"Waking in unfamiliar places is one of the more noticeable similarities between a Summoner and a drunk. But there are plenty more, believe me."

- King Vrose

Percy awoke to the taste of mud in his mouth. His face was wet, and his body was sore all over. The fourteen-year-old orphan opened his eyes, unsure of what he expected to see, but it certainly wasn’t this.

He sat atop a steep dirt hill, barren but for a few rocks peeking out of the earth. Before him sprawled a massive open field, with high stalks of grass flowing in the wind. Trees rose up beyond that, and beyond that, he could see a volcano in the distance. To his right, Percy saw a waterfall from a tall lonely mountain, and to his left, an icy landscape. But when he turned around, Percy received the biggest shock of all.

Only a few paces away from where his steep hill ended, so did the world. A jagged stone cliff—as though this place had been torn out of the ground—looked out over a blank void. For as far as Percy could see, there was only a swirling space of purple and black, speckled with white dots.

“Where… am I?” he asked, reaching up and pulling the dirt off his tongue. He proceeded to rub his arms over his face, clearing the mud he could feel drying there.

As if in answer to Percy’s predictable question, a piercing whistle sounded off behind him near the volcano. He turned, noticing as a cloak he was reasonably sure hadn’t been on him when he’d gone to sleep flowed around him.

The whistling was accompanied by a blinking light soaring into the air. A flare, perhaps? Whatever it was, it flew upward into the clouds dotting the blue sky which seemed to only exist directly above the massive bio-platform Percy had found himself on. The whistle ceased, and for a moment, everything was silent but the wind that ruffled his ragged chestnut hair. Then it exploded, colorful sparks flying in all directions—a firework.

“What… is going on?” Percy said to no one in particular, the information overload from his surroundings dumbing down his brain’s processing power. He glanced down at the cloak again and noticed two things.

First, he wasn’t wearing any clothing he’d ever owned. It was more of what he might expect to see in a magical academy cartoon than something anybody who wasn’t attending a convention might wear. Neatly stitched white pants were tucked into black leather boots secured on the sides by golden buckles. A matching black leather belt held his pants to his waist, with a similar golden buckle securing it. His shirt was a double-breasted cornflower blue with a golden trim and black buttons, and a fancy insignia was embroidered in silver opposite his left breast pocket. The cloak was predictably black with golden trim and had the same emblem centered on it in a larger size.

The other thing he noticed was the state of his hands. His left bore a gauntlet made of silver, while his right was bare. But in-between his right thumb and first two fingers, Percy firmly held a rectangular piece of parchment, just about the same size as a playing card.

“What the—?”

Percy’s question was cut off as something landed in the dirt between his feet, burrowing several inches into the ground. He yelped, stumbling backward. A large ruby stuck out of the earth before him, shining with a mysterious light. It was smoking, and Percy looked up to see a trail of light fading from the air, arching toward the volcano.

“Did this… come from the firework?”

He reached down, about to grab the smoking gem with his dominant right hand, but thinking better of it, he swapped to use the silver gauntlet to pick it up instead. If it was hot, he didn’t want to burn himself. He touched it, and the mysterious light inside suddenly projected itself upward.

And suddenly, a holographic person stood before the crouching Percy. A bald man with a closely trimmed white beard, dressed in the same clothes as Percy, sans the cloak.

“Hello there!” the man said jovially. “My name is Faderius Blask, and I’ll be your Headmaster, permitting you pass the exam.”

“Ah,” Percy said as the information overload was finally processed. “I’ve been reincarnated, haven’t I?”

The circumstances all met the standard marks, after all. He’d woken up, with no idea how he’d arrived here, dressed in new clothes, and in a strange place. And now, there was a magic projection of a man claiming to be a headmaster of a school? Percy had read enough books and seen enough anime to know a reincarnation when it slapped him in the face like this.

Well, he thought. I guess I must’ve died, then? Or… have I been summoned?

Either way, being brought to another world with magic was Percy’s lifelong dream, and he wasn’t going to look a gift headmaster in the mouth.

“I beg your pardon?” Headmaster Blask asked, apparently not just a recording, as Percy had initially thought.

“Oh! Sorry!” Percy apologized. “Don’t mind me. You were saying?”

The magically projected man frowned, but he continued. “Yes, of course. As I was saying… Well, as you know, your application to Valdarthan’s Academy was accepted. Based on your extracurricular merits and previous grade scores, you’ve qualified to take the entrance exam, as have three hundred and twenty-three others. Admittedly, it’s not the largest pool of applicants we’ve ever had, but…what else can you expect? Current events and all—you know how it is.”

Percy didn’t. But he wasn’t about to try to convince this man that he’d been summoned into this world just a few minutes ago, with zero understanding of its rules and history. That was a big reincarnation no-no. Probably rule number one, if sudden world-warping had rules.

“Sure,” he said as he scrounged for a clever way to phrase a question to get Blask to tell him more about his current situation. “Um, would you mind giving me a bit more information on the exam itself?”

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“Certainly!” the headmaster responded. “I wouldn’t have expected you to know much about it, anyway. You’re a special case, after all.”

Oh boy, that’s a red flag. I need to get learn more about why I’m a special case. And fast.

“The exam consists of three stages. First, the initial selections, which you’ve already passed. Our board of directors chooses students we believe will benefit from attending Valdarthan’s. Congratulations on making it to stage two!”

“Um, thanks,” Percy said after Blask neglected to continue.

The headmaster smiled warmly. “Stage two and stage three occur consecutively. First, the piece of parchment you hold in your right hand? Yes, that one. By placing that upon one of the living entities here on the testing grounds, you’ll bind them to your will. But be careful. That is powerful magic that you haven’t yet learned how to harness or even understand. Now, the paper you hold in your hand is special, as the creature you bind will become the Monarch of your deck, which is a necessary and important part of your magical abilities.”

“Monarch?” Percy asked. The headmaster didn’t elaborate.

“That is stage two—obtaining a Monarch and using the other pieces of enchanted parchment you’ll find in your academy-issued deck box to bind further creatures to your will, thusly forming your own personal army. Once you’ve done so, head toward the explosive flare you saw fired off earlier. One will be fired off every hour on the hour so that you might not lose your bearings. When you arrive, you’ll begin stage three. More details on that when you get there.”

Percy nodded. So he was expected to slap the rectangle of parchment on whatever he found out here and head toward the flare. It sounded simple enough as a concept. He still had no idea what a Monarch was.

“You’ll find your deck box and bestiary at your feet. Any other answers you need are at your fingertips. Good luck, applicant!”

Percy tried to ask, “Wait, that’s it?”

But the headmaster had already vanished in a burst of light. And where the crystal that created his image had been were now two items. A thick brown tome with a latch on it to keep it from opening, and a simple white box.

Upon opening the box, Percy found more blank pieces of parchment. But for some reason, he couldn’t manage to pry any from the box. Add to that his frustration with the fact that he didn’t seem to be able to release the paper in his right hand, and he instead switched to the tome.

Each page of the tome was blank except the first, which merely said, Valdarthan’s Academy Magical Bestiary, property of Percy Allblythe.

Weird, Percy thought. My last name is Smith. Guess that didn’t really fit the whole fantasy aesthetic? He shrugged and examined the tome again.

“Very helpful,” Percy stated blandly as he flipped through the empty book. Turning it over, he found it had a metal clasp on the back about the size of his belt. With a “why not?” mentality, he pressed the back of the book to the left of his waist, and the clasp clicked. When he removed his hand, the book stayed at his side. “Handy.”

The deck box—as Percy assumed it was from the headmaster’s statement—had a similar clasp, and when he placed it at the front right of his waist, it also clicked. He double-checked the area where the crystal was to be sure he hadn’t missed anything and discovered a small scroll tied with a red ribbon. How had he missed that?

So you’re the thorough type, eh? The paper read. Not all potential applicants will find this scroll, as it’s been enchanted to go unnoticed by those who don’t seek it out. But for those of you who do, Valdarthan’s would like to offer you a reward. We do appreciate our students having that extra-thorough disposition, of course.

As Percy finished reading the note, rays of light flooded out of it, surrounding him. He panicked a bit as they formed into a solid wall trapping him in a small enclosed space, but they quickly faded away. Now his gauntlet was blinking, a small red dot atop his index finger’s knuckle. He tapped it with the palm of his right hand, and words formed in the air above his gauntleted fist.

You have (1) barrier(s).

Percy pursed his lips. “I’m not sure what a barrier does, though,” he said with resignation. “Seems like I’m not going to be sure about what a lot of things do, here.”

But the words above the gauntlet changed as he vented.

A barrier will negate a hostile attack, once.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, happy to finally find an answer to one of his questions. “And what’s a Monarch?”

Percy sort of felt like an idiot, standing there on top of a dirt hill, talking to his fancy glove. But he shrugged it off as the text changed once again.

A Monarch is a Summoner’s champion. The Monarch is bound to the Summoner and can be summoned when the Monarch’s particular conditions have been met.

“Okay, I get it. So it’s kind of like those card games I used to play when I was back at home, then. I don’t know any of the rules, though… Hey gauntlet, can you tell me anything about the rules of the card game?”

The text changed again, but the results left Percy crestfallen.

No information regarding your query has been found.

“Maybe… there are no rules?”

Percy could’ve sat there all day and figured out exactly what his new magic tool did and did not know, but suddenly something screeched in his ear.

He yelped, tripping and tumbling forward down the slope. All the mud he’d just wiped off of himself had now been reapplied. His skin was going to be silky smooth, and he looked up to see just who he had to thank for that.

A small green-skinned creature, only a couple feet high, pointed at him, laughing and slapping its knee before doing a dance and running away toward the tall grass.

“What the heck is that?!” Percy shouted, wiping the mud off his face and standing up to chase after the prankster. “Get back here!” he shouted angrily, vaulting over a boulder that jutted out of the ground.

When he landed, the small monster was gone. And Percy had missed his chance to get rid of the paper stuck to his fingers.

His waist vibrated, and the boy unconsciously reached to check his phone. Only, when he grabbed at the vibration, his hand found a book instead.

“Duh, no phones here.”

Percy opened the book, flipping to the first page. But the tome had other ideas, and the pages flew by rapidly, slapping his hand out of the way as they passed. Finally, the book settled somewhere near the back half, and one of the pages began to glow.

A rectangle burned itself into the lower-left corner of the page, and an image of the creature he’d just encountered appeared within, with text written above it.

#723: Little Forest Imp

Underneath the picture was a giant question mark, as though the book wasn’t sure if there was any more information it could give to Percy.

“So I have a magic book that can keep track of any creatures I run into here… And somehow I can get more information about those creatures. Gauntlet, any help on how I might do that?”

The magical text appeared floating above his hand again.

Encounter Summons to gain basic information. Bind or battle Summons to gain detailed information.

“That’s helpful. Thanks.”

The text faded, and Percy looked around carefully. He didn’t want to miss another chance to bind a Summon, after all.