Winning

It took 5 years for Jack to reach the 8th stage of energy gathering. Breaking the fourth stage and reaching the 5th stage took only 1 year; the 6th took much longer, one year by itself. Reaching the 7th and 8th stages took longer, a total of three years combined.

The energy-gathering stage has 10 stages; after reaching the 10th stage, it would be possible to form a pill.

As Jack predicts, breaking the 8th stage and reaching the 9th stage would take 3 years, and it would most likely take 4 years to break the 9th and reach the 10th. One also must reach the peak of the 10th step, which would most likely take another 3 years.

In total, even for Jack, who is extremely talented, it will take 15 years to reach the peak of the energy-gathering realm. With his talent, condensing the energy into a core would probably take 5-10 years. In total, it takes 20-25 years to reach core formation from scratch while not using any medicine or immortal elixir.

Also, Jack's cultivation technique, Heaven's Way, slowed down his speed to some extent. Cultivation techniques strengthen mana but slow down cultivation speed.

Jack also cultivated the normal concentration of energy in wide-open air; in the future, immortal forces can build formations that gather the energy and increase concentration, making the energy-gathering stage much easier.

...

One year later.

Kashu has been busy. First, the issue was how aggressive he must be in trying to integrate the systems of the two countries.

Even though the federal system allowed local autonomy, the federal government was still the supreme power. Federal laws supersede local laws; it's just that because of how the Senate works, it's very hard to pass federal law.

In the last 6 years, Kashu tried to get laws passed that integrate the systems of the two countries closer together, but he failed to get even 51 votes, let alone the 60 votes required.

It was worse in the House of the People; he only got 385 representatives for his plans, with over 600 opposed.

With Congress immobilized, Kashu was forced to use his executive power. He ordered the states to send detailed information about their military units to the federal agencies. He tried doing many other things, like harmonizing currencies within the country, slapping federal taxes on farm products, and legislating how money is split between states and the federal government.

Unfortunately for him, every single one was stopped in court.

It turned out that the system negotiated at that time was unworkable. They had no other choice then; the deal they came to 6 years ago was a compromise; if they didn't agree, the two countries would have had to fight. It wasn't like Kashu didn't know or couldn't predict the problems arising from the current court system, but he couldn't change it.

The current federal court system was a compromise with states; in short, federal judges are appointed by the president, but the president must get the consent of 67 senators, along with the governor of the state to which the federal judge in question has jurisdiction for them to be appointed with full power.

That means that for a federal judge to have power over the entire country, they must receive the consent of the governor of every single state. One can see how difficult that is.

But, the reverse is not true. Judges can rule against the federal government regardless of where they are, as the judges are appointed as president, so the federal chief executive, the president, is presumed to have consented.

As a result of this system, the president has to haggle and compromise to appoint judges. Because of this compromise, more than half of the federal judges he appointed are basically loyal to the local states and are not really on the side of the federal government.

For courts with nationwide jurisdiction, however, getting the consent of governors is much more difficult. For example, the Supreme Court judges have power over the entire country, but that is only if they receive the consent of all governors; if they fail to get a governor's consent, they would lack any power in that state.

The same is true about appeals courts, specialized courts, etc. It all became a complicated mess that even lawyers couldn't figure out.

Compromise over the Supreme Court judges was just impossible; Kashu could not find anyone with universal support.

The country is divided into three factions in total. One is the former republic states, which have 50 governors. The next is Jack's sphere of influence, which has 26 state governors. The remaining are former ministers of Kampaku, which has 24 states.

There are three appeals courts; each aligns exactly with the three factions: a court of appeals for the former republic, a court of appeals within Jack's territory, and another within the former ministers' territory. So, when appointing a court of appeals judge, Kashu only negotiates with one faction and can compromise with them.

But for the Supreme Court, he must find judges whom all three factions agree on, which is practically not possible. He gave up after trying for 3 years.

As a result, he ignored state governors and appointed judges without getting full consent from all governors; he only gained consent from the 50 former republic states. As a result, the Supreme Court, which was supposed to be the absolute highest court, was left with no authority in half of the country.

The system is extremely prone to abuse. For example, a governor sues the president over a presidential decree in front of a sympathetic judge. The judge rules against the president. Then, the federal government appeals it to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court overrules the trial court's ruling. But, as mentioned before, the Supreme Court lacks any power in the states where governors didn't consent; therefore, the trial court's order cannot be overruled by the Supreme Court in states where their governors didn't consent to their appointment.

For example, in an executive order regarding taxes on farm products, the governor sues and gets the president's order overturned in the state.

The federal government appeals it, but the Court of Appeals of the region, which also mostly leans toward states, refuses the appeals and keeps the presidential decree on hold; that would be the end for that decree in that state, as they could not appeal the order to the supreme court if the governor didn't consent to any of the judges on it.

In effect, whatever order Kashu gives applies only to the land of the former republic, as they are the only states that consented to the Supreme Court's judges.

As a result of all of these problems, Kashu didn't really manage to do anything in the last few years, and now that the next election is close, he struggled to campaign, as he didn't have many wins. Of course, if one were fair, Kashu had huge wins, the most obvious being integrating the empire into the republic, strengthening and expanding the country, etc.

But, those achievements are only bright for those in the former republic's land; in the former empire's land, those are not achievements but crimes. After all, many, especially in cities formerly loyal to Kampaku, blame Kashu as the cause of the fall of their country.

...

The election was held. The result? Kashu lost to Jack! He won the votes in the former republic's land, winning over 90% of the vote there. The reason he lost, however, was the low turnout in the former republic's land and the high turnout in Jack's territories.

Jack won 8% of the vote in the former republic's land and 21% of the vote in the land controlled by Kampaku's former ministers, along with 98% of the vote in his own territory. Jack won 47% of the vote to Kashu's 45%; the candidate fielded by former ministers won 7%.

Kashu didn't start conspiring for a coup to remain in power; he just peacefully left power; after all, his party still controls 50 states and 50 senators; in the long run, he and his party have the biggest chance, as the former republic's territory has the biggest population and regularly votes 90%+ for them. It isn't worth destroying everything to remain in power; if he tries doing that, Jack, who still has his army, would rebel, and the entire agreement and treaties that marry the two countries would fall apart.

Kashu can still win the next election. He didn't believe in democracy or anything; he only willingly left power peacefully because he knew that he would most likely win the next election and that Jack had a massive army that could fight back.

With that in mind, he left the presidential palace, opening the way for Jack.

By this time, Jack was close to breaking through the 9th stage of the energy-gathering realm; the president's responsibilities would no doubt slow his progress, but it was worth it. As of now, very few have discovered the existence of energy in the air; some people have broken through the 1st stage of energy gathering by luck, but no organized force has appeared.

He can use the president's power to look for immortal treasures and even create the first immortal force in the world. Taking the entire world would be easy with an immortal force in his hand.

...

The republic's capital was in a federal district in the former empire's territory. Jack left his home territory and went there. He knows that to be able to win the next elections, he has to get more popular in the former republic's land; otherwise, with votes only from his own territory, he would most likely lose.

The first thing he should do is to make it look like he considers the republic his home; he could have tried to make up excuses and bring the capital closer to his own territory, but he didn't; to gain the republic's votes, he must not alienate their people.

After becoming the president, he immediately began giving money to the poor and government workers.

Government workers are very reliable voters, so having them on his side would be amazing. As for giving money to the poor, that is a very easy way to win support.

In the process of doing that, however, Jack spent so much money out of the treasury without Congress's approval, which caused great controversy; Congress was even planning on impeaching him.

In response, Jack only pointed to Congress, slamming them for trying to impeach him for helping the poor.

This simple technique won the support of many in the republic, who now saw him as an ally.

Kashu was popular because he strengthened the republic as a country, but that was old news; the economic damage of war had made many poor; now, seeing a president caring so much about the poor, many people, maybe out of self-interest, began supporting him.

Jack also went public, advocating for taxing the rich and slamming Kashu's party, the Supreme Party, for stopping him from doing so.

Kashu's popularity soon fell, as many began seeing Jack as the man for the job.

Jack only needed about 30% of the vote from the former republic, and he planned on getting it from the political left; he completely abandoned the political right, who were much more prone to supporting Kashu. After all, Kashu was on the right, a member of the Supreme Party, which used to advocate for strengthening the Republic as a country; they were extremely nationalist, far to the right. Nowadays, the Supreme Party is much more moderate, but its core is still nationalist.

Fighting with Kashu in their base, which was right, was very unwise.

Kashu managed to get the left's vote because he strengthened the Republic as a whole, especially when he made that treaty with the empire that removed trade restrictions on the Republic; everyone began loving him; after all, that deal with the empire was a win for every citizen of the Republic.

But that was long ago, and Kashu's fiscally right-leaning policies when he became the president of the newly unified country were already straining his support among those on the left. Still, left-of-center candidates didn't file any candidates because of how the new system worked.

This system of first-past-the-post elections was very beneficial for Kashu; he pushed hard for it during the negotiations.

During the election, he argued that if the left filed a candidate, it would split the vote and allow Jack to win the election; at that time, the people of the Republic didn't know who Jack was; they naturally didn't want to be ruled by someone from a foreign empire; the integration of the two countries is still only on the surface level, and the people of the two countries still feel like from different nations.

Ultimately, the left didn't file a candidate, keeping the Republic's vote united. But, due to the left not having a candidate, the turnout in the empire was low, which allowed Jack to win. Now in power, it's natural for him to try to garner votes from the left, who were already dissatisfied with Kashu.

...

After two years, polls show that Jack consistently took 35% of the vote in the former Republic's land.

As for national polls, he gets 55 to 60% of the vote!

With this, he finally sighed with relief; as long as he kept the vote on the political left and the vote from his base in his territory in the empire, he would win every election.

"Time to focus on forming immortal forces!" He smiled.