Yesterday was full of surprises and fun, but today we start working again to earn some extra funds, but mostly to look for a new summons in biomes different to the ones at home. Diversity is just as important as strength to a summoner. It's far easier to force a nail down with a hammer than a shovel, and the same principle applies even more so to summoning.
Most of the early summoners made the mistake of only contracting more advanced summons, as well as narrowing their summon types. They essentially became specialists that exceeded in a specific environment or form of combat. But they are restricted to those environments to ensure victory, whereas I can go nearly anywhere and have the same relative strength.
I'm still working on gaining summons for specific things like aquatic and aerial combat, or just transportation types. I'll likely focus on combat summons, but it doesn't hurt to diversify and give yourself a leg up. Now that I'm working with Alexis, we can divide our summon picks to allow for a greater range of summons while keeping our limit in mind. We essentially have 20 summon slots since we are partners that I don't ever see getting into any major sort of conflict, this is the advantage that partners give summoners.
Ideally, we would be able to pick and choose the perfect summons to fill up specific categories, but reality doesn't work like that. We'll take what we can get while keeping in mind our ideal summons and either contract with or just kill the summons we come across. We are hoping to come across an exotic desert summon when we go exploring, but we'll have to be picky about what we select since we have to keep our limited number of slots in mind.
Speaking of slots, I've used up 4 of mine already. I have Jareth; my tier 4 4-armed platinum ogre, Brutus; my tier 3 Grim, Jotun; my tier 3 freezing wyrm, and Emett; my tier 2 earth golem. Alexis has also caught up to me with summons, now possessing 4 of her own. Holly; her tier 3 harpy, Musashi; her tier 3 bladed mantis, Hemlock; her tier 4 poison wyvern, and last but not least Violet; her infant bydra.
Violet was still growing and is essentially at the high tier 1 level, but would be stuck like that until she grew into an adolescent, teenager, and finally adult. Each stage in growth would correlate to a tier with adult reaching peak tier 4, this was different from the other summons since she was hatched from an egg. Her growth wouldn't be determined only by time, but it certainly would be a factor, greater strength would speed up the time required to advance.
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Despite not being able to compare the inner city areas too much, one thing I did notice that hadn't changed was the procedure for getting through the gates into the summoning realm. Our Summoner Association ID's got us through the gate just like everyone else despite not being from the city. I suppose it would make sense that summoners would be welcome anywhere, especially because the organization was established within every city.
Aside from an extra look at Alexis and I from the guard doing ID checks, there was nothing to differentiate us in treatment from the locals, although I'm sure we were more monitored or at least investigated upon entering the city. The organization might be worldwide, but that didn't mean there weren't separate powers within the organization and even more within each city, so it made sense to check on those who didn't belong to make sure there weren't ulterior motives.
Not to mention that criminals would often attempt to escape to another city should they have a warrant for their arrest within one city. It didn't work very well, but a few always managed to slip through the cracks by sticking to the seedier areas and avoiding any watch scans at all costs. Some of the even crazier ones stayed within the summoning realm to avoid persecution, and if they managed to survive, they were usually left alone as long as their crime wasn't too heinous since they weren't worth the effort and they would help reduce monster numbers.
We were all garbed up in our sand-colored ponchos and were riding on our mounts towards the desert within the summon realm. I was riding Brutus, while Alexis was on Musashi and we had managed to set a fast but steady pace and within an hour we were touching the sand of the desert north of the city. I would have ridden Jotun normally since he was bigger, but he wouldn't fare as well in the heat since he was a summon with an ice element. The ponchos turned out to be a fortunate purchase ass they kept the sand and heat off our bodies while keeping us cool underneath. I don't think it would be possible for us to get sunburns at this point with our greater resistance and healing, but that didn't mean we were impervious to the heat and dehydration.
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Not much had messed with us on the outer edges of the desert, but as we traveled further more and more monsters charged towards us. Not much was required to defeat these monster, but we did have to summon additional summons to battle them. We didn't want to tire our mounts any more than necessary, so we left the combat to other summons. Emett was at home in the desert and mowed through any opponents, while Holly used the sky to her advantage and rained death from above.
Our pace slowed for a while after that since we had more summons traveling with us, mostly as a result of Emett being slow due to his small size and heavy body. He seemed to be rather happy in the sand and played around with it for a while as we traveled until he discovered an ingenious use of his power to control the earth. He had made a board of sand that moved him through it much faster, almost like he was surfing through the earth. I imagine that it was only possible while in the sand since it acted like water in many ways, but for the time being it was rather convenient. I even amused Alexis by getting Emett to pretend like he was hanging ten on a surfboard made of compressed sand.
With his amusing discovery, we managed to pick up the pace and travel further through the desert where stronger monsters resided. We more frequently began to come across tier 3 monsters, which indicated to us that we were definitely within the middle zone now. Most of the monster we saw were either insects or other desert-based creatures, as well as some mobile cactus monsters known as quill cacti that could shoot out their needles like green porcupines. We were especially careful of those despite the comical picture it made since a needle in the eye would definitely not be enjoyable.
We made sure to stop often for water breaks when the opportunity arose or cool off in the shade when we could find some. The terrain was rather rocky and full of plant life the farther in we got, which was convenient for us since we could finally stop for lunch. After spotting a tall outcropping of rocks next to a rather large rock hill we were able to unpack and dig into some pre-made sandwiches we had bought on the way out in preparation for being out here with little to eat.
We wouldn't be relying on sandwiches for long, but we didn't need to start a fire until we had settled in for the night. By that point we could cook up some of the meat from monsters we had killed today, I wasn't exactly looking forward to tasting desert monster meat, but food was food at the end of the day. From what I had heard the monster had adapted themselves to effectively store and conserve water due to its' scarcity, which in turn made their meat rather tough and gamey.
The sandwiches and some fruit from the market we had bought yesterday were quickly gobbled up and had restored some of our energy in preparation for further traveling and fighting. Which is exactly what we did. The scene we saw was spontaneous rocky outcroppings with vibrant colors of red, yellow, and orange with tan/brown sand all along the ground, only to be broken up by small shrubs full of thorns or dense branches with a few small leaves. It was breathtaking for the first 10 minutes, but after that, it all blended together and became quite dull.
Travel continued on for another few hours until finally as the sun was getting closer to setting, we came across as good a site as we would find for camping. It was a vibrant oasis with many large and vibrant trees and bushes blooming with green leaves. In the middle was a clear blue pond of delicious-looking freshwater, and on the outside were croppings of large boulders that seemed to lead on for a while until they met a large rocky hill.
We were still within the middle zone, so our summons should be capable of defending us while we rested, but there was no reason to get lazy and risk our lives, so we would take shifts on watch duty tonight. We set up camp closer to the boulders to put a barrier at our backs, not to mention that we had no idea what kind of monsters might be lurking within the deceptively deep pond.
Setting up camp was relatively easy, Alexis started to set up our sleeping area and place down our bedrolls and sleeping bags for when we decided to sleep. While she was doing that, I was taking firewood from my storage and stacking them up like a teepee starting with the smallest twigs and stacking increasingly larger sticks from there. Some pocket lint served as decent tender to light the fire, and with a kiss of flame from my lighter, the fire began to rapidly catch.
I placed some rocks from nearby in a pit formation around the fire and then took out some stakes to roast our dinner on. I had let Emett remain on watch while sitting on top of the boulders behind the camp, and had Brutus resting for now while chomping on a well-deserved core for his dinner. Our meal ended up being some hyena looking monster that I sprinkled some salt, pepper, chili, cayenne, and cumin to make it more palatable. Desert was some fresh and ripe mango to pair with the spicy roasted meat.
Once our stomachs were full and the sun had set, I turned in for the night while Alexis and the summons were on watch. Before I closed my eyes for the night, I looked up and just admire a beautiful expanse of the starry sky that seemed to be enhanced by the emptiness of the desert landscape. After taking in the sight, I eventually slipped into slumber while I could in preparation for my shift in the coming hours.