Things began to fall apart once Eugene’s consciousness awoke in the new body. First, he felt the 4% remaining energy of Kevin’s License Plate. Eugene had only needed to burn 95% of its power to travel to the future. The next thing his mind detected was the presence of another mind.
Hibiscologists had long held there to be a trinity of mind, body, and soul. The body defined cultivation speed, the soul determined cultivation capacity, and the mind guided the process. Eugene had discarded the other cultivator’s soul, but kept his mind. After all, his memories would be extremely useful. But someone’s memories could not be separated from that person’s cognition without causing them harm. The memories do not exist in a vacuum, and need to be refreshed and managed. Thus, the cultivator’s consciousness needed to be preserved along with his memories.
However, Eugene had sealed off his mind from the other cultivator’s. Thus, the person whose body he had seized was having his body controlled by another person and had zero idea what was occuring. This cultivator whose body he had taken was only in the Father Amadi rank, the second rank of the Blue Realm, the first Realm. However, Eugene’s soul was in the Eugene rank, and being the dominant soul of the body (the other cultivator’s soul tucked away for potential use), Eugene was still Eugene rank. Theoretically, Eugene could expend the power of the other person’s soul for a burst of energy if the time came. Issues with mind, body, and soul settled, Eugene opened his eyes.
Only to find everyone in his classroom staring at him.
In the back, someone muttered “What a creep and a weirdo”.
Eugene burned with embarrassment. Eyes closed, deep in concentration, he must have looked very weird and creepy.
“Ahem,” the instructor in the front of the class said.
Everyone in class redirected their attention to the teacher.
“As I was saying, the demon cultivator Eugene’s unleashing of the demon weapon crippled Hibiscan cultivation for a hundred years and ushered in the Dark Age, the first Age of the Era of Strife. Thousands of the most powerful cultivators were instantly killed, and those that weren’t had their cultivation strangled and were unable to ascend beyond Jaja rank.”
Eugene accessed the memories of the person whose body he had taken. He belonged to the Dawn and Dusk sect, son of one of the elders. This was a mandatory history class! Eugene instantly refocused his attention. This was the reason he had sent his body seven hundred years into the future! He wanted to see what would happen to the Hibiscan world, how they would react to his actions.
“It took one hundred years for anyone else to reach Eugene rank. That cultivator rose to lead this very sect. But, he was slain soon thereafter by the forces of demon cultivators. Such is usually considered to be the beginning of the Demon Age, in which the remnants of Eugene’s sects held greater power than those cultivators who refused to slaughter innocents to gain power.”
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Holy infodump, thought Eugene. He really hadn’t thought that his Sleeper Sects would really do that much harm. When the army of cultivators assaulted his sect, they found no one but himself, because he had split up his own sect into seven hidden ones designed to annoy the Jade Alliance.
“But it was Kambili that finally eliminated all but one of the Sleeper Sects and ended the Demon Age”.
Eugene was placid and calm on the outside, like jade, but internally was seething like a volcano. A specific cultivator being referred to as “Kambili” could mean only one thing. That was the rank ahead of Eugene! For it was common convention among the Hibiscan cultivators that the first person to achieve a rank would be called by the name of that rank. Thus was the reason why Eugene was called Eugene. This Kambili must have been tremendously powerful indeed! Furthermore, the fact that Kambili rank was called Kambili rank meant that the Hibiscan essence intrinsic to Kambili-rank cultivators was of Kambili’s nature. This had profound implications for Purple Hibiscology. It meant that Kambili was more powerful than Eugene!
Eugene zoned out for the rest of the lesson, overwhelmed by the implications of this. When class was over, the old friends of the person whose body he had stolen called out to him.
“Grzegorz, why were you acting like that!” exclaimed a morbidly obese boy.
Eugene contemplated how best to respond. As he confirmed by searching through the memory trove, this body’s name used to be “Grzegorz Bielszowicki”. He decided to play along.
“I had a sudden realization about Purple Hibiscolocy,” Eugene declared.
“Really? What was it!” said the fat one. Eugene determined that his name was Wang.
Eugene had to improvise something on the spot. He decided to lie about having some sort of revelation about Purple Hibiscus. It couldn’t be too advanced, lest he become suspicious for knowing Purple Realm tier knowledge. But if it was too basic, it wouldn’t make any sense that Eugene had been extremely distracted during class.
“While reading the Holy Book, I was thinking about how Kambili’s household was a microcosm of Nigeria as a whole. Of course, it's obvious that Kambili is the Nigerian people, and Eugene is Big Oga. But what is Jaja’s role in all this? A protector of Kambili. Much like Eugene's idea of the “Shield of the Nigerian People”. Thus, Jaja is actually the shield of the Nigerian people”.
Wang and the other boy, who Eugene figured out was named Mieszko, stood in stunned silence for several minutes. Finally, Wang opened his mouth to speak.
“Grzegorz, that is the most profound Hibiscan Truth I have ever heard.”
Mieszko could only nod his head in agreement.
It was good to cultivate loyalty. Wang and Mieszko had been loyal friends to the cultivator whose body had been stolen, and both belonged to powerful and influential clans. Giving them a gem of information to speed up their cultivation was nothing but a good move for Eugene.
Struggling to think of something to say to break the awkward silence, Eugene gave them a courteous goodbye and left. The classroom was a sphere, just one of many orbiting a much larger sphere. Even that sphere, however, orbited an even larger sphere which was at the center of everything. The Dawn and Dusk Sect was a model of the solar system itself! All of this was encased in another sphere, whose inside showed the movements of the stars. It wasn’t a true object though, instead being merely an illusion, albeit a highly convincing one.
Walking across bridge after bridge linking the spheres, Eugene was in awe. The Dawn and Dusk Sect was overwhelmingly majestic. Its old construction seven hundred years ago paled in comparison to the magnificence of what existed now!
That was the last class of the day, and students streamed out of the spheres. The more advanced ones could fly out, which Eugene was capable of, but had to hide. Indeed, his Eugene-rank cultivation would have been obvious to everyone (After all, being able to sense the type of Hibiscan essence emitted by a cultivator was a basic skill) if not for him using a technique to hide it. However, anyone of the Purple Realm could easily see through such a deception. Eugene had to be careful to not run into any of his fellow Purples.
He approached the final sphere designed to look like the night and burst through, some of it clinging on to him before seeping back to the sphere. It was time to plan his next move.