Flashback to summoning the tank crew:
After I murmured the incantation to summon the military, my incorporeal form was teleported to a beach at nighttime, half-illuminated by vehicle lights. Surrounding me were tanks, military warboats, missile honeycomb erectors, drones, and soldiers wearing USA army uniforms, as well as soldiers wearing Japanese army uniforms. I assumed they were having a joint army exercise on some Japanese island.
I wanted to explore further, but my spiritual chi had only one minute remaining. In a hurry, I started looking for the most suitable weapon to help me fight the hordes of undead. At first, I thought the honeycomb erectors would do the trick, but I realized tanks might be more versatile for my situation. So, I touched the nearest tank, an Abrams 3rd generation tank, in camo color, painted for jungle camouflage.
After I touched the tank, a notification popped up: "Summon Abrams M1A3 military tank mana cost 800.
Crews:
Summon Steven Rock mana cost 50,
Summon Tucker Philips mana cost 50,
Summon John Hails mana cost 50.
Total cost for summoning 950/summoned count required 2. Yes/no."
I still had 1000 mana remaining and exactly 2 remaining summon counts for the day. I felt lucky that these were all the requirements. I reminded myself not to spend my summon count on unnecessary stuff like I did with the binoculars before, so without wasting more spiritual chi, I clicked on "yes."
There was a short profile on their info tab, but I ignored it for now.
Back to the present:
MC's POV:
During the first wave, I hid behind a large boulder, taking cover from the volleys of arrows shot by the undead archers, some of which almost pierced me to death. But after they were wiped out by the tank, I stayed in my position and silently observed the undead massacre, which lasted almost 15 minutes.
I knew the tank wouldn't be able to stop the bone dragon due to its insane recovery speed, so I patiently waited for the bone dragon to come out of its hiding position.
after the first wave was almost wiped out the bone dragon had cast its spell again, this time directly above the hill and from inside the red vortex spell emerged large flying creatures, easily twice the size of a cow, resembling large bats, approximately 100 of them.
for seconds too late I fail to realized what it was up to. It knew that my single target RPG was the main damage dealer, so it used the large flying bats as a shield from the projectiles. It made an impressive leap from its hiding spot and launched toward our location at full speed.
'Shit, this thing just won't quit,' I cursed in my mind. I even shot the RPG at it but hit the large bats instead. But after it abruptly stopped 100 meters from our location and spewed out blue flames toward us for the first time, my heart sank as I realized it was the most dangerous spell it was known for.
After the foul blue flames, which were not hot at all, hit me, I lost my vision for two seconds, and I saw a red alert notification at the corner of my vision. It read: "{Necrotic breath spell negated due to holy water buff}."
I knew the people inside the tank wouldn't be so lucky. Sure enough, all the firing and movement by the tank ceased, as if the driver had lost consciousness. So, I rushed toward the tanks as quickly as I could, in hopes of giving them the holy water before they completely turned into undead. I was too foolish to realize that It could cast that spell from such a range. If they died, I would be totally guilty for that.
Just when the bone dragon was about to cast more summon spell for more flying minions to attack me, it stopped abruptly, and then I saw its massive bony structure collapse. I even heard a loud crashing sound from the impact, and even the heat signature in my infrared vision slowly died down. Also, all the undead and large flying bats flying toward the tank fell to the ground and stopped moving.
I let out a huge sigh of relief. 'They finally did it,' I murmured. Just at this moment, an exhausted voice of Valcy came from my headphone, "we finally did it," she said. I even saw a notification at the corner of my vision that read:
"[Your, summon vengeance, had slain an (S-tier) undead. Experience shared among all party members. You have leveled up to level 10; all stats raised^]
[You gained the title]
[undead dragon slayer] = permanent buff +20% more damage dealt to undead and dragons.]
[The strategist] = permanent +10% increase in IQ.]
Damn, a 10% increase in IQ, am I going to be smarter now, I thought in amusement.
There was more notification, but I ignored them for now. I was in a hurry to get to the tank crew as fast as I could. After carefully making my way through piles of remains surrounding the tank, I finally reached the tank. I tried to open the door but realized it was locked from the inside. 'Damn it, I will need Valcy for this,' I thought.
"Well done, I love you guys, but please come to my location as fast as you can; we have an emergency," I informed Valcy with urgency in my tone.
"Okay, I am on my way," she said without asking anything else.
After half a minute or so, Valcy, who was rushing here at full speed, finally reached my position.
"What happened? Did you get hurt anywhere?" she inquired with a concerned tone while examining my body with her gaze.
"I am fine, but I need your help opening this lid; there are people inside this vehicle who got hit by the necro breath," I informed her with urgency in my tone.
I was already on top of the tank trying to figure out how to open the lid. Soon, Valcy made a jump and landed on top of the tank near me.
"Hurry, help me pull this out," I requested her. Sure enough, after she asserted her full strength, we heard a loud sound of metal bending, like something was broken. By now, I had a rough guess of Valcy's strength; she was strong enough to easily deadlift 1000 pounds or more, and with her dexterity, she could easily be considered a super soldier or a deadly assassin. After approximately 10 seconds of pulling the lid, it finally snapped open. Inside, we found three unconscious bodies; their skin had almost turned purple due to the necro spell. We hastily brought them outside and force-fed them the holy water.
After they drank the holy water, their complexions returned to normal, but they still showed no sign of regaining consciousness. I was worried, so I fed them more holy water and even healing potions just in case. Seeing my concerned face, Valcy made her observation.
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"They are fine now; you don't need to feed them more holy water. I see no aura of necro poison in their bodies anymore. It's just that their brains might have gone into temporary coma. It happens when one gets exposed to necro spells or corpse poison for some time. These men will need some rest to regain their consciousness, maybe a day or two," Valcy commented. I believed her, so I stopped feeding them the potions.
I was in a dilemma; the remaining time before they get reverse summoned back to Earth was only still 25 hours for my level. Should I send them now so that they can rest properly in a bed or wait for them to regain consciousness? We were also pressed for time because we had made a lot of noise in the valley, and sooner or later, some brave soul would come to investigate. Also, there were people trying to interpret the entrance of the ruin from the monument, and by any luck or skill, it would point them toward this location.
After some time of contemplation, I finally decided to send them back to Earth in advance. So, we placed them inside the tank, ready to reverse summon them. I didn't want to send them empty-handed, though, so I neatly placed 15 gold coins, which roughly weighed 35 ounces. I knew that gold was almost worth $2000 per ounce on Earth. I also placed 30 vials of healing potions and 15 vials of mysterious holy potions, which would be extremely valuable if they still had the same effects back on Earth. I also included a note on their uses and a lot of death threats to anybody who tried to take them from these men without equal compensation. This was actually my first experiment of trying to send things from Tera to Earth. If it worked out, it would change my whole perspective on reverse summoning and the many possibilities it indicated.
But before coming outside the tank, I heard some noise from one of the headphones inside the tank. It sounded like someone was saying something. So, out of curiosity, I got close to it to listen to it.
"Hello, who are you? What did you do to these men? Are they still alive?" questioned a female voice cautiously.
"They are fine, but they are in a temporary coma. When they regain their consciousness, tell them I am sorry because it was my fault they lost their consciousness, and thank them for assisting me in defeating the bone dragon. As for myself, I am just a sorcerer from another world," I said to the woman on the other side and left the tank cabin. I could hear the woman saying, "Wait," and wanting to ask more questions, but we didn't really have much time to sit and chat. Maybe next time I would personally thank these men for their help, as I could summon them anytime now that I remembered their faces and names.
After we came out of the tank, I pressed the reverse summon button for the tank crew and intently watched as it disappeared with a flash of bright light. It actually worked; I couldn't believe my eyes. The potions and coins all disappeared with the tank. Damn, that's awesome. I would need to explore more about these powers tomorrow after my summon count reset.
"Oh, by the way, where is Vengeance?" I asked Valcy after I had reverse summoned the tank crew back to Earth.
"He might be inside the cave; I came in a hurry after you called me," replied Valcy. Just at this moment, a squeak came from my speaker, affirming her words. "Okay, little guy, wait there; we are on our way," I said to the mouse.
After 2 minutes of semi-sprinting, we reached the bone dragon cave. There were so many piles of bones and rotten corpses everywhere in here. Even after getting a temporary necro miasma buff, the smell was horrendous, so I put on the mask again.
"Well done, Vengeance," I complimented him sincerely. While letting him climb on my fingers, I asked, "Okay, now what do you request of me?"
After I let him type on my notepad again, he wrote:
{First, inform me before you summon me. I might be in the middle of something important, so here is my number: +1-***-***-***. Secondly, I need an item that has mana imbued in it, like that golden sparkling water I drank. Thirdly, I need a human assistant on Earth who is not afraid of an intelligent mouse."}
"Wow, that's doable," I assured him. "But for a human assistant, it will take some time to find the right person. For now, I can give you some healing potions and evolved holy water from Earth," I explained.
"By the way, do you want to go on a ruin exploration with us or should I reverse summon you back to earth?"
"[Yes, I would like to go]", he wrote after he agreed, Valcy led us to the shield entrance.
The locked door was huge, almost 20 feet tall and 10 feet wide. Nomist race can be considered as giants for humans, as they were as tall as 10 feet and above. Let's see what's written here.
"If you seek the knowledge that lies within, show us your worthiness." Just when I was wondering what they were asking us to prove, gears started churning near the door, and a blue light from the door started scanning us.
"Candidates confirmed: A mouse, an elf, and a human. Trial begins in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1," said a robotic male voice in nomist language. Out of the blue, a large TV-sized screen popped out from the door, displaying some writings that looked like math equations.
Q1: If 1 adult dragon weighs a million pounds, how many pounds will 100 dragons weigh?
Well, that's easy; it will be 100 million pounds. So, I clicked on 100 million.
Q2: What will be the flying speed of a dragon who can travel above the speed of sound?
Huh, that will be above 343 meters per second.
Q3: If an ancient dragon's breath contains the energy of 0.1% of a yellow star, what is the total energy of a yellow star?
That will be 1000 ancient dragon breaths.
Q4: Is mana a limited source of energy or infinite?
Wow, this one is tricky. On Earth, we don't really have mana, so I guess it will be limited. Just to be sure, I asked Valcy; she said elves believe it's an infinite amount of energy. So, I asked Vengeance too; he also believed it was infinite. as the majority vote won, I clicked on "infinite," and surprisingly, it was the right answer.
Huh, does that mean the nomist race knows about an infinite amount of universes? That's interesting. The questions were mostly advanced math and physics of this world. Some answers were given by Valcy, and some by the mouse, which was quite unreal to see a mouse so knowledgeable in advanced physics. But mostly, the questions were related to dragons. I couldn't understand why the person who had designed this entrance test was so fixated on dragons and the ancient dragon race in particular.
After answering more than 100 questions, which we got a perfect score on by brainstorming together, the large door slowly creaked open, and even the cave started shaking like a 4.5 magnitude earthquake. For a moment, I feared that the ceiling might collapse on us, but luckily, after the door fully opened, it didn't happen.
Inside, there was a large hallway leading toward a spacious room that looked like a runic workshop with many rune-enchanted tools. This room gave me the vibe of a steampunk lab, with luminescent dim lights powered by mana. In this continent, it was considered as rare and expensive pieces of work that master enchanters crafted. Only royalty and nobles had them in their palaces. The majority of the people used lamps, oil, and candles made from animal fats.
Even in my parents' estate, only the kitchen, the ballroom, and the library had those lights. There were so many valuables inside this room. For the nomes, it might just be normal everyday common items, but in today's world, where most of the production methods for these items are lost, they would be considered rare artifacts. As if the world were devolving backward in mage tech, due to too much violence and war, even the world powers like kings and empires depended heavily on blessed individuals more than focusing on innovation and research.
I was going to loot everything valuable here, I chuckled. "Hey, guys, take whatever you fancy and leave whatever you don't require, for me," I informed them.
After I said that, we all went exploring the spacious room for unique items, and of course, the most valuable thing was still the inheritance of the nomes. It was quite difficult to identify amidst the plethora of peculiar things in here; any one of them could be the so-called inheritance. In our eyes, all of them looked important. I was cautious of any traps in the hallway, but there were none. Whoever designed this secret room must have been very confident that the IQ test was the only deciding factor to open the door, which was built by mag-tech security features.
Honestly, traps would be useless if someone above S+ tier wanted to enter here. As I saw more things, I realized that even their tables and chairs were almost above my height. These furnishings were built for 10-foot individuals and above. Just as I was wondering how I could fit some of the valuable items in my limited space inventory, I heard Valcy's voice calling me.
"Gray, I found something interesting; you may want to take a look." After I went to her and stood near her location, I saw she was holding a luminescent glowing capsule.
"What is it?" I asked her with curiosity in my tone.
"I have only seen an illustration of this in one of the old elven literatures. I think these are called memory capsules, a revolutionary artifact invented by nomes. However, the method of production was held secret by them. After they were wiped out, nobody was able to recreate them. This may potentially be the inheritance," she explained.
"Don't you want to have it?" I asked her, but her reply surprised me.
"I think you deserve it more than me; your potential is unlimited. Maybe when you are stronger, you could help me out," she said with a complicated look on her face. By her facial expression, it was clear that she was hiding some secrets from me. Maybe it's time for a heart-to-heart talk because to have reliable and loyal friends, sharing secrets is a key ingredient. I really wanted Valcy to be with me for a long time, so I took off my mask and said, "First, tell me the reason why I should be more deserving of the inheritance than you."