"Worldwide breaking news: At ten past two in the afternoon, Flame Country Capital time, a sinkhole incident occurred at the country of Adolid, with an entire city disappearing mysteriously, replaced by a gigantic crater…"

Though the incident was reported on the international news channel, hardly anyone noticed it. After all, people mostly use their smartphones or computers and rarely watched TV these days—especially at 3 PM.

***

Flame Country, Mountain Water City.

"Oh, Yining, the flowers here at home are blossoming! It's that pot of peonies you brought home a few years ago—it's so beautiful!" Chen Yining's father spoke from the other end of the phone.

"But I've been working overtime recently, Dad. I won't be returning home on Labor Day, so ask Brother if he would," Chen Yining replied, holding his phone between his ear and shoulder while sketching with CAD on his computer.

"Oh, it's alright… you two should focus on your work. By the way, your mom and I joined a square dance group, and we would go on outstation trips from time to time—"

"Dad, I'm hanging up if there's nothing important since there's a lot of work to be done here." Chen Yining cut his father's babbling short.

Whenever his father gets going, he would never stop.

Another brief silence ensued from the other end of the phone.

"I know you brothers are busy, so I won't bother you… do your best, and don't tire yourself out."

Yining's mother could be heard from the other end as well, saying, "You codger! Why would you hang up so quickly? I haven't spoken to my son yet!"

"He's busy, don't bother him…" Yining's father seemed to still be talking to her when the phone call was cut off after a series of beeps.

Chen Yining placed the phone on a nearby table and stared uneasily at the computer screen in front of him.

After spacing out for a while, he collected his thoughts and went back to work.

Humans need to work.

At the same time, Chen Yining made up his mind to go home during the Dragon Boat Festival no matter what.

If his boss insisted on him working overtime… he would have to beg a little.

Being an average university student who had graduated less than three years ago, he now works at an advertisement company—though it was in fact just a studio.

They would usually take up various jobs that were related to sketching and designing indiscriminately.

While the base salary was not high, the commission was a winner. A little hard work and Yining would earn more than enough money to survive at a tier-two city like this one, even saving a considerable amount if he lived frugally.

Crack-boom~

There was a sudden clap of thunder from outside the window.

The skies instantly turned dark.

However, it was not the pure darkness like night time.

Instead, it was the interior of the building that was suddenly engulfed in darkness, and only the laptop screen in front of Chen Yining remained lit.

Suddenly, a bundle of myriad-colored light appeared before him and entered his body directly.

It happened so quickly Chen Yining thought it was an illusion.

Then, a round a minute later, the skies outside the window were bright once again.

Chen Yining whipped out his phone to call his younger brother about what happened.

Like him, Chen Jing worked at Mountain City as well.

Being a student specializing in sports, he became a PE teacher in a high school after graduation thanks to his connections.

Naturally, he was still on probation at the moment.

However, Chen Yining soon noticed that his phone had no signal just as he was about to make the call.

The signal was at zero bars.

No connection… but why? There would be a 2G network even if signals were weak, not to mention that Chen Yining lived in a huge city of over six million.

Frowning in thought, he then picked up his keys and left his rented house to knock on the door next door.

"Who is it?" A forceful man's voice could be heard from within.

"It's me," Chen Yining replied.

"Oh, it's you, Yining." The door opened and the landlord came out in his slippers, wearing a white singlet. He appeared to be in his forties with beard stubble growing over his face, and he asked with a smile, "What is it, did the darkness suddenly frighten you?"

"We're all men here—why would we be frightened?" Chen Yining replied, unable to decide if he should laugh or cry. "I wanted to borrow your phone to call my brother."

"Oh, I see. Here." The landowner took out his black phone from his trouser pocket, unlocked it and handed it to Chen Yining.

However, just as Chen Yining tried to make a call, he realized his landlord's phone had no signal either…

Puzzled, the landlord shook and knock his phone around a little. "Weird. Why would there be no signal? Maybe there's a problem with one of the nearby towers—it would be fixed soon enough."

"Which school does your younger brother attends?"

"City Eight High."

"Huh? My daughter goes to the same school, and it's not far from here. What year is your younger brother in?"

"He's not a student, but a PE teacher…" Chen Yining cleared his throat.

"Oh, a teacher? City Eight High is not a bad place. Do ask your brother to take care of my daughter… oh, and you could use my electric scooter if you are heading there—you know which, right? The one parked at lot number three downstairs." The landowner headed into his bedroom before coming out again, then passed Chen Yining a key.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it. Who wouldn't encounter emergencies when working far from home?" The landlord chuckled cheerfully.

The landowner's electric scooter was pink and appeared utterly girly, even having a plastic sculpt of a husky's head attached to its rear.

Chen Yining heard that it was chosen by the landowner's daughter.

Though a divorcee, the landowner's face was very blissful whenever his daughter was mentioned.

Nonetheless, Chen Yining felt a pang in his chest just as he inserted the key to the electric scooter and was about to start it.

A blue light shot out, and a half-meter-long yellow-bronze tome hovered before him.

Its cover was filled with uneven patterns and it opened itself to reveal three white pages.

Then, a surge of information poured into Chen Yining's mind.

The tome was known as the Summoner's Grimoire, and every person in the city had one.

They could summon beasts into reality that existed permanently through the Summoner's Grimoire.

Of course, there were Summoner's Grimoires that dismissed a summon.

Everyone would also be allowed to summon a normal one-starred beast at random, which was the starting welfare given to all summoners.

However, each white page only permitted the storage of a single summoned beast.

And that was all the information given.

There was no mention about how one would acquire new summoned beasts or the other functions of the Summoner's Grimoire.

Despite his inward shock, Chen Yining appeared as calm as water.

He put his fingertip on the first page of the Summoner's Grimoire.

A ripple pattern unfurled at the point where his fingertip touched.

Then, a black dot expanded endlessly at the precise center of the white page.

Then, the outline of the blackness became obvious.

It was a humanoid summoned beast.

Its ears were pointy, it had a hunched back, and its limbs were thin.

As if the page was dyed like an ink painting, the colors slowly became bright and Chen Yining finally saw the face of what he had summoned.

Having been a gamer during his university days, he identified it immediately.

It seemed to be a… goblin?!

More information appeared in Chen Yining's head, and he instantly understood how to summon the beast in his grimoire to reality.

He needed no words, and only had to think it.

The picture of the goblin in his Summoner's Grimoire hence turned into a flash that entered the real world.

With that, a green-skinned goblin that stood just short of Chen Yining's chest appeared before him.

Its skin appeared a little shriveled, and it looked quite skinny because of malnutrition. Also, both its ears and nose were pointy and its eye was quite red, while its mouth, much larger than a human's, parted to reveal frighteningly white, sharp teeth.

It was holding a sharpened tree branch with its right hand and it was very hunched.

"Master!" the goblin squawked loudly at Chen Yining upon seeing him.

"Is that your mount? So cool! As expected of my master—even your mount is so cool." It then carefully touched the electric scooter Chen Yining was riding.

At the same time, everyone in the city had their grimoires floating before them.

Panic, fear—various emotions spread and grew in the city.

Cars on the roads collided.

Pedestrians slipped and dropped on their bottoms.

Ancient folks would be crying out as if they were meeting the gods, but the people had much better tolerance in modern societies, where there was constant overflow of information.

Once they realized that the Summoner's Grimoire did not harm them, some of the bolder people would summon their own beast and interact with them.

If anything, their fear was out of concern of becoming freaks if they were the only individuals who possessed the Summoner's Grimoire.

However, if everyone else had one and they were nothing special, they did not have to worry about being nabbed and dissected.

Though there were some who were still afraid, they calmed down considerably when they saw that the people around them had summoned their beasts, and that those beasts were following their master's orders instead of attacking them.

It seemed that… summoning those beasts was not as frightening as they had thought?