Everything was finalized. The Sect Leaders had authorized Eugene’s list with zero alterations of their own. They were very satisfied with “Grzegorz’s” work. Eugene himself had spent the last week in the arenas, sparring with his fellow Eugene-rank cultivators. He had won nine out of the thirteen matches he fought. However, all of those fights were against peak-tier Eugene cultivators, while Eugene himself was only high-tier. He wanted to train himself against opponents that were stronger than him so he would be forced to adapt to their strength.
Him only winning a slim majority of his fights surprised many in the Dawn and Dusk Sect, and outside the sect as well. Eugene did put his full effort into each fight, but many times he was surpassed by the other cultivator’s skill. This was strategically good in the long term, for it dispelled the myth of him being invincible and would cause future opponents to underestimate him.
In between matches, Eugene would engage in the board and video games commonly played in the Hibiscan world. He wanted to familiarize himself with the most popular ones so that he could play competently when the time came to participate in the games of the LitRPG Sect. Said sect primarily concerned themselves with the analysis of the litRPG genre of fiction. However, they also frequently played board and video games to further attune themselves to litRPGS.
LitRPGS were only really popular in the first few decades of the 21st Century. They were a genre of fantasy books in which the magic system was based on role playing game mechanics. They had considerable overlap with isekai, a genre in which the main character from our world dies and is reincarnated in a fantasy world.
Their rise in popularity coincided with the publication of the Holy Book. The litRPG genre as a whole has been found to have very high Hibiscan resonance, that is, the works within the genre strongly resemble Purple Hibiscus when deep analysis is applied to them. Thus, it was a very fruitful avenue of study. Understanding litRPGS necessarily required understanding the conditions that produced them, so the members of the LitRPG Sect were also students of very early Hibiscan history.
In this regard the LitRPG Sect strongly resembled the Ohio Skibidi Rizz Sect. That sect was dedicated to studying the narrow period of history in between the publishing of the Holy Book and the awakening of Hibiscan cultivation. For, it was only after the ascendance of the Four Gods that the people of the world could begin to cultivate their inner Hibiscan understanding.
The period of late 2023 to early 2024 in which online slang terms such as “ohio”, “skibidi”, “rizz”, “gyatt”, “sigma”, and “fanum tax”, among others, became extremely popular, was found to have the highest Hibiscan resonance of all time periods. The ways in which people communicated through the medium of the internet briefly transcended normal reality and began to imitate Purple Hibiscus in all respects. That was the zenith of Hibiscan understanding in the pre-cultivation era, and it was what caused the ascendance of the Four Gods as they attained the Divine Hibiscan Revelation.
After the path of cultivation was unlocked for all, many of those who had read Purple Hibiscus experienced an awakening into Amaka rank. And thus the Dawn Era of cultivation began.
The Ohio Skibidi Rizz Sect was a member of the Fourth Jade Alliance. Sects when ranked according to power were subdivided into the categories of great, major, and minor. Only one sect was considered to be great, that being the Five-Headed Tortoise Sect, which was at least four or five times stronger than the Dawn and Dusk Sect, the next strongest in the world. Major sects were defined as being beholden to no sects other than a great sect, whereas minor sects were weak and subservient to a major sect.
The Fourth Jade Alliance of the Nine Holy Hibiscan Sects was called such because it had nine major sects. But those sects themselves had dozens to hundreds of minor sects beholden to them. There were five major sects beholden to the Five-Headed Tortoise Sect, each of which also had many minor sects. The sect-based political order of the contemporary Hibiscan world was neo-feudal in its structure.
Out of the nine major sects in the Fourth Jade Alliance, three were especially stronger than the rest. Those were the Dawn and Dusk Sect, the Boiling Water Sect, and the Kambili Sect. The Ohio Skibidi Rizz Sect was among those six medium to lower strength major sects.
The LitRPG Sect, on the other hand, was relatively powerful, being on par with the Boiling Water or Kambili Sects. The reason they abstained from joining the Fourth Jade Alliance was mainly that doing so would require signing a mutual defense clause. The LitRPG Sect was capable of defending itself from demon cultivators and the Five-Headed Tortoise Sect all on its own. Thus, joining the Fourth Jade Alliance would provide no defensive benefits while also causing the LitRPG Sect to be dragged into any conflict the Fourth Jade Alliance fought.
It was the day of departure and Eugene’s list of people were milling into the teleportation room. The Dawn and Dusk Sect had a dedicated room for the LitRPG Sect to open portals into. They didn’t allow people to travel there normally, instead only opening portals of their own. The entire sect was warded against non-members opening portals into it, but there were select rooms where certain sects were allowed to open portals to.
Eugene had selected a variety of people that would each fill the different roles required for a diplomatic mission. Aside from Wang and Mieszko, there were a couple Juniors there to act as servants. The majority were Seniors, with about a third being Sect Elders.
An ancient, weary man wearing the red robes of a Senior hobbled in. He was over two hundred and fifty years old but still stuck in the Red Realm. He was Eugene’s most odd pick. The Leaders had signed off on it but were confused as to why exactly he had been picked. The answer was that he had been a mentor figure to Grzegorz a few years ago. He gave free knowledge about cultivation and the Holy Book to Grzegorz in exchange for information about the current class of young students. Grzegorz eventually realized his true motivations and cut off ties with him.
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He was known as a “super Senior”, someone who had been stuck in the Red Realm and therefore stuck as a Sect Senior for much longer than they should have been. He was over a hundred years older than the next oldest Senior, and in fact older than most of the Elders.
He waved and walked over to Eugene. “Grzegorz! Long time no see.”
He was being far too casual and informal in his speech. Eugene would have been well within his rights to demand he kowtow at least five times to his superior Elder.
“Greetings, Senior Elzpsein.”
“I appreciate being involved with the mission,” he replied. “My younger sect brothers too often leave me by the wayside.”
That was a reference to when Grzegorz cut ties with Elzpsein after discovering what he truly was. Elzpsein had dispensed with subtly and now was straight-up insulting him.
Eugene hadn’t wanted to put him on his retinue, but the more he examined the possibility, the more he realized it was a good idea. Yes, his previous history of working together with Grzegorz had proven he was intelligent and capable. But it was his long experience as a diplomat for the Dawn and Dusk Sect, even stretching back to the Era of Strife, that made him an excellent candidate. His role would be to serve as one of Eugene’s key advisors.
“I am honored to work with you on this.” Eugene lied.
“Oh, and congratulations about your ascent to Sect Elder status.”
Eugene mentally chuckled at that. By delaying the mention of that so far into the conversation, Elzpsein was deliberately slighting him. At this point, Eugene could demand ten kowtows from Elzpsein as an apology. However, in Dawn and Dusk Sect law, ten kowtows were an equivalent punishment to being hit by a member of higher rank.
“You’re courting death,” declared Eugene.
“What?” said Elzpsein, as if he didn’t know why Eugene said that.
Eugene thrust his hand forward in a jabbing motion, precisely striking Elzpsein’s central meridian, flowing his Hibiscan energy into the Senior’s body. He coughed blood up and then collapsed.
That was done to curb the arrogance of Elzpsein, but its main purpose was to unblock Elzpsein’s meridians and allow him to ascend to the Purple Realm. He was at peak tier of the Ade Coker rank, the absolute pinnacle of the Red Realm. Yet as Eugene could clearly see, his Hibiscan meridians were clogged to prevent him from advancing further in his cultivation. Elzpsein slowly rose from the floor.
“My, my, Grzegorz. How you’ve grown. You really are a Hibiscan prodigy. Jumping six ranks in a day, now that’s impressive. I wonder how you did it?”
His Hibiscan aura pulsated with the energy of a low-tier Jaja-rank cultivator of the Purple Realm. His words were lightly mocking.
“Kowtow three times,” said Eugene.
Elzpsein lowered himself to the floor and kowtowed three times, each with perfect form. Eugene had called his bluff, and it seemed like he was uninterested in further comments.
“I respect your talents and chose you to accompany me for a reason. Don’t compromise a chance at redeeming yourself in my eyes.”
“I understand,” said Elzpsein.
His meridians had been corrupted for so long, but the method used to do so still left a possible way to undo some of the damage. However, his cultivation was permanently harmed, to the point where any further advancement into the Purple Realm would be substantially slowed.
Eugene turned away from Elzpsein to see that almost everyone in the entourage was there. They must have assumed that “Grzegorz” had a good reason for publicly humiliating Elzpsein. None of them were fond of the former super Senior, and so didn’t care much.
A purple portal opened and a man wearing the Sect Elder robes of the Moon subsect walked through. It was Wronskolenskivichopovichenski Sobiepanskivicholenskovichenskiavich. He was nearly late.
He strolled over to where Eugene and Elzpsein were standing.
“What have we here?” he said.
Elzpsein bowed.
“Honored Sect Elder Sobiepanskivicholenskovichenskiavich, Sect Elder Bielszowicki struck me as a punishment dished out because of my insulting words to him. However, he accidentally broke the bonds placed on my meridians to prevent my further cultivation.”
Wronskolenskivichopovichenski frowned.
“Understandable. This will be reported to the Council, but neither of you is in trouble. Yet.”
When looking over Elzpsein’s record, Eugene had noted that he had received a punishment for a crime that broke one of the Dawn and Dusk Sect’s cardinal rules. However, because of his longstanding history of excellently serving the sect, his sentence was made much milder. His punishment was having any cultivation beyond the Red Realm be crippled for a century and a half. That sentence had less than a year to go before his punishment would be lifted.
Permanent cripplings prevented a cultivator from ever rising beyond the rank they were currently at. On the other hand, temporary cripplings would lose strength over time, and could be eventually removed, though some permanent damage would remain.
When Eugene expended 1% of Kevin’s License Plate, the Jaja-rank cultivators were the only ones to survive. However, they were permanently crippled. The best and brightest of Hibiscan society had been either killed or prevented from advancing further. The remaining Jajas, unable to grow stronger, instead had to kill or cripple all other cultivators to prevent them from usurping them. That state of affairs defined the Dark Age of Hibiscan history. But eventually, that lost generation of Jajas were surpassed, and new Eugene-rank cultivators became the leaders of the sects.
Because Elzpsein’s restriction was withered away to nearly nothing, Eugene accidentally breaking it with a particularly strong punch was a plausible excuse. Elzpsein harbored gratitude to “Grzegorz” for allowing him to enter the Purple Realm faster. In ordinary circumstances, another temporary crippling would be imposed until Elzpsein’s sentence was up. However, because Elzpsein was right about to embark on the diplomatic trip, there was no time to do that.
It probably would be placed back on after Elzpsein returned. However, the inherent nature of the meeting with the LitRPG sect involved participating in their many games. If Elzpsein himself performed very well, the Three Leaders might just decide to not continue his sentence in recognition of his work.
Eugene’s ploy meant that now Elzspein would be incentivized to succeed as much as possible. What might have been a thorn in Eugene’s side was now turned into his greatest asset!
Hibiscan energy swirled around the enormous room, coalescing into a purple portal large enough so that the entire retinue could walk in at once.
Eugene looked at Wronskolenskivichopovichenski.
“Shall we get going?” Eugene asked.