Immortal Arts Professor

Jack brought Michael and the village chief with him when he became president; they have been helping him since he took office.

As for Gabriel and Raphael, he left them in his home territory; after all, his home territory is his foundation, so he must take care of it.

Raphael has already become one of the richest people in the world; his wealth has helped Jack a lot during the war, and it is still helping him to maintain his operation's expenditure.

Gabriel was given the responsibility of taking over all criminal gangs in the former empire's land.

After the war, criminal gangs have been weakened, as they no longer enjoy the same political protection as before; the republic's government system is less corrupt, and it is no longer possible to immunize criminal gangs from prosecution entirely.

Gabriel already controlled many organizations, protection units, spy organizations, etc, before the war; using those, he was able to gain a foothold in the criminal world of the new country. By now, he is the leader of the empire's criminal gangs.

That said, he still hasn't managed to win complete control; even though most recognize him as the gang boss with the thickest neck, many, especially gangs in Kampaku's former territory, still defy him. It cannot be helped; after all, Jack doesn't have control of the government in those states, so completely taking over the gangs there is not possible; he plans to eventually take over the underworld of the entire country, but he hasn't managed to do it just yet.

As for Lucy, she has been lurking in ninja circles, recruiting them and organizing them.

Taking control of ninjas who were already in Jack's territory was not difficult; Lucy managed to do it easily. The 13 ninjas village was the easiest; there, Kuro and Pinku advocated for it, and the rest of the elders were persuaded. Technically, ninjas didn't agree to become subordinates, but they came de facto under the control of Jack.

As for samurais, those in Jack's territory formed a separate samurai organization and formally separated from those in the former kampaku's land; they now support Jack.

Jack plans on abolishing all these different factions in the future, but that is his plan only after he manages to create a powerful immortal force; at the moment, he wants peace, so he just lets samurais and ninjas do whatever they want.

As for criminal organizations, he restricts them from committing overt criminal acts, but as long as they keep it down, he allows it; after all, Gabriel is their leader, and a good chunk of their profits gets into Jack's pocket, so he has no plan on completely stopping them.

To begin with, completely eliminating all criminality is outright impossible; as long as it's a human society, crime will exist; of course, some advanced cultures use AI or chips to control their population, but that is no longer a pure 'human' society.

Jack was not a good person to begin with; he never had any plans of destroying criminal gangs and restoring justice, or any of the nonsense one may expect from an unrealistic novel or TV series that they broadcast in modern cultures. He only wanted to be able to control them; using big gangs, he could control small gangs; they can be very useful tools in intelligence gathering, making money, assassinations, intimidating political opponents, etc.

In fact, Jack already has plans for immortal criminal gangs in the future; who says only mortals can commit crimes?

The state governments under Jack's control have a harmonious relationship with criminal gangs in their territory; for example, if a state bans a product, gangs smuggle it and sell it at a far higher price; the profits are split between the state, Jack, and the gang members. It's a victimless act, not counting the people who were forced to pay the higher price.

The difference between what is happening now compared with Kampaku is the state's enforcement of its ban; before integration with the republic, the gangs could sell in the open with no repercussions, but now, they have to keep it down. The state arrests smugglers and punishes them; it's just that they only punish foot soldiers and low-level gang members; as for high-level members, they are, of course, protected. 

This way, the state keeps the appearance of enforcing its laws and keeping justice, and also getting a cut of the profits; two birds with one stone. Even better, the prosecution of the foot soldiers drives prices up, so it may actually not even dent the profits; it may even increase the gang's income, as they can sell smuggled goods at a far higher price.

It's another matter when it comes to drugs; Jack has limited distribution of heavy drugs in his territory, as they do real damage; He encouraged Gabriel to develop a light drug that improves the performance of workers.

Normally, people get tired, depressed, sick, and many other conditions; if he could addict them to a drug that removes depression, and feelings of tiredness, and allows them to work while sick, and also at the same time sell it to them at a high price, he would make a big profit, as that would increase productivity, and at the same time, bring in big money.

For now, Gabriel failed; Jack predicts that only immortal drugs can have upsides and not downsides; it is in his plan to do it in the future, but for now, it's only in the research and development phase.

...

Sitting in a room with his eyes closed, Jack was concentrating.

After a few minutes, the energy circulation in the room was disturbed.

With an audible glass-shattering sound, all energy began pouring toward Jack.

After a few minutes, he opened his eyes.

"Finally, 9th stage of energy gathering!" He sighed.

Today is the first day of his third year as president.

Originally, he expected to reach the 9th stage years ago, but unfortunately, the work of the president took all of his time; he barely had time to meditate, which was the reason he reached the 9th stage with such delay. By now, however, he has already appointed many competent people in all departments; they can run things on their own and don't need his active management.

Jack appointed the village chief as the chief minister; usually, he solves everything by himself, allowing Jack to meditate. As for Mike, Jack taught him immortal techniques three years ago; by now, Mike has reached the 7th stage of qi gathering.

Jack has been looking for those talented in Immortal cultivation for a long time; he has found over 100 talented kids recently and has convinced their parents to send them to a 'special training' university to 'guarantee' their future.

The president himself comes personally to ask you to send your child to some high-end university; most parents would gladly agree, especially in this era, where most are poor and cannot go to universities.

On the other hand, Jack has arranged for all branches under him, gangs, ninjas, samurais, governors, etc., to look for strange objects, trees, flowers, or anything out of the ordinary.

In the last few years, he discovered over 100 such things; those are immortal objects that mutated as a result of the energy in the air. For things that cannot be transported, like trees, he lets them be, just noting their location and putting guards around them to protect them. For objects that could be transferred, he ordered his subordinates to bring them and receive gold coins in exchange.

He took out a piece of stone from his pocket; it was the size of a palm, not big. But, it was special; this thing was an energy stone.

Energy stones are necessary objects for creating immortal formations; they have amazing effects when breaking through stages of the energy gathering stage. Unfortunately, as of now, Jack only has around 50 of them; but as time passes, more and more would be formed.

For now, however, energy stones are treasures that must not be wasted; Jack could have broken through the 9th stage far quicker if he had used his energy stones. But, instead of using them in his breaking through, he kept them; he plans on creating an energy gathering formation using these energy stones.

How to build a formation? Immortal formations are complicated; it takes trial and error, along with talented people to succeed.

Fortunately, Jack has a big country with hundreds of millions of people under him. He has gathered many geniuses from universities and put them to work on the formation. He gave them all the info he gathered about how energy works, along with a few energy stone pieces.

After a few months of work, they can already make some preliminary, miniature formations.

Energy stones can be split into smaller pieces; the one in Jack's hand can be split into 1000 miniature energy stones. Jack already mentally categorized energy stones into different groups.

The ones he has are quite big; they are large spirit stones. Those half size a pinky finger are medium-sized, while those in the size of a pea are small-sized.

Jack has 50 big spirit stones, which are equivalent to around 50,000 small spirit stones; using those, the scientists could experiment for a while.

When he manages to create an energy-gathering formation, he could use it himself or give it to his subordinates to cultivate. For now, he plans on using it himself because he doesn't want his subordinates to get too powerful too fast.

Jack is a control freak; he would not let others get powerful if they weren't under his control. Therefore, he is developing a technique that lets him put his mark on others' spiritual sea; which would let him control their life and death. He is developing this technique personally, not letting anyone know about it.

He hasn't succeeded yet; he would probably need at least a core formation cultivation base in order to do it.

Controlling a cultivator of the same rank with a spiritual mark would be very hard, so Jack must be one big realm above them. There are only four realms: Energy gathering, core formations, Nascent soul, and divine soul; this spiritual mark technique can at most last until his subordinates reach the divine soul; long term, he must have better techniques; after all, if he can remain one realm higher, why should he fear their defection and betrayal? The technique is not really useful.

But, so far, he has failed to think of any technique that lets him control a cultivator in the same realm. In the long run, though, he would most likely invent something; until then, he would not let any of his subordinates get as strong as he is.

Michael, Lucy, etc., are, of course, exceptions; they are not just any subordinates; he designed them himself, and they would never betray him.

With future plans in place, Jack stood up to check on the 'Special University.' He admitted 100 new students recently; he must check on them and teach them lessons personally.

At the moment, there is no other person besides him and Michael who can act as an immortal arts professor.