Day one of the expedition:
For the past few months, after the many failed campaigns that went after Scorn, I’ve been presenting request after another to his Highness the Emperor, over and over, so that he may let me take part in the next expedition to take out that catastrophe the goddess is testing our mettle with.
As an advisor to the Emperor, I cannot leave and go anywhere else unless I have an imperial decree.
It’s the same in times of war for me as for everyone else of importance.
As for the villagers, they live and die in the same land anyway, so they are free to come and go if they want after stating their purpose to the border’s guards, but it’s very rare that they leave their land for any purpose, and it’s rarer that the guards allow them to, anyway.
The Emperor kept delaying me, telling me the army would take care of it, over and over, until finally, he reluctantly allowed me to fight the enemy of the empire. His Highness had a lot of options, of course. But I had to see Scorn with my own eyes and bring him to heel.
We gathered in the assembly hall, two battalions of soldiers, with one captain leading each of them.
We also had a colonel from the army who ranked above all of us as the acting leader of the campaign.
I didn’t mind letting him lead, even though I can do that myself.
We had a group of mercenaries as well, various men, adept at various weapons.
The Emperor had resorted to hiring those men because dealing with Scorn had taken considerable time, effort, resources, and human lives, and yet we had nothing to show for it.
And finally, we had her…. I had heard murmurs of her all day, the necromancer….
This woman, who looked to be in her late thirties, stood there, wearing a black robe. Her hair was very tall and pitch black, like a starless night; her features were beautiful, she had scary yellow eyes, her body was neither small nor large, and she held a book in her hand the whole time. She never stashed it or left it anywhere.
She was of average height, and her skin was pale, extremely pale.
The woman sent shivers running down my spine.
Her name was Atelia Meji.
Necromancy, that forbidden art of black magic, I can’t believe his majesty paid for her to accompany us to this campaign.
Don’t get me wrong, I wholeheartedly resign myself to his majesty’s will, but what will the people say if they hear of this?
I can’t even imagine.
Everyone kept avoiding her throughout the entire campaign, and good for them; she put the fear of the goddess in their hearts, and they did well to avoid her.
I couldn’t though, because the woman would leave everything and everyone and come speak with me.
Was she trying to befriend me? I don’t know.
But what I know for sure is that she was interested in my craft.
She even bought many potions and fire-breathing bottles, among other alchemical weapons, from me.
And she paid in gold upfront. I had to send my right-hand apprentice back to get everything she'd bought out of the workshop in the capital.
I was curious, so I asked her to show me her powers, and she did. It was more horrifying than anything we've heard about necromancers like her.
She extended her palm out towards a nondescript piece of the desert and recited something from her book.
After she finished half her spell or rather "curse", we heard the loudest ungodly lion roar we've ever heard. At first, it was in anger, but then it became a roar of utter pain.
And from that spot, a skeletal desert lion rose, came pounding towards us, and rubbed its head on Atelia’s thigh, like a freaking cat.
I will write the entirety of our expedition in this book, since it’s about catastrophes and there is no bigger catastrophe than scorn.
But if you would have my opinion and I know you would, how couldn’t you? I am so great.
Necromancers are also a catastrophe. They are a catastrophe that nobody gives enough recognition to, because they're so rare.
But once you see something dead come to life in that unholy manner, you'll understand, nobody should go through what that poor lion went through.
Scars of fate and other catastrophes.
By Zhi Zixin.
****
image [https://imgur.com/kJi1H1i.jpg]
Seph checked a screen that wanted his attention in the middle of the battle.
Undead Buddhist level up
Attribute points gained
+1 strength
+1 Intelligence
+1 wisdom
+2 free attribute points
He checked his status screen to see his new gains.
Name: Seph ???
Class: Undead Buddhist lvl 4
Cultivation Stage: Body Dismantling stage (III)
Lifespan: 18/40 years
Strength: 40
Dexterity: 6
Intelligence: 27
Wisdom: 8
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Constitution: 23
Perception: 25
Luck: 10
+8 free attributes.
Seph’s performance in this fight disappointed him, and he was pondering adding points in dexterity, but he got an idea. I never tried to add points to the luck attribute before. I’ll try it; it might work.
He gave the mental command to add points to his luck, but it didn’t work. His luck stayed the same, and his free attribute points stayed the same.
“Ah, I guess it was too much to hope for it to work; I wonder how the luck attribute works though, does it increase the chance of finding better rarity items, or put me in easier fights so that I survive, or even make me survive lethal hits? It could be anything. The idea of luck is that it could affect anything in our lives.”
Seph paused, Sun was looking at him expectantly, and then he continued, “Ah, whatever, I guess I’ll add my points in dexterity. I don’t want to put you in danger again, Sun. If the stat makes me faster, or more flexible, or gives me faster reaction time, it would be better. Regardless, it’s my lowest stat, and it's probably very important in a fight.”
Seph added the eight free points to dexterity, pushing it all the way to 14 points.
Next order of business for Seph was to collect the death eater grass, which luckily didn’t get trampled during the fight. He collected six of them.
After stashing them inside his spatial sack, which was filling up nicely, he would need a new one soon.
He used the eye of the appraiser on the trees.
Appraising…
Name: Yin-infused ebony bark.
Type: Ingredients.
Quality: Uncommon.
A unique tree bark that is rich in yin energy. Boil it in water, and the resulting drink is used to replenish the energy of yin cultivators. A better use would be to always make pills instead, for much stronger effects.
Location: Found on ebony trees that have been infused by yin energy. Very tough to extract; prepare to lose a few valuable items to extract this valuable bark.
“Looks like this tree bark will be hard to extract, buddy. I have only one iron sword in my spatial sack that could be helpful to me with the task.”
Seph took out the sword from his spatial sack when he remembered, “Oh! There are 6 swords here after we killed those skeleton warriors.”
Seph used the eye on them. And all the Iron swords had no special traits like the one he had, and he also collected the four bows and quivers of the archers, and two staves that were carried by the skeletal magicians.
Seph used the swords to extract ebony bark from the trees, only to find, to his dismay, that each bark extracted broke one of his swords. He collected seven barks and broke all the swords he had.
After finishing this task, he looked around to find Sun, only to find the little monkey messing around with a new book!
He rushed to his side and asked, “What are you doing Sun? Did you steal another book from Master Zhi?”
The monkey shook his head no and held the book up for Seph to check it out.
There was black smoke coming out of the book. It was meager, but undeniable to the onlooker who saw it from close proximity.
Seph held the book carefully, it was a black book with red lettering, in the same unknown language that was on his gourd, since they shared one letter, he opened the book, only to find it empty; none of the pages had any writing.
He gave up and checked it with the eye of the appraiser.
Appraising…
Name: The Cursed Book of the Magi.
Type: Book Weapon.
Quality: Rare (Growth)
Power level: Death Dismantling.
Durability: 100% (Cursed)
Magical Ability: Sell your soul, and you’ll gain power, unimaginable to a mortal, a power to contend with the immortals themselves.
Seph felt chills run up and down his spine, a cursed weapon. He didn’t know what that meant, but he knew to fear it.
He stashed it quickly inside his spatial sack, since he knew that nothing inside the sack could harm him.
He thought, “This must be the weapon of Atelia Meji, it’s good we've got rid of her; if we hadn't, the goddess only knows what she could have done with a cursed weapon like this. She sold her soul, and could still resurrect from the dead.”
Seph went over to her to check if she had anything else, and found a ring on her finger. He slipped the ring out and checked it with the eye of the appraiser.
Appraising…
Name: Ring Of Defense.
Type: Ring accessory.
Quality: Uncommon.
Magical Ability: Blocks a single attack.
Limit: One use per day.
“Oh, another one of those defensive treasures, amazing. I’ll use this one as well. Now I have two charges to block deadly strikes with daily.” Seph said, when he noticed the hole that Atelia came out of, he went and peeked inside, only to see it crawling with centipedes. He gulped heavily and found no choice but to check them with the eye of the appraiser.
Appraising…
Name: Carrion Yin-Centipedes.
Type: Ingredients.
Quality: Uncommon.
Normal centipedes that ate too many yin-infused dead individuals and ended up yin-cultivated, also used to make yin-cultivation pills.
Location: Found inside the graves of yin cultivators, also found in mass graves of people who died in a great tragedy.
Seph made a disgusted face. He didn’t want to have these centipedes inside his pill, but that’s what it means to be a cultivator. He had to make the sacrifice.
He took out one centipede after another, and sucked their energy out of them, killing them immediately before putting them inside his spatial sack. He got six centipedes; they were way bigger than normal centipedes.
Seph knew there must be a fourth ingredient here, if they went by the trend that they get four ingredients to make a single pill in each section of this trial, and true enough, when he looked behind him, while standing in front of the biggest tombstone of Atelia Meji, he found that each gravestone had a black glowing mushroom behind it.
Appraising…
Name: Death-attuned Mushroom.
Type: Ingredients.
Quality: Uncommon.
A unique mushroom that is rich in yin energy, rumored to be a good ingredient for making food that would energize yin cultivators. A better use would be to always make pills instead, for much stronger effects.
Location: Found in graveyards that are rich with yin energy. The glow can’t be mistaken for anything else.
Seph found six of those mushrooms as well and stashed them inside his spatial sack.
With the four ingredients in his sack now, he had a last order of business. He thought that his gourd’s powers looked so much like those of a necromancer. What if he could make those skeleton warriors part of his army?
He went over to the place where the whirlwind of skeletons dropped all the bones and opened the lid of his gourd. The gourd sucked them all in, and spat out magical bones to be used like the other bones he owned.
He tried to use the gourd on Atelia Meji, but it didn’t work on her; it looked like the curse protected her somehow.
Happy with the outcome of this secret room, he left to make the new pills.