Chapter 293. Back to Somhagen.

I had my new minion ready to go, and the door to Somhagen now appeared on the far wall. The trip to the city could wait a bit, as I had some rewards to claim. Opening the reward chest, I was also notified that Khurr had leveled up.

Your minion Khurr, has reached Tier 0, Rank 8. He has unlocked the following ability.

1. Blindfighting, Rank 0. This ability allows Khurr to target and engage melee opponents even if they are invisible or his eyesight is damaged. All attacks made when using Blindfighting have a 25% additional chance to miss.

Reward Chest.

New Inventory.

1. Silver coins, 877.

2. Gold coins, 29.

3. Minion ability/spell token (2).

4. Minion equipment token (4).

5. Minion experience token (1).

6. Elixir of the Parasite.

There were the usual suspects in the reward chests, including a nice pile of coins. Before I dug into the minion tokens, I took a look at the elixir. A system prompt appeared to explain the item.

Elixir of the Parasite. Imbibing this elixir will introduce a parasitic infection into the hosts digestive system. These parasites will permanently sap 1 point of Constitution from the host. In return, the parasites will vigorously defend their host from any competing parasitic creatures, eventually granting the host complete parasitic immunity.

Wow, that was quite a tradeoff. After my final experience as a taste tester, I wasn’t exactly keen on parasites. By drinking the elixir, I would sort of be making a deal with the devil. Was having complete immunity from other parasites worth adding a bunch of them into my system permanently?

“What do you think Melvin, parasites now to prevent worse parasites later?” I asked my gelatinous friend. All he sent back was a shrug. He was already immune, since he could just dissolve and eat any parasites that somehow found themselves inside him.

It would have been great if Tzes’zod was here to bounce the potential dangers off, but he was out doing his thing, and this didn’t qualify as a negotiation where I could summon his services. For now, I’d keep the elixir in storage and maybe ask about it with the information broker if it wasn’t too expensive of a question.

Next up, I had my minion tokens to distribute. The first one was the single experience token. I activated it and the system selected one of my minions at random.

Elida Silverbarrow has reached Tier 1, Rank 3. She has gained an additional spell slot. Stats and durability of this minion have improved.

A quick check confirmed that Elida now had a total of six spell slots. Combined with her upgraded stats and durability, she just became a bit more effective. I activated the spell tokens, then the equipment tokens and waited as the system randomly distributed them.

Khurr’s Trapper ability has reached Rank 1.

Digbaz’s Channel Mana ability has reached Rank 2.

Mana Slayer Drone has reached Armor, Rank 5.

Blieek has reached Weapons, Rank 3.

Mana Slayer Drone has reached Weapons, Rank 3.

Blieek has reached Armor, Rank 1.

Blieek and the drone were the big RNG winners this time. Khurr now had an extra trap charge making it a bit more effective. For Digbaz’s Channel Mana, the new rank reduced the channeling time of the ability by a second. Not a huge difference, but in the middle of a fight, even a single second could be the difference between life and death.

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For the gear upgrades, my drone now had a rapid repair feature added to its already impressive armor. The repair boost lasted for fifteen seconds and was like a heal over time effect for the minion. With his rank three weapons upgrade, the secondary set of arms on my drone could wield thrown weapons. Having a ranged option for my most powerful melee minion would be great for those times when getting up close and personal wasn’t possible.

Blieek’s upgrades consisted of a new padded tunic and sturdy boots. It was only rank one armor for my lowest tier creature, but it was better than the dirty, threadbare tunic he was wearing before. For his weapon upgrade, Blieek now would be summoned with a pair of throwing daggers that he was proficient with.

That one summoning’s set of rewards proved to be a nice bump in power for my team. With my minions and rewards squared away, I had a trip to Somhagen to prepare for. I didn’t feel like there was any pressing business for this trip, so I would just see what kind of contracts I could wrangle up, while cashing in the one’s I’d already completed.

I was always on the lookout for gear and upgrades, and there were 161 summoning points for me to work with at the summoned market. Money wasn’t going to be a problem and brought everything I had in the storage chest with me. Back home, I was wealthy and didn’t need to bring coins back to be converted into US currency anymore. I’d come a long way from having to pawn my copper and silver coins to eat and pay for a shabby motel room.

“Melvin, do you want to come with me?” I asked.

After all, Somhagen was where I had found him. He sent feelings of excitement over our connection, and slithered along behind me as I approached the door. I wondered if he might want to visit the shop where I’d found him, and he seemed curious but not overly excited about the idea.

Once again, my door opened onto the hillside, and I could see Somhagen laid out in front of me. It was early morning, and a great crowd of carts and people were slowly flowing into the city. We walked down the hill and joined the crowds in front of the main gate.

A quick look back showed that there were dozens of doors dotting the hillside. I wondered how many summoned beings were in the city at any given time. From what I could gather, only worlds with pending integration into the system could spawn summoned beings. It seemed to be a big piece of the system’s plan to slowly infuse the world with mana.

Agent Lopez had said that we had anywhere from six to nine months left before we were integrated into the system. I was both excited and terrified over what the change might mean for our world. While I had been trying to do what I could to help, it felt bad that the summoned beings would be kept away from Earth for at least the initial period of integration.

I’d have to wait until I passed tier three to find out what was going to be in store for me, and I had to admit that I was a bit nervous about where I’d be sent. If my status as a summoned being was ending, life would get a lot more dangerous without the respawn mechanic in place during a summoning.

The crowd in front of us slowed down as they waited for the guards to process them all inside. Melvin didn’t even raise an eyebrow when he passed into the city at my side. My status as a summoned being was somehow easily apparent to the guards, and Melvin was probably far from the strangest thing they’d seen while on duty.

“Where to first?” I asked myself. Melvin took it as a question for him, and immediately sent images of food through our link.

“Fine, we’ll stop at a cart on the way, but I want to get a room for us before we get too involved in our day,” I replied.

We stopped for a bite at the first tier of the city. I returned to Tonpu Zavai’s cart, the older man who sold the corn dog-like fried sausages. He and his wife looked a bit worried about Melvin, but my buddy was on his best behavior today, especially when he knew that I wouldn’t buy him a corn dog if he was giving me any trouble.

“Hello, young man. You and your friend look a bit hungry,” the man said.

“Good to see you again Tonpu, I’ve bought food a couple of times from you before, but I didn’t have Melvin here with me,” I replied, handing over a handful of copper coins to buy several corn dogs.

“Ah, that’s right, sorry, my old age causes me to take a few minutes before remembering folks. You’re the summoned being, let’s see, Rico was your name, wasn’t it?” He asked.

“Exactly. I hope you’re both doing well, I’d stop to chat more, but I got a lot to do and only a short time here,” I explained, passing over even more money when I saw that Melvin had already dissolved the three corn dog’s I’d given him. With another three corn dogs slowly dissolving inside Melvin’s gelatinous mass, we moved on.

I headed toward the second tier and the same inn that I’d stayed at last time. It was a nice enough place, and the food was good. The inn was also situated near a lot of the shops I wanted to visit on this trip. Hoping they wouldn’t have a problem with Melvin joining me, I entered the inn.

“Heya Rico, fancy seeing you here buddy,” an all too familiar voice called from the bar. There, seated on a stool with a pair of drinks in front of him was none other than Gary.

“Who let you in?” I asked, confused and annoyed that Gary had somehow made it back into Somhagen.