The void greeted me again, and I was never so happy to be floating inside of nothingness. I would take this over being eaten by a bunch of spiders any day. My mind raced and I kept waiting for the pain to return, but it seemed like the traumatic experience was over. More information appeared as whatever controlled this whole process rated my performance.

Your final trial performance rating is calculated as Adequate.

Your rewards will reflect the summoning tier of 0, and your performance rating of Adequate.

Congratulations on your successful integration into the summoning system.

Personal information has been unlocked.

Tiers and ranks have been unlocked.

Experience system has been unlocked.

You have earned 1 experience point.

The summoning point system has been unlocked.

You have earned 1 summoning point.

An advisor will attend to you shortly.

Whatever the trial thing was, it appeared it was now over. I had no idea what would happen now, but if I was getting an advisor, maybe some of my questions would finally get answered. Waiting in the void was odd, and it was hard to keep track of time. Even so, it didn’t appear that much time had passed before I heard someone speaking to me.

“You have successfully integrated into the summoning system. I will now answer your questions. Be advised that my time is valuable, and you will be sent back to your home world once we are through,” a feminine voice, different from the one that had greeted me the first time I was summoned said.

“Uh, hi? I’m a bit confused and not sure what’s happening to me,” I muttered.

“Do you have a question, or is this session complete?” The voice said. It kept an even tone, but I was definitely getting the vibe that whoever, or whatever, I was talking to was getting annoyed.

“Why was I selected for summoning?” I asked, just blurting out the first thing I could think of.

“It is a random occurrence. A summoned being in your world was no longer a viable candidate, and a replacement had to be found. I suspect that you were geographically close to the prior candidate, which is usually the case,” the voice said.

“Who are you?”

“I am your advisor, we will speak briefly during each of your summoning sessions,” the voice replied.

“Do you have a name?” I asked, not really sure what to call the voice. While it was a feminine voice, it was almost robotic in its responses.

“My kind do not typically have a name, but many of the simple beings we work with prefer to assign a name to their advisor. You may call me whatever you wish,” the voice replied. Great, I could name my advisor, but what name to choose? Maybe getting some buy in from my advisor was a good thing.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I’d like to name you, but can I get a little more information about you so I can pick a name that matches who you are?” I asked.

“If you wish to know who I am, I am your advisor,” the voice flatly replied.

“Is that all you are? Wait, what exactly are you, and I don’t mean your job, I mean like a species or something,” I got the feeling that if I wasn’t specific that the advisor would just keep repeating her job title and get annoyed.

“Very well, that is an acceptable question to ask. I am part of the whole, while also being a distinct individual. As far as a species, we are constructs created by mana to serve as advisors,” the voice said.

“But who made you?”

“The intelligence that guides the mana is my creator. If you must call my creator something, I believe the Universal System Engine or more simply, The System, will suffice,” the voice replied.

“But why do you do this, snatching people up and dumping them on other worlds just for a few minutes?” I asked.

“The System has determined the rules for mana use and summoning has always operated this way. When a summoner requests a summons, and the mana is spent, the System will provide,” the voice said.

“Yeah, but why me, why someone from my world? Why don’t you just grab someone from the planet these summoners are living on?” I asked.

“Mana is the reason,” the voice explained.

“Care to expand on that?” I replied, getting a little irritated about all the vague answers the voice was giving me.

“No.”

“How many people are taken from my world for this?”

“That is something I cannot disclose. You are privy to only the most basic information at this stage of your existence. Grow in tiers and rank, and more knowledge of the System will be granted to you. The time allotted for this conversation grows short. Do you have a final question for me?” The voice asked. There was so much I wanted to ask, but I didn’t feel that I had long to ponder everything.

“When will I be summoned again?” I asked.

“That knowledge is something I cannot disclose at this time,” the voice said.

“Minerva, that’s what I think I will name you,” I said before the connection was lost.

“Very well. I am curious, why did you select this name?” The voice asked me. For the first time, I heard something other than indifference or annoyance in the voice.

“I’ve always been interested in the mythology of my world. In one of our ancient cultures, the Romans called their goddess of knowledge Minerva. I think it fits you well,” I told her.

“This name is acceptable. You may ask one final question,” Minerva said. Apparently, I got a bonus question for giving her a name she approved of.

“Why am I naked every time I get returned home?” I asked. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the most important thing I needed to know, but it did make me lose my job. If there was some way to not have this happen, maybe things wouldn’t be quite so bad.

“You are broken down into your essence and reformed prior to being summoned. Clothing is not brought with you. Grow in strength and perhaps new options will become available. Our time is complete, please review your information summary while you wait for your return,” Minerva said.

I could feel her presence leave the area, and I was alone again. Minerva left but didn’t tell me how to review my information. Trying to speak the command to open didn’t work. When I finally calmed down, I tried picturing something like a video game character screen in my mind, and the information began to appear.

Rico Kline, Summoned Being.

Tier 0, Rank 0.

Experience/experience needed for next rank: 1/10.

Summoning points: 1.

Skills: None.

Abilities:

1. Linguistic adaptation interface.

Armory: Locked. You must reach tier 0, rank 5 to unlock the armory.

It wasn’t much detail, and concentrating on the different aspects of the information sheet didn’t reveal anything else. I still had no idea what a summoning point was or what it did, and there was no explanation of these ranks and tiers.

Maybe when I gained a new tier, I would get some kind of combat ability. I added that question to my growing list of things I needed to ask Minerva the next time we met. That brought up another question, would I get the same advisor each time? It was strange, I was already planning for my return to this place. Did that mean I was accepting that this was real. No, it was still a bit too much to believe at this just yet.

For all I knew, I was unconscious back in the examination room, and the doctor was trying to revive me. Maybe I had been sent to the hospital where they’d run tests. If I returned to find myself still sitting in the exam room, that would be a good indicator that this was all some sort of mental health event since I’d been gone for a while by now.

Prepare to return to your world.