Although professor Theodric Thornewood panted heavily and his knees knocked together with exertion while a droplet of sweat rolled down his forehead that glistened in the moonlight, a wide grin split across his face as the sensation of a familiar bond successfully forming, washed over him in refreshing waves of euphoria.

Theodric sat down beside his two familiars, Barkly and Morvax, as they too shuddered in delight at the shared sensation.

“I kind of understand why humans love forming familiar bonds now,” Yawned Morvax lethargically, stretching into his full length with his great dragon wings and robust tail, brushing three of the four walls surrounding the training grounds, before curling back up and nuzzling his paws snuggly. Barkly rumbled in agreement.

“I’ll still never forgive you for summoning me though,” Morvax’s statement was robbed of its original harshness by his tired, slurred words.

“It's not as easy as you make it sound like, Morvax,” Theodric lightly refuted the curled up dragon. “Most people don’t have the right type of soul for familiar bonds and even those blessed with the potential simply don’t have the soul capacity to do so…”

Morvax gave an indifferent grunt and ignored him. Barkly carefully made his way next to the forest dragon, currently curled up into a ball, and followed suit. Morvax actually lowered a moss encrusted wing on top of him this time like a fluffy green blanket.

Theodric smiled softly at the adorable display of the two familiars getting along, shuffling over on his knees, joining them with his back against the forest dragon’s wing.

“And not all summoners are as lucky as I am,” chuckled Theodric softly. “You two were a great help back there, I couldn't've restrained the summons and formed the bond all by myself,”

“Especially not without your bottomless mana stores, Morvax. Well done and rest up guys.”

Although silence was all that greeted him, Theodric could feel the surge of immense self-satisfaction from Morvax and the delighted rush at being helpful coming from Barkly was all the gratitude he ever needed.

Leaving the two alone for their much deserved rest, Theodric’s tired smile twisted into a frown as he finally diverted his attention to the still strong shield spell in the centre of the training grounds, gaze sharpening at the prone translucent creature at the bottom of the barrier.

It had put up quite the impressive fight previously, highly vicious and far too aggressive for any normal summons. Shaking his head at the fresh memories, the absolutely dominating presence it had exerted upon being summoned was simply horrifying, to say the least. And the sight of the headmaster stumbling from the pressure…he’d never thought that he would see that day, and survive.

That tough old monster in human skin was powerful beyond a human has any right to be. Theodric would not have been surprised if even Morvax, an ancient forest dragon regarded as an elder even amongst other dragons, was intimidated by that crushing force of will. Though the dragon would never admit it, he felt a hint of alarm from Morvax through the bond earlier.

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Especially the sheer bloodlust that emanated from the creature, Theodric shivered at the unpleasant memory and others like it as they resurfaced. He had served for a long time in the Royal Hunt Brigade, and had been on the frontlines numerous times to bear witness to handfuls of country ending monsters with their overwhelming presence and bloodlust, but that creature…that level of bloodlust was unprecedented in Theodric’s mind. Just how much that creature had killed to gain such a powerful bloodlust?

Frankly speaking, this entity summoned by Kira Rockwell of all people seemed so untouchable, that it completely bamboozled him how they, and all the staff in Elderglow, had managed to not just restrain, but tire out this powerful entity and force it in a familiar bond, with Theodric no less. It was simply an unfathomable achievement.

Theodric’s brain thought about it for a second, before just giving up entirely. He was just lucky he’d managed to survive the bonding process at all.

He spared a glance at his soul, which should normally look like a rotating ball of grey light with a small gap on the right side where the swirling soul energy refused to flow past - soul damage, left behind by his first and most dear familiar, who had since perished on the battlefield, and the backlash from his death blew a hole in Theodric’s soul. Two -no, three now- glowing tendrils reached out from within his soul out towards his two sleeping familiars, which pulsed alongside their slowed heartbeats, and one in the opposite direction at the shield spell, gradually fading as it led out of his body.

Now his soul looked like it went through a shredder, huge gaps and frayed loose strands of soul pieces fizzed as it reacted with orbiting rings of mana around his soul. The rings remind Theodric of a diagram of a distant planet with one such flat ring around it. Although he normally had three, whilst the diagram only had one.

Besides the horrendously severe soul damage, his soul had ballooned greatly in size, if it had been the size of a grape before, it was now the size of a grapefruit. Theodric felt queasy just looking at his heavily mutilated soul, thankful that all his mana had been used up before the forced expansion of his soul, as the state it was in couldn't’ve possibly controlled the mana within his body - meaning he would’ve spontaneously exploded on the spot when the mana ran rampant and ripped his body apart from the inside. It was a miracle that he survived.

Disturbed, Theodric ripped his gaze from his weeping soul, he’ll deal with tomorrow’s problems tomorrow, and his attention lingered on the creature within the barrier once again. Just what monstrosity had Kira summoned?

Normally, summons reflect the summoner, both in mana affinity and state of mind, those factors in similarity are what allows a summoner to hook on to a creature in particular and bring it to the summoner.

So what does Kira Rockwell, a child of a well known earth affinity noble family, have in common with this obviously shadow affinity monster? And Kira may have been a strong and talented mage, but her mana level is nothing but a cup of water in comparison to the ocean that this entity wields.

Or once wielded, Theodric pursed his lips, the entity may have the pressure to flatten all the students in the training grounds instantly, even a quite a few teachers, but it went down surprisingly quickly all things considered. War campaigns against a country leveling monster last for weeks, and very rarely - months.

Perhaps the creature is one of those glass cannon types of monster - explosive damage that uses up most of their mana all at once, but leaves themselves defenseless afterward. Hard to be defenseless when everything within a 10 mile radius is dead though.

There are certainly upsides to glass cannon types, this unexpected boon that fell into his lap was highly costly, but the reward more than made up for his soul damage…most sane people would probably disagree, but that’s their problem.

Theodric barely suppressed a yawn, and leaned on Morvax’s wing, shuffling briefly to get comfortable before settling down for the night.

He quite enjoyed camping out under the stars like this, Theodric mused as he drifted off, they should do this more often. I’m excited to see how my familiars get along, especially what the new familiar can do in a fight…