DeSean felt an electric hum of excitement running through his chest. He hadn’t gotten the chance to fully revel in his success in summoning an actual demon princess because of concerns about getting to safety. Now he had a little more time to explore his magic and enjoy the process.

He was still new to it. From an outsider’s perspective, he must’ve looked crazy talking to someone who couldn’t be seen or heard in the ordinary sense. But he could listen to Lylothia’s deep, sultry voice as if her lips were close enough to his ear to brush it.

Having the aid of a demon princess was more than a summoner could ask for. Is that what I’ll become once my Path unlocks? He’d been keeping tabs on that Main Path section in his Status Tablet. It was another question he’d have to hash out with Lylothia.

For now, he concentrated on Lylothia’s instructions.

“It is quite spectacular that you’re able to summon without a physically anchored material ritual,” Lylothia said in the middle of her instructions. “This means you might have a natural affinity for such magic, or you’ve exposed yourself to craft prior.”

“I’ve been playing around with it when I was younger,” DeSean said.

“Playing around? How frivolous. Many mortals would sacrifice their newborns for the right to reach me.”

“Oof.”

“Yet, you’ve not only caught my interest with your escapades, but you’ve done enough on your own with your measly Attunement to invite me to contract with you.” She chuckled deeply. “Of course, I had to help a little on my side.”

“So, does this mean I don’t need rituals?” DeSean asked.

“With your talent and some teaching, you should be able to accomplish a true summoning with only the diagrams I charted in your mind. Greater works might require more physical symbolism, but not this one.”

DeSean nodded, reflecting on the image of a specific summoning pentagram, runes, and particular seance Lylothia described in great length. Somehow, she could tell when he was mentally off. Then she would slow the explanation or repeat herself for his benefit. She couldn’t implant the details into his own brain for him.

Might be part of the unsaid contract that protects me from her manipulating my mind. Yet, that raised the question of how she could know when he was wrong. He asked.

“Teaching is more than just words and physical representations. As I mentor you, I become closer to you and you to me. As long as it’s conceptual, I can perceive the surface levels of your thoughts to better aid you. There may come a time when I can directly give you the symbols. Still, we should work slowly and build strong foundations for this relationship to stay robust and healthy.”

“Can the reverse happen?” DeSean asked.

“You would need an abundance of Focus to endure what’s in my mind, my dear. I do not wish to break you, for it would be a foolish blunder.”

It was hard to get a bead on Lylothia. A part of DeSean wondered if there was a nasty catch for having her help. She sounded decent and fair. Maybe a little high-brow, but DeSean found it oddly quirky.

“I’m losing you,” Lylothia said. “What is on your mind, summoner.”

“You.”

“Oh, is that so? Pray tell.”

“Nah, it’ll be better when we meet in person somehow,” he said, chuckling.

Lylothia harrumphed. “Well, whatever it is, it better be respectful. I am quite mighty. I can crush you with one step. Eat you in one bite if need be!”

“Of course, Ma’am. Am I ready to cast some magic?” Just to be sure, he illustrated the summoning circle in his head. He concentrated on catching her peeping, but he couldn’t tell if she was looking or not. Might need more Attunement or Focus.

“This is satisfactory,” Lylothia said with a sigh. “I will have to leave you again. Then you’ll have the Attunement to fully summon as many as you can handle. Remember, basic summoned creatures don’t require much other than Attunement to sustain them.”

“Disconnect the connection, and they’ll return to the place from whence they came,” DeSean added. “I got it. Thank you, Ma’am.”

Lylothia remained, lingering for some reason.

DeSean didn’t push her to leave. He leaned against the side of the bed, looking up. There were gaps in the cloud cover. Stars twinkled around the glaring eyes of the heavens.

“What is it like to be… a weak mortal marked with chaos? Introduced to the System when such a thing hadn’t existed until the Cycle found your realm?” Lylothia asked after some inner deliberation.

“It’s like walking on the knife’s edge while forced to read a book. If I fall to one side or the other, oblivion awaits me. And if I don’t read the book, my ignorance will ruin me.” DeSean rolled his head to the side and spotted Mariah napping against the cab. “But I don’t want to fall because I’m living with others who are on the edge with me. Some are as tough as me. Some are weaker than me. We keep balancing and fighting against the fall. And we’re learning from the book together at the same time.”

But sometimes, we think about jumping off the edge and letting the fall take us. The book can burn in our trail.

“Hm,” Lylothia hummed. “I’ve always been strong. So when I’m faced with an enemy, I decimate them. If the enemy is stronger than me, I do not fight. I have the weight of my rule that’ll defend me. If needed, I have the breadth of my alliances to do the fighting for me.”

“You have it all, Princess.”

“Indeed, I do! What I know and hoard has been acquired carefully for a long time. Not much can threaten me unless it’s the System and the… heavens. But that hasn’t been too worrisome for me in quite a while.”

The demon princess licked her lips, a gesture he could hear in full detail.

“To hear you describe the life of a mortal,” she said, “as one who stands on the tip of a knife’s edge is… illuminating. It is also… exhilarating.”

“Yeah, it can get your heart pounding.” DeSean paused. “Or hearts.”

“How intelligent of you to recognize I have many hearts,” she mused. “To feel my hearts pound in such a way would be too ferocious for me. I would very much prefer to crush those who make me feel this way. Or bathe them in fire and boiling oil that would melt their flesh and bones in seconds. The consequence of which would present a delightful soup for me to drink. That would be better for my hearts, don’t you think?”

“Soup does the heart good, I’ve been told.”

“With the bones and melted flesh of your foes, it most definitely will!” She giggled.

DeSean wondered how it would look to call in an orbital strike via warmongering, flesh-hungry demonic princess. But there were barriers in the way keeping him from requesting hellfire like that. The biggest one was his Attunement level.

But one day….

“It would be pretty badass to see you in action,” DeSean said.

“Bad ass?”

“Badass. The two words are conjoined. It means awesome.”

“Oh. Oh! Yes, I am BadAss! Thank you,” Lylothia said merrily, taking the compliment with the excitement of a strange young lady.

“But for now, you’ll have to endure me when I get into crazy situations that can kill me at any moment,” DeSean said.

“Hm, and this is why I do not wish to say your name yet.”

“No worries, I’ll have you say it soon enough,” DeSean said with a smile. “Gotta go, princess. Got a summoning to do.”

“But, wait, I wish to converse more! I haven’t even told you about unlocking your Path and Path-related Skills when you reach Od Level 100!”

Now you did, thanks.

DeSean concentrated on the points of contact behind his ear. Lylothia was doing something to communicate with him, so he pushed his magic against it. It wouldn’t budge, which he expected. He was merely giving her a nudge to disconnect, and she did so with an aggravated huff.

Nice to know she’ll actually listen to me, DeSean thought in her favor.

She was a little bratty, but she really didn’t seem super evil or cruel. She definitely had a unique personality and sense of entitlement. But if what she said was anything to go off of, she could easily back up her haughty attitude.

She had power.

Power, huh? Power was an interesting concept. DeSean had thought that suicide was its own grab for power. A big screw you to the living world and taking a drive with the dead. But then he joined the Marines and got a taste of responsibility, the power over lives, and inner power.

I wonder what got me going out on a limb for everyone? It couldn’t be that he wanted to acquire power over others just like he’d done in the Marines. If so, he would’ve been the dominant head regardless of whether people liked him or not⁠—he’d split power with Quinton to ease the burden on himself, too.

DeSean was searching for something. He didn’t know what it was just yet, but as of now, he was up early in the morning, ready to channel a new spell to protect everyone here. Glancing over at Mariah, he found her sound asleep and left her be.

He could show her, and everyone else, some cool magic shit later. Everyone needed rest, including him, but he knew the site wasn’t truly secured until he checked every corner. With that in mind, DeSean shifted his magic toward his hands.

From the brief overview Lylothia had given him, DeSean understood magic as a unique energy field responsive to the practitioner’s soul. Through the efforts of the mind or the body, the soul transmitted specific signals telling magic⁠—the aura surrounding DeSean⁠—what it wanted and how it wanted it done. Magic was a fickle thing, too, and could be moved to act by people, places, or things without sapience. Yes, that meant everything had some sort of soul… or spirit… inside that could interact with magic or have magic interact with them.

This was what they called Od. But Od had lots and lots of meanings. Too many for Lylothia to dig into.

DeSean found the fundamentals interesting since it touched on shamanism, a branch of spirituality he’d dibble-dabbled while finding himself as a teen. So, with that in mind, DeSean saw his soul as the control, the hand behind his magical aptitude. He saw his aura, his mana depth, as the power he could draw from and move. His energy sensitivity kept him abreast of what he was doing with his magic.

Thanks to Lylothia, he had the blueprints, the symbol, which was a ritual she had him develop in his head with incredible detail.

Interestingly enough, nobody had to use rituals, sacrifices, or anything to make magic do its thing. But using guides and materials associated with a specific spellcraft made it exponentially easier and cost-effective⁠—which was why summoning the audience of a demon princess with nothing but a childish whim and imagination was an incredible feat for DeSean. It was perhaps something he should look deeper into at a later time.

In comparison, the creatures he was going to summon and sustain next should be way, way, way easier⁠—especially since he was cheating with a well-crafted summoning ritual provided by a super-powerful otherworldly entity.

This was the fun stuff.

DeSean’s hands emitted a crimson glow, basking his face in magical light. The light reached Mariah and sketched her sleeping figure in deep blacks and reds. The shadows shifted when DeSean wove his magical aura into the shape of a floating, neon-crimson pentagram circle. It had runic markings in the middle of the circle and words written around the perimeter.

Just when DeSean fed it more power from his magical depth to launch it, the spell collapsed. It imploded with a quiet crackle and pop, engulfing him, Mariah, and the bed of the truck in darkness. He suffered backlash to his inner spirit, like a ghostly slap to his heart. The humming current of his mana crackled unhappily around him.

DeSean grunted. He felt disappointed that he failed what was supposed to be an easy summoning. Okay, that’s a bruise to the ego.

He checked his mana depth and felt it was considerably withdrawn from failing the spell. It might take an hour before he could try it again. Dammit. DeSean shook his head, looked over the side of the truck, and considered checking out the barn the old fashion way.

To his luck, he was granted a reason to scope things out when he saw a stick-like figure exit the barn. The cloud cover was back, so DeSean used the opportunity to slink out of the truck. He left Mariah to sleep and stalked toward the barn.

He didn’t hide, but he didn’t move in a direct line toward the barn either. The night watch on the porch should be able to see him and…

They’ve fallen asleep. DeSean sighed. That… that was a huge operational risk, and he couldn’t even find it in himself to kick their asses. None of these people had the training he had. None of them were forced to cultivate discipline under an extremely do-or-die environment.

I need those minions, DeSean thought adamantly as he approached the figure leaving the barn. The person stopped in their tracks. They fidgeted in place as if they were thinking of running away.

“Don’t,” DeSean said. “Let’s squash this now and have you explain what you’re hiding in the barn, Isaiah.”

The man was sweating profusely, either through nervousness or from physical labor. “We told you we had to check on our cow⁠—”

“Then what’s the problem in showing me now?” DeSean said, looking down into the man’s eyes. DeSean tapped his fingers on his rifle. “A quick peek, that’s all. Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

Isaiah rubbed over his balding head. “Fine, I’ll take you in to look, but the cow got out somehow. The door was left open.”

Moments later, Isaiah flipped on the electric lights hanging from the barn’s rafters, enabling DeSean to scope out the place. He checked each stall methodically, working his way from the front to the back. All he found was hay, dropped cud, and cowpie.

There was an assortment of tools stacked against the corner. One pile of hay was bunched up in one stall that seemed like bedding for a small calf. Or a person. DeSean looked closer, keeping his ears pinned back in case Isaiah tried to attack him from behind. The man stayed put in the middle of the barn, and DeSean couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary.

“So, did that rest your worries?” Isaiah asked with his chest puffed out.

“No,” DeSean said, brushing past him. “You got a sick cow out on the loose. With the world the way it is now, who knows what damage she can do.”

“It’ll be fine, I assure you,” Isaiah said. “Just go and get some sleep, mister.”

DeSean returned to the truck and crawled into the bed. He laid down with a sigh. His mind was abuzz with lots of issues he wanted to be resolved. Even when he closed his eyes, he was thinking of fights against a mad cow or a crazy person or a group of the enemy while rallying his own ragtag group.

Someone poked his shoulder with their sneaker. I bet it’s Mariah with a frown on her face. DeSean’s eyes cracked open to see her glaring down at him. Called it.

Even though he didn’t get restful sleep, the time had flown by, and now the air was tinged by the blue metal early light of a new day. The cloud cover above had grown thicker, which meant it was later in the morning than DeSean would like, and he had a cranky Mariah to deal with.

The air also smelled smoky, a familiar type of smoky to DeSean, but that wasn’t Mariah’s concern.

“We didn’t check out the barn,” Mariah muttered.

“I checked out the barn,” DeSean replied, sitting up slowly. His injuries flared painfully, especially the stitches. He should probably change out the bandages.

“We were supposed to do it together with your magic,” Mariah hissed, eyes narrowing. “You… you didn’t do anything to me, did you?”

DeSean raised an eyebrow. Seriously?

Mariah took that as a no, hugging herself. “I just wanted to make sure the barn’s safe and then head back to be near Roberto. Are we safe here?”

“No,” DeSean said, shocking Mariah. “But we haven’t been attacked yet, and most of us got to rest up. We’re in the best position we can be in right now, so that’s fortunate.”

“Oh, uh⁠—”

“And my mana depth is filled up now.” It wasn’t as big as when he summoned the demon princess⁠, but it was pretty sizeable. The invisible and intangible membrane of humming energy was big enough to touch Maria. It swirled around him like a slow tidal pool, ready to be used.

“I checked the barn last night when I noticed Isaiah coming out of it. Didn’t find anything. But I still feel it’s strange.”

“What now?”

“Magic time.”

DeSean crossed his legs, put his hands together, and recalled the summoning circle illustration in its exact detail.

“I didn’t manage to pull off the spell the first time. But let’s give it another try, aye?”

“So, I’ll get to see this new one for the first time?” Mariah asked, losing her edge.

“Yup.”

She jumped over to him and stared over his shoulder.

Can you be less of a creeper? DeSean thought meanly to himself and returned to concentrating on the task at hand. He pushed his mana toward his hands, surrounded his digits with a crimson glow of power, and wove Magic into a neon sketch of the pentagram, runes, and seance. With more care, he fed a new line of mana with his intent to trigger the spell and summon minions.

The sound of fabric ripping filled DeSean’s ears. Displaced air gusted against his face as the magical aura and ritual circle flashed brightly, turning pinkish. Then it all winked out, leaving three little cretins slobbering all over themselves in front of DeSean and Mariah.

“They’re… they’re… they’re like little pugs with wings,” Mariah said with a trembling voice.

“If pugs had mandibles, leathery maroon skin, and webby membranes between their claws,” DeSean said, poking the googly eye of a Red-Winged Optiling (Basic Imp). It made a chittering, honky sound and scrambled forward. The others followed as they crawled up and around DeSean’s body. His leather jacket protected him from their slobbering tongues and nicking claws.

Thankfully, they weren’t poisonous. They were familiarizing themselves with him, imprinting in a sense. He saw their skins of mana extending a line that latched onto his mana—tethering the magic that held them in this realm with his.

DeSean fed them mana, and in return, his vision shifted.

“Whoa,” DeSean said.

“What happened?!” Mariah yelled in alarm.

DeSean was seeing the world from four different angles. Three of those angles viewed everything with a super-wide fish-eye lens, disorientating him.

DeSean nearly lost his balance while sitting down. He reached out to the bed’s side to steady himself. The mere motion made one of his minions scramble onto his back, shifting part of its view where Mariah looked like a distorted giant looming over him.

“Mariah, stay still,” DeSean said, concentrating on the optiling that was looking up at Mariah. With his will alone, he made the creature tunnel its vision and zoom in on Mariah’s face.

Ugh, teenage acne. DeSean had the optiling zoom out, returning to its wide-view of the world. He tried disconnecting their optic feed from his without breaking the mana lines attached to him. His vision returned to normal, and he could still faintly sense what his minions were looking at, like the optic feed was housed in the corner of his head.

“Alright, you three lovely uglies,” DeSean said. “I want one of you on the shed behind the house to watch our six. I want one parked on the barn and looking toward the crops. The last one gets to hang out near the house, covering what remains unwatched. Good to go?”

The optilings chittered among themselves, deciding on who took what. Then they flapped their bat wings and launched into the air. They made more chittering noises, affirming his orders, and circled upward and upward before splitting apart to head toward their respective observation positions. DeSean watched the mana lines sustaining them stretch and thin without breaking.

Mariah gawked at one fluttering to a landing on top of the house’s arched peak.

The mechanical engineer guy walked over to the truck, his eyes up in the air. He searched for the thing Mariah was staring at until he spotted it.

The university student jumped. “What the hell is that?”

“One of my minions,” DeSean said.

“Is that… because of Attunement?” he asked.

“It is magic,” Mariah answered. “And it makes me think Attunement is both evil and useful.”

“By all that is reasonable and mathematic,” the mechanical engineer said in awe. “I’m in a fantasy. A real fantasy.”

DeSean had a fun response in mind when he was interrupted by interesting System notifications.

You’ve developed a Skill without a Path: Talented Summoning (Great Passive).

Talented Summoning (Great Passive) ⁠— You’ve shown an uncommon aptitude for conjuring and contracting otherwordly creatures. This passive will help refine your summoning control, enable a minor reduction to overall mana depth costs, and further your magical aptitude for more unique summoning attempts. You also get a 5% added boost to Focus for every variable summon that’s active, which caps at 25%.

You’ve obtained +5 Free Od.

“Metal,” DeSean said, grinning.