Chapter 9: Summoning Magic

—Dong! —Dong! —Dong!

The deep, muffled tolling of the bell echoed through the empty teaching building.

The moment the bell rang, Sidelika’s heart jolted, and a sudden chill ran through her.

Footsteps abruptly sounded in the previously silent hall.

Countless footsteps came from all directions.

Then, one after another, the tightly closed classroom doors lining both sides of the corridor were pushed open by invisible hands.

Whispers began to fill the air.

The voices came from far away, gradually drawing closer and becoming clearer, yet the actual words remained impossible to make out.

The teaching building, which had been so quiet that they could hear their own breathing, instantly became “bustling with voices.”

It was as though the students who had vanished into thin air had all returned the moment the bell rang.

Ayla reacted the fastest.

“Everyone, tighten the formation! Don’t spread out!”

“What happened?”

“What is that sound?”

The guards of the Golden Wind Merchant Guild immediately tensed up.

They drew their weapons and formed a circle back-to-back, vigilantly scanning the empty surroundings.

Just then, the communication stone at Sidelika’s waist lit up.

Ryan’s muffled voice came through.

“Sidelika.”

“I’m here. You heard it too?”

“Yes. Take everyone and get out immediately.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t ask. Just get out first.”

Sidelika quickly understood.

Without wasting any more words, she asked only one question.

“What about you?”

“I have my own way. You go first.”

“…”

“All right.”

The sudden change was simply too bizarre, so Sidelika had no choice but to do as he said.

She put away the communication stone and nodded toward Ayla.

“Withdraw.”

After receiving the order, Ayla did not hesitate.

She immediately directed the group toward the entrance, leading them out as quickly as possible.

Their footsteps mingled with the ghostly sounds surrounding them, echoing through the vast hall.

Only after they had completely left the teaching building did those strange sounds finally disappear.

****

Ryan put away the communication stone and peered through the crack in the laboratory door.

There was nothing in the corridor.

It was completely empty.

Those sounds had appeared out of nowhere and continued to exist as though they were simply part of the world.

There was no source.

No physical presence.

Yet they were real beyond doubt.

Ryan turned around and coldly stared at Eluvier, who was still bound on the floor by the net of light.

“You’d better explain this to me.”

Ryan crouched down and looked her straight in the eye.

“What exactly is going on here?”

Eluvier did not answer immediately.

She turned her head away and tugged at the net of light again, but no matter how hard she struggled, she could not break free.

“Tsk.”

She finally gave up.

Her head fell back, and the cowlick on top of her head drooped helplessly.

“This scroll can suppress magic too. You’re only an LV9 brat. Where did you get such a high-grade magic scroll? I really have no way out of this.”

“That’s called having a foundation. Ever heard of it?”

Having remained at LV9 for so long, Ryan had been forced to prepare all kinds of methods to make up for the gap in levels.

He always carried trump-card magic scrolls like this one with him, just in case.

Otherwise, the grass on his grave would have grown two meters high by now.

The various things he had accumulated bit by bit over the years might become one less every time he used them, but they really did come in handy when it mattered.

“Enough nonsense!”

Ryan said coldly, “If you’ve got no way out, then start talking. Otherwise, I’ll really have to torture you.”

“You’d torture a cute girl who’s already tied up? Are you even human?”

“You already have a long record of offenses. Why should I feel embarrassed?”

“…”

Eluvier completely gave up resisting.

She had no choice but to surrender.

The footsteps and voices in the corridor still had not disappeared.

Ryan could clearly hear the laughter of a group of young men and women drifting past outside the door.

Eluvier heard those voices too.

She fell silent for several seconds before suddenly asking a completely unrelated question.

“How much do you know about the legendary Three Great Sages?”

Why was she asking about that?

Ryan’s eyebrows twitched, but he still answered.

“Enkidu Odemion was proficient in elemental magic of all attributes. People respectfully called him the ‘Magic King.’ He was the most famous of the Three Great Sages. The Magic Kingdom he founded has continued to exist to this day. It’s still the holy land of magic for mages throughout the world. Another was the ‘Crystal Witch’—Sandriel. She was flamboyant and didn’t exactly devote herself to proper scholarship, so she left behind relatively few works. All we know is that she and Enkidu founded some of the world’s earliest magic academies together. She specialized in pure mana manipulation and was the founder of the field of mana application. As for the third…”

Ryan listed the accomplishments of the first two, but when he reached the third Great Sage, he stopped.

There was very little information about the third Great Sage.

Almost nothing had been passed down.

Even her name seemed to have disappeared.

“You don’t know, do you?”

Eluvier gave a couple of little snorts.

“Because everything about her was erased.”

“Why?”

“Because she committed a taboo.”

Eluvier stared at the ceiling.

Her lips moved several times before she slowly continued.

“The Three Great Sages each had their own specialty. Enkidu mastered the elements, while Sandriel excelled at manipulating mana. As for the third one, she studied summoning magic.”

“Summoning magic?”

Ryan frowned slightly.

“Was summoning considered part of the magical system in that era?”

It wasn’t that he looked down on summoners.

It was just that, in the current era, the threshold for summoning was absurdly low.

As long as you had money, you could simply go to the market, buy a few magic beasts, establish contracts with them, and then spend a few days learning from a teacher before becoming a summoner.

That was why summoners were one of the most suitable professions for beginners and rich kids.

But in exchange, their upper limit was not particularly high.

The profession was also extremely common.

The people from the Mages’ Association had always looked down on summoning magic, considering it an inferior discipline.

“That’s because the summoning magic you use now was improved by Enkidu.”

Eluvier shook her head.

“He lowered the threshold and made it more suitable for ordinary people. But the original summoning magic was invented by her herself. Its principles were completely different from what you use now.”

“How different?”

“Modern summoning magic is nothing more than the strong controlling the weak. A summoned beast beyond the user’s ability to control simply cannot form a contract with them. That’s also why modern summoners have such a low upper limit. Her summoning magic, however, directly used magic to summon life from nothingness.”

Ryan froze.

For a moment, Ryan said nothing.

His mind raced.

It sounded utterly absurd just from hearing about it.

But considering that she had been one of the Great Sages who ushered in the golden age of magic, perhaps it wasn’t entirely impossible.

“That alone wouldn’t necessarily be a problem. She might summon all kinds of uncontrollable monsters and strange creatures, but as long as she didn’t cross the line, it wouldn’t be too serious.”

Eluvier lowered her voice.

“But her research took an extreme turn. She wasn’t satisfied with summoned creatures that might refuse to obey. What she wanted was absolute loyalty and absolutely perfect creations. So she chose to violate a taboo.”

“What taboo?”

“Life Alchemy.”

The moment those four words were spoken, even the air seemed to grow colder.

“At first, she merely fused different summoned creatures together, piecing them into stronger individuals. Later, she began using various corpses. And then…”

Eluvier paused.

“Living beings.”

A chill ran down Ryan’s spine.

“And eventually, she turned her attention to herself.”

Eluvier shifted her gaze from the ceiling to Ryan’s face.

“She refined herself too?”

“Yes.”

“From that point onward, every time she used summoning magic, she would fuse part of the summoned beast into her own body. Until she completely lost her existence as a human and became nothing more than a monster. The influence she caused had already gone beyond the limit. So the other two Great Sages joined forces to erase her, and everything related to her was sealed away. Only the magic of summoning survived, after being modified and improved.”

Ryan lightly tapped his fingers against his knee twice.

He had heard the entire story, but the most important question remained unanswered.

“So—”

He raised his head and looked at Eluvier.

“What does the ruins of this academy have to do with that story?”

“Because this academy was also one of her creations…”

Her voice was very soft.

“Every teacher, every student, every living thing… All of them became part of the summoned creatures.”

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