Derb was hounding his teacher with every question he could come up with. “How big will it be?! Will it be strong?! Why so many wolves?! How will it even look?!” Gerald chuckled, he was just as excited as the kid. This was his first time witnessing the summoning a mount after all. “Calm down already, you’ll find out soon. But before that, you’ll actually have to research how.” Gerald handed him a book, small and black with a white circle in the middle. “Read this, it won’t take long. Just make sure you understand everything before I start guiding you in the process.” Derb… wasn’t sure how to take this. “Why don’t you guide me with this? Not to be ungrateful, it’s just that being smart isn’t my forte.” Gerald looked anxiously at Derb. “I don’t have much experience in the summoning process, after what happened before I don’t want to have you unprepared. You know little about magic in general, so this could be a good way to integrate knowledge into your lacking foundations.”

Derb opened the book, then flipped through it all the pages. luckily there seemed to be a lot of pictures, Derb didn't think he'd be able to retain information without them. “Ok, I’m going to sit down and read, how long do you think this will take?” Derb asked, unsure about the complicated wording. “Oh, maybe three days, not too long since it’s one of the simpler summoning theories.” Derb was shocked. “Wait… so WHY did you kill all these wolves already? Couldn’t you have waited?” Derb unsurely questioned his teacher’s antics. “Ah, that… apparently It takes more than just the corpses to create the spell, and I didn’t realize it until after I brought them here. I need time to process the wolves, so you’ll be studying in the meantime.” Derb was beginning to piece the puzzle together, his teacher had screwed up and was using this book to teach Derb while he processed the wolves.

“Ah, then I’ll do that, don’t worry and take your time. If you need my help don’t hesitate to ask.” His master had caught on to his student’s snark and felt ashamed at such a mistake. He didn’t show it, however. “I don’t need help from a brat who still smells like milk! Just get to reading. I’ll make sure to test you once you’re done so make sure to go through it all properly!” This got to Derb since he assumed his master only gave him this to buy himself time. He was planning to just skim over it and let his teacher do the heavy lifting. He didn’t actually expect the teacher to grade him… “Ah, whatever you say, teacher...” He noncommittally said, earning a glare from his teacher. “The mount you will obtain will be one of many types of Demon warg, weighs more than all these wolves combined.” This got Derb’s attention “Most have amazing combat prowess, the ones that don’t are even more sought after. Despite the simple process it’s very costly to make. Very costly... understand?” Derb gulped, “I Should get studying then! See you around teacher, I’ll be going now...” As he went and stood up, he felt a familiar hand snake it's way around his neck. “You must be forgetting something, right?” Derb felt his grip tighten, not subtly this time. “Ugh… ack...thank you for every-… everything you’ve done for me… let go please, I’m seeing stars.”

The old man released his grip on Derb, who fell to the ground flopping dramatically like a fish. “Aaaaagh! Domestic abuse, help! Trouble in the family!” Derb expected a backhand at his attempt to alert Hannah and Tiff as witnesses. All he got was silence, however. “Do... you happen to see me as your family, kid?” Uh oh, Derb hit a landmine. He backed away, trying to come up with a decent excuse for what he said. “Uh, no. I mean... yeah I guess? You know, like, a teacher for a day is a father for a lifetime? E-except You’re like a grandpa to, uh, me.” Oh god, Derb just kept running his stupid fucking mouth. He did view him as a grandpa but he should have never said it… He caused enough trouble for the old man already. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I just never had a grandpa or anything so I just… I’m still talking, I’ll just go to my room real quick.”

Before Derb ran a hand once again came to stop him, much gentler this time. “Kid, thank you for telling me these things, it takes a lot to make my day.” Derb turned back to face the man, and what he saw shocked him. What replaced such a usually stern face was that of a man about to break into tears. Awkward, since Derb wasn’t such an emotional… an emotional… “I thought you were going to hate me for that...” Derb’s voice cracked halfway through, finally sounding his age for the first time. “I didn’t mean to be such a bother all the time. I just can’t help it.” His shoulders were both pulled into a hug, he was as tall as Gerald but the way he was pulled in forced his head into the old man’s chest. “Boy, don’t worry, I viewed you as family the moment I asked you to be my student, I’m sure Hannah and Tiffany see you in the same light as well.”

Derb pulled himself away, eyes stinging. He couldn’t trust himself to not mess up the robe if he started crying at that point. He breathed in deeply and pulled himself together. “I’m sorry you had to see that, haha... I don’t know what came over me. it was like I was nine all over again.” He patted the old man on the shoulder, in a way that showed his respect. “Thanks for taking me in teacher, I don’t know how bad my world would have turned without you. Even now I don’t realize how flipped my world’s become.” The old man looked worriedly at his student, these were the words of someone who was still lost. He knew Derb saw him as family but the kid himself seemed to reject the idea. No, not reject them, it was almost as if he were looking at this from the wrong perspective. As if this life wasn’t real to him. “One day you’ll trust me enough to tell me your secrets, boy. Once that day comes, I’ll be there to lighten your burden.” The old man told him this in earnest, but how could Derb accept it? This wasn’t a situation that could be explained so easily, for all he knew he was summoned to be the next great destroyer of worlds by a god who hates him. The thought sobered him back up, he needed to get strong enough. Strong enough to make the truth useless.

“Thanks, old man, maybe one day I will share my little secret.” He grinned, for the first time in a while showing pure youthful joy in those dark and tired eyes. “Let me finish this book and I’ll get back to you.” After a quick goodbye he went to his bedroom, settling down comfortably. He felt as if the home was nicer to live in now. Another reminder of how terrible life could have gone if he had not ended up here. He remembered running in the opposite direction when from the village when he first came here. If the barrier was any shorter he might not even have had the luxury of decision! He opened the book, the inside showing the English language in a cursive style. it had almost textbook font despite being handwritten, Derb was quite envious actually.

“The arts of summoning is one hard to come by. The combination of attributes, both being rarer types, makes it extremely difficult to find one. 1 in 100,000 may be lucky enough for such an attribute combination, 1 in 1,000,000 may actually have strong enough control to ever wield a demon. If you happen to be one, welcome to one of the few books to talk about wielding such power. I came to this theory by wondering about the randomness of summonings. Sure, mana and thought could affect your demon in drastic ways, but it’s only ever a broad scope. A man who thinks demons are vicious will come to own monstrous creatures that are horrifying to look at. Those who see demons as friends will certainly get the brighter sides of demons, such as fairies or a centaur. But the question I ask is… is it possible to make a demon locked onto a specific type of beast, by giving it a concubine to raise itself out of?” Derb was getting confused, wasn’t the magic user’s blood the concubine? “By giving it a specific body, would it be possible to offset the randomness of the scenario?

I tested this immediately the first moment I could, sacrificing a small rabbit. I slit its throat over my mark (a circle) on a table. Slowly I fed it my mana through the blood, circulating as little of myself as possible. The result was a catastrophic failure, a useless mutated gremlin popping from the circle. It had one leg and seemed to be in a fit of rage. The worst part was it seemed to not obey my commands. I killed it without a second thought. Thinking back to how unique this one was, however, fills me with regret over not researching it. I tried again, bleeding out a rabbit over the mark, while thinking of a rabbit, no longer keeping the mana pure. My idea was to affect it through both mind and body. This one didn’t work, at all. The circle failed to even bring anything out. Countless other tries I attempted, even returning to the first experiment and following it to the letter. Not a single time did a summon happen. It wasn’t until test subject 64 did any results come. I was no longer using the blood of the beast, as it seemed to require my blood to at least start the ritual.

Eventually, I had the idea to hollow the body of the beast, leaving nothing but the flesh and bone intact. My theory was based on giving the minimum amount of requirements the body would need from the animal instead of myself. It worked, to my great satisfaction. I came to summon rabbit monsters three times with perfectly consistent results. My only gripe is that I can’t control which type of specific monster I wanted through the hole. Using the body of a legendary Spriggan only netted me a treant, to my great displeasure. After a few more experiments involving less… expensive measures, I’ve come across the conclusion that creatures that hold a high mana capacity are much harder to properly create. Those with higher mana than humans are next to impossible too, cutting out a large portion of monsters. All that was left was either useless creatures or those which were big, slow, and dumb.”

Derb was starting to think he wouldn’t be able to ride his mount into battle. He was pleasantly surprised when he kept reading, however. “I didn’t stop, however. I kept pursuing my life’s work with little to no results. The idea of useless monsters being the only creatures made from this basically made it only for cosmetics. If I wanted recognition I’d have to make battle-ready monsters. That was when I found how to make them tougher and heftier. Simply by adding even more bodies to the same mix they were able to grow in power, being able to take hits better than even some brute rank demons. Without the strength or coordination required to battle, they instead make rather impressive mounts. When I created these mounts it involved a single corpse to be hollowed out, as usual. The difference was adding extra mass with the same DNA to the mix.” Flipping through the pages Derb couldn’t help but wonder if this was where his teacher stopped reading before. “Hollowing out the rest doesn’t work, only wasting mass just to get the same result. They had to be separated into four distinct parts, bones, flesh, skin, and heart. These main components must be… pulped, turned into a slush that would be poured in at the last moment. What happens is a monster completely different from what we know is born. Monstrous and vicious, they’re the closest to the first experiment in which they barely follow orders at first. The benefit being they require next to no mana control to create. One summoner could hold up to twenty-five at a time, becoming a portable war stable for an army. This makes them incredibly powerful considering they need next to no upkeep.”

Derb considered what this entailed. The only good thing about him now was his mana control… and this seemed to imply he could hold around 25 beasts, if only he had the mana to summon them in the first place. He had no pretense of being able to summon them at his current mana. He’d have to train under meditation rigorously for the next few days… even then he assumed his teacher would be doing most of the work. Sighing, he continued reading the rest of the book, now just mundane instructions and a bunch of statistical ratios of the mass of flesh to bone per animal. It was quite boring, and he soon headed off to bed, ready to sleep peacefully once more. Something that he was getting quite used to in this new world.