Ifritt was absolutely stewing in anger. 26 summons already, and none of them worth a dam! Only retarded two-bit mages that thought they had the skills to control him. It took even less than 1 hour for Ifritt to have all of them kill themselves in one way or another. Sure, the summon contract prevented the demon from DIRECTLY killing his so-called “master”, but it did not prevent said demon from pulling aggro on a lot of trash mobs in a dungeon, or alarm all of the guards in a city, or teaching the mage-summoner a defective spell that would self-immolate said mage when cast etc. Basically, there were many ways in which an experienced demon would be able to get rid of his “unwanted” summoner, and all of the would-be warlocks that had called upon him so far had basically been children that played with forces they had no idea how to control properly.
*Prjiiiing* The summoning token chimed again.
"I swear on Sadan's left testicle, if this is another succubus summon by some sexually frustrated mage, I am just going to fucking drop this token altogether and find another." Ifritt thought to himself.
It wasn't really that easy to find a summoning token capable of handling Ifritt's spirit in Hell. It had taken quite a bit of creative thinking, some sausages, bubble gum, duct tape and a goat to get that skank of a succubus to cough up the token.
And you do not want to know how hard it is to find all of those items in Hell in the first place. Such things were a rarity down below, and could only be found within the more orderly territories ruled by the devils, which were the only beings in Hell that actually bothered to create things like luxuries and commodities for themselves, even if they were twisted or shoddy versions of their surface counterparts.
*Prjiiiing*
*Prjiiiing*
"Ok hold your horses, I'm coming, I'm coming. Shees, gods damn those impatient mages!" Ifritt yelled while activating the runic circle on the token.
Again, the unpleasant sensation of being sucked through a straw came about, and Ifritt found himself back onto the surface of the world.
Except that this time, instead of finding himself in the middle of an improvised summoning circle created with chicken blood and poorly done scribbles in chalk, he found himself in the middle of a runic circle made out of alchemical mercury that had been poured into intricate carvings which had been built into the floor, the hallmark of a proper summoning mage that knew about the importance of the initial summoning circle, which was also a modifier to the total power output that the demon could manifest into the world once he got uptop.
Other proper "materials" had also been used as sacrifices and power boosters during the summoning ritual as far as Ifritt could tell from the couple of shriveled corpses that had been bled dry and tossed aside, making this look like a serious summoning attempt by someone who knew a thing or two about demonology.
Still, the Ancient Demon found himself facing another youngster with a bloodied dagger in hand, which was now shuffling the pages of a demon-summoning book, looking baffled about the “unexpected” results that had come out of the summoning circle.
"Hmm, did I mess up some part of the ritual? It says here that this was supposed to be a summoning circle aimed at calling one of the 13 Matrons of Seduction. Why the hell did a Fire Demon come out instead?" The fancy looking youngster kept mumbling to himself.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
"Hmmm... It does not matter, maybe I can use this one instead…"
"Hrr! I do not like being ignored, whelp!" Ifritt growled at the youngster.
"And I do not like demons that talk back. Know your station, minion!" The human boy said back arrogantly towards the demon while activating a secondary runic circle meant for shackleing demons in a very painful way.
*BroooongShkling* Ifritt felt his demonic essence get pinned to the floor, but could only sport a laughing grin upon his face as he analysed the “essence” of the youngster which had summoned him. The boy was absolutely glowing, looking like a huge font of inexhaustible mana. Compounded by the fact that he had taken the precaution of installing a secondary and even tertiary suppression circle, his overall arrogant behaviour, and the very expensive and high quality “materials” that he had sacrificed during the summon made Ifritt somewhat like the boy's spunk.
"How should this one address the Master then?" Ifritt changed his tune.
"You stand in the presence of greatness, demon! My name is Hongmu Qin, the 4'th prince in line for the throne of the Qin Empire, and I am in need of your…”services”. As you might imagine, being the fourth isn't exactly in line with my ambitions, therefore I will need your assistance in culling a series of my senior “brotherly” chaffs that superseed me for the position of Emperor. I had planned for a series of assassinations based upon the art of seduction that a succubus usually employs passively, but I guess brute forcing it might work as well. Still, all of that will depend on your statistics. I hope you are not some sort of second-rate crappy demonic minion that just wanted a vaction on the surface." The prince released the suppression formation.
"Follow me."
"Yes, Master."
Just as the two were leaving the summoning room, Ifritt noticed a cluster of roots that could only have belonged to a Weirdwood Tree which were now piercing through the roof of the summoning chamber at weird angles.
This is brilliant! Building the summoning circle right under the Tree itself! The efficiency of the sacrificed materials would increase exponentially by doing that! It probably took only a couple of virgins to get this summoning ritual powered up to this output level! Ifritt thought to himself.
The Prince led the Fire Demon one floor higher, and into an adjacent room.
"Put your hand on that orb, I want to measure your overall output."
"Yes, Master."
Ifritt took a look of curiosity upon the obsidian crystal orb that sat in front of him. Placing one of the hands of his newly-mana-conjured “body” onto the object, Ifritt started to see glowing magma-like golden numbers that rapidly began to count upwards on the surface of the ball at a steady rate, as the thing took its time to measure his current statistics.
After the orb reached the end results and almost cracked, Ifritt was left quite pleased with the outcome.
"25% of my real output? Amazing! Not bad, not bad at all! I can do a whole lot of things with 25%. That is an incredibly high number for a meager mortal's summon! I've never seen any summoner achieve such a high number before! You must be some sort of a genius, kid!"
On the other hand, the Prince was left with a totally stunned expression on his face for a few seconds, before he began laughing evilly like a maniac.
"Oh my gods, look at those numbers! That's even better than an S rank Raid Boss! That is totally overpowered! You! Who the hell are you? The Prince narrowed his eyes.
"I am Ifritt, the keeper of the Secret Fire...and you my friend, have hit the jackpot!"
"Secret Fire? What's so Secret about it?"
"It is SOO Secret, that even I don’t know anything about it! I’m just the Keeper, so I just use the Flame on anything that I feel deserves thorough incineration! It’s also a nice source of fire for backyard barbecues!"
"Pfhuahahaaaa!"
"Mwahahaha!"
Two concurrent evil laughters could be heard coming from below the Fourth Summer Palace of the Qin dynasty, sending chills down the spines of all of the palace guards as they heard the noises.
Ifritt was back, and he was going to make that bitch pay!