally shed mortal habits and focus exclusively on cultivation. Still, as one progresses in the Energy Gathering stage, their need for mortal needs lessens; a cultivator in the peak of the 10th stage of the Energy Gathering realm can survive with only one drop of water, one piece of meat, and a few minutes of sleep a day.
The students were of all genders, races, and ages. Most humans in this universe have only two biological genders, but as everyone knows, biological gender is different from gender roles; one can identify with whatever gender one desires, and as long as others recognize it, it will come true.
The republic is vast and comprised of hundreds of cultures.
The main cities are mostly homogenous, but there are still many distinct and interesting cultures in the more rural places.
When Jack looked for talented students to admit to his university, he didn't just look at the main cities; he specifically went out of his way to get at least a few students from racial and cultural minorities.
It was not that Jack believed in diversity and wanted to create a student body that was fair and equitable and looked like the country; he is a bad person; everything he does is solely for his own personal benefit, as for social good and the greater good, he doesn't care. He was recruited from diverse backgrounds because, regardless of his personal feelings, mortal and even low-grade immortal humans still care about appearances.
Sure, smart people and those with clear minds don't care about arbitrary factors such as race, gender, etc., but unfortunately for him, few are both smart and clear-minded in the republic.
Jack plans on creating many branches of his immortal force all around the country; it would look bad if he sent people from the big cities to rule the immortal agency's branches in the countryside. That may cause resistance from the local population; after all, local rule is deep in the republic; if he sends immortal agents that look different from them, there would be resistance, especially in some more isolated places, like the red-eyed tribe in the western border.
On the other hand, if he sends immortals who look like the local population, even simple-minded people who cannot see beyond appearance would be satisfied and more easily trust him.
Of course, Jack can also suppress them and rule them with force, but why bother doing the hard thing when he can prevent problems from appearing with an easy fix? Getting students from diverse backgrounds costs nothing and is much less troublesome than using hard-handed means.
Jack has been doing the same in his presidency; he has been promoting and using people from all cultures and races from all around the country to gain popularity.
His presidency has faced many obstacles so far in Congress.
He failed to ratify the right to vote for all women. But, he has been very loud, talking about discrimination against women whenever he can; his reason is not righteous; it's just that he needs the women's vote; if he can get votes for simply talking and pushing for something so easy and with no cost for him, why not?
Of course, his loudness regarding many social issues made him extremely unpopular in the center and right of center, but he doesn't need them; he has his base, and as long as he gets 30% of the leftist vote, that's enough.
That said, left and right in different places can be very different.
The empire's left was basically related to local control versus central control; there, right-of-center voters were those who believed the emperor, or kampaku, depending on the situation, should rule, while the left wanted local control and less royal rule.
That was the opposite of many other countries, where the left advocated for more centralized rule.
In the northern kingdom, the left meant supporting the crown prince, while the right meant supporting ministers. After the crown prince was killed, the entire foundation of the left was destroyed, which was another reason that the country actually fell from the impact.
In the republic, the left means taxing the rich, giving 'free' money to people, government solving everything, less private and more social, promoting those who they consider to be minorities, high regulation, laws for everything except when it comes to what they consider an unalienable right, etc.
Right means money rules everything, let the rich do what they want, less social anything, less regulation for everything, etc. Of course, nobody with a net worth below 7 digits would vote for such a platform, so the right usually 'sweetens' the deal with nationalism and social problems.
What does it mean for Jack? It means he cannot win the entire country by a simple left and right politics, as left and right mean different things in different places; that's why he has been pushing wider issues, such as women's voting rights.
...
Faith was one of the students admitted two weeks ago. She lives on the empire's western border; her land is often invaded by western barbarians who sometimes reach the border after passing the Wildland Mountains.
Barbarians are wild, have red pupils, eat children, live in caves, etc.; that is common knowledge among nearly everyone in all nearby countries. But Faith knows all those rumors are false because her tribe was originally one of the 'western barbarians.'
Some of her tribesmen and women have red eyes and even red hair, but they don't eat children or live in caves. They are just people who look slightly different; they have a warrior-centric culture and are the first line of defense against barbarian invasions.
Western barbarians indeed look like them, but they are not alike; if it weren't for her tribe on the border, western barbarians would have inflicted much more damage upon the republic.
But, throughout the years, she and her tribe have never been accepted into society because, despite their service in repelling barbarian invasions, they have resembled barbarians.
Whenever one of her family members tried moving to the big cities of the republic, they never returned, presumably something happened to them on the way.
Their land was extremely isolated, as nobody dared to come and visit them; this caused their culture to be extremely isolationist; they just remained in their land, lived and fought barbarians, and never moved around; the republic knew their importance, so they usually sent food and supplies, helping their tribe survive winters.
She never expected to leave her land; she thought she would marry a warrior, have children, live a normal life, and eventually die after getting old.
But Faith's fate was different.
The president of the republic personally visited their tribe and recruited her and several other members of her tribe to go to a university.
The tribe was unwilling to let the children go; they didn't trust the republic.
But, the president gave 200 gold coins for each child as compensation; only then did the tribe chief consent.
The president handpicked 7 children, all of whom had the most obvious facial features of her tribe.
Only around 20 out of 100 of her tribesmen and women have red eyes; it can be said that out of 100, at least 50 look similar enough to others in the republic that they can pass as 'normal.' Still, even those looking 'normal' usually get caught because of their accent, distinct habits, and culture.
Their similarity to the people of the republic might be because of their intermarriage; the barbarians who invade usually all have red eyes.
Still, the children the president picked all had red eyes; it was as if he specifically picked those who looked the most like barbarians. He secretly brought them to the university without anyone noticing.
When they arrived and were seen by other students, most screamed and ran away from them. It was expected; after all, the legend of red-eyed barbarians who eat children was common; every parent saw their duty to warn their children about barbarians.
Even though most ran, a few remained; those who remained were also racial minorities who were not as deeply consumed by the cultures of the majority.
In the surrounding countries, the majority had white skin; there were other skin colors, green and black being the most common among minorities. Not being exposed to general culture and experiencing discrimination firsthand allowed some black and green-skinned children to befriend children from her tribe.
Now that two weeks have passed, everyone has become more familiar with them and no longer fears them.
After all, the students were all under 12, and they only feared because of their parents; now, seeing that even red-eyed children are so friendly, they began smiling and laughing with them.
Even their parents, who warned them, didn't do it out of evil; they only worried about the safety of their children; if they lived with a friendly person from her tribe, they would most likely throw away their prejudice against them. After all, even though most people are selfish, they still try to do good; very few go out of their way specifically to do evil.
Most evil happens when someone feels they are fighting for the greater good, or for their country or tribe, or something greater; in a one-on-one interaction, most would try to be good and friendly.
That is, of course, if someone interacts with her tribesman one-on-one for a long time to give them a chance to know each other; if the interaction is short, that would not change anything.
In this 'special university,' Jack forced students to talk and know each other for long periods of time; only after a week did they become comfortable with each other. Most mortals try to act at least friendly if they spend long periods of time together; it's even more true for children.
Of course, immortals are a whole other matter; anyone reaching rank 10 without a special situation would most likely be ruthless and emotionless; in general, all kind and good-hearted people would be filtered out on the road to immortality.
...
Faith, as an 11-year-old girl, was much more mentally grown up than most; she used to think about the future and always sighed with disappointment. But now, she finally has things to look forward to.