Chapter 292. New Minion.

“Sir, welcome home,” the head butler said as I appeared inside my personal space. Everything inside looked normal, and I was always happy to see that Gary hadn’t burned the place down while I had been away.

“Thank you,” I said, taking the glass of juice and heated towel from the servant. These items had become standard procedure when I returned to my personal space, and I was going to get spoiled by the service provided in here. That did remind me that I was wealthy back home, but having grown up without much, I wasn’t about to start throwing money around and hiring servants for my apartment.

“Rico, good to see you again. I was just about to leave unless you have some need of my services,” Tzes’zod said. It seemed like the lich was always running off somewhere, and it would have been nice to be able to pick his brain a bit about a few things. I told him as much, and he merely nodded without committing before walking into a portal that he summoned.

Melvin slid out from the training room, sending me happy thoughts. Even though we didn’t get to interact much during the arena challenge, it seemed that my friend had enjoyed himself. Thinking about my friend brought up another problem.

“That stinks, Fitzfazzle probably got bumped from Earth when I was summoned,” I said. We still had a lot to learn from him and having his trip cut short wasn’t ideal. At least his figurine would recharge at some point, and we could call him again. It might even be good that the gnome had a chance to see how our technology worked and would now have some time to think on the problems we were going to face.

The problems that stood before us were even more urgent than before. From what Lopez had told us, we were less than a year from integration. The seer had even divined some of the coming signs to look out for. But just like with every seer or fortune teller in a movie or book, they weren’t exactly big on exact details.

I could only hope that Lopez and the others in charge of preparing our world for integration were on the ball. I’d continue to do everything that I could to help, but I was only one person. There was also the rather ominous revelation that all the summoned beings that were over tier three were starting to disappear.

The disappearances weren’t supposed to be anything bad, just a way for the system to keep us sidelined until the rest of the world started to learn their new lives. I was kind of curious, and a bit nervous about what awaited me, and at tier two, rank five, I didn’t think it would be all that long before I found out.

Thoughts on future integration could wait for a bit. I had some leveling to do, and some rewards to gather. Expecting some minion tokens to be included in the reward, I opted to level up first so my new minion would get a shot at winning a token.

Rico Kline, Foe Commander.

Tier 2, Rank 5.

Experience/experience needed for next rank: 17/40.

Summoning points: 161.

Strength, 14.

Agility, 13.

Constitution, 17.

Mind, 27 (28 with apprentice ring of the mind).

Presence, 13.

Current Mana, 56.

Damage Resistance, 10%.

Mana core upgrades:

1. Rift travel containment field.

2. Shielding, Stage 3. Minor regeneration engine.

Resistances:

1. Curse of Undeath, minor.

2. Toxins, minor.

3. Mental Intrusion, moderate.

4. Flame, moderate.

Skills:

1. Basic weapons skill.

2. Basic Unarmed Combat.

3. Basic armor proficiency.

4. Basic Lockpick/Disarm Device.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Abilities:

1. Linguistic adaptation interface.

2. Riposte.

3. Template Hunter.

4. Shared Burden.

5. Switch.

6. Enhanced Command Lesser Foe.

Your Template Hunter ability has activated. Your Tier 2, Rank 5 minion is based on the template you’ve selected. Since this minion was created from your Template Hunter ability, it will start with Rank 1 armor and weapons. For minions that are spellcasters, the Channel Mana ability will improve and grant an additional spell slot.

Digbaz Bazam, wind mage, Tier 2, Rank 5.

Experience, 0/40.

Equipment/Abilities/Spells.

Equipment:

1. Armor, Rank 1. At this rank, your minion is equipped with a thick robe that has padding added to the most vulnerable areas.

2. Weapons, Rank 1. At this rank, your minion is equipped with a solid wooden staff with an iron casing on each end. In addition, a steel dagger is kept as a backup weapon.

For ranged attacks, your minion holds a wand of magic missile with 2 charges. Charges for the wand will regenerate with each summoning, or at a rate of 1 charge every hour for longer duration summonings.

Abilities:

1. Channel Mana, Rank 0. Twice a day, your minion can stop and concentrate for 10 seconds to recover 2 spell slots. This ability can be disrupted if your minion is harmed or distracted during the channeling.

2. Spell Reflect. This ability will reflect one harmful spell or magical effect back onto the caster. Spell Reflect can only activate once every 24 hours. Spells with tiers much higher than your minion may partially, or totally negate this ability.

Spells: Your minion has a total of 20 spell slots. Digbaz Bazam regenerates 1 spell slot for each hour of uninterrupted rest.

1. Shove (Cantrip). This cantrip does not take up a spell slot, though there is a 5-minute cooldown required between castings. Shove creates a blast of air that can force back a medium sized humanoid. Larger, stronger, and magic resistant foes may negate some or all this effect.

2. Blades of Air, Rank 0. This spell creates a hardened blade of air that slashes any target within the caster’s line of sight. The spell does damage equivalent to the slash of a dagger and the power of the spell will increase as your minion increases in tier and rank.

3. Dome of Protection, Rank 0. This spell creates a dome of hardened air around the caster. The dome will absorb any damage, both magical and physical, that hits the caster. When it reaches the limit of damage it can absorb, the dome will shatter, and a 1-minute cooldown is required before it can be cast again.

4. Tornado. Once per week, your minion can summon a tornado to destroy your foes and devastate the area. This tornado is guided by the caster and lasts for up to 10 seconds. Extremely powerful, the spell uses all your minion’s mana and lifeforce. When the spell expires, your minion will be unsummoned and face an extended regeneration time before they can be summoned again.

I summoned my new minion, who looked a bit different than I’d expected. Instead of a human, like I’d targeted with my Template Hunter, my new minion was a kobold mage. Template Hunter must not copy the exact person, but just their class and powers. The other aspects of the minion were a bit random. I’d have to keep this in mind when selecting the next target for Template Hunter.

I’d seen most of the abilities my new minion had when I’d battled an air mage. It was a great class, and having the minion housed in a smaller kobold body would be an advantage since he’d appear less threatening to many opponents. His spells sounded powerful and with twenty spell slots, he quadrupled what Elida could cast.

Digbaz also had a few spells and abilities without ranks. His ultimate spell, Tornado didn’t appear to be upgradeable, which kind of made sense if a tier two, rank five minion was casting something that powerful. It’d even destroy my minion after casting, and I’d have to wait longer to resummon him.

The cantrip Shove was the most basic type of spell a mage could have, so it made sense it couldn’t be upgraded further. His Spell Reflect also didn’t seem to have a rank and would probably remain as it was. Maybe there were some other upgrade options for him once Digbaz grew his power a bit.

I took my new minion to the training room and let him cut loose on a few summoned foes. Shove wasn’t all that exciting, and against a goblin, it pushed the target back a few feet and almost made him fall. Against an orc, the spell just nudged him a bit. I could see some good uses for the spell though, forcing someone’s aim off, or who knew, maybe Digbaz would get the chance to push someone over a cliff.

His Blades of Air was powerful and trying it out against several types of armored foes, it seemed to hit with the force of a well struck dagger blow. Only heavy plate armor, or similar natural armor seemed to stop it, but even then, it would dent the armor and had to hurt the target despite not slashing them open. Given that he had twenty spell slots, I could see Digbaz using this spell to tear apart most foes we faced.

The Dome of Protection was a spell I’d experienced firsthand when I’d fought the mage. Not only did he have the protection dome, but he had also had the spell reflect, which had killed me at the end of the fight. Since I didn’t want to burn a weeklong cooldown on a test or risk my personal space being destroyed, I held off on having Digbaz cast Tornado. It was hard to wait, I really wanted to see what the spell could do.

With spell slots, both Digbaz, and Elida were able to function on Earth, and this minion’s abilities would wreak havoc on another attack by cultists. When Agent Lopez tracked down this Bhalkur guy, we’d see how he stood up to a tornado in the face. Thoughts of future revenge aside, I had a reward chest to dig into. The loot had better be decent after that excellent ranking and being forced to suffer through parasites eating me alive from inside.