Immortal Sect
Jack has been looking for more students to admit in the last 3 years.
It is not easy to find qualified students; there are difficulties.
Because of a lack of teachers, he has to accept students in bulk; he can't get one now, two a month later, another two months later, etc. He doesn't have time to teach each student individually; even Mike doesn't have that kind of time. This problem would be resolved in the future when his immortal force gets bigger; for now, though, there is no solution. Because of this problem, he ordered his agents to only look at children aged 3-9; he would not accept them if they were older.
The best age for cultivation is 6-12; if they are older, they will have difficulty getting started. Even for the most talented, reaching core formation would take at least 20 years. If he admits 15-year-old students, it will inevitably be harder for them to get started. Even if they are peak talented, they will be lucky to reach core formation after 30 years of cultivation.
Children learn easier; that is true even when it comes to cultivation.
In the best-case scenario, a 15-year-old student, when admitted, would reach the core formation realm at age 45. That may sound young, but one must realize that reaching the nascent soul is difficult; core formation cultivators only live for 200 years; every year counts; having 20 more years to cultivate can make a massive difference.
It's not that Jack only plans on accepting the most talented; it's just that, at the moment, he is trying to establish the foundation of his force. He needs those who have a good chance of reaching the nascent soul stage. Once the foundation of the immortal sect is established, then he would open the door and let less talented and older people also enter and cultivate.
It is early now, resources are scarce, and there are few teachers. He has to focus on the most talented and youngest, with the highest chance of reaching the nascent soul. It's very important to be the first person to develop an immortal force; once he is late, he will be destroyed by competition.
If he dies, this dream world he developed and promoted with difficulty will be destroyed again.
He must find the most talented and train and cultivate them; his process is peaceful.
Once his subordinates find talented children, they get permission from their parents to bring them to the university. Jack hasn't been snatching children from their parents; these people are his future trusted subordinates; if he harms their family, that will create resentment.
Nearly all parents agreed to send their children once they realized the president was admitting them to the country's most elite and mysterious university. Some parents who didn't trust Jack or loved their children a little too much refused; in their case, Jack bribed them with gold; if they still didn't agree, Jack just accepted it and looked for another child. After all, even though talented children are rare, with a population base of over 500 million, he can always find another; those children could only blame their parents for their loss.
The special university admits students every 3 years; once they find a child, they bring them for at least 6 months of mortal education, basically teaching them how to read and write, some math, and other mortal courses if time allows.
Six months before admission, they stop looking for new talent. Once admission day arrives, everyone enters the sect/university, and Jack's agents start another round of looking for talented children.
Just recently, the admission time arrived, and students who were educated with mortal knowledge in the last 3 years entered the academy; they all at least know how to write and read, so educating them this time should be easier.
Mike is the dean of the academy. He takes care of the daily business, like food, expansion of the facilities, etc.; in addition to his administrative capacity, he teaches students. Fortunately, there is no need for Jack and Mike to teach everything; the previous round's students, many of whom are in the fourth stage, can help.
For now, Jack isn't assigning difficult tasks to the older students; they are all still children. The most difficult task he has given them until now was Faith's: playing the role of Kashu.
That task is time-consuming; she has been paid many contribution points for it. Fortunately for her, the task, even though it was time-consuming, didn't actually slow down her cultivation because of contribution points.
Over the last 3 years, more and more immortal resources began appearing; now, Jack has over 10,000 big energy stones, many different immortal medicines, and even an immortal garden.
The energy stone discovery was very lucky. His subordinates found a massive energy stone while looking for immortal trees. Since then, the miners have been busy cutting the stone and sending it to him. Harvesting the rock without cutting it was not feasible; it was massive, and an exclusive immortal formation was the least needed to move it.
Cutting it only destroyed less than 10% of its effectiveness, so Jack wasn't sweating over it; now, he doesn't need a giant energy stone; he needs an immortal currency, which needs smaller, more numerous stones.
He has been paying Faith 100 contribution points for every day she has played Kashu; each contribution point can be exchanged for one small energy stone. In effect, she has been getting one mid-size spirit stone a day since a month ago; with them, not only has she managed to catch up with her cultivation, but she has also begun saving contribution points to buy an immortal medicine.
Jack doesn't have an immortal pill formula, and no one can concoct it. So, even though he has many immortal plants, he can only sell them raw. It would have been much better if he could have someone who could make pills out of them.
The difference between eating immortal plants and pills is quite big. Immortal plants have good effectiveness but are not targeted, may have side effects, etc.; a pill purifies the desired effect and multiplies it, discarding all undesired effects and side effects. Maybe one of his new students is talented in pills; Jack is hopeful.
The rest of the old students have been tasked with teaching the new batch; helping new students is their only way of earning contribution points. By now, all old students know how effective energy stones are; spending time teaching new students is completely worth it.
He plans on promoting the first person besides himself to reach core formation to the position of sect master. As he sees it, Faith is destined to become the sect master and Jack is happy with it; the girl is talented and smart; her red eyes are only a plus.
The western lands are a massive untapped treasure trove. Jack would start the western expedition immediately after Faith broke through core formation, but he preferred to conquer it peacefully. He can send Faith there; she looks like them. They would probably see her as a god with amazing powers and maybe worship her. Conquering Western barbarians would not be difficult.
Conquering scattered tribal forces is much easier than conquering established countries.
Once the western lands are under control, Jack could then start looking at the far east, beyond the ocean. The Far East's territory is even bigger than here; one of their expedition ships recently arrived and was detained.
Their expedition began when Kampaku was the empire's ruler, and it is getting more frequent; soon, they might send a big army.
The Mortal Armies of the Far East, their naval forces, etc., are far superior to the countries here; if it weren't for Jack developing an immortal force, there would be no chance against the East.
Even now, with immortal forces, Jack isn't comfortable fighting the Far East head-on; after all, the Far East is massive, and they might also have immortal forces.
He wrote an order for Mike, asking him to reward the first person who reaches stage 7 with 100,000 contribution points. This reward sounds neutral, but it is custom-designed for Faith; after all, she is the only person in the 6th stage and has a massive advantage over everyone else; to conquer Western lands, Faith must reach core formation.
Jack himself has been using spirit stones. He has already reached the peak of energy gathering, and it will not be long before he reaches the core formation.
He has been busy with immortal affairs, leaving everything related to mortals to the village chief.
The village chief is the de facto leader of the country. He believes his decision to follow Jack was the best decision he made in his life, although it wasn't technically a decision; it was Jack's programming.
No free will for the village chief!
The village chief has been handling affairs masterfully.
He has been negotiating with the three factions in the northern kingdom and is close to a comprehensive and historical deal.
The three factions in the kingdom have been fighting each other, but their powers are roughly at the same level. Many people died as a result. The village chief used their division and negotiated a deal that annexed all of them as independent territories of the republic.
The northern factions get a lot from it; they would keep their autonomy.
It must be noted that the northern kingdom is hindering the republic's further expansion. The republic is huge, but if it wants to expand, it is best to take the kingdom and start invading further east.
At the moment, most of the republic's western and northern border is blocked by the wideland mountains, North-eastern borders are blocked by the UPWC, Eastern border is blocked by the Dark forest, south and south-western borders by the ocean, and south-eastern borders by the kingdom.
UPWC is powerful; it would definitely not be a target of the republic for now.
That means that the republic's only option for expansion is the south-eastern border, the kingdom.
The leadership of the kingdom knows for certain that the Republic will try to expand sooner or later. They aren't stupid. The empire severely damaged them, and now, they have to fight the Republic, which is a combined county of the Republic and the Empire. This time, they have no chance.
So, the best option was to accept the deal and join the republic while keeping independence.
The kingdom's three leaders knew it and were on the verge of reaching a deal with the village chief.
With someone like the village chief at the helm of the republic, Jack didn't need to think about it.
As for the deal with Kashu, appointing him as prime minister, Faith just shows 'himself' every day, pretending to be Kashu and being involved in affairs; after a while, people would forget him.
After all, mortals' memory is short.