“Are you sure we’re far enough away? Shooting rocks tends to result in razor sharp shards to go everywhere and then there’s a risk of ricochets …” Isaac asked. While he was likely one of the most experienced fighters here, he could freely admit he knew bugger all about guns.

The Golem had been propped up against the far end of the gun range, around twenty meters away.

“It’ll be fine.” Professor Bishop waved his concerns away, then turned to Raul “What gun would you like to try first?”

As he said that, he stepped over to the large shed next to them and threw it open. A large gun safe sat within, but there were also several other weapons next to it.

“Is that an atlatl?” Isaac asked incredulously.

“Yes. Also, a blowgun, modern recurve bow, traditionally made bow and several varieties of javelins. I enjoy studying the older kinds of weaponry in my spare time.” Bishop announced proudly while he opened the safe.

“So, which one would you like to try first?” he asked.

“I think I’ll try the hunting rifle since it’s what I’d most likely be using to fight one of these things, then try the revolver and handgun on whatever is still intact.” Raul mused.

“How hard are those to get?” Bishop asked.

“Summon and kill? Not hard, it’s a matter of seconds. Getting it here, up that bloody hill … if this is going to become a regular thing, we’ll need some help carrying.” Isaac said.

“You’ll only summon them in that bunker of yours, then? How dangerous are they?” Bishop asked.

“Not dangerous at all, at least not to me. I know exactly where the core is, and I have a [Skill] perfect for bypassing armor.” Isaac told him “I don’t think I’d be very popluar if I started summoning them where they could theoretically get away, though. And while I can handle them easily, using that as my defense is only going to make me look cocky. How about you, are you doing any experiments with the Summoning System?”

“Not really, though I’m preparing to. We’re looking to check which creatures are the least likely to be a problem and find a good place to summon it so we can see what their physicality is like. Though I don’t think a little help from someone with experience fighting them would go amiss.” Bishop offered.

“I think I’d like that. As long as there aren’t any conflicts with my other tasks, I’d love to be there.” Isaac told him with a smile. Any kind of connection here could be helpful.

“I thought we were only allowed to summon in the bunker.” Raul asked.

“Not exactly. We’re only allowed to summon creatures in a situation that is as safe as we can make it, with unfamiliar creatures, that means a heavily armored and fully sealable room in most cases. Also, where all your experiments are concerned, you need to conduct those in an environment that you can control. Theoretically, I could just start summoning anywhere as long as I take reasonable precautions, though in practice, I’ll likely try to borrow your bunker.” Bishop explained and Isaac took a mental note of that. If he ever needed to summon something while having some kind of official proof of where he did so, it sounded like Professor Bishop was a good person to ask.

“I’m ready, clear the range.” Raul announced, sounding overly formal. Isaac supposed it was some kind of verbal warning that needed to be given before one started flinging around chunks of lead at speeds that could easily kill a human.

“Mr. Thoma, you need to wear some ear protection.” Bishop warned, holding out a pair of earmuff looking thing things.

“Ah, thanks.” Isaac said, gingerly grabbing it and slipping it onto his head. He really needed to start learning some of the etiquette around guns if this was going to become a regular thing.

As he watched, Raul carefully took aim with a normal hunting rifle and fired.

An explosion of stone dust erupted, followed by cracks shooting across the surface of the Golem, large rents radiating outwards while smaller ones spiderwebbed the space in between. It was still intact, but clearly damaged.

Raul put down the rifle, flicked on the safety and announced “Gun’s down, range is safe.”

The three of them walked forward towards the hunk of rock to inspect it.

“It’s clearly still intact, but I don’t know how much of that it’d be able to keep if it kept moving. A lot of that would probably crack off.” Bishop observed.

“Yep. They’re definitely not bulletproof, but they’re not going to just crumble in the face of firearms, either.” Raul added.

“Alright, time to shoot it again?” Isaac suggested.

The second bullet blew most of the damaged surface clear off, the third one turned what had been the inside of the Golem into a shattered mess and the one after that destroyed it for good.

“So, four bullets to kill a Golem? Seems doable, though a sledgehammer might be a better weapon.” Bishop mused.

“Seeing as how slow they are, a sledgehammer is definitely a better choice, at least I think so. Though what I’d like to know is if doing it like this would get the core.” Isaac wondered “You know what, I’ll go see if Professor Bailey has one he can spare.”

And with that, Isaac headed off, jogging back towards the biology building. When he reached the meeting room, things were very quiet, just three people swiping at the air as they worked the [System].

Seeing as Bailey wasn’t here, the Professor was likely in his office, so that’s where he went next.

“Come in.” Bailey called out mere seconds after Isaac had knocked.

“Adam, I was wondering if I could have one of the more intact Golem cores we got yesterday so we can see if a gun can destroy it.” Isaac asked.

“Sure, go ahead. Does Professor Bishop want more whole golems, too?”

“Not sure, I didn’t ask. If he does, can we use the summoning room?”

“Sure, just be as careful as you normally are.” Bailey told him.

“Actually, that reminds me of something. While everyone is doing research, their Magic Regeneration is kind of being wasted, isn’t it? In the interest of efficiency, could I suggest everyone takes turns to summon the various weaker monsters so we know what they look like.” Isaac suggested.

“I’ll think about it. You’re right, in theory, but there might be trouble with properly processing them quickly enough.” Bailey cautioned him.

“Of course. We do have those storage boxes, though. And Patrick can do the autopsies while we do the tests regarding the definition of ‘acid’.” Isaac said.

“Good idea. Quick thing though, when it’s preformed on an animal, the postmortem examination is called a necropsy, not an autopsy. It’s not a big thing, but people are probably going to look at you weird if you refer to a dissection of a monster as an autopsy.” Bailey said “Also, do be careful. Nothing above a Tier 2 circle and bring the list to me for approval first, ok?”

“Obviously.” Isaac agreed “I’m going to head over to Raul and Professor Bishop, then come back. See you soon.”

“See you soon.” Bailey called after him, already turning back to his computer.

Five minutes later, Isaac had returned to the firing range with the Golem core.

“So that’s what they have for a heart then?” Bishop asked.

“Yep, seems to be the only thing that they can’t live without.” Isaac told him.

“I’m guessing that means you can’t ever get an intact one not attached to a live Golem?” Bishop asked.

“Unfortunately, that’s right on the money.” Isaac nodded.

“Alright, let’s see what would happen if it got shot.” Bishop said, a wide grin on his face.

“You like this sort of thing, don’t you Professor?” Isaac asked.

“I do, actually. I teach forestry here at the university, give most of the lessons needed for a firearms license, I spend a lot of time hunting in my free time. There’s a lot we know about the natural world and the usual hunting game, but now that there’s monsters running around … there’s so much more to do, to see, to understand.” Bishop kept the grin on his face, infectious excitement in his voice.

“Along with a heaping dose of danger.” Raul commented “Literally thousands of people have died at the hands of carelessly summoned monsters.”

“Even if the modern world doesn’t like to admit it, death is a part of life, everyone dies eventually, myself included. I’m going to see where this [System] leads me and if that costs me my life, I’m alright with that. I’d definitely like to avoid that, in fact, I’m going to do everything I can to do so, but I’m still willing to risk it.” Bishop explained, softly shaking his head

“But what about you, Mr. Thoma, are you really so different from me? You seem like a bright young man, yet you fight monsters up close. And if the state of that Golem you brought in is any indication, you’ve gotten rather good at it. You want to explore this brave new world too, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” Isaac said “Now I have to ask though, how come you haven’t started summoning creatures yet?”

“With an attitude like that, you mean?” Bishop laughed “Simple. I’m willing to do something exceedingly dangerous, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to expose others to that danger. I’ve spent a lot of time hunting with my new [Hunter] [Class] to find out what I can do and once Professor Bailey’s group has gathered more information on what a specific entry on the summoning list is, what it can do and how dangerous it is, I can prepare to fight that specific creature and safely dispatch it without needing a heavily armored bunker.”

“Well, now I feel like a reckless idiot.” Isaac sighed.

“If you’ve survived unharmed so far, you can’t have been that reckless.” Bishop observed “Just don’t summon a dragon just yet and I think it’ll be fine.”

“Oh, believe me, I don’t plan on going that far anytime soon.” Isaac smiled.

The two of them kept chatting a little bit, punctuated only by the occasional gunshot and subsequent inspection of the point of impact.

As it turned out, Isaac really liked the Professor. The man was the exact kind of careful, yet also willing to take risks that would take him far in this brand new world of Levels and superpowers.

Unfortunately, Isaac couldn’t recall hearing about any famous Bishops in the other timeline, so something had likely happened to the man. He really hoped it was something more along the lines of retirement or a change in priorities as opposed to a violent death, but he couldn’t be sure.

Once the existing Golem body and the core Isaac had just brought had been completely destroyed, all three of them ended up walking back, getting joined by several burly men on the way. Apparently, Bishop had called for others to help carry the next Golem to the firing range after Isaac had complained about how heavy the damn things were.

“Hey Professor Bailey, nice place.” Bishop greeted once Bailey had called him in.

“Thank you, Professor Bishop. Is everything alright?” Bailey asked and Isaac could see his forehead crinkling with consternation.

“Of course. I wanted to get another Golem and apparently, getting it up the hill is a bit much for just two people, so I brought help.”

“Ah, do you need help for that?”

“If you’re alright with your assistants conducting summonings on their own, then I think we’re all set.” Bishop said and Bailey nodded.

While Raul showed Bishop into the meeting room, Isaac retrieved a chunk of slate from the storeroom, phased into the summoning room and charged the ritual circle. The usual spectacle of a monster appearing occurred, and then it keeled over less than a second later as Isaac’s knife flashed.

The door rumbled open after that, someone clearly having pressed the button in the meeting room.

“Like I said, if you’ve managed to get through everything unharmed despite casually fighting monsters, you can’t be that reckless.” Bishop observed.

“Thanks. Anyway, I have to do something else down here now, but if you need more Golems and the summoning room isn’t in use, I can help you out.” Isaac told him as he returned to the meeting room.

Pulling out his phone, he began to type out a list of the creatures he wanted to summon, including a short explanation about why he felt it should be beatable.

But then he saw two rather pertinent emails. The first was from Wechsler and had some kind of form from the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture attached. Apparently it was the one for requesting the use of animals in experiments, already mostly filled out. For example, the reason for experiment was ‘current world situation as it relates to summoned monsters’ and as to why one needed to use actual animals, it said ‘no viable alternative exists’.

Isaac frowned as he read through it, wondering if the official who’d be reviewing such a document filling it was even legal, until he came to the end.

‘For obvious reasons, only use this form if it’s accurate. But if you want to summon and kill monsters just to get a good look at them, which I’m guessing you’ll do eventually, this should save you some time. Read everything before you sign it.’

Huh, that was actually very helpful. And clearly, the only way there was going to be trouble was if the stuff in the form didn’t match his plans, which wasn’t the case.

The second email was actually one that Bailey had sent to the entire group, basically a form with which they could officially request being allowed to summon certain creatures. He’d been doing most of the paperwork up to this point, being in charge, but this would allow him to delegate some of that work.

Isaac quickly filled it out, put a digital signature on it and got an answer a mere minute later. He’d gotten authorization, but he’d also gotten tasked with killing a single Acid Slime, sticking it into one of the acid proof boxes and then adding a whole list of various materials to said box to check how caustic the slime was even after its death.

As for the summoning reagent, he was to use aqua regia, given how strong an acid that stuff was, there was very little risk of it getting interpreted as anything other than acid.

Isaac had to fight to keep the smile off his face. This was a good way to actually start levelling while here. The powerful creatures which were well outside of his weight class, such as the Lesser Hydras or Specters he normally liked to fight, were not allowed. But there were enough other creatures to make that pretty much a non-issue.

The issue was that grinning like a loon after being told he was allowed to kill something would hardly be a good look. In fact, he was pretty sure there were already people out there concerned for his mental stability. And they were probably even a little correct. He’d seen the world end, if he’d walked away from that perfectly fine, that would be concerning in and of itself.

But until he actually noticed something off or anyone actually accused him of something, it would hopefully remain a non issue.

He put a beaker of the acid and a piece of bone he was pretty sure was just a thoroughly cleaned chicken wing into the ritual circle, then had Patrick charge it and closed up the door behind him.

He then planted himself in one of the room’s corners and surrounded himself with a ring of boxes to force the slime to crawl through at least one to get to him. In theory, it could have also gone along one of the walls, but Slimes weren’t that smart. Isaac knew that from experience.

“Alright, I’m ready.” he announced, turning to look straight at one of the cameras.

Immediately afterwards, the circle flashed and venomous green liquid seemed to boil up out of the floor. The slime was around the size of a beer keg, giving it a volume of roughly five liters.

Most of its body was a slightly opaque liquid, though Isaac could slightly see through it. Only a single spot in its body was different, having a fist sized dark orb sitting near the bottom of its blob. The core.

It began to flow over in the direction of the meeting room, but Isaac chucked a marble at it. With a target that had attacked it available and far easier to get at than the summoner, the Acid Slime changed targets. It was moving more quickly than one might expect a slime to be moving, but that didn’t make it actually fast.

In fact, Isaac was tapping his foot on the ground as he waited for it to get closer, clutching a battered looking screwdriver in his right hand. After all, he wasn’t about to stick his favorite weapon into a pool of acid.

Almost ten seconds after the pebble had smacked into the mound of living acid, it had finally climbed up one box, landed inside and was currently trying to move on into the next. Yeah, nope.

[Piercing Strike] flickered along the screwdriver as Isaac rammed it straight into the core and the Slime immediately went limp. Now that whatever intelligence had been directing it was gone, it started behaving like a liquid.

Acid Slime (Lv. 2) has been slain. 10 XP gained

Isaac snatched the top part of the box from the floor beside him and put it on top, then had Patrick open the door and carried said box into the storage room.

There, he put it into a second, larger box that would prevent acid from sloshing everywhere in case the first one somehow got dissolved. Now that it was relatively safely stored, he dumped in a sample of every material type commonly used inside the building he was in, such as steel rebar, concrete, glass as well as a chicken thing and several materials that were normally resistant to acid to check what would be best for containing this particular species in the future.

Aaaannnd done.

“Hey Adam, I got that Acid Slime sample safely stored away in the storeroom. Anything else you want me to do?” Isaac asked, standing in the doorway of Bailey’s office once again.

“Actually, could you get me twenty more dead Acid Slimes with the following spread of materials? More if you have the time?” Bailey asked, passing him a list.

On it were some hastily written instructions for an experiment to check just what the Acid Slimes could dissolve.

It would take a long, long while, but it would be helpful to avoid pitfalls when summoning these things in the future.

“Did the one you summoned damage the floor at all?” Bailey suddenly asked, clearly just having thought of that.

“Nope. Seems like it only melts things on contact when it wants to.” Isaac said.

“The summoning of all the other creatures you want to see will have to wait until tomorrow, unless you want to stay late?” Bailey asked.

“Normally, I wouldn’t mind staying late, but I was actually invited to a frat party tonight. I’m looking forward to doing something a little more normal, for once.” Isaac told him.

“Well, have fun. Just try to be sober again before you summon something, we’d catch hell if someone fought a monster while under the influence.” Bailey cautioned him.

“Ay, ay, Sir.” Isaac threw a mock salute and left the office. That would be it today as far as the whole summoning new and interesting creatures would be, but that wasn’t that big a problem. Acid Slimes gave good XP and he had someone else to pay the mana cost. It would cost him a little XP, namely 1 per Slime, but that was well worth it in terms of saved mana.

Acid Slime (Lv. 2) has been slain. 9 XP gained, 1 XP given to summoner

Acid Slime (Lv. 2) has been slain. 9 XP gained, 1 XP given to summoner

Acid Slime (Lv. 2) has been slain. 9 XP gained, 1 XP given to summoner

…

And just like that, the Experience started flowing in. Every person here could summon four Acid Slimes until their mana ran out and they had to regenerate it for around half an hour, depending on their relation of Magic Power to Magic Regeneration.

A total of 21 Slimes later, he had exactly 200 XP, precisely what he needed to gain Level.

Name: Isaac Thoma

Class: Rogue

Species: Human

Level: 2

XP: 0/300

Health Status: Healthy

Mana: 120/120

Stats

Fortitude

17

Perception

16

Strength

12

Agility

16

Magic Power

12

Magic Regeneration

17

Free Points: 0 Stat, 3 Skill

Skills

Hundred Faces III

Stealth III

Power Strike VI

Piercing Strike VIII

Sundering Strike VI

Knives IX

Sneak V

Sweeping Strike I

Far Strike I

Aspects

Aspect Skills

Specter

Spectral Shift

Hydra

Hydra’s Regeneration

Two points had gone into Strength, bringing it up to 12, while four each where placed in Agility and Perception, the Stats that were technically meant to be his focus. But the stat boost from the Aspects hadn’t really been in line with his intended build. Then again, that just meant he wouldn’t have to spend the points he gained from levelling. As for the [Skill] points, he’d be saving those. Also, [Piercing Strike] had advanced another Level.

Once that was done, he summoned three more Slimes before he finally had the required number

The others even managed to finish their task of looking through every possible summoning category for possible accidental summons by 6 in the evening, allowing them to summon a single Acid Slime before Bailey decided it was getting too late and dismissed them for the day.

Isaac was grinning as he left. He was going to a party. One that wasn’t a desperate attempt to drown out the impending apocalypse in a haze of alcohol and other drugs, but a celebration of life and freedom … even if there were going to be a lot of drunk people there.