When he woke up, everything was dark once again. It took him a while to get his bearings, but once he did, light slowly started returning to his world. He was still in the same room as before. The circlets that covered the floor had stopped glowing entirely.

Jacob, or rather — Ibras, looked around. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that his true name was listed as Ibras, but he didn't feel comfortable with referring himself as Jacob anymore.

Anyways, no matter what he preferred to refer to himself as now, he no longer felt like there was an overbearing presence looming over him like he had felt when he first woke up here.

He looked at a spot just outside the circlets on the floor, the spot where Salamar had stood before. There lay a body, its clothes charred and its visible skin a weird mix between a bloated red and burned black color.

Ugh. That's disgusting. Did I do really do that?

Ibras floated over towards the ravaged corpse of his 'master'. Unlike before, there was no invisible barrier that stopped him from exiting the boundary of the circuit that covered the floorboards. He stopped beside the body and observed it with a mix of disgust and satisfaction.

Well, survival of the fittest and all that, you know?

...Wait, that makes me sound like a horrible person.

Karma's a bitch. There, that's better.

...Or is it?

He shook his head. Or he would have — if he had one. His body had reverted to its cloud-like state, so instead, he just shook his entire body. When he realized this, he tried shaping his body like that of a human as he had done before. Through his will, he managed to form his body into the general shape of a man without any real features. He then looked around himself once again.

He'd noticed it before, but this room really was huge. There were enough books on the shelves here that, even if you read almost non-stop for a whole year, you'd be unlikely to finish them all. Just the thought sent shivers down Ibras' ethereal spine. As Jacob, he'd always liked reading. But only things he considered fun, and the list of things he considered fun to read was narrow. Whenever he read science articles or the like, he'd be lucky to manage it for more than a minute before jumping out of a window. Sometimes literally... Don't ask.

He kept glancing about the room when a thought struck him. How was he seeing right now? He'd been too preoccupied with the whole 'I died and was summoned as a magic slave' thing before to notice, but he was lacking eyes. And neurons. Plus a couple of other things that were generally considered necessary when it came to biological functions. Now, he wasn't a person to look a gift-horse in the mouth, but he felt like his current body was severely lacking in some areas. And yet it functioned surprisingly well. Hell, he was pretty sure his vision now was better than when he actually had eyes. After all, he didn't have a 360-degree field of vision before. He was both confused over how he was able to see right now and surprised that it took him this long to notice the difference from before.

Wonder if I can still eat things. Else that'd be a real bummer.

As Ibras looked around the room, his eyes landed on the desk at the end of the room. It was made out of beautifully ornated, black wood and had piles of books and papers spread over it. He glanced down at Salamar's charred body.

It's not prying if the person is dead, right? Besides, I bet that guy was a person who'd steal ice cream from little girls. He deserves it.

He walked over to the desk. Or rather, he floated over and moved his legs so that it looked like he was walking. It did look a bit odd as he was actually floating a couple of inches above the ground, but there was no one around to call him out for it. When he reached the desk, he looked over the books and papers that lay on it. He tried grabbing a book but was discouraged when his intangible hand failed to grasp it. The best he could do was nudge the book slightly after he focused on his hand as hard as he could, imagining it solidifying.

Cool three-hundred sixty degrees vision did not make up for being unable to interact with objects. If he could, he would have frowned right about now. Yet another feature his body was lacking.

Instead, he sighed inside his mind and inspected the other books that lay on the desk. One, in particular, caught his attention. It was a large book that was currently opened, its yellow-tinted pages filled with hand-written text. Thankfully for him, it was written in a language that he could understand, even though he was certain that he had never witnessed it before.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

'Entry 856' The text read at the top of the page. Ibras' curiosity was spiked by this and he started reading was else was written.

'All the necessary reagents have been gathered for the forthcoming attempt. I did run into slight trouble procuring the draconian fibers, and I only have enough mana flower dust for one more attempt, but that will not pose a problem. I am sure that I will succeed this time. The summoning circuit has finally been completed, and I am currently working on completing the circuits for the assorted binding spells. It doesn't matter how powerful this being will be; even a dragon would have problems going against these spells. I will perform this ritual in a week when the constellations of Oxreus and Gathar intersect. According to the Voedia kingdom's notes, that is supposedly the best time to perform it. I can understand the logic behind it. It is said that the outlanders that are summoned are usually close to death. Thus it makes sense to use the time when the God of the Afterlife's constellation intersects with the God of Beginning's constellation.'

Several thoughts moved around in Ibras' head. How long had this guy been planning to summon him for? Who were these outlanders that were mentioned? And gods? Really?

I guess I can't question it, considering what I've seen so far. If magic exists, why not gods?

He thought over the matter for a few seconds, before reaching out his faintly glowing hand towards the book. While he couldn't grab the book, he could muster enough force to awkwardly turn the pages. He turned the pages for a couple of minutes before he reached the spot he was interested in.

'Entry 1' It said at the top of the page. Ibras smiled inwardly. It was time to see what that old man had been planning.

'I recently lost Invi, my high elemental servant. That damn bastard refuses to stop interfering in my business. I can not count how many of my servants and resources I have lost due to him by now. It is all because he somehow managed to contract that lesser deva. If I want to rid myself of that nuisance once and for all, I will need a spirit that can rival that deva of his. But finding an elemental that powerful is as good as impossible. They aren't pure enough. Finding an infernal or deva would be easier, but they are too unreliable. Contracting them isn't reasonable. Besides, I am not proficient in dealing with either holy or demonic energy. But what if I could create a new type of spirit? An equivalent to devas and infernals, but out of pure mana? If I could have a being like that as my servant, then no one could interfere with me anymore.'

Ibras read over the entry one more time. From what he read here, he guessed that he was that spirit that was made out of pure mana. And Salamar had created him because he was fighting with some random guy that had one of these 'devas' on his side? Ibras turned the pages to a newer entry.

'Entry 95

Another failure. The elemental I summoned for the experiment could not handle the massive amounts of pure mana and was obliterated. Not to mention the troubles I've had with calculating all the different spells needed. Finding a decent subject for creating the spirit turns out to be exceedingly difficult.'

'Entry 343

Failure once again. This time I spent a large amount of resources to summon a high elemental for the ritual, but its soul still could not handle it and was obliterated by the purity of the mana as I tried to create its body. If a high elemental can not survive the process, what can?'

'Entry 387

In my search for potential subjects that can survive the process, I have found a possible alternative. The outlanders that are sometimes summoned to our world are often powerful and are said to be from a world without magic and traits. Their souls are sure to go through much and are likely protected by the gods during the summoning. I am sure that, if I performed the ritual as I summoned one of them, their soul would be able to survive the process. I merely have to acquire the summoning ritual first.'

Ibras kept turning the pages through the different entries, reading the ones that looked interesting.

'Entry 713

It took me a long time and much preparation, but I finally managed to acquire the summoning ritual that is used to summon the outlanders. The kingdom of Voedia's security was almost impermeable, I will admit. But they were the closest kingdom that I knew had access to the ritual, and not even they could stop me forever. Now I merely have to gather the correct reagents and wait for the allotted time, then my years of efforts will finally be rewarded.'

Ibras stopped reading after a while. Salamar seemed to have spent a lot of time and effort on successfully summoning and creating a new type of spirit. He even stole a priceless summoning ritual from a kingdom. Ibras had to admit, that did sound impressive. Too bad Salamar died right after he succeeded with his attempt.

But Ibras was curious about that summoning ritual, and these 'outlanders' that Salamar mentioned in his notes. From the way it was written, it seemed to Ibras like 'outlander' was just another name for people like him, who were summoned here from earth. So he wasn't the only one.

Although, considering the unique circumstances in his summoning, he was probably the only outlander who was summoned as a spirit and didn't have a corporeal body. A bit of a bummer. But still, he'd like to meet one of these 'outlanders'. He wondered how many there were. If the summoning ritual itself was this rare, and best performed during a specific time, that had to mean that outlanders were rare too, right?

He'd have to figure that out later. Right now, Ibras was tired of reading and wanted to find out where he was. He looked around the room he was in until he spotted the exit. Then, without further ado, he started to pretend walking his way over there.