Summoning.

Ten thousand years ago, the act of opening a portal through your core was easy and simple. There is no need for the Mantra, no need to even think and familiarize the entity that you wanted to summon. It was pure instinct.

Ten thousand years ago, one would not need a ring to summon anything. They could freely access their cores without any limitations and summon until they die from exhaustion. They could summon until their cores would lose their luster and break.

Kai closed his eyes and steady his breathing. The surrounding silence was deafening, it reminded him of his past just as he defeated the demons. The smell of death, despair, and hopelessness lingered in his nose. He could smell the blood and recalled the bodies as they lay decomposing under the sun.

“What — What is that?”

Kai opened his eyes and looked at the small decomposing plant in front of him. He sighed. At least he tried, he thought. Since he started hearing the voices, Kai’s core can no longer summon any other type of plants aside from mushrooms. Every time he tried to summon something, the plant would rot and would eventually disappear. He picked up the plant that was just about a foot tall before he looked at Alfred, hoping he would know what it was. “I thought of the first plant in the Mantra,” he explained.

“But why is it dead?” Alfred stared at the plant, confusion apparent in his aged eyes. “It’s rotting!” Frustration flashed in his eyes. Maybe the thought of Kai summoning on the first try made the man so excited, he couldn’t take the disappointment. “I have seen nothing like this!” He tried to touch the plant, but his hand stopped midway when smoke seeped through the plant. Then the plant turned into ash, slowly disintegrating until it vanished into thin air.

Alfred stared at him. “What did you think about it?”

“Just everything about the plant,” Kai said.

“Aish… Too bad you cannot summon again in the next eight hours. This is the first time that I saw something like this! Don’t let anyone know about this matter. Do you understand me?”

Kai nodded and smiled inwardly. He was already expecting two things that might happen because of this. First, Alfred would grow curious and study the plants that he summoned. Of course, it would be useless since the plant would always disappear after a few seconds. Second, he would kick Kai out, realizing that he is actually useless.

“Alright… go and have some sleep.” Alfred was still staring at the space where the plant was standing earlier. “Try to summon something again tomorrow.”

Kai nodded and immediately left the cave. When Kai arrived inside his room, he immediately sat on the floor cross-legged. Then he rested his hand on his lap, palms turning up before closing his eyes. Soon, his consciousness took him to his psyche, where he could see his two dazzling lights floating inside him. They were his cores. One looked like a starry night. It was black with a lot of sparkling gems that represented all the elements he could summon.

The fact that the elemental summoners could summon all types of elements was one reason why they were feared.

Then he glanced at the green orb — darker green, something that reminded him of the forest. However, this orb is not as dazzling as the elemental one. But in today’s, standard, having this type of orb is considered rare. He reached out, extending both of his hands to touch them.

Almost immediately, he felt the warmth coming from the orbs. He could feel his blood boil just from touching them, his heart started racing. Since waking up in this new Era, Kai had the habit of touching both of the orbs almost every night, feeling their warmth before trying to summon them.

Of course, he only does this after removing his ring.

Ten thousand years ago, the ring doesn’t exist. At that time, they could summon multiple times a day too. He understood that it was pretty dangerous, but he could summon multiple times a day, why would he let such a stupid limitation stop him from practicing his ability?

Not long after, he let go of the orbs and concentrated just like what he did earlier when he tried to summon that weed. However, this time, he moved his hand in a circular motion, as if he was caressing a ball — a simple gesture that would enable him to summon twice or even thrice in eight hours before the Anima of his core would run out. He knew that this gesture no longer existed in this Era.

Animas was the name given to the energy that coated one’s core. It was precisely the star-like glitters that covered the core. Once this luster or Anima would run out, one can no longer summon an entity safely. Summoning without an Anima was akin to suicide. The backlash would be brutal and could result in death or eternal sleep.

Even Kai, who considered himself experienced in the field of summoning, is not confident he would survive if he would summon something without his Anima.

Soon, he opened his eyes and stared at the small mushroom that grew in his palm. It was exactly as big as his thumb. The voices in his head said this was called a healing mushroom — eating one could heal minor cuts and wounds but couldn’t really heal serious internal or spiritual injury.

He stared at it and examined its size. Just as he expected, it had grown a bit bigger just after he killed Young Master Chen.

Kai recalled how the mushroom only looked like a pea when he first summoned it. He thought it was useless, so he threw it away. It was only when he fell down a cliff that the voices instructed him to summon the pea-sized mushroom to heal the cuts and bruises on his body. Of course, at that time, the greedy voices ask for ten copper coins.

Lucky for him, he just finished a mission and had the money to pay.

Once the money disappeared from his hand, he was able to summon it again. This time, it got bigger.

Soon, he discovered that the mushroom would slowly grow every time he gave it money or blood. Kai assumed that the other mushroom that he could summon would have that characteristic too.

How unfortunate …