Kev's knees were bruised and cold from the hard stone floor, but he continued diligently cleaning the ground. It wasn't like he had a choice. In this sect, enslaved servants like him could only do their tasks without complaint or rest.
If a slave dared to pause for a second, there was a chance another slave would rat them out and they would be brutally killed. Kev sighed in his head, even sighing out loud could be considered disobedience for the slaves of the Demon Sect.
It had been hours since Kev and his fellow slaves had started cleaning, and the sun had already gone down. Normally their superior would come tell them to stop a few hours after nightfall. And like clockwork, the man soon came in.
The man inspected the corridor, searching for any trace of dirt. He looked at them, seemingly satisfied.
" You're done for the day. You can go back to your rooms, but be quiet." He warned them, whispering so as to not wake anyone up.
They nodded and went to their rooms. The evil energy created by the Demonic Sect's various nefarious activities attracted a lot of monsters and demons. The Demonic Sect was protected against such monster, but the servants quarters who were just outside of the Sect didn't have that privilege.
While the demons and monsters slept when the sun was up, as soon as night fell, they came out.
The demons couldn't enter any houses without being invited in, so they stayed loitering just outside, sometimes banging their bloodied hands on the windows.
Kev glared at the ghost just outside, who kept knocking on the window. It was going to wake up his roommates, and Kev would be the one who was scolded. Again.
The old ghost knocked on the window again, its eyes dumber than a dead fish. Kev looked around. It was the only ghost around. It knocked again, a bit louder this time.
Kev sighed. His roommates, - Fang, Li Wei and Liu Jian - liked to gang up on him. Kev would bet that if the ghost continued, they would say he was the one at fault and report him to their superior. Kev shivered, his hands instinctively going up to his throat. The image of his mother, head cut off all the other servants for her disobedience.
The ghost knocked. Again.
One of his roommates shifted, his face tensing up slightly. Kev froze. He waited a few seconds to make sure he was still asleep. Kev searched behind his pillow. He pulled out his trusty knife he had stolen from the kitchen.
He went outside, where the ghost was. It was just one ghost, he reassured himself. And Kev had better chance surviving that thing than surviving his roommates ire.
The ghost was unaware of its surroundings, and just dumbly continued knocking at the window. People always said ghosts were supposed to have a cold aura, yet Kev felt warmer the closer it was. He better take it out quick, Kev thought.
But the ghost felt his presence and turned around. Its inhuman face twisted into a smile. It flew toward him. Kev tried dodging, but he wasn't fast enough.
Its nails dug into Kev's flesh. Kev gritted his teeth. If he screamed the head servant was going to have his head on a platter. Kev kicked and punched until the ghost dropped his hands.
Once his hands free, Kev lifted his knife. He brought it down to the monster's head.
The knife easily went in, before it meet a hard surface, the skull, most likely. Blood stained his head. But Kev didn't stop. The ghost moaned out of pain, its screams close to that of a human.
Kev stabbed it until it was dead, and a few dozens times after that just to be sure. Kev heaved. He tried to get the knife out, but it was too deep inside its skull.
A ball of light was coming out of the corpse's ribcage. Kev squinted. He had seen many ghosts die, but he had never seen light emanate from their dead body.
Cautiously, his hand approached the ball of light. As soon as his finger touched it, he flinched back. A current of energy passed through him.
His body grew warmer. No, it wasn't really his body that felt warm, more like something inside him. If Kev didn't know better, he would have said his soul was growing warmer.
He blinked. Visions passed through his closed eyes. Memories that weren't his burned themselves in his brain.
His hands held up his hand. He quietly hissed in pain. Uh. What was that ? He shook his head.
Whatever. He just wanted to sleep. He tried pulling out the knife again. To his surprise, it easily slipped out. Kev shrugged it off and stood up.
But to his surprise, he felt something different. Not in his body, but in the world around him. Hundreds of translucent balls of lights were floating around in the air or sticking to any surface they could find.
Kev blinked. He pinched himself. He wasn't dreaming. Shit. Was he going mind ?
He tightly closed his eyes before reopening them. The lights hadn't disappeared. Adding to that, two more ghosts were walking toward him.
He ran back inside the house as silently as he could, before throwing himself on his mattress. Whatever. He's sure he was just hallucinating. Yeah, that's right, he sometimes imagined things when he was too tired. It would probably just go away in the morning.
He bundled himself up tightly in his thin blanket. His eyes were shut tightly. He fell asleep, albeit with a lot of difficulty and a lot of time.
He kept shifting around. When the sun finally started rising, Kev had dark circles around his eyes.
Soon, his roommates were awake too. The sun wasn't completely up yet, they still had a few minutes before breakfast would be served in the hall.
" Uhm, hey Li Wei. I wanted to know if you knew anyone who suddenly started seeing light. " Kev asked.
All of Kev's roommates were terribly intimidating. They were all older, taller and visibly stronger than Kev.
But Li Wei tended to be gentler, be it in his expression or in his way of talking.
Li Wei frowned.
" I think you'll need to be more specific than that ? "
Right. Kev's explanation was kind of weird. Kev looked at the balls of lights clinging to the walls.
" Like small, white balls of lights that floats in the air or on the walls. " Kev described verbatim what he was seeing.
" Oh. Like Spirits ? " Li Wei said.
" Spirits ? Isn't that just a synonym of ghost ? " Kev shivered, thinking back to the monster he killed.
Li Wei chuckled.
" Yeah, there's that definition too. But it's also a source of power. Have you never heard the term cultivator or mage ? "
Kev nodded. Of course he had ! He wasn't that uneducated.
" Well that's what differs them from normal people. They can see, and as such use Spirits. But we don't need to concern ourselves with that. " He paused " We wouldn't be there if we could use Spirit. " He mumbled under his breath.
A cultivator… Becoming a cultivator was a golden ticket to becoming a disciple.
Outer disciples were still servants, but they had better food, better rooms, better treatment. Better everything really.
Kev frowned. The outer disciples weren't killed because they made too much noise or took a second to rest, he thought, clenching his teeth.
" Li Wei ! " Fang called. " Stop talking with the brat and come join us for breakfast. "
Tch. Who was he calling a brat ! Kev wanted to insult him back. He didn't though. He still wanted to live after all.
" Coming ! " Li Wei answered, leaving Kev's side.
Kev followed them, even if he wasn't invited to. There was no use skipping the meager amount of food they gave out.
He walked to the hall, firmly ignoring the ' Spirits '. He almost flinched when he passed right through one of them.
Instead of continuing to float, it stuck itself to him. It felt warm, but it was easy enough to ignore.
Not really having any friends,he stuck close to his roommates and ate at their table. Luckily, they decided to just ignore him today.
They had the same strange gray mush as always. As always, Fang and Li Wei grumbled about the food. Liu Jan stayed silent but wore a similarly disgusted expression.
Kev wondered how they still hadn't gotten used to it. To his knowledge , they were there before him.
Kev himself rather liked the mush. It was warm and slimy, both qualities Kev enjoyed.
He happily munched on the food.
" So fucking disgusting. " Fang dumped all his food on his plate.
Kev looked at him weirdly. He sniffed the food. No spit. He shrugged. Meh, his loss.
Their meal was interrupted when servants came in.
Their clothes were expensive enough for Kev to assume they weren't slave and one of them had a crest on her clothes.
Kev kind of wanted to ask Li Wei about the meaning behind the crest, but he figured he had already reached his quota of questions.
Better not annoy Li Wei too much.
The old woman talked to the head of the outer servant. Kev saw them point at their table and shivered.
He stopped looking at them, his eyes staying firmly focused on his plate.
Li Wei seemed to remark his weird behavior but didn't call him out. Beside him, Fang rested his arm on Kev's head.
Kev was annoyed, but once again didn't say anything.
" Hey! Kid ! " Yelled a rough voice.
Hm, kid ? He wouldn't call anybody among the servant ' kid ' . Except maybe him, with his small build and adolescent youth. Wait, were they talking to him ?
He raised his eyes. The old woman and the head servant were at their table.
Liu Jan stood up to kneel and everyone followed suit.
" You ! " The old woman pointed toward him. " I've been told you can write and read. "
Kev nodded. His mother had taught him before her death. Kev was one of the only servants who knew how to read.
" Good. You'll do the job. Come with me. " The old woman didn't wait for his agreement and dragged him by the arm.
Kev felt his heartbeat sped up. Given her robes, she was of a high rank. That couldn't announce anything good.
She dragged him near one of the main buildings of the Sect. Kev followed obediently.
The farther they got into the Demonic Sect, the more bountiful were the Spirits. They stuck to him as soon as he touched them.
Kev observed thought he would drown in Spirits. Surprisingly, his skin seemed to absorb them, leaving him with a warm and energetic feeling.
The lady stopped in front of a small house. Behind it was a garden. There seemed to be medicinal herbs, but also fruits and vegetables.
Kev sniffed the air. It wasn't often he encountered the scent of fruits. It was sweet. He liked it.
The lady slammed the door open without hesitation.
" Physician Jin Mei. " The lady nodded respectfully at another woman.
Jin Mei was younger than the old woman, although to Kev they both seemed old.
" What brings you to here, head maid ? " Asked Jin Mei.
" I bring you another servant. " She pushed Kev towards the physician.
Kev bowed, but he cursed them both in his mind. 'Physician', in the rest of the world, a physician was meant to heal people.
But in the Demonic Sect, a physician was actually another word for 'mad scientist'.
Kev rarely passed near any physician's house. But when he did, he often heard loud screams of pain.
He was once called by an outer physician to clean up a corpse, if it could even be called that with how deformed it had become.
Physicians of the Demonic Sect healed only the highest placed people. Otherwise, their real role was to give their morbid discoveries to the Sect.
Hopefully whatever experiment they had in mind wasn't too deadly.
" Ah, thanks ! I was just in need of help around here. " Jin Mei thanked the woman warmly.
Huh ? Oh, he was actually there as an actual servant. Was he supposed to become the physician's personal servant ?
He inwardly smirked. If that was the case, he would get the occasion to steal some sweet fruits. Let alone the fruits, he could steal medicinal pills, or rare poisons !
He was salivating just thinking about it. Plus, with his newfound spiritual power, he could probably take something to grow his power.
Besides, she didn't seem as horrible as most demonic physicians.
" This is your new mistress. Congratulations, you are a personal servant now, kid. "
A personal servant, huh ? That was a step up from his previous status. Although it mattered very little to a slave, since he wasn't getting paid either way.
The head maid left. Leaving the two of them alone.
" I hope you are used to bloodshed, child. " A creepy smile took over the woman's face.
Hm. Kev spoke too soon.
" Of course miss. " Kev just bowed his head.
Nobody could live as a slave of the Demonic Sect without getting used to blood.
He sighed in his heart. And here he was thinking he could get rest out of this.