June 9th, 2032 | 16 Days Until Outbreak

"Did you think of that strategy ahead of time?" Evalyn asked as they left the administration building.

As expected, Kaze talked to the president, and Roger Whitfield placed his resignation effective at the end of the month. Now she was stunned in disbelief.

"Did I think of that strategy?" Kaze scoffed in disdain, "There were a dozen alternatives far more deserving and effective."

"Then why didn't you use them?" She asked quietly.

He glanced at her for a moment and then continued walking.

"Hell's coming." Kaze said solemnly, "You don't need to face that yet."

Evalyn's face tightened, and she silently walked with him until they reached the shuttle dock.

"Kaze, are you from the future?" She asked.

"Yes." He replied without hesitation.

Her jaw dropped in disbelief that he confirmed her statement. However, her expression instantly changed to a look of pain.

Now she confirmed that the geeky boy she knew was bullied ruthlessly. Kaze wasn't someone in hiding, waiting to show his colors. He was a real victim.

"So are you here to save humanity and prevent all this?" Evalyn asked with a solemn expression.

Kaze turned his head a full ninety degrees away from her disbelief.

"Save the future? Are you mad?" He laughed in ridicule.

The corner of Evalyn's mouth twitched. If there was something that Kaze excelled at, it was making it impossible for her to feel normal emotions.

Whether she felt fear, concern, sadness, regret, or positive feelings, his arrogance always managed to replace them with aggravation.

"Then what are you here to do?" Evalyn asked, changing the subject.

"A clever bastard tricked me into coming back." Kaze chuckled bitterly, "Now, I'm going to enjoy my life."

"Enjoy your life?" She asked in disbelief, "In the apocalypse you speak of?"

"Does parroting my words make the insight any less surprising?" Kaze asked mockingly, "Yes. I'll eventually end up on the Fifth Plane again, but I'll stay here as long as I can."

Evalyn's eyes widened, "You're from the Fifth Plane? Like where those cultivators came from?"

Kaze's face scrunched up in an attempt not to burst into laughter, making her glare at him.

"Those people are but ants." He chuckled.

"An immortal from the Fifth Plane could destroy this planet with the snap of their fingers.

Compared to true power, those insignificant insects are just as worthless as the mortals you see around you."

Evalyn's eyes glided to the left before returning, not staring at anything. She felt like his words confirmed something, but she didn't know what.

"Do you think mortals, as you call them, are all trash?" She asked.

"Not the ladies," Kaze replied with a charming smile, "They're generally beautiful if they're not thorny, but they're equally insignificant. Like real flowers."

"Even me? Am I insignificant?" Evalyn asked, ignoring his horrifying analogy and edging toward her main question.

Kaze froze for a moment before smiling again. "Not you; you're not insignificant."

"What exactly was I to you in the future?" She asked.

"Someone that wasn't insignificant." Kaze replied with a mysterious smile, "Now come. It's time to help your cultivation grow before I set out for my next job."

The emperor brazenly strode away, ending the conversation and beckoning her to his room in one profoundly arrogant action.

"Wait!" Evalyn cried while running up, "I know what your cultivation is now. I'm not going to your room!"

Kaze laughed breathlessly. "I'd never sleep with a woman that didn't want me. Must I always repeat myself?"

He didn't stop walking, forcing Evalyn to stride forward to keep following him.

"Still you can't expect me to just go to your room." She snapped.

"Sure I can." Kaze said with a wide grin, "Because if you weren't you would have walked away by now."

Evalyn stopped walking in disbelief. She was following him like a kitten!

After a moment's pause, she noticed that he hadn't stopped walking, so she ran after him with an indigent expression on her face.

"Then what are we doing?" Evalyn asked bitterly, "Can you at least tell me that much?"

"You act like I don't give you answers to real questions." Kaze chuckled.

She stopped walking, and her eyes filled with murderous wrath, but—yet again—he continued walking without finishing his statement. So she bit her lip and ran to catch up.

"Hoh? You're back." Kaze chuckled, "It seems I can tell you now."

"Just tell me, you ass." Evalyn snapped.

"I'm going to teach you how to cultivate." He said while giving her a sidelong glance.

Evalyn scoffed, "Well that's patronizing."

"Hoh? You think so?" Kaze grinned.

Without warning, he touched her forehead, and a flood of information entered her mind.

"W-Wait! You can't just put things into my—" She snapped before falling dead-silent.

"Well, I can put a lot of things in you. It's just a matter of consent." He replied with a charming smile.

"What…." Evalyn asked dumbly. Kaze had turned around, and she could now see his Qi channels after being given a minor yet profound technique.

"What? Don't tell me you've already forgotten I'm from the Immortal Plane." He derided, "Now come. Unless you're genuinely leaving, stop denying your desires."

Evalyn begrudgingly followed him to his room. When she walked in, she was surprised at how pristine it was.

"Do… you have a bathroom?" She asked awkwardly.

"Of course. It's right down that hall." Kaze replied indifferently.

When she returned, she was holding a grapefruit-sized crystal ball. However, it was milky white, making it extremely weird looking.

"What's this?" Evalyn asked curiously.

"Oh, that?" Kaze chuckled, "It's that window you saw. It turned out to be worthless."

"S-So you actually…." She stuttered in disbelief.

"Filled my bathtub with it and cultivated on top of it?" He asked with a slight smile, "Yes. I wish you didn't need a melted sphere of glass to trust that I'm not lying to you. Obtaining lucid proof of that caliber every time I speak is exceedingly tiresome"

Evalyn stared at the glass ball in her hand in a state of mental disarray. His words consistently checked off the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. However, his ceaseless proof made her question if she had the disorder instead.

It finally occurred to her that every arrogant thing he had said was likely true. Not just the major events but also the things she took for irritating jokes. She immediately placed the ball onto his desk to rid herself of such a horrifying potential reality.

Kaze clapped his hands to help free her from the hellish mental nightmare she was walking into.

"Now join me in the lotus position and prepare yourself." Kaze ordered, "You won't be able to cultivate this if I don't help you, and we'll be busy from now on."

Evalyn took a deep breath. She didn't like getting ordered around but sat down regardless. When she was in position, his expression turned serious.

"First, I'll show you what high-level cultivation looks like." Kaze said in a conflicted voice, "So watch; don't try to learn, just visualize it."

She nodded and watched him as he closed his eyes and began breathing.

Ever since she learned to see Qi, she felt like she was in a new world. When she saw Kaze cultivate, her perception of the world changed completely.

"Beautiful…." Evalyn whispered.

The space around him warped into a forceless tornado, showing grey, shapeless lines moving toward Kaze.

Twisting lines of white aura reached out from his meridians to grab the grey lines. The moment the two swirling lines connected, the lines turned black and followed the path as if they were on a winding roller coaster leading into his body.

Thousands of strands of Qi in the room pulled toward him as if he were the only person present.

To support her understanding, she used her technique to cultivate with her eyes open. She saw Qi moving toward her when she did, but it fought against Kaze's meridians. As a result, the Qi she received was minimal.

Evalyn immediately tried focusing all her concentration on cultivation, trying to pull back.

Kaze smiled when he felt her effort, and a mischievous grin developed on his face. He closed his meridians to make her believe she was winning, filling her with satisfaction.

When she smiled—

Wooooooosh! A silent gust washed over the room, sucking everything in sight into his meridians like back holes. It was so fast that it left her stupefied, staring blankly at Kaze, who opened his eyes and turned to her.

"I find your effort admirable." He said with a slight smile, "But surely you don't think your lower sky-grade cultivation technique can compete against a peak divine-grade one, do you?"

Evalyn turned her head, whipping her blonde hair at him aggressively.

"Sorry, Mr. Fifth Plane." She replied bitterly, "I'm sorry I'm only slightly above insignificant."

Kaze laughed warmly. "Come now, do you think I'd bring you here to show off?"

She turned to him with interest in her eyes, sparking a genuine smile on his face.

"I showed you that to show you the potential of this technique, the Paradigm of Divinity." He explained, "I'm offering you something of the same grade but fit for your body type. However…."

"However, what?" Evalyn whispered with a complex expression, watching true conflict on his face.

"It's extremely painful, and you'll have to endure for eighteen hours." Kaze said with a serious voice, "If you didn't have me healing you, it would kill you. That's why I'm also offering to give you a path, starting at lower heaven-grade and giving you a new one every three months."

Evalyn stared at him in disbelief. "Kaze, please. Who was I to you?"