Early Sunday morning, dressed in a tapered T-shirt, jeans and white soft-soled sneakers, Gwen slipped out of her dorm room, leaving her sleeping companion behind. She had asked for permission for Avia and Yue to enter her secrets, but was rejected by her mentor on the grounds that she had a loose mouth and would sink the ship. They told her that if she wanted to have a fledgling moment at Inter Milan high school and catch her opponents off guard, she should keep her full inadequacy of ability.

"Especially your vain talents," Gunther solemnly told her, which would be fatal to you and to others. Avoid using it until your mind and body have grown into it. ”

Gwen didn't want to swim through the channel, and he took Gunther's advice to heart.

She arrives at the now familiar Hunter's Highlands Estate and is amazed at the change in scenery as Sydney's warm winters are replaced by melancholy spring rains. The acacia is now in full bloom, and the flame trees are full of pink celebration, eating the bright red in droves. Patches of shivering grass rushed into Jezebel's fields, covering the countryside with ugly wildflowers of all colors and colors.

When Gwen stepped down from the country podium, the view was magnificent. She could distinctly feel particles of mana fluttering in the crosswind.

Melissa came to pick her up. As usual, the two women shared moments of laughter as old Mercedes rumbled down the gravel road. When they arrive at the estate, Gwen finds her Opa and her master drinking tea by the Infinity Water feature.

"The hosts. Gwen bowed deeply, then to her grandfather. "Opa. ”

"Gwen. "Master Henry doesn't look much changed, an old professor in a tweed suit.

"Hi dear!" a voice called out from the infinite pool. Gwen turned around and saw Sofina disguised as a little girl, likely to save mana. She placed her two stilettos in the pool and looked like they were going to soak in for a while, the water forming a concentric ripple around her bare legs.

Not far from the Infinity Pool is a raised earth platform with an intricate hieroglyphic system in the form of a summoning circle. From her research, Gwen recognized that it was an intermediate alert system for restraining level 3-6 beasts. Since the price of potency is exponential, her doctor apparently spares no expense.

Gwen took a deep breath, calming her nerves.

"Do you have any special advice before I start, Master?"

Henry smiled in the gentle, holy way she had grown accustomed to over the past few months.

"Whatever comes your way, my child. ”

Sullya puffed two puffs of air from her nostrils. "With the money I've spent on that circle, Gwen better find something special. ”

"Now, old friend, let's not get too far ahead. Touching things out of her control doesn't do her any good. A magician's first beast is always special, and a beast that is too strong or unruly will only ruin their development. ”

"What was the first master you were familiar with?" Gwen asked curiously.

Henry's gaze moved gently to Sofina.

"When I met Sofina, she was just a second-level wood elf, too weak to even fight. But I know that from the moment our minds come into contact, we are destined to be called and familiar. She has grown a lot since I was younger, she is stronger than me in many ways, and she has more room to grow. ”

Gwen nodded. Growing up with people you know sounds really good. Her master told her not to mind if she found something weaker than she expected. For a woman with two cats, living with a pet is a matter of course.

"I think it's wonderful, Master, and I'm looking forward to raising and taking care of my own loved ones. I want to raise my acquaintances to be the best; This summons is a test, and raising them is my business. ”

Henry smiled enthusiastically, pleased with her answer, Gwen always pleases him when he speaks.

"You have warmed my old bones, child," he complimented her pronunciation. "Still, let it be. Be sober. Let the mana pass through this sign unimpeded. Whatever you're familiar with, I can assure you that you won't be disappointed. ”

"Well, since you've asked me for rare materials, nature had better offer something of value, in Mithriel," said Suria sullenly.

"Surya......" Master Henry pinched the bridge of his nose, Gwen possessed the essence of the snake. She also possesses two elements. One of them is invalid. God knows what will happen to that quasi-elemental plane. As far as we know, she may open the door to the abyss. ”

Gwen felt her confidence wane.

"You'll be fine, my dear, and if it wants to leave, it will definitely sign a contract with you. Her female doctor grinned wickedly, I painted the frigate with the blood of the Hippogriff, and reinforced the seal with Mitril powder. The glyph itself is your master's own. Gosh, if you summon an Abyssal Drakemon, it still takes a few minutes to let go. At that point, your master will bring it to its knees. ”

"I'm starting to think it's a bad idea to ask for your help," Henry said skeptically.

Gwen looked at the circle. What will happen to the result? A pair of dogs is fine, and cats are even better. Please don't let it be something weird, like mucus or slugs.

"Get up, girl!" Surya slapped Gwen in the face, tripping Gwen onto the platform. "Show your master what you can do!"

"Gwen, be careful," Henry added, casting a disapproving look at Surya. If it was Alesia, Sulia wouldn't have eyebrows.

Gwen found the center of the summoning symbol on the floor and positioned herself in a series of glyphs. She recreated a complex web of hieroglyphs, allowing her to summon acquaintances in her mind's eye, and then allowing mana from the astral body to penetrate her flesh, forming a complex network of pipes. Underneath her, the summoning circle began to glow, its glyphs flickering, writhing as if alive, consuming their precious ingredients.

"Steady... "Hold ...... steady" Sulia opened her mouth next to Henry, but Gwen was already in her own world.

First, she emitted a stream of pure mana to stabilize the circle, and her psychic was steady and unbiased. She has been training relentlessly for the past three months under the tutelage of her senior brother, who has spent a fortune on magic crystals to strengthen her reserves. After checking the spells two and three times, she is ready to receive the final call.

"Summon familiar people!"

The space within the door distorted, extending into the aether and creating a vortex that would deposit any unique mana signal she extracted from the elemental layer.

Gwen prayed, "Please don't do anything more than four legs." ”。 Or have a swollen second jaw and acidic blood.

Suddenly, she felt her soul overwhelmed by a familiar feeling of vertigo. She saw in her mind the dark particles blending into a black swirl of mana, like fish in a tide pool. For months, these nihilistic mousses relinquished her command, refusing to form, shape, or hire her.

But now they moved, stung her psyche, looking for a way out. From Master Henry, she knew that every manifestation of emptiness would cost her a pound of flesh. Once she manifests emptiness in the real world, her body is filled with negative energy.

Do you want to get out?" she mocked the listless ball of energy with contempt. Obey me!

Gwen is determined to keep the volatile substance under control, forcing it to disperse. However, the more she restrained it, the more desperately it struggled, ramming her catheter again and again, shooting shockwaves of pain and pain into her body.

Gwen grunted with difficulty. She's spending too much energy on controlling it. If she resists any longer, she will be distracted and unable to maintain the Circle of Summoning.

She laughed at the guy who was rolling. Get out!

She gritted her teeth and waited in vain for the trial. Sooner or later, she will have to face the inevitability of using the second element, although she prefers to build stronger perseverance. Master Henry had told her that the only way to safely manifest her Void Element was to use it cautiously in a way that was counteracted by a large amount of positive energy.

With the feeling that the valve was loose, she opened the proverbial floodgates to the quasi-elemental layer, sending half of her mana into the black abyss.

There was silence in the air for a moment, and then a faint burst of mana erupted, contaminating the inscriptions that her master had painstakingly carved.

Outside, Surya, Henry, and his companions watched as darkness suddenly appeared on the trapped person, suffocating the summoning circle with negative energy.

"Damn!" shouted Suriya, "Henry!"

"Sofina!" Henry didn't have to force himself to command his familiar man, he raised a delicate, carved hand, and the leafy vines grabbed Gwen's waist and shoulders, filling the girl with pure vitality. It was clear that her body was hungry for Sofina's life force, leaving Drade's flawless skin wrinkled.

"Henry!" Sofina sneered, her tone anxious and impatient. "Are you sure?"

Sophia ordered Sofina: "Either way, let her be fed." "Use Grote's life force. ”

From where she stood in the Infinity Fountain, Sofina quickly grew lilies and sedges.

A precise sphere formed in the summoning circle. A small obsidian tendrils swayed out of it, a hole that seemed to have no space, and slid through it to form a meter-long ebony snake with a circumference as thick as an arm.

"What the hell is that?" asked Sophia, who blasted Gwen with another kind of life energy.

"I don't know... Henry took out his staff, a piece of heartwood taken from Sofina's spirit tree, the void was a place of infinite hunger and nothingness. ”

"Nothingness?" asked Surya, suspecting the tower's over-knowledge of the aircraft. "I think we just proved that something does exist there. ”

His question was answered by the snake, which lunged at Gwen, its body crashing into the obstacle, silver sparks of mana scattering.

"It's blind hostility. Henry sighed in disappointment, perhaps it would be better to stop. A creature must be sentient in order to be a companion, and that thing looks like a pure, life-consuming malevolent solid. ”

"Phew!" Surya spat and pulled out a wand that activated the banishment function of his circle of guards. With a loud bang, the metal extends into a full-size scepter, and its commercial end is adorned with a model cage containing a creature core the size of an egg.

"Stop!"

It was Sofina who mediated.

"The serpent is sentient ... I can feel it ... Hunger, anger, anger ... Maybe give Gwen a chance. ”

The old people respect each other.

As an elemental creature in the upper tier, Sofina can communicate with smaller elemental creatures. If the snake can really "feel", then maybe it's worth keeping.

"Whatever it is, it's too dangerous. Surya raised his stick and hit the damn thing.

"Crack!"

A sudden bolt of lightning pierced the inside of the summoning circle. The two watched in amazement as a solid beam of elemental lightning turned into a second sinuous shape.

The obsidian snake hissed as it turned to its new companion, its stomach opening in disgust, revealing a barbed tongue. Ignoring its warnings, it grows four short limbs from the second familiar place, its body stretches and twists until it forms the shape of a mammalian nose, and a short tail can be seen.

"What now..."Surya raised her wand.

"The creature ... "I think I recognize it," Henry said.

"What is this?" If that black snake creature was some kind of nameless beast in the void, what would Gwen summon to suppress it? Was it a god in the sky? Elemental lighting brought life? Maybe a fake dragon?

The lightning retracted into its body, forming a buzzing stream of electric hairs.

"Oh my God... Henry squinted.

"What is this?!" Surya went crazy. "Get out, old man!"

"I think ... Be... Badger. ”

Gwen's owner is wrong, because her creature is not a badger, but a mongoose.

When the Void Matter manifests something grotesque and terrifying, Gwen channels the remaining mana into her lightning summon, summoning a serpent's predator.

Unlike Henry and Surya, who can only see the snake as a black mass of malice, Gwen's front and center close-up of its miserable state. It wasn't a snake, it was a slimy, slippery leech. Under its smooth shell, its head resembles a lamprey without a face and only one mouth. In Gwen's opinion, the words disgusting and disgusting were too weak to disgust her.

So, in her mind, in that terrible moment, she imagined a vivid hallucination: on the Youtube site, a mongoose skillfully bit off a king cobra.

Surya and Henry looked with interest at the black snake surrounded by a mass of white fur. The snake looks much more dangerous, but every time it tries to attack, the mongoose dodges and then eats a large chunk of dark mana.

"What's happening now?" asked Surya for his old commander.

"A white badger is dueling with a black snake...... Henry replied matter-of-factly. “... In a circle of summoning. ”

"......" Su Ya didn't say anything. This is the end of the wisdom of the ten.

Within Gwen's Summoning Circle, the battle is the Titanic. Like an Ima documentary, she witnesses every detail: the terrifying lampray face, the prickly tongue, the throbbing flesh. The mongoose, in turn, emits an electric current on the synapses that stimulates and stimulates the crazy snake, running back and forth, too fast for the snake insect.

Come on, Sbucky! Kick it in the ass! She commands her mongoose.

"Oops!" the mongoose let out a high-pitched trill, signaling to its owner. She implicitly understood that this was asking her to provide more mana.

"Okay... Gwen squeezed out the last ounce of mana she had kept, channeling through her spell symbols. The mongoose immediately grew larger.

The snake hissed and pounced, its stomach about to bite its throat. Gwen's mongoose is now activated, and it strafs the snake as it passes, slamming it into the floor. A purple-black ice field erupted from the neck wound, causing it to convulse in pain.

"Shah, Shah!" it screamed, and Gwen felt terrified and panicked. She also needs mana. Gwen refused, with haughty joy, demanding that it obey her spiritual contract.

The thing trembled and became pliable.

But now the owner of the Ophitians felt that he had fallen victim to an imminent dilemma. Does she really want to sign a contract with this thing? This pesky alien? Can she say no? In what kind of world can an alien with Lovecraftian horror be a companion? What kind of twisted path would she take if her chosen partner was a lovely offspring of Kturhu?

Gwen's other part, her pragmatic part, tells her that this is the creature that appears when she pours her Void mana into the circle. Something in the universe forced this to happen to her, and who could she deny it?

Moreover, this creature belongs to hers. It's her responsibility. Moreover, she is not trying to fight the horrors of the abyss, that is the problem of the opponent.

Gwen resounded of her consciousness, touching the weakened alien mind, feeling it caressing herself.

Beast!obey me!Will you be a familiar man to me?Gwen whipped the worm with her own will, whipping it with command and compulsion, as instructed by her master.

"Shah ... Shah. "Ahh......h In the next moment, its consciousness melted into her astral body, creating a pocket space inhabited by summoned creatures and establishing an empathetic connection.

The bugs are gone, and Gwen now faces the victorious mongoose. Gwen grunted at the majestic creature, coaxing it to cooperate.

"Whoa!" replied. Gwen felt a fusion in her astral body again, creating a second pocket dimension.

"Oh my God, she managed to catch that snake. Henry panted, and said that I was surprised that it chose to obey. Sofina was right, after all, she was sentient. ”

In the next instant, the mongoose similarly disappeared into the dust of lightning.

"It's strange," said Henry, who seemed to be in opposition rather than cooperative. Those were two completely different acquaintances. She's going to be busy. Maybe one of them will fight the other?"

The summoning circle lit up for a moment, then died with a snap. All the magic was consumed, and these priceless raw materials turned to dust.

The two old men waited for Gwen to calm down.

"I did, master!" Gwen returned, jumping forward proudly. "I tamed the Void and the Lightning Beast!"

At the edges, her knees were weak. With a scream, she fell off the platform.

Before Gwen hits the floor, Sofina grabs her with a dozen useful tendrils.

"Congratulations, Gwen. Henry removed the apprentice from Sofina's makeshift hammock. She met all his expectations.

Suya motioned to Melissa, who used a mid-level mana potion.

"Drink this," her doctor ordered.

Gwen thanked him before drinking the expensive recovery potion, and she felt energized when the potion restored her mana reserves.

"Take your time and let it pour into you," Henry advised, then smiled and encouraged us eagerly awaiting the display of your new friends. ”

Gwen nodded. She sat cross-legged next to Sofina, mediating until she could clearly feel that her relatives were steady.

"Okay. She took a deep breath and turned to her fatherly mentors for my next scene.