Chapter 2: Apparithon

The next morning, Zhao felt his nose scrunch up at a rancid smell. The last thing he remembered was falling down a few stairs, so the abnormal odor was strange, to say the least. He blasted his eyes open in a moment of stupor and scoured his surroundings.

A stone ceiling greeted him as he raised his upper body, along with the sound of churning. Confused, Zhao peered straight ahead, where the back of a man displayed itself. He was tall, thin, and adorned a black garb. Most notably, a green helmet masked the back of his head and his expression. It was decorated with all sorts of strange engravings, leaving only two slits; for both of the eyes.

To his side, resting on the desk, were platters full of spirit grass and… human body parts. Eyeballs, limbs, and even bones were present. All of them were ingredients used for the cauldron resting in front of the man.

'Where am I?' Zhao thought to himself, shocked. This was definitely not what he envisioned of an immortal sect.

Suddenly, strange laughter erupted from the masked man as he walked toward Zhao. "Finally awake, are we?" He said with a tilt of his head, the eyes in his helmet gleaming with curiosity.

Zhao had a bad premonition, so he immediately shot out of bed and bowed his head down. "Zhao greets senior."

"Save the pleasantries for later, young one, " the man opened up, "you're actually quite unlucky, being stationed in our division."

Zhao grimaced.

The masked man continued after seeing Zhao shiver. "In the Blood Immortal sect, there are five different divisions. Each one focuses on a different aspect of our sect. This is also the foundation of our great sect!" The man said with a bellow, clearly proud of his sect.

"What do you mean?" Zhao questioned, confused. He was unable to determine why he was considered unlucky.

Somewhat too happy to explain, the masked man's eyes brightened. "Our old ancestor founded our sect on five main aspects. Blood, body, mind, necromancy, and pestilence."

He continued, "the blood division is the strongest. It is distributed tons of resources and disciples, while the others are relatively equal in standing. The only one which is significantly weaker than the rest is the pestilence division. Our division."

Zhao's eyes dimmed, 'it's over, I'm a slave for the lowest division.' He thought to himself, aggrieved.

Seeing this, the masked man patted Zhao's back. "Fret not. It's not as though our division's techniques and capabilities are lower. It's just that no disciples wish to join us." He spoke wistfully, continuing after a bout of coughing, "most of us die during experiments and end up falling ill to our own cultivation!"

A sigh suddenly escaped from Zhao's lips. Although he was expecting something terrible, he was, nonetheless, still disappointed. An abhorrent smell wafted about, and his master was a weirdo.

"Ahem, " the man cleared his throat, "your first duty as a slave is to reach the first level of the bone-refinement stage. Only then, can you be considered an outer disciple."

"My job as a slave is to cultivate?" Zhao asked, flabbergasted.

"I, Plaguelord, am magnanimous and all-loving, even to my pitiful slaves." As he spoke to here, he rummaged through a pile of books and pulled out an archaic scripture. It irradiated a strange sensation, causing the hairs on his body to stand up.

It was promptly handed to Zhao, while Plaguelord skurried away as if he were running away from a ticking time bomb. Looking at the book with a strange expression on his face, Zhao noticed the bizarre pattern coiled around the front cover.

Another deep sigh left his mouth as he sat upon the bed and inspected the book. He wanted to find his old home, but most of all, he desired the ability to control his fate. Zhao was tired of being played with, exhausted by scavenging for scraps, and humiliated by bowing his head down. The first step to that goal was cultivation, but… Zhao felt his mind reeling in front of the book given to him.

Zhao decided to set the scripture down for a moment and observe the medallion. He reached in his robes, then his shoes, and finally, his underwear. Yet, he felt nothing.

Horrified, he quickly stripped and looked everywhere. His eyes finally landed on a tattoo located in his chest regions. 'Did it fuse with me?' He mused to himself, tongue-tied.

Then suddenly, the nearby door opened, and Plaguelord entered. "Oh, and one more thing, my boy. Do not practice that mantra in public…"

Before he finished, Plaguelord locked eyes with the naked Zhao. Time seemed to stop as they thoroughly observed each other and attempted to comprehend the situation. Even the sound of the boiling cauldron was temporarily zoned out.

"I see, my boy. You haven't been alone for a while, so your urges were not under control, " Plaguelord spoke first, with a cough.

Zhao's mouth gaped open in shock as he crouched down to dress himself. During this time, Plaguelord continued his spiel, "our great division has many ways to counteract this urge. Behold, our female zombies!"

As he spoke to here, a decayed corpse was flung out of his sleeve. Her greasy hair concealed most of her countenance, but a glaring scar could be seen stretching from one side of her face to the other. Even worse, stitches seemed to have sewn her limbs together.

Zhao was mortified. He held himself back from puking and quickly denied the "gift" given to him.

"Still young, I see. Sooner or later, you will only care about the soul, not the outside appearance!" Plaguelord mumbled with a dejected look.

"She's not even alive!" Zhao retorted.

"Tsk, tsk, kids are sure materialistic nowadays," Plaguelord whispered to himself while walking out of the room. "Oh, and before I forget… you must reach the bone-refinement stage in six months. That is if you don't want to be turned into a zombie."

With that, the door closed, leaving Zhao alone in silence. Sweat dripped down the sides of his face as he grasped the ancient book in his hands. Disregarding the strange tattoo, for the time being, he decided to at least try and attain a higher cultivation level. And, the only way to do that was to cultivate according to a powerful mantra.

Resolving himself, Zhao opened the first page. It entailed the directions to cultivate the Undying Epidemic, a long lost technique. Unlike their division's specialty, it strengthened the body by using poisons, dead bodies, and diseases. It was dangerous, and only one out of twenty disciples would stay alive when using it. Thus, rendering it a scrapped technique.

That was, of course, only the subsequent parts. The first stage, the festering phase, was much easier. Zhao breathed in a sigh of relief and once again shot out of bed. According to the book, he required a cold place to begin cultivation.

He stood up and walked to the entrance with a new goal in mind, directly opening the creaky door.

His eyes opened wide in surprise at the sheer magnitude of people in front of him. 'Oh, yes, I forgot that I was in an immortal sect…" He contemplated to himself, an expression of alarm on his face.

Contrary to his expectations, the Blood Immortal catacombs were much more beautiful than expected. More peculiar than that were the extensive lines of young men and women walking down the long corridors. A majority of them wore red garments, but some of them dressed in yellow, green, blue, and orange as well.

Some of them carried haughty expressions on their faces, while the others were busy traveling to the various classrooms. One thing that they all shared in common, however, was their complete disregard for Zhao. It would appear that the regard for slaves was unbelievably low.

Zhao expected this, but he still felt bitter inside. Plaguelord hadn't informed him of where or what the sect was other than some basic information, so he was rather lost. Alas, according to the Undying Epidemic, he needed to find a frigid location.

Clenching his teeth, he took a step forward and halted a nearby woman. "Excuse me, can you show me around the sect? Preferably, a colder place?"

The girl, a woman with amethyst colored hair, ceased walking and observed the man in front of her. He possessed no notable qualities, but after noticing his slave garments, she simply walked by without answering. Disdain flashed inside her eyes as she passed him.

Noticing this, Zhao tried again and again, until finally, he received just a little bit of information. They resided near the surface, the furthest away from the sect leader and patriarchs. Not only that, their resources were severely limited, and the Qi in the air was thin.

It was where the lowest levels of outer disciples and slaves lived; the upper reaches. 'So that woman was an outer disciple as well? The audacity! Zhao mused to himself in irritation.

Zhao stood still in the halls, stroking his unshaven chin. From the information obtained by several slaves, the only cold territory was in the frozen chambers, a prison in the upper reaches. And, to be sanctioned there, one had to commit a crime worthy of imprisonment.

Unfortunately, Zhao did not have high enough caliber to even ask of being deployed to the prisons. Instead, as a slave, he didn't even have the authority to live inside of his own residence.

He watched as the many disciples walked through the corridors, pondering about his future cultivation path. His expression was unsightly, and he couldn't help but curse his bad luck. Worse, the useless Plaguelord was nowhere to be seen or heard.

After a few more moments of idle thoughts, Zhao soon reached a conclusion and turned left, where a massive crowd of disciples stood. They scribbled on their parchment and studied an ancient monument in front of them. A mysterious language was etched onto the stone tablet, irradiating unknown power. It was dark and cruel.

Zhao, who was ignored by most, strolled toward the relic. His steps were steady, and no one noticed his presence. Of course, a few onlookers were puzzled by him, but they averted their eyes after a few seconds of scrutinization.

Soon, he stood adjacent to the monument. Now, plenty of people paid attention to the unimpressive boy.

Once he was the center of attention, Zhao perked up his eyebrows and cleared his throat. He raised his right leg and gently kicked the relic, afraid that too much force would get him executed.

Tap! The sound of his kick echoed out like a coin dropping in water, silencing the entire room.

"Greetings, ladies and gentlemen…" Zhao announced, a little embarrassed.

Instantly, fear crawled up the spine of every single nearby disciple. "H-He defiled one of the ancestor's crypts!" They called out, jumping to their feet and running away as quickly as they could. They swarmed away like a group of locusts, leaving Zhao gaping in terror.

The ground began to shake, and the relic started to rumble. An apparition soon rose into the sky, unleashing enough power to topple mountains and crush boulders. Its body was enveloped in armor, veiling most of the features it possessed.

Zhao squinted his eyes in shock, "how unforeseen."