Lifeless Plague

The typical length of an 'education' appointment at the Golden Flower House is 2 hours long, however most of the time the customer will end up staying the night or at least a few more hours with the 'teacher'. This was somewhat of an unwritten rule and the customer would typically tip handsomely for the extra time, in an average session the teacher would spend an hour and a half on education, before they settle in the bedroom for however long the customer needs.

Today, Casmir has been sitting in a side room off of Clara's office for just gone an hour and twenty minutes. Casmir was quite obedient as Rose explained various topics, she would occasionally give Casmir some small leaflets and pieces of paper to bring home with him. She would not expect her students to remember everything they were taught.

While Rose was lecturing him, Casmir's eyes would often wander onto Rose's body, he would start appreciating how her dress stuck to her body, her long straight brown hair that flowed like water as she moved and especially her full cleavage that shook gently as she walked about.

*Smack* "Casmir!" Rose shouted.

Rose would resort to smacking his table and shouting strictly after noticing that Casmir's attention had drifted.

They had covered many topics today from sexual health and the technical terms for various sexual matters, to courtship and the sexual interactions between human's and other races.

At the moment, Rose was just finishing her talk on the elemental race and their special interaction, because Ellaris was a mainly Elemental city, extra attention was given to their race.

"...So you see, while elementals lack the physical ability to bear children of other races, they can imprint some race's vital energy from ejaculation or other sources to bear children. Of course this is hard to accomplish and because of the Lifeless plague, many people believe it to now be impossible." Rose says as she finishes explaining a topic.

At the mention of the Lifeless plague, both her and Casmir seemed to become less energetic.

"Any questions..?" Rose asks preparing to move onto the next topic.

Casmir looked down at one of the pieces of paper in front of him before nodding to himself and saying "No... I think I've got everything now.."

"Good... now this is our last topic but it is the most important..." Rose says as she place's a book in front of him, the title of the book was 'Fertility in Human's, Post Lifeless Plague' by Libarnea Lock – Human.

Virtually every adult human would recognise this book, most people would even have a copy in their house, this was because it explained the specifics of fertility in humans after the advent of the Lifeless Plague....

=======

The Lifeless Plague was a horrid plague, it spread across the entire world infecting nearly every person over 11 years ago. It would give people a minor fever or similarly common reaction depending on race, the reaction would only last a few days with no observable complications, the true horror being it's hidden effects on fertility.

The Lifeless Plague effected each race's biology differently but the overall effect was a massive reduction in fertility, the race's best off had a reduction to 1/1000 of their previous birth rates and the race's worst off have only produced a few hundred descendants in the past 11 years.

The specific effects on each race's biology vary per race, for example, the Angel race's females saw a massive decrease in their ability to produce eggs periodically in their womb, yet their male counterparts only saw a minor decrease in their sperm production rates.

The Legged Reptilian race however, had a completely different reaction to the plague.

They have a specific time of year for mating in which males and females would produce mating hormones which allowed them to produce sperm and eggs. Due to the Lifeless Plague, nearly all males lost the ability to produce mating hormones and so their bodies didn't produce sperm, the females were only partially affected by a similar symptom.

Every race had different ways of producing young, some compatible and others not, yet a single disease managed to effect nearly every race in different ways, resulting in a loss of fertility.

At first the damage wasn't realised, the disease spread across the world in a few days with only a small few being isolated enough that they were not infected. When the effects were realised, it caused massive upheaval and panic and to this day, it still does.

The origins of the disease are known however, it was not a natural epidemic but a man-made one. Specifically it was created by a secret organisation of the Ariel Kingdom.

The Ariel Kingdom was a Super power that was controlled by many different races, they sought global dominance and were not an inherently evil existence at first. Over 50 years ago they began a 38 year long war in an attempt to unify the world, it was as bloody a conflict as any with many countries naming them demons and devils but they did nothing that their competitors didn't do.

Over the early portions of the war they won lots of land but became overstretched and eventually started to collapse at the end of the bitter war, every country they had absorbed rebelled and they became a fraction of what they once were.

However they had one last trick, the Lifeless plague, however there is something that still baffles and angers people. The Ariel Kingdom was not destroyed, it was reduced in size but it was still a power to be reckoned and with peace agreed and the long war over, their country began to stabilise.

But just a year after the end of the war a secret organisation aligned to the Ariel Kingdom released the plague and in doing so caused massive revolts and attacks from all parties including it's own people.

Most people thought it was released out of spite, some thought they were framed but there was mountains of evidence pointing towards the Ariel Kingdom developing the Lifeless Plague for many years.

Unsurprisingly, war broke out and in the ensuing fighting and uprisings anyone related to the plagues development was killed or disappeared.

Over time people truly accepted the term Demon Kingdom and called it's people Demons regardless of race.

After the Lifeless Plague's effects remained, countries and kingdom's started coming together to form organisations, such as the UNC in attempts to cure the lifeless plague but so far little progress has been made. Individual species have found partial solutions or work around's but there are few races unaffected by the disease and most of those unaffected have pre-existing problems.

The world reluctantly keeps moving forward, stability decreasing as each race scrambles for a way to preserve their species. Those few races still able to maintain there population, such as the Elemental race, receive growing attention each year, some want a supporter for their future, others to weaken a potential enemy.

All the Lifeless plague has done, is destroy the foundations of each race and ruin their ability to cooperate, the world is primed for upheaval, the only question is when and how it will arrive.

=======

In the teaching room, Casmir frowns as he looks at the book before saying, "It's ok, I have already read the book, my mother taught me about most of it herself."

Although Casmir's mother didn't teach him about sex herself she was well versed on this book as it pertained to her research into Elementals, she had taught him about the book as it is mostly a technical guide.

Rose believed this would be the case but she still wanted to test him.

"Ok, but I'm still testing you on it, after all this is one of the most important lessons I should teach you." She said strictly.

"What are example's of foods needed to supplement the chemicals taken away by the..." Rose began to ask Casmir a variety of technical question that he should be able to answer.

Although technical, most of the information in the book was very practical and useful on how to optimise pregnancy chances, it included suitable foods and techniques to use during pregnancy.

After five minutes, Rose was finally smiling saying "Very good, you're quite smart, one last question. What is the broad difference between human's before and after the effects of the lifeless plague?"

Casmir was slightly confused at the simply question but answered anyway.

"There are three main points. Men and women became unable to produce some nutrients necessary or beneficial to impregnation meaning they needed to supplement them through foods or medicines. Secondly, a man's ability to produce sperm was drastically reduced meaning the ability of the sperm to fertilise the egg is reduced, there are no known solutions to this problem. Thirdly there is a lack of nutrients in most eggs produced by women causing even successfully fertilised eggs to fa...."

Casmir answered naturally as he was quite familiar with the topic, until he was interrupted by Rose.

"Wrong." Rose said calmly.

Casmir's tongue became twisted because of the sudden interruption, he looked at Rose in confusion.

"Haha.. Sorry Casmir, I knew you would answer like that. I just wanted to tease you.." Rose said with a laugh as she looked at Casmir's odd expression.

"Although there can be insufficient nutrients in the egg, there have been developments in this idea in the past year. I'm sure your mother will tell you but it is now believed that it is not the nutrients that are insufficient but the Vital energy." Rose explained.

"Vital Energy..." Casmir said in thought.

"...but I thought that was only something a few species had..." Casmir said in confusion.

Rose nodded understanding that most people, even scientist's, wouldn't have much knowledge on the subject.

"Not exactly, it is a common theory among leading Biologist's that all species have some form of vital energy and because of an incident a few months ago this theory has gained traction."

Rose picked up a letter addressed to her from the UNC beginning to read a section of it.

"A human scientist that was working with the Fire Nomad's in the White Desert was experimenting with Vital energy. As the lack of Vital energy is the main fertility problem of the Nomad's, Vital energy regeneration is the main research field. During an experiment said scientist was exposed to an unstable form of Vital energy due to an explosion, he was unharmed. Soon after the incident he found his two wives to be pregnant, he had had sex with them within a few days of the incident and he soon connected the incident to their suddenly pregnancy."

"He immediately began experimenting with Vital energy however a few weeks later, he died, as a class 4 Qi scholar he was healthy and active, disease or natural causes were unlikely. When his situation was discovered by the UNC a high level investigator was sent. The investigation concluded that his Qi energy became unstable because of being exposed to the vital energy, causing his eventual death, however the same exposure allowed him to negate the effects of the lifeless plague on him."

"His wives have been carrying his children for over 3 months, they are healthy and the children stable."

"Due to the above incident all UNC scientist are requested to study vital energy books 'Energy transfer of..."

Rose trailed off explaining some more technical information.

"Etc etc, but you understand the general idea." Rose said.

Casmir understood now.

"The idea that the nutrition inside the female egg is insufficient for the developing embryo has always been a shallow theory, there was no solid evidence and more importantly no progress in solving the problem. Now scientist's have one more angle to attack the lifeless plague with." Casmir said with interest.

Rose, had been talking for quite some time now and had to take a deep breath before saying.

"I know, It's all quite exciting, people hope that this stroke of luck will help in curing the lifeless plague." She said.

Casmir couldn't help but feel some hope at the same time but he also felt confused as to how Rose knew this.

"How do you know so much? Why do you have a letter from the UNC?" He asked in confusion.

Rose smiled before taking a proud stance.

"I'm on the UNC advisory board as a local information collector and enforcer. I collect information on pregnancies for most of the Northern District and make sure schools and universities are providing the correct information to students." Rose said.

Casmir's eyes opened at this revelation, this was a decent position yet he couldn't help but wonder what someone like that was doing in a brothel.

"What I just told you is some of the updated information that will likely be released in a couple of weeks. As for why I'm still working in a brothel... that's my secret." Rose said with a chuckle and a smile.

Casmir couldn't help but smile in response to her sweet look.

"No wonder you're such a good teacher, I'm glad that you're my teacher today..." Casmir said, in genuine praise.

Rose smiled before leaning on her desk while facing Casmir, she was checking a piece of paper.

Rose's posture gave Casmir an impressive view of her cleavage, after a few moments of lustful staring he realised that they have covered every topic, except one.

Casmir quietly waited with bated breath as he anticipated what would happen next...