Sorting the loot chest to reveal only new items, I pulled up the summary.

Rico’s Loot.

New Inventory.

1. Copper coins, 94.

2. Silver coins, 21.

3. Potion of minor healing, 1.

It wasn’t too exciting of a haul, but I was glad to see a replacement for the healing potion that I’d used on the summoner. I didn’t know if the system took into account that I had used it, or if it was simply random chance that I’d been granted one. Minerva wasn’t here to explain, and I was fine with that.

With her gone, I was on my own, but at the same time, I felt much more in control of my life. Sure, I was still going to be summoned and couldn’t control when it happened, but the summoned life was becoming familiar to me. If I could find a place to live permanently and eventually retire from my career as a summoned being, things would be great.

Lavelle had offered to share information about how he broke free and started up his own business, but with the system requiring five hundred gold for the answer, it was going to be some time before I could ask. That didn’t mean I couldn’t start planning for it, and I did know that when I finally broke free, I’d like to be powerful enough in my class to defend myself and be financially secure to the point I didn’t have to worry too much about starting a new life.

There was a chance that I’d hit my next rank after another summoning. I was curious to see if anything changed or improved with my class other than a stat boost. Hitting rank one would give me another point in presence, which would reduce the mana reserved for my figurines. It wasn’t much, just one point, but it would add up over time, eventually allowing me to carry more of the figurines and still have mana left over to cast some spells.

A check of the return home gauge over my loot chest revealed that I had only gained about 15% of a charge. I was going to be facing several more summonings before I was back on Earth. It was fine with me; I was paid ahead for the room I rented so a few extra summoning sessions wouldn’t see me evicted or anything.

Time was strange while being summoned. Sometimes after several summonings, only a few moments passed back home, but during the longer summoning with Fitzfazzle, the time that passed between the two worlds was close to the same. I wondered just how many other worlds were out there for me to explore, and which one I should choose for my permanent home.

With my next summoning not popping off immediately, I had a bit of free time. I wanted to put that to good use, so I went to the armory to replace the potion I’d used with the new one I acquired. Since they didn’t have a gear cost associated with them, the restock feature like I had with the Notice of Cessation, didn’t function and I had to do things manually.

There wasn’t anything I wanted to change on the loadout, so my next stop was the training center. I could sense that mana had refreshed from the last time I’d been here, and I wanted to test out a few different loadout options for my summoning figurines. Instead of the ghoul, I tested bringing two of my tier zero, rank five minions.

Of the options I had for that tier and rank, Lillia and the cave spider seemed to be the best pair. Lillia was a decent fighter, and with her shield and limited armor, she could often take more than a few blows from a similarly ranked opponent. The cave spider was rather fragile, but with Lillia holding the attention of an opponent, the spider could often sneak behind a foe and begin to bite. Spider venom turned out to be pretty good against most of the opponents, usually slowing down the foe after only a few seconds.

The zombie was a hard no for me. It was slow and had trouble closing the distance with a foe. When it did latch on, the zombie was good at tying up a foe and unleashing some rather brutal bites. My main problem with it, if I was being honest, was the horrible stench the thing gave off. Once it even bumped into me while I was helping in melee against a bunch of gnolls that I’d summoned as our foes. The stench stayed on my shirt for far longer than I wanted, and I was worried it might never go away.

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All in all, the zombie was about on par with Lillia, and she was much easier to put up with. Still, having Lillia and the spider together as a team weren’t nearly as powerful as the ghoul. I even tested them against a ghoul, which I had several versions of in my shelf of figurines. The ghoul easily cut down the pair, and as much as I disliked the undead creature, I had to admit the ghoul was the better pick.

My decision was further reinforced when I cast Duplicate. A second Lillia or spider wasn’t that exciting, but a second ghoul was a nice bump in power, even if it couldn’t withstand as much damage as the original one did. While it might have taken more damage, its attacks were just as powerful as the original ghoul.

With my favorite loadout of figurines confirmed, we tried to fight against various combinations of foes. Testing ran from large numbers of weak attackers, to single, but powerful, opponents. I used as many support spells as I could during the more difficult battles and waded into melee to get more practice with the hammer.

My close combat skills were fine against untrained thugs back home, but against any opponent with a modicum of skill, I faltered. Thankfully, I was rarely fighting on my own, and instead, I had my minions to help out. At least my magic warhammer proved more than up to the task, it made my blows more powerful than they should have been, and the light weight made it easy to wield.

Oddly enough, fighting in melee alongside my two weakest summons was rather effective. Rupert, the hound, and I could come at a foe from all sides, and when it was distracted by one of us, the others invariably landed a few good shots. Things fell apart when attacked by multiple foes; that was when we needed the ghoul to help out.

Fighting in melee also helped me work on casting in combat. My Empower Minion spell proved easy to cast, and I was often able to fire off the spell in between swings of my hammer. Psionic Jolt also could be cast in the heat of combat, giving my foes a nasty surprise. It also gave me a peek at the other class I could have chosen, the Psionic Hammer.

I was more than happy with my choice of Foe Summoner, as I seemed to do much better in a fight with allies at my side. Whether they were summoned creatures, or an army of gnomish friends, I seemed to be able to focus better when I wasn’t alone. My other spells, Fail Weapons, and Redirect were more situational and didn’t come into play all that often while fighting.

Against archers, Fail Weapons was great, snapping bowstrings and the like, but it was slow to affect melee weapons and would often require multiple castings before I saw any results. It had proven very effective against the handgun the burglars had tried to use against me back home, which sort of confirmed why technology hadn’t replaced magic in most of the worlds I’d seen so far.

Redirect was a bit useless right now, but after thinking about it a bit, I could see it becoming more powerful as my tier increased and my minions became stronger. Being able to force a foe to square off against a powerful summoned creature like an ogre, instead of hacking me to bits, could easily turn a fight in our favor. In that same vein, my spells like Psionic Jolt would become less and less effective as the power of my foes increased. It was great now, so I’d enjoy the advantage while I had it.

As I trained, I began to tune into the amount of mana in the room. Once it was expended, I’d have to wait for it to recharge again before I could use it. The longer I spent here, the better the feel I had for how much was left. There was no gauge on the wall, like the completion gauge for when my summoning series was over, but I wouldn’t need anything like it here where I could feel it with my core.

We were getting down the dregs of the mana in the training center when I finally received my next summoning.

You are Summoned!

I left the training center and said goodbye to Melvin who was trucking along near my rocking chair. Maybe I was imagining it, but the little guy seemed to be moving a bit faster than before. I couldn’t tell if he was getting bigger, but Zillaria from the pet shop had said that Melvin would absorb nutrition from the ambient mana of my personal space. Did that mean he would grow?

“Are you picking up the pace there, buddy, you seem to be faster. Good work, Melvin, keep it up,” I said, trying to encourage him. A feeling of thanks trickled in from our link, confirming that he could understand my intent if not the actual words when I spoke to him.

“I got to go, try to stay out of trouble while I’m gone,” I said, taking a final look around before stepping into the swirling blue portal as I began my next adventure.