Zachary slumped over, his head between his knees. He tried to push away the dark thoughts of his failure and his inevitable doom. With every ragged breath, daggers of agony sliced across his scalp and scraped against his skull. Cold sweat poured down his back as he resisted the urge to scream.

He had to give up on this method. It wouldn’t work even if he had the biggest anima crystal in the world and flawless pain tolerance. He would probably just end up brain-dead. This was the reason almost nobody dared to use the basic soul refining technique like this.

Sometime later, Jean-Pierre came by and nudged him on the shoulder. The sky was still pitch black.

Zachary stood up and patted his worn-out clothes. Blood covered the front of his shirt but he couldn’t do anything about that. It was his turn to stand watch until dawn.

“Toothache huh?” Jean-Pierre said.

Zachary shot him a warning glare.

Jean-Pierre shrugged, “Forget I asked.”

Zachary squeezed past him and climbed down to a lower branch just above the forest floor. He summoned Boba and scanned his surroundings with his snake.

After making sure that there were no Ensouled nearby, he landed on the ground. He went around the perimeter and checked the traps one by one. A few of them contained small critters. He killed the ones that were still alive and stored them in a bag to use as bait.

A deadfall trap had crushed and killed a lizard Ensouled. Its body was a brilliant yellow, hinting at it possibly being poisonous. He carefully sliced it apart and retrieved the anima crystal which was tinged with purple, the color of poison and death.

“Hoo… hoo!”

Zachary stilled at the call of an owl. He held his breath and looked around. He hoped that it had landed in their bird traps. He really wanted to catch it.

“Hoo!”

Following another cry, the tree branches directly above his head trembled slightly. The owl was gone. The night air remained calm and returned to silence. Boba, which had been curled around his arm, relaxed and stopped squeezing him.

Zachary continued his patrol. He cleaned all the traps, reset the triggers, and placed down fresh bait. He then returned to the tree to watch over the two net traps. So far, the strongest Ensouled had all been caught by these nets.

He wondered what kind of creatures would wander here tonight. Despite the terrible headache, he was constantly thinking about the type of summon that would best suit his current situation. As his teachers in the past liked to say, a summoner was nothing without their summons.

The jungle contained many possibilities. Some were strong, others were sneaky. Some flew across the sky while others burrowed underground. In the same sense, a summoner could have different specializations based on their lineup of summons and their battle strength could vary wildly.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Right now, he was in a strange land with dangers everywhere. Seeking absolute strength was one option but he was keen on another. What he needed was information about his surroundings and what kinds of Ensouled he could hope to find. Since he had nobody to tell him, he had to extract these details from the jungle itself.

There was also another matter. Summons affected not just fighting strength and survivability but also a summoner’s soul cultivation. If a summon with the same soul cultivation as the summoner happened to unlock another soul path, the summoner, as a byproduct, would have a great chance of unlocking the same soul path. If a summon at the same soul cultivation broke through to the next rank, then its summoner would likely achieve the same.

Even the basic soul refining technique contained a way to provide summons with soul energy to help them cultivate. And it was far more reliable than the cruel method he had used on himself.

This was why for summoners across the world, their soul cultivation came primarily from training and improving their summons. A summoner was truly nothing without their summon.

“Onk!”

“Onk, onk!”

Zachary tensed at the strange noise. He listened intently until he identified the direction. It came from the furthest pit trap. He leaped off the tree and rushed over.

The trap had been triggered. A furry brown mass the size of a dog was squirming and squealing loudly at the bottom. Wooden stakes that were supposed to have impaled its body were instead lying broken around it.

“Onk… Ooonk!”

The creature was upside-down and struggling to get back up. Its four stubby legs flailed about hopelessly. Its body was fat and wide as a wash basin. It had a squashed face and a flat nose like a pig. Even as it was panicking, its mouth was still moving non-stop and chewing on the poison lizard flesh that he had just put on this trap. What was more, the rotting fruits that had also been in the trap were already gone.

Zachary took out his dagger and jumped down. The strange pig creature’s back was covered in tough fur but its belly looked tender and vulnerable. He pressed his weight against the creature using his knee and prodded its heck with the tip of the blade.

“Greedy piggie,” He muttered, “What are you doing stealing my food?”

“Ooonn?” The beast was so surprised that a chewed-up lizard tail dropped from its mouth.

But a moment later, it stuck out its tongue and found its tasty meal again.

Zachary pressed the dagger deeper into its flesh. Fresh crimson blood spurted from the wound, making the pig-like creature cry out in pain. It thrashed about, almost throwing him off.

He quickly pulled out a summoning card and filled it with what little soul energy he had recovered from the previous ordeal. He didn’t know if it would work but he wanted this Ensouled. It had certain abilities he critically needed at this moment.

He didn’t call Jean-Pierre. He didn’t want to draw any more attention to his wounded soul.

“Ensouled… listen to my words…” He said slowly.

The pig stopped struggling. It let out a weak ripple of Eternum that was full of fear. There was so much fear but there was still hunger, the desire to live so that it could fill its stomach.

“If you accept my summoning, I’ll let you eat all kinds of food. Many new things you have never seen before. I promise!”

“Onk?” It grunted weakly.

Zachary took out a yellow fruit the size of a plum. It had a fresh and sweet fragrance. Unlike the rotten version he had used as bait, this one had just ripened. It was something that the beast had never tasted before since it could only eat the rotten ones that had fallen to the ground.

He placed the fruit close to its mouth. It quickly stuck out its tongue, grabbed the fruit, and started munching. Its snout was soon covered in fruit juice and it snorted happily, having seemingly forgotten about its predicament.

Zachary pressed the summoning card against the beast’s stomach. Eternum surged from the card into its body and towards its soul. It was still enjoying the meal and oblivious.

There was a flash of white light. The Ensouled’s rotund body was replaced by a summoning card with an anima crystal in the middle. Its color was brown, the color of the earth.

"Yes!" He blurted in excitement.

This was his first official summon in the New World!