Chapter 216. Test Results and Tacos.
I suddenly found myself back in the same chair I had been sitting in at the police station. The others were looking over at me and the technician, Jeff, was looking back and forth from his laptop to the mana gauge.
“Rico, what just happened?” Lopez asked.
“What, oh, sorry, I just got back from a summoning,” I explained.
“What, that was fast. I suppose I knew they could be quick, but I didn’t even see you leave,” Lopez said as he looked at me with shock etched on his face. For the first time, the agent seemed to have lost his professional demeanor as he sat there confused.
“It’s probably a bit weird actually being there when it happens. I doubt that’s a normal occurrence. Could you see or feel anything when I was pulled away?” I asked.
“Strange, I don’t recall seeing anything, but my mind is a bit fuzzy when I think about it. I did get an odd, almost sick feeling for a moment. It was like I was seasick,” Lopez said.
“I’m not sure what the system does, but it seems to attempt to mask the summonings when they happen, especially if…” Marie started to say before the technician interrupted her.
“I think we got it! Look, here, I’ll turn up the magnification. Right about the time Rico was summoned, we got a small bump in mana levels. For the next three seconds it levelled out, then, boom, another spike when you returned,” Jeff said.
“Would my summoning make that much of a jump? Why do you think the mana levels dropped again right after?” I asked, looking with the others at the graph showing the two small jumps in mana levels, and noticing they went almost back to where they were before right after.
“My preliminary theory is that the device picked up the local spike in mana, but as that dissipated into the atmosphere, things went back to normal. That tells me this mana gauge is pulling the readings from the area immediately around it, and it isn’t just some system voodoo giving us a worldwide average,” Jeff said, tuning us out as he continued to dig into the data.
“Rico, what kind of summoning did you complete? I don’t think you were gone long enough for it to have been an entire series. After all, you just got back from one, and there’s usually some down time in between,” Marie asked.
“It was a linked summoning, and a bittersweet one at that,” I said, explaining to Marie and the others what I had just experienced.
“You’ve got a chance to see what a summoned being can accomplish. We rarely get to see the long-term effects our actions will cause,” Marie said.
“I suppose it puts a bit more pressure on you,” Agent Lopez began. “You can have a positive or negative impact on an entire world. I guess those consumable notice things you can use to end a summoning early are more important than we thought.”
“That’s one thing I stocked up on in Somhagen. The Notice of Cessation has saved me from some horrible things in the past,” I added.
“Rico, what’s in your hand?” Julio asked. I hadn’t noticed until now, my left hand was clasped around a summoning figurine. Prying my sore fingers from the figurine, I could see it was another one with multiple figures on the same base. This time, it was a young, armored woman wearing a crown and raising her sword as she led a small contingent of knights forward.
“I think it’s a summoning figurine, but the system didn’t send me a notification about it since I was dumped back to Earth without visiting my personal space first,” I explained.
“Hey, do you think you could activate it? I’d love to get a reading on the mana expenditure when you access your mana to activate it. Not only could we measure the small amount of mana you activate it with, but we could also see how much of your mana pool bleeds off before you’re done. As an added bonus, I could measure if the figurines give off more mana than they took in when the summoning is done,” Jeff requested.
“While I think the data would be good to have, I don’t think I’ll give this one up. A figurine like this could save a life in the right circumstances,” I replied. This was more than likely a tier two figurine, and possibly a veteran or elite one. If I was going to sacrifice one for an experiment, I’d want to give up something a bit more mundane.
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“Are you sure, Rico, we’ll see you compensated if you give up a consumable item for our tests,” Agent Lopez asked.
“Until the system explains this one to me, or I’m in a life-or-death situation, I don’t want to waste it. I do have one that’s a bit of a unique situation I can summon,” I countered, remembering that I had Melvin’s figurine with me, and I’d promised to take him out on the town.
“What is it?” Jeff asked.
“This, it’s a friend of mine that I can summon from time to time,” showing the others Melvin’s figurine.
“May I get some readings on it before you summon whatever that is,” Jeff said excitedly.
“Do whatever you need to do. As for what it is, Melvin is a gelatinous cube. He’s a good guy, so don’t worry, he won’t hurt anyone,” I explained.
“This is great, hang on just a second,” Jeff said, pulling some additional gear out of the cases stacked behind him. I had no idea what any of the devices he pulled out did, and I had a strong feeling that asking him about them would end with me being forced to listen to a long and boring technical explanation.
“Just let me know when you’re ready. If you’re looking for a baseline, it takes me one mana to activate a figurine. My class also allows me to summon my minions without any mana. I don’t know if you want a reading on that,” I offered. Summoning my lowest rank and tier minion, Blieek, wouldn’t be too much of a waste if it helped the scientists figure out what was happening.
“Please, but summon the jelly guy that needs mana first. It’s a known quantity that you need to expend, and even though we get atmospheric bleed on your mana pool, it will give me solid measurements. After that, we’ll check if the zero-mana summoning is truly zero mana. There might be some other system forces at work,” Jeff said.
As soon as Jeff gave me the thumbs up, I pushed a point of mana into Melvin’s figurine. Earth tugged greedily at my mana pool, but I managed to complete the process with only losing a single additional point. I had placed Melvin’s figurine on the round table we were sitting at, and suddenly he appeared in front of us, causing everyone but me to push back in their chairs.
“Hey Melvin, we’re back on Earth. These are some friends and people I work with. They need to take some measurements and use their machines for a moment. Do you mind if they touch you?” I asked my friend. He sent me back images of cautious approval, but only if I remained with him.
“Melvin says it’s okay to touch, just don’t go overboard, and Jeff, don’t do any kind of possibly painful tests on him,” I explained.
The others were understandably cautious, but Julio proved the bravest of the bunch, giving Melvin a pat atop his cube. The others soon followed, and though he didn’t say anything or send me any of his feelings, I figured my friend was eating up all the attention.
“Melvin and I have already met,” Marie said. She’d worked with him when we were fighting the dungeons here on Earth. Recognizing her, Melvin jiggled a corner of his cube in greeting.
“He’s warm, and not slimy like I expected,” Julio said.
“Yeah, just don’t get on his bad side. He can dissolve you into a liquid snack in under a minute if he wants to. I found him in Somhagen, and he lives in my personal space now. He’s been a great friend and ally. I trust him with my life,” I explained.
“Fascinating, I can’t believe I’m meeting someone from another world. So, Rico, does he need anything, you know, like food or a treat or something?” Jeff asked.
“I don’t suppose he’d turn down any food you have on hand,” I said. Agent Lopez pulled a pack of mints from his pocket, offering one to Melvin. I had Lopez drop it on his back, and they watched as Melvin absorbed the small candy.
“Can we borrow Melvin for a while sometime? Who knows what knowledge we could glean from him,” Jeff asked.
“It’d be up to Melvin. He’s an intelligent being and I won’t force him to do something he doesn’t want to,” I advised. Melvin sent me annoyed feelings, he wanted to see things and have fun on this trip, not be poked and prodded by others. I couldn’t blame him, and instead, I summoned Blieek for Jeff to examine.
I targeted one corner of the room where we had just enough space for the diminutive goblin. Unlike Melvin, Blieek didn’t seem all that excited to be summoned. He just stood there holding his newly upgraded tier one spear. Unlike the sharpened stick he had been using originally. This spear shaft was straight and featured a sharpened stone point.
“That’s exactly how I expected a goblin to look,” Jeff said as he collected the next set of readings.
“This one is just a mana construct if you’re need to know for the readings and whatnot,” I offered. Jeff went to work, and as time passed, we continued with a debrief of my summoning series and visit to Somhagen. After a while, I became bored with the whole situation. When Melvin finally sent me the same feelings, I figured it was time to call it an afternoon.
“Folks, I think Melvin is getting bored. You don’t want a bored gelatinous cube crawling around the police station,” I advised.
“Good point, Jeff, do you have what you need?” Lopez asked.
“Not everything I want, but there’s plenty for my team to work on for now. Maybe we can get another session before you’re summoned again,” Jeff asked.
“Sure, but I have no control over when I’m summoned. Is anyone else hungry, we’ve been cooped up here for hours,” I whined. To prevent causing an uproar in the station, we’d kept the door closed and the creatures I’d summoned out of sight. We were all getting tired of sitting there while Jeff worked on collecting data.
“Want to stop somewhere on the way back?’ Julio asked.
“Sure, what do you want?” I asked. Melvin suddenly pushed an image into my mind, along with a single word.
“Tacos.”
“Uh, guys, I kind of promised Melvin that I’d get him tacos, is everyone cool with that?” I asked.
“Sure, even if it’s not Tuesday, I know the perfect place,” Julio said. I didn’t doubt him. The guy had an uncanny ability to locate the best hole in the wall restaurants in town.
“And you’re paying, Rico, you’re the guy that’s rich now,” Marie insisted.