Chapter 496: Chapter 183: Summoning~
The Kingdom’s summoning arts… or rather, the summoning arts in today’s magical system, are often viewed as an outdated and impractical spell.
Because summoning arts are only applicable to powerful magical creatures.
This well-known flaw makes summoning arts shelved by spellcasters, with little discussion and research, and it has never been popular among various spell factions.
It’s not that the kingdom’s mages don’t understand the potential of summoning arts. In fact, even an illiterate farmer knows how powerful it is to call upon ten helpers with a wave of the arm.
Imagine, when adventurers delve deep into the tomb of an ancient deity, trapped in the depths of the earth, and suddenly the surrounding coffins burst open with a bang, the coffin lids fly high, and in the dust emerge a dozen dragon priests—fallen mages who serve an ancient evil dragon and have transformed into liches.
They intend to use the adventurers’ vigorous life force to awaken the bone dragon after death, while the adventurers are in utter despair, the mage in the team suddenly begins to cast a summoning spell!
The dragon priests, with their sinister minds intact, mocked him, saying that even summoning an army would be useless.
Then, when the light dissipates, the Divine Knowledge Saintess steps out of the array.
It turned out that the adventurers had foreseen the possible predicament and had signed a high-level one-time summoning agreement with the church in advance, with the highest level even allowing the saintess to be dispatched!
Then, without suspense, the Divine Knowledge Saintess punched down the entire tomb, purifying the dragon priests into a heap of ash, and the awakened bone dragon was dismantled by the saintess into parts, ready to be taken back to the church as forging materials.
What a thrilling turn of events.
As long as one masters the summoning spell and pays enough of a price, legendary or even transcendent legendary assistance can be summoned. Is it that mages don’t want to do this?
Unfortunately, reality is not so ideal.
Not to mention summoning strong beings in remote places far from civilization, even the Kingdom’s pride, the Griffin Knights, find it difficult to leave the city for large-scale expeditions.
The reason is simple: griffins are not slimes that can live on dew; these demon beasts need a large amount of fresh meat to maintain combat capability, and a griffin’s appetite is more than ten times that of an average adult male. To maintain their combat capability, the frequency and quality of supplies are indispensable, making large-scale movements extremely difficult.
If they leave the city for the wilderness, a group of griffins would be hungry on the way, and before reaching the fighting site, they might even starve and risk a potential revolt.
If the summoning spell could make the contracted magic creatures come at any time, the combat power of the Kingdom Army would immediately rise several levels.
But the rules of the world do not cater to human convenience.
“And whether one can summon depends on whether the summoned target has ‘World Imprint’.”
The hero, having flown for over twenty minutes, dives and lands at [].
1. Forest Land♛
2. Lake Shore
3. Mountain Top
4. Road
5.1
6.2
7.3
8.4
9. Village
10. Critical Success/Extreme Failure
D10=d10(1)=1
This area is full of dense forests, and after flying for a while, the hero finds an open woodland and gently lands.
In the forest, there are beast-like eyes reflecting a faint light, but there are no magic creatures with the capability to attack the hero nearby.
The distance is sufficient, the hero sits down cross-legged, waiting expectantly and anxiously for the summoning of the Gleaming Scale Serpent.
The kingdom has not mastered stable space transmission technology, only a few strong professionals understand the mysteries of space, among which the sect ‘Gate Sect’, which dominates the kingdom’s dark side, is the most proficient.
Thanks to the help of Hunting Knowledge, the hero has also experienced the sensation of transmission once.
But transmission and summoning are different, and the most fundamental difference lies in whether the summoned target can “respond.”
Even the contemporary saintess known as Divine Knowledge cannot possibly hear and respond to the cries for help throughout the kingdom.
The predecessor of summoning arts, originated from ancient divine descent rituals, mages who revered ancient demons as deities relied on this method to pray for divine power and assistance, and although modern scholarly mages have not completely clarified its principles, they have gained some insights.
Magic creatures naturally absorb magic elements from their environment to grow and return to the earth after death, participating in the planet’s cycle. Scholars believe this allows powerful magic creatures, those above what we now call Demon King Level, to establish a higher-level connection with the overall magic element environment of the world.
This connection is usually not useful, but when a ritual is used to summon these powerful magic creatures, it can establish a connection that transcends space. No matter the distance or obstacles, as long as the connection is stable enough, the magic creature can respond to the summoning and open a space channel.
In ancient times, such a descent across a thousand li, along with the ensuing “divine punishment,” was enough to make humankind worship the ancient demons.
And humans, who did not possess magic power in childhood but became professionals upon growing up, live in civilization and are somewhat isolated from nature, maintaining a relative independence from the planetary environmental cycle. No matter how strong, like the Divine Knowledge Saintess who can effortlessly tear the Demon Monster King, achieving such a response is difficult.
Then what about magic creatures? Humans tamed magic creatures, innate professionals who can unconsciously absorb magic elements from a young age?
With the proposal of the ‘World Imprint’ theory, various doubts emerged, but due to the niche status of summoning arts, no mages ventured to verify these high-difficulty hypotheses, and as other spells rose in popularity, discussions on summoning arts gradually waned.
After all, using communication spells to open a space channel for support to teleport here can achieve the same effect, and it’s much more feasible.
So if it’s to summon a White Snake, that’s one thing, but summoning a hero, summoning a human, is indeed an unprecedented approach.
But to the Gleaming Scale Serpent’s concern, the hero responded this way.
“Magic creatures? Perfect, I can transform into a magic creature!”
What a perfect rebuttal. Seeing the speechless Gleaming Scale Serpent, the hero couldn’t help but admire his own inspiration.
And as if to validate the hero’s guess, accompanied by the evening breeze, chanting sounds faintly entered the hero’s ears in this woodland where traces of grandfather’s home couldn’t be seen, nor the presence of the Gleaming Scale Serpent felt.
1. Great Snake Queen…
2. Noble Princess of the Seven Seas…♛
3. Undying Incarnation of the Great Sun…
4. Kingdom Warrior, Noble Lord who vanquished the Great Demon…
5. Holy Maiden of the Border Army…
6. Ruler of the Snake Forest, Creator of the Phoenix Forest…
7. Nemesis of Evil Demons, Dawn Break’s Saintess…
8.1
9.2
10.Great Success/Extreme Failure
D10=d10(2)=2
“Honorable Princess of the Seven Seas, daughter of the Ocean and waves…”
The Hero sitting on the ground slightly twitched their ear and immediately stood up.
There was only the faint rustle of night winds passing through the grass and leaves around, with no trace of any human presence, not even the smell of Goblins.
Yet in this peaceful environment, a definite voice calling out resonated in the Hero’s heart, growing clearer and louder.
“It’s working, I’ve received the signal!” She excitedly began pacing in place.
Although she is now considered exceptionally wise, and the Gleaming Scale Serpent possesses a spirit intelligence far surpassing human spellcasters, learning and transforming a ritual spell from scratch is no easy feat.
She is a Magician, and the Gleaming Scale Serpent is a Magic Creature, their methods of spellcasting are fundamentally different: one is instinct, the other is wisdom.
After the Hero transformed into the Seven Seas Witch, her proficiency in Water Magic could easily approach a Legendary Mage, but in her ordinary state, she couldn’t even manage a basic Mage’s Hand—after all, she hadn’t learned it.
But now, through her own efforts, and with the help of the Gleaming Scale Serpent, she successfully modified a ritual magic with her human body!
The Hero couldn’t help but feel excited, but she still needed to remain calm, she had to transform first—
Meanwhile, the Gleaming Scale Serpent’s invocation continued.
“O Beauty loved by the waves, Shamaness who calms storms, destined to become the Queen of the vast expanses… your humble servant, your loyal attendant, seeks your response, prays for your descent…”
As the invocation grew stronger, the space before the Hero began to slowly distort, rippling like water, while the Hero’s expression turned peculiar, her ears tinted with blush.
“Did he make up this chant himself? It’s too exaggerated, I’ll have to talk to him after.” The Hero lowered her head bashfully, her thoughts interrupted.
The chanting grew louder and more fervent, as a gale arose in the night forest, and the disrupted space undulated like waves before the Hero.
The chant, which the Hero found excessively exaggerated, finally ended, and the space ripple reached its peak; a slight black crack appeared before the Hero.
Only the final step remained, the Hero responded with her own Magic Power, expanding the space rift, holding open the passage to traverse through, and a perfect Hero Summoning ritual would succeed!
Seeing this, the Hero recollected herself, her Emerald Eye gleamed, and without hesitation, her body surged with Magic Power, ready to cooperate with the Gleaming Scale Serpent to open the summoning passage to the cabin half an hour’s flight away.
[Hero (Lucky 4, immune to life-threatening danger)]
1. Crash
2. Only a Failure
3. Projection♛
4. Magic Power Depleted
5.1
6.2
7.3
8.4
9. Coma
10.Great Success/Extreme Failure
D10=d10(7)=7
Did I forget something?
The Hero brushed off the doubt, smiling as she dove into the space rift.
But the consequence of her overconfidence came knocking in less than thirty seconds.
When she realized the surrounding space was squeezing toward her like congealed mud, making it impossible to move, she understood her mistake.
“—Crap, I forgot to transform!”
The space’s pressure bore in from all directions, ready to eject her, the impostor responder, out of the tunnel.
In the disorienting darkness devoid of any sense of direction, the Hero’s Magic Power rapidly depleted, and though she couldn’t see her current state, she knew she was like a bottle of water being vigorously shaken, her entire being violently undulating.
The ritual’s effect maintained her final stability, preventing her from falling into the boundless void, or being thrown to an unknown distant land, but she couldn’t move forward even a step.
She wanted to initiate the Beast Spirit Transformation, but what usually took mere seconds to achieve with the Mermaid Incarnation was now impossible.
The unstable environment during space transmission made her inner Magic Power unmanageable, preventing her from transforming her flesh into Ether.
The consequences of forcibly transforming were unimaginable, like suddenly uncapping a violently shaken water bottle, its contents becoming irreversibly scattered everywhere.
“I can’t go on!”
In this crisis, the only solution the Hero could think of was one, and only one.
[Hero activates skill: Sacrifice (determines the Hero’s projectile distance)]
D45+d127=d45(23)+d127(43)=66
In what was the most dizzying moment of her life, she instinctively gathered all her Magic Power, swung both fists, and struck at the strongest and weakest points of the surrounding space barrier.
The weakest spot of the space barrier shattered with a sound, revealing the unfamiliar sky outside. Opening an exit to the Material Realm from the summoning ritual’s pathway was straightforward.
Although the strongest spot of the space barrier remained unscathed, the storm in the void, mixed with the Hero’s own Magic Power, rebounded with irresistible turbulent force, catapulting the Hero outward at lightning speed.
Staring at the array shattered into clear water, without even a strand of the girl’s hair in sight, the startled Gleaming Scale Serpent dashed out of the cabin.
He looked up, only to see a gleaming blue-green meteor streaking across the night sky, heading towards the distant horizon.
[Direction of the village]
D36=d36(13)=13
[Direction of the projectile]
D36=d36(35)=35