Chapter 11: The Unprecedented Human Familiar

Only when the terrifying presence’s aura finally dissipated did the demonic beasts in the passage collectively sag to the ground, as if granted a sudden reprieve.

A few of the weaker beasts even collapsed into unconsciousness, white foam bubbling from their mouths.

Ye Xingchen, who had no intention of departing so swiftly, still had pressing questions for the Xuanxiao Divine Phoenix when, without warning, a sudden dizziness overcame him.

By the time he next regained his awareness, he discovered his primordial spirit had returned to its original vessel.

More unsettling still, he found himself staring directly into the eyes of his female form, Su Liyue, their noses nearly brushing.

“What… what in the world is happening?” Ye Xingchen was utterly dumbfounded by the sudden, perplexing scene unfolding before his eyes.

From Su Liyue’s perspective, a familiar summoning ritual should have been underway; she hadn’t even managed to produce the little hamster she was preparing to summon.

How, in the mere blink of an eye, had she been forcibly yanked back into her original body?

Ye Xingchen swiftly delved into his memories, seeking an explanation.

He recalled that from Su Liyue’s perspective, one second she was poised within the summoning array, anticipating her hamster’s appearance, and the next, the male form of Ye Xingchen inexplicably materialized before her, tackling her to the ground.

From Ye Xingchen’s perspective, he was pinning Su Liyue beneath him in an undeniably dominant pose.

Conversely, from his female body, Su Liyue’s perspective, she was being tackled to the ground by her own male counterpart.

What proved most disorienting was the ability to simultaneously perceive the soft touch emanating from the male body’s palm and the peculiar sensation of the female body being touched, alongside the pressure exerted by the male body on the female’s chest.

Even more astonishingly, both bodies registered their intertwined breaths, teetering on the very brink of a direct kiss!

“What… what in the hell is this?!” Both bodies, in perfect synchronicity, wore expressions of profound bewilderment, uttering the words in a single, stunned voice.

An uncanny silence immediately descended upon the entire summoning grounds.

Both instructors and students gaped, utterly dumbfounded, at the preposterous spectacle unfolding before them.

One elderly professor’s monocle crashed to the floor, shattering into fragments, and even the dean was so taken aback that he yearned to simply smash his staff against the ground in disbelief.

“Oh my heavens! The brilliant campus belle, Su Liyue, was just publicly tackled by that ‘Alchemy Maniac’ — the absolute bottom of the class?!” a student, seemingly oblivious to the potential repercussions, suddenly shrieked.

These words, like a ladle of cold water hurled into boiling oil, instantly caused the entire hall to erupt into an uproar:

“My goddess!”

“Quick, activate your recording crystals! This is undeniably the most sensational news of the entire year!” a particularly boisterous male student suddenly bellowed.

“When did that rascal Ye Xingchen grow such audacity?!”

“Hold on… how did he suddenly appear on top of her?”

“Su Liyue actually summoned Ye Xingchen?! Is such a maneuver even possible?!”

“Is there truly a record of this familiar in the ‘Familiar Encyclopedia’? I must have overlooked a page!”

“Does this constitute a breach of regulations?”

The students erupted into a cacophony of chatter, some girls even pulling out small notebooks to meticulously document what they perceived as a ‘romantic’ moment.

“This… this…” Dean Yu Qinglan’s beard quivered violently.

The usually sagacious dean had, in this moment, entirely shed his customary gravitas, his mouth gaping so wide one could conceivably fit a dragon egg within it.

It was already preposterous enough for Ye Xingchen, an ‘Alchemy Maniac,’ to summon a mere sword.

Yet Su Liyue had managed to be even more utterly outlandish: this all-attribute genius campus belle had actually summoned a man?

And not just any man, but a fellow classmate from their very own academy?!

This was an unprecedented and utterly absurd maneuver, leaving the dean feeling as though the very integrity of his beard was at stake!

Meanwhile, Su Liyue’s close confidante, Mu Wanqing, found her complexion instantly darkening to the shade of a pot’s soot-blackened bottom.

The ice crystal staff clutched in her hand crackled ominously, and the ambient temperature began to plummet with alarming speed.

She glared at Ye Xingchen, her teeth audibly grinding, her eyes radiating a terrifying intensity that seemed capable of freezing him solid.

She had harbored suspicions about that boy for some time, and now, this: not only had her best friend’s adorable little hamster failed to appear, but an inexplicable, freakish man had been summoned instead?

“Ye! Xing! Chen!” Mu Wanqing, no longer able to contain the raging inferno within her, abruptly rose to her feet.

The water elements swirling around her surged with a ferocious intensity, agitated by her profound emotional turmoil, leaving a trail of shimmering ice crystal footprints on the ground with every step she took.

“Move aside.” These two simple words, uttered with an unnerving calm, plunged the students blocking her path into a metaphorical ice cave.

They scrambled to clear a wide berth, forming a hasty passage for the formidable ice goddess.

One unfortunate soul, whose movements were a fraction too sluggish, found their pant leg instantly fused to the floor by the terrifying, pervasive chill.

“Ex-explain yourself?” she demanded, her staff aimed squarely at Ye Xingchen’s throat, her voice laced with unconcealed fury.

The ice beneath her feet began to slowly creep towards him, poised to engulf Ye Xingchen entirely.

‘Good heavens, an enraged best friend is truly terrifying,’ he thought.

‘This is the first time I’ve ever witnessed Mu Wanqing in such a furious state.’

Though a part of him worried for her, he remained oblivious to their intertwined identities.

“Wait! There’s a perfectly good reason for this!” Just as Ye Xingchen attempted to rise, he discovered Su Liyue’s long, flowing hair inextricably tangled around one of his buttons.

To add insult to injury, Qizai, seizing the opportune moment, emerged from the alternate dimension, accompanied by a hamster, and began to spell out a message in the air with his sword energy: [May the wedded couple be bound by hair, and live in harmony for a hundred years].

The most astonishing detail, however, was the hamster itself; the tiny creature had, at some point, managed to clamber onto Mu Wanqing’s shoulder, where it was now frantically waving a miniature flag emblazoned with: [Betrothal Gift List]…

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, you two adorable little troublemakers truly revel in chaos,’ Ye Xingchen and Su Liyue thought in perfect unison.

“Silence!” Confronted with the rapidly escalating chaos, Dean Yu Qinglan was, predictably, the first to regain his composure and react.

With a resounding thud of his staff against the ground, a ripple of profound silence instantly propagated outwards, rendering the entire training ground utterly still and hushed.

Dean Yu Qinglan’s white beard continued to tremble almost imperceptibly, yet his voice had already reclaimed its customary gravitas:

“The summoning ritual shall proceed.

All other students, return to your designated positions.”

His pronouncement carried an unmistakable aura of authority and an unyielding command that brooked no dissent.

Qizai’s sword-energy heart was merely halfway drawn when, with a sudden whoosh, he was abruptly pulled back into the alternate dimension by a newly formed spatial rift.

The hamster, however, met an even more unfortunate fate: its tiny flag slapped squarely against its furry face, its four stubby legs flailing helplessly in the air before Mu Wanqing, with an exasperated sigh, unceremoniously grabbed its tail and tucked it back into its spirit orb.

Several instructors swiftly advanced, awkwardly untangling the still-intertwined Ye Xingchen and Su Liyue, helping them to their feet and pulling them apart.

One water-element instructor, acting purely on instinct, even cast three cleansing spells on each of them.

“Student Mu, I instruct you to return to your seat at once!” the dean commanded, massaging his temples in vexation.

Mu Wanqing, though seething, reluctantly shot a furious glare at Ye Xingchen, the spirit orb clutched in her hand groaning under the pressure of her grip.

However, under the dean’s unyielding gaze, she had no choice but to grit her teeth and drag her feet back, making sure to deliver a deliberate, punishing stomp on Ye Xingchen’s foot as she passed him.

The hamster, unceremoniously returned to its spirit orb, frantically clawed at the transparent cover, its tiny paws pointing accusingly at Mu Wanqing and squeaking incessantly, as if protesting: “Are you utterly devoid of reason?!”

Meanwhile, the unfortunate individual whose foot had borne the brunt of that stomp stared forlornly at the grey paw print now marring his pristine white boot, both bodies simultaneously adopting expressions of profound weariness with life itself.

“Though magical history offers no precedent for a human serving as a familiar…” the dean mused, stroking his beard, his voice imbued with a distinct note of hesitation.

“Nevertheless, should both parties agree to forge a contract, it would certainly represent a groundbreaking, if unconventional, endeavor.”

Mu Wanqing clenched the spirit orb with white-knuckled intensity, her gaze, sharp as daggers, carving into Ye Xingchen.

Inside the orb, the hamster squeaked with frantic urgency, its tiny paws drumming desperately against the transparent casing, as if imploring: “Master, please, calm yourself!”

Ye Xingchen, at this juncture, found himself caught between a rock and a hard place.

Su Liyue’s intended hamster familiar had already been unceremoniously intercepted by Mu Wanqing.

If he were to allow her to attempt another summons… well, considering his recent ‘S-tier’ performance in the alternate dimension, it was doubtful even a lowly slime would dare answer the call.

More critically, the negotiations with the Xuanxiao Divine Phoenix had already been finalized.

A sudden reversal might very well provoke a ‘beacon fire playing with feudal lords’ scenario (TL Note: A Chinese idiom referring to a situation where one’s credibility is lost after repeatedly playing tricks, similar to ‘the boy who cried wolf’).

“I agree!” Su Liyue suddenly declared, her voice ringing out with crystalline clarity, echoing through the hushed grandeur of the hall.

Ye Xingchen, playing his part, offered a theatrical shrug of feigned helplessness: “Since Student Su has already expressed her wishes…”

He then cast a deeply meaningful glance at his close friend, Mu Wanqing, before adding, “I naturally find it preferable to respectfully comply than to refuse.”

Under the unwavering scrutiny of hundreds of eyes, their fingertips met, and the ancient, uniquely magical contract runes began to intertwine in the air between them.

When the luminous glow finally dispersed, an enigmatic pattern emerged upon Ye Xingchen’s wrist.

To become a familiar while still inhabiting a human form—this was an occurrence entirely without precedent in the annals of magical history.

The audience below erupted into an immediate uproar.

Such an impossible feat had actually succeeded?!

“What is this? Some sort of lovers’ pact?!”

“Oh, my goddess…”

“Hold on, what exactly will Mu Wanqing summon now?”

Mu Wanqing was now trembling uncontrollably with incandescent rage, while the hamster ensconced within the spirit orb had entirely abandoned its struggles, now playing dead with all four paws pointed skyward.

Unnoticed by anyone else, however, Ye Xingchen and Su Liyue exchanged a knowing glance, a silent communication legible only to them.

After all, who could possibly suspect that within these two distinct physical forms resided a singular, unified soul?