The Tier 2 summon was a truly terrifying creature, it had more presence than almost anything I had ever seen. Even when I stared into the captains eyes, I didn't feel the firmness of danger that I did right now.

The creature was huge. It stretched out on the rock outcrop that seem to have sprouted with the great beast. It was also just possibly the ugliest thing I had ever seen in my life.

The rest of creatures were at least in one regard or another somewhat cute in their weird ways, this thing was anything but. A giant frame supported by six spindly legs. The face some weird mash of man and squirrel, the armored back a dark hue that clashed greatly with the general lightness of his unprotected skin. Weird hair like spikes popped up all along his back. The horns shortened and stunted as if they were not allowed to grow properly.

Sensing my general distaste for its appearance, it lumbered to its feet, with far greater speed than I could have expected it jumped into action and soon appeared right over me, staring down in challenge.

Not that there would be much of one. It was still far beyond my limit to summon currently, but the fact I still had access to such a power if I was willing to sacrifice life force was an odd feeling.

A monster like this could have wreaked great havoc in town for quite some time before it would be brought down. Yet here it was in my dominion.

It wasn't totally subdued, like my Tier 1 summons, but I knew that one day I would be able to make use of him in any situation in life. Not that he would be all that useful outside of quite specific circumstances, like I was being chased by a giant beast and needed the help of another giant beast to fight it.

Still the elation of having such power under my grasps, brought me a sense of euphoria, it was a hard journey so far, filled with strife and lost, but I have seen some great gains already, so the situation could be far worse.

I spent some time chatting with the grove-tenders about the future, that by Tier 3 they would be able to take seeds from the real world and allow them to grow in my astral world far quicker, they would lose a bit of potency, but that was just one of the far off plans.

After that I did a full walk around the limits of my Inner world so far. It was tiny compared to the vast expanse I saw when I awakened, meaning I still had quite some ways to go.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

The grove-tenders village took up a good fifth of the entire space, it was a simple affair. Small tepees and a meter high wall running around the outer limits, they promised that one day it would rival the greatest capitals in the world, so I would have to explore for them to get some good ideas.

A small unpopulated lake was set up beside the village, unlike Joyd's inner lake which he had control over, this just gave me the sense of storage, to keep my creatures safe and alive, rather than being able to control water myself, they would be able to do so.

The central clearing hadn't changed a small area of safety in the wider world. All it had done was become more solid, moving from a soft mud, into a much harder affair of gravel and loose bits of stone. My shielding abilities had quite far to go, that much was clear. The small mountain range that was what remained of the land, all the more powerful beasts so far, residing around their.

I wasn't sure why the majority of my power was located in one area of my Inner world, but I am sure it would equal out as time went on, my natural affinity for earth and protection probably being responsible for the unequal spread of power, which would hopefully change in the future.

Feeling a sense of safety after quite a long while, returning to my mortal form, I lost conscious quickly.

The pounding of my door was what awoke me. It wasn't very pleasant.

"You better open this door right fucking now or I am going to blast it open"

Ah lirin was here. He didn't seem best pleased for whatever reason.

Getting to my feet was difficult, my body really didn't want to respond and get up, but Iirins threats getting progressively more maniacal and painful forced me out of the comfy brick of a bed.

The door opening brought Iirin to a stop before he could complain any further.

The look of disgust from seeing my bedraggled appearance seemed to give him pause for just a second, before a glare returned to his face.

"What the hell time do you think this is?"

I had no idea.

"I have no idea, I don't have a clock or a timepiece of any sort in my room, so how am I supposed to know"

He seemed pretty happy to ignore me as he ordered me to get dressed and to make my way as quickly as possible to the training area.

All I could do was nod, make my way back into the room and try to make myself look as presentable as possible, which wasn't all that much.

After a few minutes of tired dressing I managed to get out of the room dragging my body behind me.

Appearing in the courtyard, I was happy enough to see that I wasn't the last of the Captives to arrive, and almost all of them looked as bad as me.

The Captains face was an odd mix of a grimace and a grin. The anger he felt for our late appearances being trumped by some other sense of glee.

When the last people finally arrived he started.

"Now kids, today you will be sparring."