Primordial

When the first syllable of the spell rang out, the entire old classroom seemed to be enveloped by a strange force field.

Inside the chicken cage at the center of the magic array, more than two hundred sparrows cried out in agitation, flapping their wings and crashing madly against the cage until their heads were bloodied. Yet they kept at it, again and again, as if they knew neither pain nor exhaustion...

Cheng Sheng watched as his blood flowed into the magic array and raced along its lines. The flames of the black candles placed at the array's twelve corners turned green, one after another...

Eerie, sinister, and chillingly evil.

When the pool of blood reached the center of the array and slowly spread out like dark red mercury, the final syllable of the spell finally left Cheng Sheng's lips.

"Phew-"

Pale as a sheet and so weak he was nearly drained of strength, Cheng Sheng regained control of his body.

He staggered, bracing one hand against the floor in a half-kneeling position, barely keeping himself from collapsing.

"Dark... Sacrifice!!"

Using the last of his strength, Cheng Sheng growled hoarsely at the magic array before him.

In an instant, boom!

The murmuring that had lingered in his ears suddenly became a shriek, its piercing sound nearly bursting his eardrums.

Cheng Sheng's mind was in chaos. In his daze, he seemed to feel someone blowing into his ear.

The warm breath coiled between his ear and neck like a snake, finally turning into a soft, seductive chuckle.

"Heh..."

The instant the laughter rang out, Cheng Sheng's breathing grew ragged. A surge of heat rose in his chest and rushed toward his lower body...

Before he could recover from the primal urge that had inexplicably been stirred in him, a stabbing pain came from his shoulders, chest, waist, abdomen, and limbs...

It was as if countless ice picks had been driven savagely into his body at once.

The indescribable agony instantly twisted Cheng Sheng's face. Beneath his clothes, countless tiny meridians appeared, spreading out like a spiderweb, and he curled up into a ball on the floor...

He didn't know how much time had passed.

"Plip..."

A raindrop landed on Cheng Sheng's face, and its cold touch slowly roused him from unconsciousness.

The downpour outside the window continued, seemingly heavier than before, and the classroom was pitch-dark.

Cheng Sheng "laboriously" climbed to his feet, still shaken by the memory of the earlier tide of icy, stabbing pain.

He found his flashlight and switched it on.

On the floor, the chicken cage he had used for the sacrifice was still sitting intact at the center of the magic array. There was no sign that the cage door had been opened, but all the sparrows inside were gone.

The twelve black candles had burned all the way down, but when he pulled out his phone to check, he found that only twenty minutes had passed.

But enough bizarre things had happened tonight already, so Cheng Sheng didn't pay it much mind.

He quickly gathered the materials left over from the ritual and wiped the dried magic array off the floor with a rag. Then he put on his raincoat and hurried out of the classroom.

Half an hour later, Cheng Sheng returned home.

His parents were out, and Cheng Yue, who had gotten into that red Jeep at the school gates after class, hadn't come home either, just as he had expected.

Cheng Sheng reached for the switch on the wall out of habit, but nothing happened when he pressed it. Only then did he remember that the living room light had been broken for over ten days and still hadn't been fixed.

Tomorrow, I really have to remember to change the light bulb.

With that thought, he silently walked into the bathroom.

He undressed and took a shower.

Cheng Sheng stood naked beneath the showerhead, letting the warm water run down his hair and cheeks, washing away the dust and dried blood he had picked up while rolling on the floor.

He slowly unwound the gauze wrapped around his hand and quietly examined his left palm, which had now healed completely without a trace of a wound.

"Does this... mean I succeeded?"

Cheng Sheng thought for a moment, then closed his eyes and tried to sense the Black Book.

In the dark void of his own conscious space, the Book of Warlocks floated quietly. Besides it, there was now a grayish-white seed, seemingly formed from condensed mist.

"Primordial Mark!"

Cheng Sheng opened his eyes and let out a breath of stale air in delight. "It worked."

The Primordial Mark was the sign that one had become a warlock.

Having formally entered the path, he should now be considered a Forbidden Apprentice, according to the Black Book's description!

What he needed to do next was continually strengthen and nurture the seed of his Primordial Mark by absorbing souls.

But ordinary living creatures' souls weren't the best choice. The best were... demons' souls!

"The Primordial Mark is the source of a warlock's power, as well as proof of a successful contract with the Abyss.

"With this proof, a warlock can continuously 'borrow' power from the Abyss, such as demons...

"During this process, the bond between the warlock and the Abyss will steadily deepen, and that is precisely the result the Abyss wants to see..."

After the ritual succeeded, Cheng Sheng's spiritual power seemed to have increased considerably once again. Large portions of the latter half of the Black Book's first page appeared, and he gained more knowledge that he was qualified to learn after changing classes to "Forbidden Apprentice."

"...It looks like a trap carefully woven specifically for warlocks. The more they ask of the Abyss, the deeper they sink..."

Cheng Sheng discerned the risk hidden beneath this "contract," but soon shook his head. The contract had already been made, so what was the point of considering that now? Besides, the day that risk arrived was still a long, long way off for Cheng Sheng. Further on in the Black Book, the warlocks who came before him might well have found ways to avoid the risk...

"The fastest way to make the Primordial Mark grow is to summon a demon and devour it... But for me, still only an apprentice, that would be no different from suicide!

"At this stage, I can only rely on 'trading' with demons to obtain power bit by bit and grow stronger...

"I have to make good use of [Dark Sacrifice]. This is a process of growth every apprentice warlock has to go through."

The good news was that, now that the initiation ritual was complete, the steps for performing [Dark Sacrifice] in the future would be much simpler.

He no longer needed to arrange so many complicated materials. He only needed to draw the magic array in a suitable place with blood-the blood of any living creature-and then activate it through the Primordial Mark.

In other words, from now on, Cheng Sheng only needed to worry about the sacrifice.

"That's right, the sacrifice!"

Cheng Sheng turned off the showerhead, his slender brows knitting slightly.

The ritual had succeeded, and the sacrifice he offered had been accepted by the "demon" he had summoned for the first time. By rights, he should have received some "payment."

"The increase in spiritual power came from the Primordial Mark.

"Then what did the two hundred-plus sparrows I sacrificed alive bring me?"

Cheng Sheng raised his left hand. "Could the only benefit really be that the wound on my left hand healed?"

The Black Book said that a warlock's first sacrifice was often accompanied by some extra "surprises."

This was a "reward" from the Abyss for newly initiated warlocks, a little like a "newbie gift pack." Many high-ranking demons were quite generous toward promising warlocks who had just emerged...

Unless, of course, the newbie warlock was truly unlucky, and not a single demon was willing to show him even a little favor.

"Surely I can't be that one-in-ten-thousand unlucky bastard, can I?"

Unwilling to believe it, Cheng Sheng carefully examined his body from head to toe. But after several checks, he really couldn't find anything different from before the ritual.

His muscles hadn't grown, his strength hadn't increased... His skin hadn't thickened, and he hadn't gained any ability like being impervious to blades and spears...

Just as Cheng Sheng resigned himself to this result, a drop of water quietly fell from the showerhead above him, beneath which he had just finished bathing-

"Plink..."