About a week had passed since Max had gotten used to the small additions to his routine. During that time, he had produced a good number of mana pills, and he had received praise in a letter from Mong Hao Han. How the Summoner Headmaster knew that Max was getting stronger, he had no idea. At least the man didn’t know what Max had pulled with the Shadow Sun Rising. None of the Headmasters would probably ever imagine that he would give away such a precious weapon.

He was in his magic research room when suddenly his tablet emitted a small notification sound. After Max checked it, his eyebrows rose, and he smiled. The circle that he'd given to Lance had yielded success. Max had shown Lance how to use the circle, made him memorize it, then destroyed the instructions. After that, it had all been up to Lance, who had now found success.

In his tablet, Max messaged, [Do you want to meet somewhere to talk about it or celebrate?]

Lance responded, [Nope, don't worry about it. I've already got snacks, and I'm heading over to your place.]

Max snorted. Ever since Lance had seen his dorm, the man had been coming up with practically any excuse imaginable to stop over. It was as if even after all this time, he couldn't quite believe where Max lived. Max had considered buying Lance his own fancy dorm but had decided against it. He had a long way to go before he could start wasting resources like that. It would probably never be feasible. He needed to reach a level where he could protect himself and others and it would just get more expensive to grow as time went on.

Since Max had bought his own dorm, he'd come to see it as an investment because it allowed him to increase his power and knowledge much more efficiently. Lance just didn't have that kind of drive, and he had already remarked about how much easier it would be to get alone with Belle if he had his own dorm. Max definitely wanted his friend to be happy, but he wasn't about to use the resources meant for saving his family and the rest of Earth to make Lance’s love life more convenient.

His friend showed up at his door about ten minutes later. Max instructed the golem to let him in using a method that he had discovered almost by accident a few days ago. It involved envisioning the dorm’s menu in his mind. Doing so actually popped up a dorm-only status screen.

Lance made a beeline for the magic research room one he was past the front door. Max hadn’t told them that was where he’d be, but it was an accurate guess. Lance burst in like a whirlwind with boxes of food in both hands and said, "Dude, this is freaking awesome!" Then he stopped dead in his tracks with an expression of confusion.

"What's wrong?" asked Max.

"Well, my spirit I contracted with—he's usually a really laid-back, joking sort of guy in his own way—but he just got really scared and quiet."

"Oh?”

“Yeah, give me a second."

Max watched Lance put the food down on the floor and get a faraway look in his eye, apparently talking to his spirit. Max mentally asked Lavinia, Do you think Lance is very talented as a Summoner? Thinking about other Summoners in terms of talent hadn’t really been on his rader until recently.

Not really.

Well, good thing he got the summoning circle, then.

Finally Lance looked up and said, "He's afraid of you," then paused. "No, he's afraid of your spirits."

Max remembered Lavinia's reaction when he first met Headmaster Mon Hao Han. He asked her how to fix the situation. When I met Mong Hao the first time, what would have made you more comfortable? He held up a hand for Lance to wait while Lavinia answered.

She slowly said, I think that part of what was so scary is that I could feel edges of how powerful the spirits were, but I couldn't actually see them. It was kind of like maybe when people go out in the dark with no flashlight. Even if the things out there are scary, if you know what they are and you know they're not going to attack you, the fear is easier to handle.

She sighed mentally. Maybe not the best way to explain it.

No, he disagreed."Maybe we can work with that.

Max said to Lance, "Can you ask your spirit to manifest so that everyone can see him visually?"

Lance slowly nodded. "I think so, give me a sec." A moment later, on the floor nearby, there was a semi-translucent gnome, or what looked like a gnome. On his pointy hat, there was an image of an open eye that could have been drawn with a ballpoint pen. He had his thumbs in his little red overalls and was looking down at the floor, obviously nervous.

"This is Eyel," said Lance. "Eyel, this is my friend Max." The little spirit raised one orange hand in greeting before quickly putting it back behind his suspender. He didn't look up the entire time.

"Awesome," said Max. "What can Eyel do? What does he help you do?"

"Oh!" Lance puffed out his chest with pride and said, "Eyel gives me 360-degree vision, like I have eyes in the back of my head now! I can also see in different color spectrums and even some stuff I don't exactly understand right now. It's a seeing power, and I haven't tried it yet, but I'm pretty sure I can use my third eye with it too."

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"No, no, no, no, don't do that," Max held his hands up. "Be careful how you use your third eye. Don't ask me how I know. It's kind of like putting your hand on a plate to see how hot it is. Everything's fine unless it's hot enough to burn you." Max made a face and looked up at the ceiling. "Actually, that was a great example."

He felt the phantom of an open hand gently pushing his head. Lavinia had caught the teasing.

Lance said, "Oh yeah, I think we went over something like that in class the other day.” He paused. “It's kind of weird you're not in school anymore."

"I sort of am," said Max. "I was actually thinking about sitting in on one of Momo's classes in a few days."

"Oh, it's that serious, huh?" Lance gave him a goofy look and waved his eyebrows.

Max shook his head. "No, she's just a friend for now, but she's talked about some of her classes that she’s in as a more advanced student, and they actually sound pretty interesting."

"Okay, cool," said Lance. "Now, are you going to have your spirits come out?"

"Oh yeah." Max made a quick mental request, and a second later, Lavinia stood next to him on his left side, her arms crossed as she regarded Eyel with something like curiosity. Then Slick appeared on the floor and immediately ran over to Eyel, who startled at the approach of the similar-sized spirit. But then Max's half of the room grew dark, the lights dimming as Saliron manifested. His voice seemed to echo around the room as he said, "You called, Master?"

"Holy fuck! Jesus Christ, what the fuck is that?" yelled Lance. He tried to back up to the door and almost fell over.

"Wait! Hold on, hold on," said Max. He glanced over at Saliron with irritation. "Do you think you can maybe let the light shine a little bit more?"

"As you wish, Master," Celerion drawled. It was obvious the spirit was very amused with himself.

"What the fucking fuck!?" yelled Lance.

Max pointed at Slick, who was currently holding hands with Eyel and jumping up and down. "That's Slick." Then he pointed at Lavinia. "This is Lavinia. I think you already knew of her." And then he hooked a thumb at the brooding Saliron, who was almost as tall as the ceiling of the room. "And that's Saliron. Slick is a soldier rank, but powerful. Lavinia is an officer class; she describes herself as a captain class. I think that’s an older style ranking. Saliron is a warlord class spirit."

Lance's mouth opened and closed like a fish. "Dude, you have that thing with you all the time!?"

"Anyway, that should be enough, right?" asked Max. He glanced at Lavinia, who gave a curt nod. Then Max mentally asked his spirits to de-manifest, except for Slick, who was given the option to hang out. After a quick, silent chat between Eyel and Slick, Slick turned to Max, shrugged, and the last two visible spirits vanished too.

"Okay, did that help?" asked Max.

Lance was still blinking rapidly but seemed to have had a quick talk with Eyel. "Yeah, Eyel says everything's better now, but dude, what the fuck? A warlord-level spirit?"

Suddenly, Lavinia popped into existence again. And out loud, she said, "You're not the smartest person in the world, are you, Lance? This situation is surprising you after everything else your friend has done?" Then she scoffed and disappeared again.

Lance slowly stood up straight, a bit of annoyance creeping through the other emotions on his face. "Your spirit's got a little bit of a mouth on her, doesn't she?"

Max laughed. "Yeah, I suppose she does at that, but she's also super awesome, and she's usually right." He felt a burst of approval and amusement from Lavinia through their bond. Max pointed at the boxes of food on the floor. "So, are we going to eat or what?"

***

About twenty minutes into his celebratory meal with Lance, Max got another sudden chime on his tablet. The front door golem was requesting his presence.

"What the hell?" he said.

"What is it?" asked Lance.

Max told him, and the two men got up, heading to the front door. At the door, in the distance, Max could see a receding golem, one of the workers in the Academy. He turned to regard his guard.

"Message for Max Cunningham.” In its hollow voice, the golem reported, "A denizen of the central area has left a box for you. It is waiting for you at the front gate. Would you like for me or one of the other guards to retrieve it?"

Max frowned. "No, that's fine. You stay here. I'm going to go check it out." He glanced at Lance, who gave a quick grin.

"Sounds interesting," said Lance. "I'll come with."

“Okay.” The two began heading for the gate to the Summoner Academy grounds.

It was a bit of a walk, but Max continued the conversation they'd been having earlier in his dorm room. Most of it revolved around ways that Lance could use Eyel’s power to help with his future combat style. The little spirit's ability wasn't entirely ideal for Lance, but was still powerful–extremely useful. In fact, Max wouldn't mind if he were to meet a spirit with Eyel’s power in the future. Because of this, it was even easier for him to give his friend advice.

After the long walk to the front gate, the gate guards wordlessly handed over what looked like a plain cardboard box. "We've already scanned it for any danger," said one of them, a younger-looking man with big sideburns. "Shouldn't be anything dangerous."

"Who left it?" asked Max.

The other gate guard on duty, an overweight, older man, gave a belly laugh and said, "It was a pretty girl." The other guard gave him a sharp look, and the man just laughed again. "What, are we supposed to just not answer? I have eyes."

"What the hell?" Lance muttered. He gave Max a searching look.

Max took the box, turned, and began slowly walking back to the academy. Once he was a decent distance from the gate, he opened the box to glance inside, his curiosity piqued. Lance looked over his shoulder, and it almost looked like the two guards at the gate were trying to sneak a peek from the distance too. Inside was a basket of cookies covered in some sort of translucent protection. And there was a note too. Max picked up the note while he carried the box in his other hand and read:

Max, I wasn't sure how to go about doing this, and I didn't want to be rude and send you a message to your tablet. Also, I didn't want to give the wrong impression, but I just wanted to say thank you for being so nice when you come into the store, and thank you for your business.

It was signed, "Amy (from Blade and Bow).”

"Uhh.” Max blinked and reread the message.

Lance looked up from the note incredulous. "Why do you have women coming out of the woodwork? Do they all send you cookies like this?"

Good question, said Lavinia in the back of his mind.

Max snagged one cookie and took a bite.

"Let me try one," asked Lance.

"Dude, you just..." Max started, but Lance interrupted.

"Let me try one," insisted Lance. “I’ve never had a woman send me cookies in my life!

In the back of his mind, Lavinia said, You should tell him to have Belle make him some. Her disapproval was clear.

Max was so surprised by the situation, he actually repeated what Lavinia had said. "Why don't you have Belle make you some?"

Lance backed off with an expression of over-the-top sadness. He made huge puppy dog eyes. "Fine, fine, a gift from a girl, I get it."

Meanwhile, in the back of Max's head, Lavinia cackled. She had developed a dislike for Belle that seemed to have been festering for a while.

Max sighed. He thought to himself, My social life was never this complicated when I was on Albion or back on Earth. It’s like the busier I get, the crazier everyone else gets.