Bonded Summoner

Jake spent some time thinking about himself and the recent happenings in his life: finishing college, quitting his job, looking for work, and eventually meeting with Odin where he was introduced to the supernatural world. How his patron lined him up with the staff and the ritual materials, which he then performed and she came to his call.

The demoness paid attention to his thoughts with rapt attention, but she never seemed to stay still. She didn’t appear to need to flap her wings to fly, and just floated and spun in mid-air, even striking poses like she was lounging or pretending to swim through water. Her lazy somersaults and spins through the air were amusing, making Jake smile, but not overly distracting him as he sort-of told his story.

“Wow, you really don’t sit still huh. Well, I suppose if I could fly I would probably make use of it…”

When he was done with his story he thought about his current plans, that he needed to check the [Alliance Shop] and [Multiverse Market] for what he considered his final preparations to heading into the dungeon for the first time. With that, he remembered that part of the reason he held off on that, was that he was waiting to see what his familiar was capable of, and if he could somehow supplement their effectiveness with his purchases.

With that, she stopped moving in her flight, and waved to make sure Jake’s attention was focused on her. When it was, she disappeared from sight, leaving only a small glimmer or blur. She then picked up some mail he had sitting on the counter and began to float it towards him, stopping midair once again. Jake realized that she could both scout for him at a minimum, being functionally invisible, and she could potentially use items or incendiaries if they were light enough.

With that, she re-appeared into his view, and lifted his mail above her head. He saw what he thought to be magical energy, and then the mail was engulfed in flames. “Great, you can– Shit!”

Jake needed that! He rushed and grabbed the flaming mail, threw it on the ground and tried stomping it out. The entire time the demoness was bent over in laughter, pretending to roll on the floor: except in the air, laughing.

It looked like his little demoness had a bit of a mischievous side, but he joined her in laughter. It took Jake a moment to realize that the mail no longer served any purpose, his old life completely gone. That bummed him out a bit, but as he looked on at the demoness, he couldn’t help but still be excited, glad that at least he had someone to interact with.

He wondered what her limits for casting spells were, and he glanced at her.

“Could you cook a goblin, do you think?” She was hesitant, but she shook her head no. It looked like for now: a distraction was the best he could hope for.

“Well, scouting and a distraction is quite useful, and I bet your abilities will grow in the future?” She nodded, so he moved on to checking out the two stores on his personal computer, to which the demoness looked on in interest.

Jake only had 500 [Credits] to spend, and this amount would not get him very far in either store. He tried looking for [Mana Control] which he was gifted by Odin, and found it to be a flat 1000 credits. He had wanted to get some kind of offensive spell like magic missile or something like it to supplement his ability to melee the goblins, but he would need to save up several hundred, or thousands of credits for it. Most spells he could find were even more than mana control.

Not only that, but he found a few of the other spells that he was interested in and they were way outside of what he would have available to him in the first dungeon, and perhaps the second, depending on how much he could earn. As a summoner, once he had his summon, his staple spells were going to be buffs and heals to help support his allies.

As he started to feel disappointment, he noticed over the bond a feeling of pride, and he glanced over at the demoness, who was paying attention to his actions on the computer. She started gesturing between him and her, but he didn’t seem to get what she was trying to tell him. She got an idea, and she struck a pose and fired a tiny, sort of magic missile off into the air, then she floated onto his hand and did the same thing again, firing the magic missile from where his hand was pointing.

“You can teach me?” He asked, to which she nodded and Jake guessed she was smiling.

“That’s great, do you think I could learn it in a single day?” Jake asked, to which the demoness shrugged. It looked like it might just depend on Jake. Still, he decided that he would finish his preparations tomorrow and attempt to spend some time learning the spell prior to heading out. If he managed to learn it in a few hours before they left, then great, and if not, he would leave and continue his training on the following day.

That decided, he looked over what he could purchase in the shop. There were healing salves and unguents that were quite affordable and could heal minor wounds quite rapidly. Jake picked up a few of those, along with some other cheap odds and ends like stamina pills and two minor healing potions for general healing when he doesn’t have time to apply the salve.

With those minor preparations out of the way, he decided to look into some protection. As a summoner, he would never want to opt for any heavy armor. He found that linen gambesons or leather armor that was better than mundane, with enchantments or with any kind of fantasy materials were simply outside of his price-range.

Jake glanced over to what used to be his doorway. He had a full motorcycle outfit, as that was his primary means of transportation. It was rubberized and complete with hard-shell bracers and guards for his extremities, and even had excellent protection for everywhere on his chest and back, missing only protection for his throat. He would pick up something for that from the shop or market.

Jake did some reading, and mundane materials could provide adequate protection against smaller monsters that lack decent weaponry or inhuman strength such as goblins. As long as their weapons were crude clubs or flint knives and spears, something like motorcycle armor would mitigate damage. It wasn’t until he fought things with weapons and the strength of humans that the armor would be rendered destroyed or mostly useless in just a few attacks.

He also looked into dismantling the creatures he defeats, or looting. He learned that there was not much that the beginner dungeon monsters had available to harvest, but there were some things that could be collected that had value on the [Multiverse Market]. [The Framework] would even assist him with a dismantling skill, allowing him to improve the quality of materials harvested, as well as the speed and accuracy.

While Jake was excited as he thought the motorcycle armor looked kind of cool, he could sense amusement over the bond coming from his familiar. As he glanced over at the demoness, he could see her stifling a laugh with a hand over her mouth; not that he could hear her anyway.

He went ahead and purchased a short sword and decent sized folding knife that should be good for dismantling creatures. He also added some steel-toed boots that should also work well-enough for hiking, a head lamp for seeing in the dark, and a LED lamp that he could set down. He felt that the odd tech-fantasy mix was odd, but reasoned that Odin used a computer game to recruit him, so he got over it. A box got shoved out of the portal, his purchases arriving instantly. His preparations completed; it was time for some dinner.

The rest of the evening had been uneventful; Jake had finished eating, finding out that the demoness did not eat or need to eat, then spent the rest of the evening reading the wiki. He went over all the low-level monsters he might encounter in the beginner dungeons, and spent some time watching some videos on how to use a spear. When he went to sleep, the demoness just snuggled up on top of his chest. Due to her almost intangible and small nature as a spirit or ghost-like entity, he barely felt her there, but her presence and feelings over the bond left his heart with a light, warm feeling.

When Jake woke up, the demoness was no longer on his chest. She was sleeping, but it was almost like she had drifted away, several feet away. Perhaps responding to his thoughts, she began to stir and woke up. With that, she floated and flitted around lazily, stretching.

His plan for the day was to do some practice with the spear; putting to use the videos he had watched, and perhaps watching them again. He also planned on practicing his mana control a little more, prior to the demoness’s lesson. Once he was satisfied, he would head into the dungeon. For now, he would shower and have breakfast.

Needs taken care of; he was now dressed in his jogging clothes. His living area still had the summoning circle, so he decided to clean that mess and use the same space for spear drills and getting used to movement. The videos included some drills on some common spear moves. The more he used them, the more his muscles became accustomed to moving in that way, and the faster and more confident he could do them when under attack. Not only that, but the framework would assist him in progressing in a meaningful fashion.

Jake set his feet apart with his left foot forward, and took a stance with his spear, dominant right hand at the butt of the spear, and his left hand about waist width apart. He moved his right hand and found how small movements moved the spear point significantly, making it easy to track a moving target, or to change from a low attack to a high, or from left to right with much more speed than a swordsman could. He practiced some spear thrusts, and he started to feel a sense of incongruity; like he was doing something wrong.

After some trial and error, he found the feeling went away when he stopped doing the things that were wrong. He was thrusting too far putting himself off balance, or he was using the wrong muscles to perform the thrusts, causing him to waste energy. Sometimes, he would even receive what he felt like a mental nudge, pushing him in the right direction when he was close but not quite there.

He practiced gathering steps, which allowed him to shuffle forward or backwards while maintaining his ability to feint or otherwise attack or guard, should his opponent approach unexpectedly. He also practiced sidestepping, and how he could choke up on the spear if an enemy got in close.

After about thirty minutes and Jake building up a decent sweat, the demoness came up with an idea on how she could help. She was able to float and move a piece of paper in the air, allowing him to aim his spear thrusts at a moving target. Hitting the moving target took some getting used to, but it was clear this was more in-line with what he needed. He did his best to send his appreciation over the bond, and the little demoness preened at the praise.

Jake was attacking the paper, when it started moving faster and faster. He did his best to keep up, but he started getting tired. Jake felt some mischievousness over the bond, and Jake saw the demoness teasing him. She was too close for him to really hit with his spear, and shaking her butt, her tail swaying back and forth as she waved the paper in his face. She smacked said butt, and Jake thought she probably had stuck her tongue out at him.

Jake laughed as he pushed on, trying to do better. A few furious stabs to try to hit the fast moving paper, and eventually his spear went through the paper–then her. She froze, like she had gotten impaled, and Jake was aghast at what he had done, only for him to be flicked in the forehead a moment later. He laughed once more, his familiar really kept things interesting for him.

In addition to helping him with the spear, the training had the unintended side effect of learning a lot more about the demoness; Jake was no longer worried about her being caught or damaged any time soon. She could move much faster than he was capable of attacking when she wanted to, and she could become completely intangible to his spear weapon.

Having spent over an hour doing spear drills and watching more videos, Jake felt much more confident with using the spear to fight enemies. He would have the short sword to draw for enemies that both entered his personal space and overwhelmed him, though he had a hard time imagining many situations where he would need that.

The spear and its shaft could be used in various ways, along with his own body using his elbows and kicks to push enemies back to allow movement of the spear. Choking up on the spear properly for his spear that was not much taller than himself was simply more effective than drawing a sword. If he were drawing the short sword, he was probably in some deep shit, and he should be doing his best to distance himself or avoiding that number of enemies entirely. Perhaps if he threw his spear, he would see the value in drawing a knife or a sword.

Seeming to sense what Jake wanted or needed, the demoness managed to hand him a small hand towel.

“Thank you, Fhesiah. I appreciate it.” He toweled himself off with a smile, deciding to move on to his mana control training. He sat down cross-legged, and tried to clear his mind and find the state he had gotten into when he had awakened the ability in the first place.

It was at that point that he was filled with surprise: it looked like the demoness was joining him in this endeavor as well. Not only that, but he looked at her: her hand was entering his body, near where his mana congregated. He felt uneasy about this, but the demoness sent a reassuring feeling of confidence to him over their bond.

He tried to feel what she was doing with the mana inside his body. It looked like she couldn’t move the mana in his core area, but he could feel that she was sending something, perhaps mana in various directions, wrapping it around his mana and trying to guide it.

Jake tried to follow her movements with his mana, but it was still quite sluggish in comparison to how she was able to move it. Slowly but surely, he was starting to mimic what she was doing. It looked like she was trying to make a vortex, or spiral out of his mana.

Jake wasn’t sure what the purpose of this was, but he noticed that he was slowly getting better at doing it, and when he stopped, the spiral would continue moving for a period of time instead of immediately snapping back.

“Are we close to accomplishing something, or should we move on to magic missile practice?” She shook her head; whatever it was they were working on with the spiral will likely take quite some time.

He could already tell that his mana control had improved, however minutely. It was not quite enough to move the skill up a rank; he had quite a long way to go. He was appreciative of her assistance though; he could tell that by himself it would have taken much longer to get where he did. Feeling her mana interacting with his mana was a different experience, and made it easier for him to replicate.

With that thought, he took a quick break to have a snack. Once done they would work on learning a magic missile attack. He toweled off once again and had an apple. This skill she was going to teach him was going to both save him 1,000 [Credits] and help protect him in the dungeon.

Jake looked over at the demoness expectantly. He was ready to learn. While he was just as excited to learn mana control, it was somewhat anticlimactic; he couldn’t do anything useful with the mana, besides partially powering a ritual, apparently. This would be the first actual step towards feeling like he was a wielder of magic.

The demoness thought for a moment, then flew away into the other area of the room. She came back with some of his printer paper and a pencil. She then began to draw, first, an almost-stick figure that was supposed to be a person, with a sphere in the chest; representing the magic inside of Jake.

She then drew a series of images that depicted gathering a portion of his mana inside of him, and pushing it into a shape: in this case, a cone. She pantomimed with her hands near the chest and gave a feeling of giving quite a bit of effort, squeezing or pushing his mana into a shape.

Jake wished he could see her face, because he would bet money on her expression being cute right about now. He felt what he thought was the emotional equivalent of a blush, and he laughed in response. She felt wronged, and Jake tried to understand why.

“What’s the matter, Fhesiah? Turnabout is fair play, isn’t it? You teased me first.”

She folded her arms and snapped her head to the side, like she didn’t want to look at him. Jake thought she might have hmphed, but of course, he couldn’t hear or see her face properly. He laughed.

The pushing required quite a bit of effort, and would be the most difficult part. Once that was done, he would wrap that shape with another layer of mana, in which he would use this to drag the shape outside of his body and through his staff, before removing the layer of mana and sending it at a target.

This process had several steps, and to some extent Jake thought that this was simple. At the same time, for a spell such as firing a missile or bolt at a target, perhaps he was expecting too much. Jake then thought about just what kind of shape could he possibly make that would heal someone? A thought for later. For now, the intentions of the demoness were for him to give it a go, now that he had the overview of the process, and she would help guide him like before.

With that, in companionable silence he began trying to mold a portion of his mana into the prescribed shape. He had difficulties at first even separating a portion of mana from his core area for the purpose of this spell, as each time he cut it off, as soon as he let go it would rejoin the pool of mana.

Eventually, he got the hang of it, using his concentration to keep it separate and from dispersing: controlling it continuously. From there, he worked on just trying to shove the mana into any shape, while the demoness watched. Up to now, they were content to allow Jake to just experiment on his own.

After what must have been more than a dozen failures and trying what Jake would think of, the demoness decided to take pity on Jake and show him how it was done. She took on a haughty demeanor, with her chin raised as she looked down on him, and Jake thought she was miming being a professor in front of a class using the pencil that was nearly as large as herself, pointing at the picture associated with what he was starting with.

She added a little to the drawing, showing lines exaggerating that he needed to push it into the shape. She then joined him at his chest once again, and she motioned for him to try again.

Jake paid attention to what she was doing with his mana; apparently, she was able to control his mana once it left his core just fine, perhaps because she was his familiar? With that, he started to copy what she was doing.

It looked like his magic fingers, or intent to move the mana, needed to just be a little less stupid. He felt a mental smirk from the demoness, and he couldn’t help but feel that she was teasing him somehow. Like anything else, Jake just needed practice. More and more rapidly he and the demoness worked to make the shape that she had drawn previously, until he had it.

Jake noticed that any withdrawal of his intent would cause the shape to collapse rather rapidly, causing him to have to repeat the molding back into the shape he had created previously. Now, based on the drawings, he would need to envelope what he made in a layer of mana, grab it with his intent, then send that out of his body.

Accomplishing this was slow going at first, but eventually he was able to “let go” of the internal structure, keeping his control over the outer layer. He could then easily move the shape around; controlling the thinner layer of mana was much easier than shoving the construct with his mind without it.

“Is this spell ready finally?” The demoness flew off and returned with some trash from his initial delivery: an empty box. This would be the first target to feel the wrath from his spell.

Jake tried to mimic what the demoness had done before, aiming his hand and pointing his finger towards the target. He then sent the shaped mana through his body and out his arm, shoving it towards the box. After it left his body, it sped up until it hit the box: where it ripped a small hole through both sides before it dissipated. The demoness danced through the air clapping and he could feel her feeling of triumph and pride, and [The Framework] showed him a notification.

Skill Learned:

Lesser Spell-forms Lv. 1

You’ve learned a lesser-form of spell-forms. Shaping mana imposes your will on reality in different ways.

Spell-form Learned:

Mana Bolt

This spell fires a bolt of mana at your target. Mana cost varies on size.

Jake’s feelings matched that of the demoness, and he couldn’t help but feel proud of what he accomplished. Still, he knew that there was no way he would have ever been able to do this without her help.

“Thank you, Fhesiah. I really appreciate you helping me learn this, and make it fun like you have.”

She dusted herself off and fixed her robes, and bowed like she was some kind of play actress who just finished a major performance, and was receiving the adoration of her fans, nodding and spreading her hands wide. Jake clapped and woo’d in response, and she preened at his praise.

What he had created was a lesser spell-form, and it was actually called [Mana Bolt] instead of magic missile. Jake found he could consume a tiny fraction and create a bolt the size of a thimble like the demoness made, all the way up to the size of his fist before consuming too much mana or having a challenge keeping the shape. When Jake had read the [Alliance Wiki], he learned that there were various types of spellcasting.

Jake was surprised to learn that many of the fantasy genre styles of magic casting were in fact real: from how cultivators use their Qi and truths of the universe to cast spells, to wizards that chant long poems to create a spell effect, to calling upon the gods with a prayer, and even framework-assisted casting that was almost like a video game: where you supplied the mana and picked your spell, and it was like [The Framework] handled casting for you.

This was just one of the many methods to cast magic, and Jake was not necessarily stuck with using this method now that he was using it. He would have had to wait until he could save up over a thousand credits before he could have learned a spell if not for the demoness.

One of the methods that appealed to Jake was [Runic Magic], as it looked like they were quite versatile. Not only did it allow him to provide buffing effects, but he could also use those same runes in enchanting. Even enchanting had many working methods, just like spell casting.

Still, it appeared Jake was just beginning his journey of learning lesser spell-forms. He noticed that the spell itself did not have a proficiency level, but [Lesser Spell-forms] did. Jake learned that as he got better with all lesser spell-forms, Mana Bolt would improve on its own.

Jake would need to practice for a few more hours to be able to use this spell in combat, and he doubted that he could do that today. His plan was to use [Mana Bolt] to start combat, or to take out a ranged attacker once or if he’d dealt with the melee attackers.

A few hours, and half a dozen destroyed knick-knacks and cardboard boxes later, Jake was finally satisfied with his usage of [Mana Bolt]. He did not think that he would be swinging his spear and able to use the lesser spell-form at the same time, but with a few more days of practice he might be able to.

It currently took him nearly 5 seconds to create the [Mana Bolt], and it required a lot of his concentration. The result depended on how much mana he used to create the spell-form, and to be able to damage something like a goblin in a way that could change the outcome of a fight would take nearly one-fifth of his capacity, he guessed.

To kill a goblin outright might take nearly half of it, or a strike to a weak-point like the throat or their eye with a weaker mana bolt could work, at least, by guessing how much damage the bolts would likely do to himself. Still, he would try to use it in combat when he felt that he could spare the concentration.

Currently, Jake’s mana pool is not very large. Even if he spent half of it, it didn’t seem to take very long for his mana to reach full capacity again; Jake guessed it took less than one hour to recover from empty. This meant in a long dungeon delve, he should be able to fire a lot more than five bolts. He made and ate lunch, thinking about the tasks he wanted to accomplish before he headed into the dungeon.

He prodded the demoness on if she wanted to work on the spiral again, to which she was excited to do so, for some reason. Once again, he sat down and got his mana spinning, and found it easier this time. In addition, the spiral would persist for a longer period once he stopped spinning it. It appeared even the demoness was working hard to make it spin, and that they were getting closer to something, but the demoness pulled back. Whatever it was, they would not achieve it today.

Jake decided to start getting himself ready for his first dungeon run. He donned his steel-toed boots, the motorcycle armor with an added throat protector, and motorcycle helmet. He filled his backpack with his dungeon delving supplies, leaving a compartment for goblin cores and other dismantling results, and attached the headlamp to his helmet. He grabbed his spear-staff, and headed to the door with the demoness in tow. It took him a little over a day spent in preparations, but he was finally ready.