In a palace, located in an unreachable place, it is said that all the knowledge in the world could be found.
But if such a place exists, who would be the ones to live there?
Many people from various planets have proclaimed to have seen it, legends say angels live there, some claim demons reside within.
In a study that mystically looked simultaneously huge and minimal, surrounded by tall shelves that could pierce the heavens, adorned by only black books of different thickness, there was a middle-aged man, together with a young man, both wearing similar black robes adorned with white dots, resembling the night sky.
"Fun?" Asked the middle-aged looking man that gave a profound feeling of wisdom, along with his outstanding looks, as he got up from his chair to stand in front of a young man.
"Yes, father." Respectfully responded the young one with traces of his father's looks adorning his face, looking at the man with a pair of black eyes that looked as deep as the cosmos themselves in a piercing, resolute gaze.
"Look here Danziel, celestials can't just go around doing whatever they want, and you know that, you've always known that." Responds the man as he walks to the side of the room, and picks up one of the multiple mysterious books, slowly sliding his fingers across it's cover.
"But father, the universe is at balance, even with evil, the good still shines, why can't I take a leave from the palace if I don't even have to work? I want to experience what the world has to offer me, and not live in boredom for the rest of my life." Said Danziel resolutely, following his father's back with his eyes.
After such arguments were made, the middle-aged man seemed to have his resolve a bit shaken, and decided to put some thought into the matter once more.
And so, opening the book, he says, "This wine recipe, it's quite good you know? You should try it, here." He declares as a glass of wine materializes in the air, together with wine being poured from the nothingness into it.
"Father, don't try changing the subject, please. I'll give up almost all my powers temporarily, so that I won't cause disturbances within worlds, in exchange, I want to be free to roam the major worlds, and experience for myself how it feels to live there." Calmly proposes Danziel, although deep within his eyes it was possible to see a tinge of fear for what kind of response he might receive.
"Danziel... I guess I can't do anything if you insist this much, I knew this day would come, I just didn't expect for it to be so soon after you turned seventeen, I wanted to be by your side on this important part of your life, and so did your mother." With an air of sadness, the middle-aged man gives in on the matter, causing a clear light to shine bright within the boy's eyes.
"Thank you father! I promise I won't disappoint you."
"Hahaha! How could you disappoint me? You're the second thing that makes me the proudest when i see, the first one being your mother, of course." Widely smiles the man, concealing his previous sadness.
"Besides, isn't it just a trip? Since it's the main planets you're going to, you'll only be finding humans with different traits such as magic, cultivation, or highly advanced technologies, how could they influence you in a bad way? Beings that live such short lives..."
Danziel's father didn't completely cast humans aside, but it was hard to consider beings with limited wisdom as a threat to his son's upbringing.
"I know it well, but aren't they interesting? Although not related to us, they developed physical bodies that look like ours, and used their wits to overcome many difficulties, rising to be the prominent major race, don't you also feel curious about what's special in them?" Said Danziel with a smile on his face, he truly was interested in all races, but only humans could make him this excited.
"If you only want to learn about them, wouldn't reading books about them be more efficient? There's even more here about them than they themselves know." Tried his father once more at dissuading the boy.
"Sorry father, but only experiencing it first hand will I be satisfied." With an apologetic smile adorning his face, Danziel slightly bowed to the man who gave him everything. "And I hope you'd understand that and won't keep tabs on me like you always have."
"You knew?" Responded the man with slight shock on his face.
"Of course! How could this son you're so proud of not see through such a simple trick? I could even dispell it if I wanted, but it wouldn't have the same meaning."
"Simple, you say... alright, I'll remove it now, and you're free to go, go and experience the world, my son." Lifting his hand, he closed his eyes for one second and moved his index finger slightly, and a blue mist left the boy's body.
"Thank you, father."
"I imagine you already know how use the palace to get where you want to?"
"Yes, I do, I'll be going now."
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'A palace of knowledge, huh...'
A young girl was thinking to herself laying down in bed on her pajamas, while the light of the moon came through her window, bringing along a cold breeze that made her cover her delicate body with a matress.
'Would that place explain anomalies on summoners? I wonder...'
Such thoughts aren't uncommon in Aisla, the continent she lives in, but they're also immediately brushed off by anyone that spent part of their life studying magic.
They'd always say "This palace doesn't exist, it's just a legend, it only exists because of fools who believe in other fools, isn't that hilarious?"
But she wanted to believe, not because she was a dreamer, but because she had no other choice, not everyone is born equal after all.
She was born with great looks, having dark purple eyes that matched well her long, silky dark hair, contrasting with her fair white skin. Being pampered throughout her childhood by her well off family, she thought she'd live a happy life.
In Aisla, the major families aren't in their positions for great economic choices during negotiations or through politic manouvers, but because they have summoner blood.
Summoners are those who can not only use magic, which ordinary people can't, but also summon a servant, which fought alongside them, creating a link between the two that fortifies the summoner's abilities.
Those servants might come in many forms, a lizard, a dragon, but by far the most flexible ones would be the humans.
'Why can't I just summon something...? Are the heavens just unfair? There's so much we don't know yet, but they cast me aside as soon as I couldn't do it a year ago...' Said the girl, sobbing alone in her room.
'I just want a servant, any kind will do, please...' Already crying, the girl finally fell asleep. This scene was but one of many, since the year before, when she turned sixteen and failed her summoning.
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The next morning, the girl wakes up with newfound strenght, and resolve could be seen on her pretty face.
'I'll follow what Anne said, I'll ask my parents to go to another world and find a familiar there.' She decided, getting up from her bed and dressing up in a white dress with blue horizontal stripes that started from her back and stopped right before connecting on the front, making her look enchanting.
Walking steadily, passing through tall and large corridors, she comes to a stop in front of the kitchen's door, taking time to breathe in some air to calm herself, she opens the door.
"Father, mother, I have something to say."
"Lilith, where's your school uniform?." They said in unison, startling the girl.
'Maybe this will be a bit tougher than i thought...'
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'I didn't think they'd agree so easily, but it really is a bit scary leaving home alone.' Said Lilith as she looked around at what the citizens of the place seemed to call Tokyo.
Using her family's connections, she was able to travel to the world where the humans that are summoned came from.
That knowledge was found by tracing the summoning spell that came from ancient times backwards, leading to this world full of humans, and only a minority has ever seen it with their own eyes like she is currently doing, making her slightly happier inside. And only the people from Aisla knew of the existence of this world, and the people of this world did not know about Aisla or magic, so the common knowledge she had would be useless in such a situation.
In truth, Lilith already knew her parent's only allowed her to come here because a direct contract would be something entirely different from summoning, even if she made a servant link.
Her spells would be weaker, and the servant would also receive less benefits, but the main problem was that the affinity between their souls needed to be high, while during a normal summoning, the spell would take care of the soul link. Knowing this, her parent's didn't have heart to deny their cute daughter's request, and allowed her to have this last shot at being a summoner, even if they knew it was in vain.
Stolen story; please report.
'Now, how will I find a strong human to fight with me, that also has a high soul affinity with me...' She pondered after noticing that they all seemed too weak physically. Even if she knew that the power that human servants had was almost entirely because of the normal summoning spell, she couldn't help but be disappointed.
"Excuse me, do you know where I can find strong people?" She innocently asked a passerby, causing a slight shock on the man as he noticed the beatiful girl's purple eyes.
"Errr... Well there's this group of gangsters that are rumored to live close by, asides from them, there's the socially excluded martial artists and the military." Said the man after waking up from his daze.
"Thank you very much!" Said Lilith as she smiled widely, 'I'll go for the gangsters first, since they're close by, I might not have a servant, but my magic here should be more than enough.' Turning around and about to leave, she felt a hand grab her arm and quickly releasing, which made her turn back.
"Ah, I'm sorry for touching you, I just really want to know if you could tell me your number." Said the man, clearly more than a bit nervous in front of the beauty.
"Number?" Without world knowledge it was hard to communicate normally.
"I mean phone number, you know, to... maybe know each other a bit better" The man was almost dying of shame thinking that she was making a fool out of him.
'Oh, so number would be a way to communicate, that could come to be useful, but for now...' Lilith wasn't stupid by any means, she could grasp the idea that he had intentions of courting her in the future, so after politely turning him down, she gathered more information on the gangsters and left to where they where supposedly last seen.
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Looking up at an old, brown building, Lilith sighs thinking that those bad guys might be weaker than she had hoped.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" A shout resounded through the building.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" Another one could be heard, along with gunshots.
'What is going on?!' Lilith got alarmed and ran into the building she assumed to be the gangsters' headquarters.
Suddenly, everything stopped, no sound could be heard.
The air seems to stop, and the dust to float in the air as if gravity stopped for just that place.
Holding her breath, she walks up a wooden staircase, turns right and walks slowly through a wooden floored small corridor, noticing a light coming out of an open door, she looks inside.
"What in the heavens..." She thinks out loud, due to the ridiculous scene she witnesses.
A young boy, looking to be around twelve years old, with dark, short hair, wearing a pitch black jacket adorned with white spots along with blue stripped jeans was surrounded by over ten men wearing black, but...
"Are they... dead?" She says, still dazed at the weird scene.
As she says that, the boy turns his head to her, meeting her eyes with his own black eyes, she felt lost, as if looking into the night sky.
"Of course not, Aisla girl." The boy answers as if it was an obvious thing.
"Did you do this?" Lilith asks, not noticing that the boy mentioned her birth country.
"Yes, I just wanted to know more about them but they wanted to shoot me and what else, so I got a bit annoyed and did something about it." The mysterious black haired boy seemed completely unaffected by the current scene.
'Wouldn't such a human... be a perfect servant for me?!' Lilith started getting more excited, she had barely been here for three hours and this boy had appeared!
"And what about you? Why are you here?" It was his turn to ask, and then adding after, "On this world."
"I heard there were some strong guys around this area and..." Lilith stopped as she notices something was wrong.
"Are you also a summoner?!"
If he was also a summoner, being her servant was out of question.
"A summoner? You mean to ask if i'm an energy user from Keberg's Aisla?" The boy found her misunderstaing a bit funny. "Sorry but no, I'm not, and before you ask, let's just say that I'm a traveler from another world." He added at the end.
"Another world? You mean there's more than just mine and this one? Also, what do you mean by Keberg?" Asked Lilith, getting more confused by the second.
'Maybe I said too much...' Thought the black haired young boy. "If there's these two, why wouldn't there be more? Don't you summon more than just humans?"
"We do, but we were never able to trace them back to a different world like we did to humans, so we thought that maybe they were just created by magic."
Puffing her cheecks, she adds. "Also, don't ignore my question about Keberg!"
'For a stranger, he seems to know a lot, maybe he would know...'
"Keberg is... your world's name." he said while hesitating if saying that was okay, since she didn't know.
'I've done my homework on Aisla, but only superficially, so I won't understand what they currently know, I have to be more careful in the future, but for now, this girl seems interesting, this world has entertained me a bit for the past month but it's getting a bit boring.'
"So, since you told me not to avoid that question, I'll tell you not to avoid mine, why are you here, Aisla girl." He said in a more serious tone.
"Stop calling me that!, the name is Lilith Beltrin, and I'd also like to know yours before I answer." She said in a proud tone.
'Beltrin huh, one of the big summoner families.' He thought.
"My name is Danziel, no second name." Danziel decided not to hide his first name, but his second name might make bring some confusion, so he decided to make it a secret.
Surprised at his response, Lilith smiled, "No second name huh, that's weird, but a promise is a promise," she said helplessly, "just don't laugh, okay?" She starts trembling slightly.
'She looks like she wants to cry, maybe I should listen attentively, this one seems like a truly interesting thing to pass my time.' Danziel smiled as he thought of how inconsiderate he was being.
"I... can't successfully cast the summoning spell, and no one knows why, so I decided to come here and try to convince someone to be my servant and make a soul link with me." Lilith held onto her white dress tightly with both her hands, and was on the verge of tears.
She knew how stupid all of that sounded, and it was exactly that which made her want to cry.
"You..." Danziel didn't have sympathy at that moment, but his curiosity peaked, and stars appeared seemingly out of nowhere within his eyes, startling the girl.
'I really don't care about one human's problems but... This is worth looking into.'
Lilith felt as if she couldn't hide anything from Danziel, even covering her precious parts with her arms and hands didn't seem to sufice, and she was at the verge of calling him a pervert when she notice how beautiful his eyes had become, making her lose her thought process.
"You really are an interesting human aren't you? While you should be able to cast the spell, you aren't, have you ever thought about why is that the case by yourself?" Danziel flashed a smile that shouted to her that he knew something she didn't, making her eager to know if he could help.
"I have, but..." She said helplessly.
Walking towards her, Danziel looked at her straight in the eye, making her blush a bit from looking at his dazzling and profound eyes.
He stops in front of her and points to her forehead.
"Your soul," he says, "Your soul is too different from the others, and your spell can't fix the differences enough to compensate, that's all."
"My soul?"
"Yes, the soul is immutable, and yours is one of the most unique kinds in the universe, though it may sound incredible, besides being rare, there's no good points, asides from being slighly more resistant to sould oriented attacks." He slowly states, while bringing his hand back down.
"So, you mean that there's nothing I can do? Not even make a contract personally?" Lilith's eyes started becoming hazy, and she could start crying at any point.
Danziel seeing her pitiful sight, continues, "Indeed, you have no control over such a thing," but due to not wanting her to cry, he quickly adds, "Though that applies for you, it doesn't for me."
He suddenly flashed her a wide smile.
"Rejoice, Lilith, for I have taken an interest in you."
"An interest?!" Lilith gets her cheeks painted red in shyness, she doesn't have any kind of romantic interest in the little boy, of course, but for him to just state something embarassing like that naturally made her blush.
"Yes! so I'll help you, " Danziel starts, "Not by modifying your soul, since I don't want to annoy my... someone from my family." He flashes a complicated smile.
Pointing his thumb at his own forehead, he states, "I'll change my own soul, and make this contract with you, but in exchange, I'll have you show me your world, and mainly, tons of interesting stuff!"
At this moment, in Lilith's eyes Danziel seemed to be as bright as the sun itself.
'I can finally be a complete summoner?'
It seems Danziel's tries were in vain, as the girl in front of him started crying uncontrollably despite his efforts.
Lilith then feels a hand pat her head, making her almost jump.
'The boy is too small to reach my head, is there someone behind me?!' She turns to look and sees nothing, looking back at the boy with her head in confusion, she gets startled yet again.
"You! How did you?!" She says in shock as she looks at a young man that looked to be around 17 years of age, taller than her, standing where the boy was, but deep in his eyes the stars were still there, along with his clothes, confirming that he was the same person as the little boy from before.
"What? You think you people from Aisla are the only ones with tricks?" He smiles wryly, "I know a few tricks as well, and it would help a lot if you didn't ask about how. I'll be using this form from now on." He adds as he removes his hand from her head.
Still in shock, Lilith could only let out a small sound.
"Oh..."
"Well that's it, I'm tired of this world already, these humans from here weren't all that interesting, but maybe I didn't try to fit in as much." Danziel ponders by himself, before turning again to Lilith and saying "Well, let's do it then, it won't take long."
Putting his hand on her head again, the stars within his eyes start shining even more than they were before, then becoming faint and disappearing, turning his eyes back to a profound darkness, like how Lilith saw him for the first time.
"All done, Lilith, can you feel something different?" Danziel asks with a smile on his face, removing his hand.
"Yeah, but not much..." Lilith didn't seem too perceptive of the differences caused by the soul link.
"Don't worry, the more we stay together the more it'll get stronger and stronger" He says while softly placing his hand on her cheek, and getting his eyes in front of hers.
Lilith's face turns red and she opens her mouth in shock.
'Too close too close too close!'
"Too close!" She finally says it out loud, stepping back while panting softly.
'That really scared me, I thought he was going to do something, I have to remember that he's a kid, he's a kid.' She repeats that in her head to make her stop feeling awkward, and turns back to look at him.
"Ah, I'm sorry, when I had a kid's body this wasn't a problem, so..." Danziel said apologetically, since he only lived with his family before, and after coming here he became a child, since it's said they're the one's that have the most fun in this world.
"I-I understand, it's okay." She mutters softly.
'It's not okay! But you're a kid so It's okay! But you're not in a kid's body anymore so it's not okaaaay!!'
While Lilith was having a conflict in her mind, Danziel didn't pay attention and said, "Hey, let's get going, are we going back now?"
"Y-You seem eager to go already huh? Alrights, let's go, I'll get in touch with the guards from the portal and make them take me and you from here back." She says, closing her eyes and communicating with someone Danziel couldn't see or hear.
'Well, I did a lot today huh, I hope it's worth the trouble' He thinks to himself while looking at the girl's concentrated face, 'Isn't she a cute one?'
After she communicated successfully, the ground started shining, and she says "The teleportation will happen in around 5 minutes, so let's kill some time." She sits on a chair and looks and Danziel.
"Sure, I think this is a good chance to ask, how old are you Lilith?" He looks at her with curious eyes.
"I'm seventeen, and I'd wager you're around twelve?" She says with a smile.
'I hope he's only around that, a young maiden like me shouldn't be walking with boys my age, but It'll be fine if it's only his body, I think' She nods to herself while thinking so.
"Ah, this is my true form, I'm seventeen as well" Danziel smiles as he said so, clearly delighted he'll be spending his time with someone his age.
"What?!" Receiving this shock, Lilith thinks back to when he touched her cheeks and blushed even harder than before.
"What? Just because you saw me as a kid first doesn't mean that's my true form you know," he says matter-of-factly.
"That's... true." She sighs in response.
"Let's do our best together, honey" Danziel flashes a smile and says that as if it was normal.
"Honey?!" Lilith was almost regretting making this contract already, he was going to kill her from shame like this.
"Isn't that what you call a girl you're close to in Aisla?" Asked Danziel calmly.
"Only if you're dating her or maried, so just call me Lilith, okay?" Lilith said after calming herself.
"No way! Your face was priceless when I said it!" Danziel finally lost it and started laughing loudly.
'But maybe I should learn a bit more of what's normal huh?' He thought to himself.
He smiles, closing his eyes and waiting for the teleportation to happen, while he pays no heed to Lilith's angry response to his statement.
'She's a cute one, isn't she?'