Twigs new little minion had finally grasped the concept of cultivating. It had taken a couple of hours, but as the seemingly distracting females had left for their rooms he finally had a breakthrough. Observing the energy flow pattern his disciple was still on the first earthly layer cultivation. How far he would got was entirely up to him, since Twig had no idea what came after the second stage.

Shrugging he let his human minion train and he opened up his own arsenal. There were a lot of options to be exploited, and so far he had only summoned two golems, both made of stone.

[Twig - The Dark Summoner]

[Mana: 87.496/100.000]

[Mana Regeneration: 2 per second]

[Create: Monster Core]: Level 1

[Repair/Restore]: Level 1

[Absorption]: Level 1

[Ghost Shell]: Level 1

As he had still enough mana storage left before maxing out, he first took his time to investigate his new skills. But before he got into all his summoning options he wanted to get a feeling for his main skills.

[Create: Monster Core]: Level 1

While expensive, infusing a monsters essence into a small core has many advantages. Even the very most basic Monster Core can provide monsters with heightened stamina and increased recovery and healing rates. Equipped with a stronger monster core, they can even develop skills best suited to their natures. Monster Cores break down once their respective monster is dead.

Current Stamina & Healing Bonus: +0.05%

Twig liked the sound of this, but the bonus on the first level seemed rather weak. And risking a full 2.000 mana, just to improve a golem slightly was not really worth it, right? Unless the golem did not die in battle. Twig made a mental note to use this on the steel golems he would unlock later on.

[Repair/Restore]: Level 1

Heals or repairs a summoned monster. 1% healing per second. Mana cost is partial to original monster summoning costs.

The healing spell was rather basic, as expected. The Mana cost was fair too. He had often ignored damaged earth golems in the past, when they missed limbs. It was easier to just summon another one. But with this he could save at least some mana.

[Absorption]: Level 1

Allows to decommission monsters for a mana return. Decreases monster mastery rate slightly. Return Rate: 60%. Damaged monsters return less mana. Can be used on non monster corpses.

This was also convenient, but Twig eyed the last sentence. Maybe he could absorb some strong humans or animals for mana? As there was noone lying around dead right now, he focused on the last option.

[Ghost Shell]: Level 1

You switch place with a summoned monster of your choosing. Manacost per meter: 60. Downtime: 30 seconds. Manacost and downtime decreases with every level.

Twig smiled. He had a really, really, really good idea. First he walked out of the pavillion in the now dark garden. While the rain had stopped about half an hour ago, the grass was still wet. He liked wet grass for some reason. It felt funny. Twig stretched his body and unfolded his wings. After hovering two meters above ground, he used his [Ghost Shell] on a golem.

Something within him twisted and turned. It felt as if he was spinning on his spot for a second, the next he stood inside of the pavillion next to his disciple. The golem was gone. A loud “Thud!” resounded from outside. The heavy stone giant had crashed into the soft gras. Ha! He would be able to use this to drop his minions on people! Flying was now more than useful in comparison to before!

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Thinking about summoning his minions while flying for extra impact, he looked at his monster book. A lot of options.

[Golem] Level 3 - Mastery 12.81%

[Skeleton] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Zombie] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Water Spirit] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Fire Elemental] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Ice Ghost] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Possessed Goblin] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Possessed Hobgoblin] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Cave Troll] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Shadow Snake] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Barrier Turtle] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Inferno Beetle] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Spider] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Hellhound] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Mimic] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Tree of Darkness] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Myconid] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Slime] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

[Abyss Raven] Level 1 - Mastery 00.00%

The Cave Troll and his Golems sounded the most fun to drop out of the sky. Myconid’s were usually also about the same size, but a mushroom monster would likely not survive that impact. But maybe a few of these other options could work too. Twigs head started to hurt from all that reading though. It was just so boring to just read and stand around. Even his disciple could at least cultivate. Which he did not even stop when the golem fell. Impressive.

Twig just decided to try out everything going down the list. That would be more fun and not bore him to death. First was… skeletons.

[Skeletons: The summoner draws power from the realm of the dead and brings forth fallen human soldiers. Depending on mastery level the number and classes of summoned skeletons may increase. Warning: True Necromancers can take control of your skeleton monsters.]

[Manacost: 600 Mana]

[Monster Core Cost: 1.200 Mana]

Current Mastery Benefits:

4 Standard Human Skeletons Weapons: [Wooden Club], [Nothing]

Twig raised a non existent eyebrow. Odd feeling. These skeletons were much cheaper than he originally thought. 600 mana and he got four at once. Which meant 150 mana each. With his current mana regeneration he would get nearly a full skeleton per minute! Sadly the weapons seemed rather weak and there were no other classes yet. If he could summon a necromancer skeleton, then he would be able to have a bone factory! Which he did not need to waste mana on!

But that was still a hypothetical so Twig just shrugged and summoned them two times. The summoning itself felt very much different. It was not creating something, rather he was calling them forth. They obeyed and crept out of the nether. Eyeing them all the observed that only 2 had clubs for weapons. And one of them was special. It had hair! Just a bit, and very thing, but hair nonetheless. Maybe he would at some point spawn one with a marvelous afro?

Shrugging off the thought he called over his stone golem. Time to test their defenses. “45 degrees!”, he ordered his golem. The stone giant then fell over, doing a full 90. Flattening three skeletons below itself and, most likely, killing them. Slowly it stood up again. Two were completely crippled, since their bones were broken on multiple joints and the third had his head crushed and was dead. Twig used his repair skill to restore the other two. Not as fragile as he had imagined. They would do as cannon fodder!

Since the golem incidents had kind of destroyed the garden he made the skeletons repair as well as they possibly could. If his master was mad at Twig, he would be really sad. Sometimes he just thought of the young master randomly and something reminded him how great he was. Twig was not allowed to disappoint!

Having taken care of repairs he took a look at his mastery. A additional 1.98% had added to his skeleton skill level. Not too bad. Sadly the repair skill had no mastery, so Twig would just have to wait until that randomly upgraded by itself. Since his mana had increased more than decreased he had the feeling that having a small army would not be unrealistic soon. Happily he moved on to the next monster. Zombie. Frowning his scaly forehead Twig decided that he wanted to try something else first. He was curious of dropping them from the sky.

[Cave Troll: A troll. While most of their species are rather dumb and cannot form logical thoughts, this species is capable of simple strategy, making them a powerful ally. They are highly loyal to their masters and try to protect them instinctively. As all troll species they heal very quickly from almost every wound. With increasing damage comes increasing wrath and they tend to go berserk. Warning: Tend to ignore orders when in Berserk-Mode.]

[Manacost: 2.500 Mana]

[Monster Core Cost: 5.000 Mana]

Current Mastery Benefits:

1 Cave Troll

Healing Rate: 1% missing health per second. Minimum: 0.01% maximum health.

Monster Core Bonus: 100% increase for healing effects.

Twig swallowed. The mana cost on this was just insane! Were Cave Trolls just so much stronger than golems? Or would the mana cost decrease with his mastery level? Hmm. The Monster Core spell seemed to be really useful here so Twig wanted to at least try it out. Unfolding his wings he rose as high as five meters to summon it. Sadly the spell seemed to only allow summoning it on the ground.

Mana flew through Twig, as he created a ball of energy, around which the Cave Troll formed. First looking like stone, lifeless and dead he soon started to move. He was pretty big. Smaller than other trolls huh? Twig made a mental note to be careful of trolls. Even this exemplar was at least two meters in size. But much more important than height was their huge bodies. Thick arms and legs, a body that brimmed with powerful muscles.

Twig casted [Ghost Shell] and switched places with the troll. He got used to the turning motion, soon he would be able to do it on a whim instead of casting it slowly. The troll fell out of the sky with a surprised grunt. His legs did not survive the impact, both broke. Apparently the giant did not mind, and just stood up nonetheless. Green liquid filled the wounds and closed them quickly. No blood flowed. Or at least did not leave its body.

The legs healed, but the wounds did not completely close. As the skill suggested the healing effect was much more effective if there was more damage. Not a drop-able monster. It would heal, yes. But the injuries would likely render it helpless for a few moments and Twig was not able to summon it while flying. Exchanging places would work only once and the distance would burn a lot of mana, so he threw that thought away. Maybe with steel golems?

While looking over the list again, thinking of what he could summon while flying he also thought about goblins. He had once encountered wild ones before. They were rather crafty, even though they were weak. And they just seemed to multiply whenever Twig had not been looking directly at them.

But what in the world was a hobgoblin???