Chương 28: [LD-1] 27. Constraints

XXVII Constraints I did not return to the hub of my soul immediately. After accepting our bond, the beast had vanished. Where to, I didn't know. Neither did I care. I was lying down in the canoe while my mind carried me deeper into the darkness. Death. I could not shake the questions I had regarding it. But no matter how much I ruminated, the knots that formed their problems didn't untie themselves in the slightest. Not a single bit.

I had my guesses, but they were so vague that I had trouble putting them into coherent words in my own head. A sigh.

'Let's just head back.' No answer would come to me, no matter how long I floated around.

"Congratulations on your successful summoning, Master!" Kil said once I returned to the hub. Kil, who'd kept an eye out on the outside world while I'd sailed off, bobbed around the recent addition to our army, who had apparently returned to the hub. The crystalis did not move a muscle as if it was a damned statue. Despite that, however, I could feel the faint line of energy connecting us thrum.

"Is it…saying something?" I asked.

"It's greeting you, Master." Kil whirled on the crystalis.

"Welcome, servant. Ensure you listen well to what Master and I tell you!" My brow raised, and I smirked.

"You also have authority over him, huh?"

"Of course! As your first servant, I am naturally a leader for all your future summons." That wasn't unreasonable, to be honest. He was like an elder brother.

'This summon also doesn't seem intelligent.' Not in the same way that Kil was, at least.

"None of your summons early on will be intelligent, Master. Though they will be capable of following complex orders." I hummed.

"Anything else that will be different for my other summons?"

"They will be destroyed once killed," he said innocently. I jerked to a stop.

"Destroyed?"

"Destroooyed," he drawled.

"I'm the only one one of your summons that can revive."

"That's…worrying." So I could spend a tremendous amount of effort to capture a summon only to lose them in an instant?

"You'll need to be careful with how you approach fights, Master. Knowing which summons to use at what point in a battle is a skill. So is giving them favourable matchups." My lips pursed. He was right, but it still felt bad.

"Don't worry," he added.

"There are ways to keep summons after they die." A jolt entered my chest.

"Like?"

"You do not have access to them yet!" he cheered. I deadpanned. Anyone else, and I would've thought they were making fun of me.

"Those methods will unlock once your Reaper's Condolence skill levels," he continued without batting an eye. But levelling a legendary skill wasn't simple.

"It's one of the most difficult things there is," he confirmed. I sighed and let my face fall. Things could never be easy. Perhaps seeing that my mood had soured, Kil quickly spoke up.

"There is good news, though, Master." I glanced at him.

"While summons can be destroyed, your hard work won't be entirely erased."

"What do you mean?" This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"Destroyed summons leave behind a skill shard. It's a remnant of their primary ability that you can fuse into your other summons."

"So then another summon can use their ability?"

"Yes! You can also influence what skill will be left behind by making them use that skill more often or helping them train it."

'Not only that,' the thought came to me.

"Can I kill my own summons?" I asked. It was a straightforward idea. If dead summons left behind skills and I could kill them myself, I could essentially farm abilities without taking up summoning slots—because my skill had a summoning limit. Namely three, which didn't include Kil. Though that would go up with the skill's level.

"Master's awareness is keen," he chuckled.

"As a matter of fact, that's how I recommend using the ability early on if you summon something you don't like." I nodded. That said, there was an obvious limit to the strategy: I couldn't summon monsters from the Black Well willy-nilly. The crystalis had been different because I recovered its fragment first. For the regular summoning, I had no bait other than my soul—which was a delicacy to plenty of entities. If I hooked something too powerful… My head whipped side-to-side.

'I don't even want to think about it.' For now, I'd be limited to farming the monsters I met out in the wild. The crystalis's cloth rippled as if the beast agreed.

'That said, I doubt I'll run into any more creatures from the Black Well.' I turned back to Kil.

"Is the skill fusion permanent, by the way?"

"It can be if you want it to. Permanently fusing the ability into another summon will make the ability stronger and allow it to level. However, then you lose potential versatility." Because I could fuse the skill shards into my other summons as needed. I nodded to myself.

'I think I get the gist of it.'

"As expected of Master!" Though I was interested in figuring out everything the Crystalis could do, there were no enemies to use it on, and I was not leaving the cafeteria.

"Kil, can you keep an eye on it outside? Make sure it doesn't do anything strange, like attacking the other students."

"Yes, Master!" Both summons exited my soul sea, leaving me alone with the giant sphere of experience. As always, I didn't use all of it to level. A sizeable chunk of it went into shaping the catafalque. The slabs grew denser and longer. Another marking formed on the top layer of the artefact, making the overall pattern more intricate. I spent around a quarter of the sphere on developing the catafalque. The remainder of the experience fell into my soul sea. Reaper - lvl. 7 -> Reaper - lvl. 10.

9 free stat points gained. Name: Joy Grimm Level 10 Nox [Reaper] Rank: Neophyte Magic Domain: Death (Special) Class Weapon: Cull the Deathblade (F - 30/10000) Death Core: Dormant Death Fragments: 40/1000 Mana: 150/180 (+ 0; -30 reserved) Skills: Ancient Bone Shell (C-1), Deathbolt (C-2), Arm of Quranq (U-1), Reaper's Condolence (L-1) STR: 9 DEX: 9 INT: 16 CON: 8 WIS: 18 Faith: 20 Free Points: 0 Most of the points went into my INT and WIS, but I put a few into my physical stats as well.

My eyes flicked down my screen.

'Please, please, give me a skill that doesn't expend a lot of mana.' New class ability unlocked! Skill learned: [Summon Ghoul (I) - Common] I sighed before the information on the skill even entered my head.

'That's just great.' Summon Ghoul: Raise a brittle ghoul to fight by your side for five minutes. Summon capacity: 1. Duration can be extended by letting the ghoul feed on corpses. Eyes closed, lips pursed.

'Kil… can I really not get a different ability?' Nope! His voice came from far away. If Master wants, I can spend the skill point I gained to unlock another skill, but I'd recommend not to and save my points to unlock an uncommon or even rare skill later! He gained a skill point every time I went up five levels. Uncommon skills cost two points, rare skills three. If I wanted him to unlock a rare skill, I'd need to wait until I reached level twenty. My shoulders sagged.

Though I was afraid of how much mana the skill would cost me, raising a ghoul did sound like a great ability. Together with the crystalis, I could have a contingent of guards running around. Moreover, since the ghoul was just an ability, I could use it to save the crystalis if the summon was ever in danger.

'We'll just have to see how everything turns out.' With nothing left to do in my soul sea, I exited. Lights assaulted my retinas, and I blinked against the burn. Kil hovered to my side, bobbing around his little brother.

"And when I say something, you will respond immediately! Did you hear me?" The crystalis's core pulsed.

"Refer to me as the Great Kil!" Kil chastised him. I shook my head.

'He's a tyrant.' The other students, who'd stopped meditating, whispered between each other while side-eyeing him. My gaze went to their heads. [Warrior - lvl. 5] [Ranger - lvl. 6]'They gained four and five levels respectively…' An enormous increase, since the guardian had only given me two. Not that they'd be anything but insects in front of the orc lord. Also, if they had levelled this much, they couldn't have developed their soul.

'Do they think it's not beneficial?' It had helped me a ton. Humans cannot develop their soul seas until they are a higher level, Master. I blinked.

'Truly?' You could only do so because of your heritage. The base of the human spirit is not strong enough to hold permanent objects. Even if they could create objects, most humans don't know what to do next, so spending their experience on it wouldn't lead to anything but short-term benefits. Tragic.

'Can I ask you to help them?' Unfortunately not. My techniques are geared towards developing death-related classes. Which none of the other students had. That was strange to me. More than forty students remained. Were death powers that rare? Kil had no answer for me since he wasn't familiar enough with human society. Murmurs of conversation reached my ears and pulled me out of speculating. Most of the other students had arrived during the time I was meditating.

According to what I was hearing, the President was currently escorting the last group of students. Which meant it was almost time for me to get some weapon training.