I find myself back at the clearing with my Cultivation stagnating at the 4th level of body formation. This time time doesn't loop.
[Checkpoint reached.]
"Good," the man in the armor says,
He then waves his hand, and the 8 weaker looking people make choking sounds, panic in their eyes as their light leaves them, leaving me and a man with blood red eyes and a woman with a barrel on her back, where the hell did she get a barrel anyway? I notice it's been hand woven, and frown. How the hell did she weave it in this short hour of time.
"You have the requisite talent to enter the crimson Blood sect. You go from slaves to slightly less bothersome slaves. You will serve the sect or you will die like that trash He raises his hand and the dead 'slaves' melt away into pools of blood which he absorbs. I see his strength rise again slightly, and I internally begin to freak out, showing nothing outside.
He looks over at me, "What are you doing standing there staring into space, initiate!"
He walks over to me and grabs me by the collar pulling me close enough that he can whisper in my ear.
"This is your only chance, you must learn to control this power, or else this will be the last day of your life." He whispers, menacingly. I can see the yellowness of his teeth, the evil in his eyes. He grins menacingly at us. as he steps away.
He's right though, I need to learn to use this power. And fast!
He points to the tome he handed to me earlier, "There are two parts to learning to control your Chi in the sects art. Absorbing blood essence, and chanting the Sutra to enhance your control. You must master both, or I will kill you. You have 10 minutes to chant the Sutra correctly. In my presence. Your time starts now.
I focus on the words of the tome, and it comes easily to me, but the other two struggle. I can tell they're struggling though, they keep trying to speak to each other to try to work together. I ignore it for now. I concentrate on absorbing blood essence. I chant the sutra, the blood in my body accelerates. steam begins to waft from my body.
[Mastered Great blood essence Demonic art sutra.]
I feel a surge of power, I can feel my body growing stronger, faster. I can see myself getting larger, and I can see new muscles forming under my skin, I can see my veins pumping with dark energy, I feel a great sense of power coming from within me.
It disgusts me, but this is necessary. I'm not sure why I have such a strong reaction, maybe because I have talent? could it be due to the interface I've been seeing that no one else seems to see. I don't know, but I know I'm strong enough for whatever is ahead, and I'm glad I got a taste for power, be it demonic or otherwise. I look at the man who's been training us for the past 10 minutes, He just killed 8 people for no reason other than they didn't meet some nebulous criteria.
[Checkpoint reached.]
I think about killing him, and then the moment I do, my mind goes blank and my thoughts stop entirely for a few seconds I feel an even more Evil aura and then everything goes black for a moment. I see my body from a birds eye view without a head, and immediately I am standing back where I was, I just died, and went back to the checkpoint.
Clearly I'm still to weak to kill the evil instructor and escape. Which now that I think about it would be a bad idea. But for some reason I'm feeling a bit better about things. It's almost like I've been given a second chance. What does this mean? He just murdered 8 individuals. 8 Human beings who did nothing wrong except get kidnapped from their homes and turned into Demonic cultivators.
I rage at my situation for a while before deciding what needs to happen next. I need to find a way out of this place, so that I may return home. This is important to me for obvious reasons. But how? I should probably just go with the flow until I have a chance to escape. I have to have been taken here for a reason. Maybe they want to turn me into a demon, but they haven't done anything yet. He looks at the two disciples who are panicking at the lack of progress.
He waves his hand and they both die instantly. "Worthless. Talent without comprehension means nothing,"
I freeze for a moment, and he grabs me. "I am Elder Cacao, Recruitment elder for the crimson hall in the Cosmic Blood Sect. You did well, Be sure not to be devoured alive by your fellow disciples. You are no longer an initiate, welcome to the crimson blood sect, Disciple. Good luck. You'll need it" With that he lifts into the air, flying towards the base of a crimson mountain peak. He lands with me next to a large group of pagodas,
and he turns to face me,
"Recruits, Follow me to the entrance of the sect. I will show you the path to the lower depths. We will be taking a shortcut, so prepare yourselves for the journey." I look around and see a bunch of other powerful elders carrying one or two new Disciples. dropping them off, and then leaving.
We walk down the road and eventually come to a cave which leads into the mountainside.
The inside of the caves are lit by torches, and the walls are carved with intricate patterns and symbols.
The ceiling is covered in a web of vines, and the floor is made of a mixture of mud, sand, and stone.
There is a small lake in the center of the room, and a pool of blood on the far side.
"Drink. Then you will be a part of the sect."
I grimace and step forward first.