“That’s enough!”
A loud banging sound could be heard that echoed through a large dining room. Beatrice along with her mother looked to the cause of this noise. They saw a rather angry-looking man with a mustache gritting his teeth and staring at them.
“Father, is there a p-problem?”
Beatrice stuttered a bit as she was in the middle of chatting it up with her mother. The older woman had been asking her all sorts of things. Mostly concerning her health and if she was doing well at school. It didn’t seem that she cared that much about her managing to get that summoned spirit. Her father on the other hand was a lot more interested in that fact.
“Yes, we need to talk about your summoning ceremony.”
“Dear! She just returned home, gave Beatrice some time to rest.”
The older woman glared at her husband while getting between her child. She was certainly a doting parent which the fourth hidden person in the room noticed.
“Helena, we don’t have time for such things. You know the importance of having a strong spirit, if it's a low-grade one we will have to think about the arranged marriage.”
“Arranged marriage?”
Beatrice shot up from her seat the moment she heard what her parents were discussing. She could tell from how they were behaving that this ‘arranged marriage’ business was something that was previously discussed. But from her standpoint now with her summoned spirit, she would be exempt from something like that.
“Don’t worry dear... we just talked about it, we haven’t settled on a suitor yet.”
Beatrice’s mother patted her shoulder while continuing to glare at her husband that started this whole thing. Before more nonsense could be spoken another fist collided with the large dining table which caused the tableware to shake around. The two girls quieted down as the man of the house looked quite maddened by the fact that he was being ignored.
“Enough! Beatrice after you are done with eating come meet me out in the yard. We will test your summoned spirit!”
The older gentleman stood up from his seat and moved outside. The only servant that was in the room had to fix the chair that had fallen over. There were also some spilled dishes on the table where that fist landed along with a small hole in the wood.
“Don’t mind your father, he is just… worried about the estate…”
“I know mother…”
After a moment of silence, Beatrice looked to her mother with another question.
“What off older brother? Has he returned?”
The mother just shook her head.
“No, he became an adventurer before we lost contact, he could be in any of the many dungeons…”
While the two women talked Zhang Dong perked up at the mention of dungeons and adventurers. This was one of the staples of the fantasy worlds from more westernized novels. He started wondering if the adventurers had ranks ranging from F to S, maybe even SSS like in those stories that he used to read.
The two continued to talk while he listened in. The supposed brother had apparently gone on to become an adventurer. From what he had gathered there wasn’t anything like a leveling system in this world. There were classes and fantasy-like professions like mages, summoners, and magic knights. They gained their techniques and skills through hard work, there were apparently no shortcuts of killing monsters and gaining free skills and experience points.
It looked like he would soon have a chance to show himself to that noble-looking father. The man looked like he had a stick up his butt and that mustache made him look even more condescending. Though as a father he knew where the man was coming from. He was someone that had the weight of his family on his shoulders.
From what it looked like the man had some degree of magical power in him. Zhang Dong could somewhat feel the danger level by how much mana they were exuding from their souls. It wasn’t that much though, if Beatrice here was at the lower levels of Qi condensation then her father was maybe at the very early foundation establishment stage.
This was akin to an elder from a very small clan back in his world before he arrived there. Someone like that would have no way of starting a big family at most he could hope for an elder’s position in a smaller clan.
The father was also only a Baron, which painted a picture to him. There was a steady hierarchy in this world as in the one that he came from. This was almost the lowest noble title that one could achieve, the only one below it was a knight. Which would put this man as maybe the level of an outer sect elder.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
Without a potential heir to the family techniques, it looked to be over. But at least it was fine for Beatrice to take over, though he wasn’t sure about that as he wasn’t planning to stick around for that long.
While he was thinking about the noble power dynamics Beatrice called out to him. She was now heading to the back of the estate. A large yard was back there where the guards and knights were training. With the loss of prestige, some of them were transferred out by the main branch noble house. What remained were mostly inexperienced youths and old knights that were past their prime.
“Um… Holy Lightning Emperor Leigong, are you there?”
He wanted to laugh at the long-winded name that he had given himself but it was better than being called Dong in this Western language-sounding world.
“Of course, where else would I be?”
“Wait… is that the sound of the ocean?”
“Ah…uh... don’t mind the small stuff, how can this Holy Lightning Emperor help you today my child?”
Zhang Dong started coughing while realizing that the ambient sound from his soul dimensions was getting through when the two were talking. With a wave of his hand the waves calmed down and his soul beast also stopped flopping around in the background. He had materialized some fish for the big guy to chase around.
“Would it be okay for me to summon you again?...”
He smiled a bit, the girl was really timid. She felt like a good kid and by being connected to her soul he knew that she had a kind heart. This made it easier for him to help her out but also made things more difficult. First, he needed to get her stronger as without her having a higher mana pool he wouldn’t be able to interact with the world for more than a few minutes.
“You can but… your body can’t handle the strain too well. I won’t be able to stay for long, you must increase your mana reserves with haste…”
This was the most important point, he needed to find a quick way to boost this girl's mana reserves. He had a connection to her soul so there were a few approaches that he could take. Before he could do that he would need to be sure that it wouldn’t harm Beatrice in the slightest. There was also the possibility of something going wrong if he didn’t have the information. For this, he needed to get to that library.
“That’s why you must visit a library and procure all the books that concern magic, anything can be of use, the more the better.”
Beatrice nodded while listening to her summoned spirit talking about the library books again. She didn’t know what he wanted with those, normally a magical being as this should know more about magic than humans. Things like human magical theory wasn’t something other races could even use. Every race and being was slightly different and thus required a totally different approach.
“Of course Honorable Holy Lightning Emperor Leigong.”
Zhang Dong gave out a chuckle while they ventured forward, this girl reminded him a few of his disciples with how much prostrating she was doing. Finally, they arrived at the supposed training area where he saw an old man in a suit of armor standing next to Beatrice’s father.
“I am here, father.”
Beatrice curtsied slightly while holding her long skirt.
“Good. How is that spirit of yours? Can you show it to me?”
The girl evades her father’s gaze while holding her right hand on which her summoner insignia was. Her father had a similar one as she had which was also the proof of being the current family head.
“Ah yes… I can show him to you…”
“Great, before that. Sir Heinrich.”
The old man that was on the side moved forward. He placed himself in front of the young girl with about twenty meters of space between them. Soon the sound of a sword getting unsheathed could be heard.
“Heinrich will test your summoned spirit, you should have learned how to summon it by now, right?”
Beatrice nodded while still clutching her hand together. She had summoned this spirit once before but it was a peculiar one. For one he felt like someone from the older generation that wasn’t taking things very seriously.
Her hand was stretched towards the man in front of her. She infused her mana into it and made the summoner sign glow in a bluish light. The light flickered in a golden hue for a fraction of a second but just like last time, nothing appeared.
“Beatrice? What happened?”
The father looked from the side a bit surprised that there was no spirit there to fight the knight.
“Ah… the spirit is here… he is there father…”
Beatrice pointed toward a barrel in which some old wooden practice swords were stored in. It was close to where they all were standing and blocked part of the view.
“There? But I can’t see anyt… what is that?”
The blond mustache-wearing man leaned forward as he witnessed the form of his daughter’s summoned spirit.
“A boot?...”
It looked to be a white boot that didn’t go further past than the ankle. It looked like it would connect to a leg but it was cut off. The strange summoned spirit started floating around while getting close to the knight.
“Um Father… the honorable spirit says that we can start the test…”
“The spirit told you that?”
The man’s eyes bulged out slightly as the bodiless foot floated towards his armored knight. The old man in the suit of armor was looking at this strange phenomenon as well. The man looked to the baron as he didn’t know what to do.
“Fine… go ahead, Heinrich.”
The old knight looked at the wobbly foot moving his way, it wouldn’t be hard to slice something like that in half. The man felt anger that he was forced to be part of a silly test like this. He was a sworn knight though and had to follow orders.
His sword was raised and its edge was encased in flaming energy. The sooner he took care of this, the sooner he would be able to resume the training of the other guards.
This strange boot reacted to the charge as it flew towards the armored knight. It changed its trajectory and it was now looking like a flying kick was coming towards Heinrich. He reacted by swinging his magic-infused sword at the disembodied body part, soon the two collided with each other.
What was supposed to be an easy victory for the experienced knight captain, turned to shock. Instead of the foot getting cut in two pieces it smashed the knight's sword into tiny pieces. It flew even further and collided with Heinrich’s metal armor sending the experienced warrior tumbling back.
“Impossible!”
Beatrice’s father’s jaw dropped as he looked at the floating foot that soon vanished into tiny mana particles. The armored knight was out cold with a footprint on his armor. It had a strange symbol in the middle that looked like a checkmark. The old man wouldn’t be waking up for a while after this...