Being a Summoner on our Evolved Earth

Evolution... Failed? (7)

Lucia didn't sleep well at all in the unfamiliar environment. She constantly had nightmares about people blaming her for causing their lives being flipped upside down, or being chased by a horde of angry skeleton variants. Just as the skeletons were about to catch her she jolted awake to see a skeleton leaning over her, about to use the blanket to wipe the sweat off her forehead. It took a lot of effort for Lucia to not scream or punch her skeletal soldier. They awkwardly stared at each other for a minute before Lucia closed her eyes again and took several deep breaths. The soldier took that moment to release the corner of the blanket and moved back to its position in the hallway. Lucia opened her eyes to watch its retreating figure with a bit of confusion.

'Was it showing concern for me?' She just didn't understand how a creature without wisdom could perform such an act. Then she thought of how some animals were used as emotional support for people. Perhaps, the undead weren't as emotionless as she thought? Lucia wiped away her sweat with the blanket and got up as she looked at the cloud of fog over the pedestal. 

"Do you have a question? The day has reset." The fog sensed her attention and floated over.

"Is there away to get mana from creatures without killing them?" Lucia didn't want to be a genocidal murderer for the sake of gathering resources. In games that was allowed, but not real life. This was her reality now, so she needed to make some adaptations. 

"As long as there is a container like a core available, different entities can put mana into them and mana can be absorbed from them. They can also condense their own cores after the first evolution. Those who have had their second evolution can make core slivers to be traded, and third evolution can make half a core, etc. The cores are just condensed mana that formed a solid shape. However, a core made of death type mana can only hold death type or neutral mana. Neutral mana will slowly be converted to death mana in a death type core. This is similar for the other elements. Friendly tip, your mana is neutral, that is why you are able to heal all types of creatures without them suffering backlash from elemental conflict."

It wasn't too hard for Lucia to understand, and she even felt excited. She grabbed one of the mana slivers from the backpack and tried to push mana into it slowly. She wasn't sure why, but the sliver expanded in size quite quickly under her input. It very quickly reached the size of half a core before it wouldn't accept any more mana. Lucia didn't feel much of a dent in the mana stored inside her body. So she filled up each of the five core slivers to the size of half a core. A sudden urge to combine the half cores together rose up in her mind as she then fused two pairs of half cores together to make two normal cores. Then she gave the last half core to her skeletal soldier to reward him for keeping guard last night.

"Here's a reward for your work, don't absorb the container this time please. Also, thanks, for your concern earlier." Lucia felt awkward as she didn't know if it could comprehend her words. The skeleton took the half core and gave her a nod. The grey fog in the core slowly emptied into its soul flame until just a grey transparent shell was left, then the soldier passed it back to her. She smiled as she took it back and refilled it with mana that was kind of like a crystalline texture fog.

'Is this what neutral mana looks like?' Lucia thought as she put the half core away. She saw some more white spots on her skeletal soldier as well. Then she placed her hand on its arm and tried pouring mana directly into it. The soldier jolted like it received an electric shock, then it stood still like a post until she finished. 

"I'm sorry, did that feel uncomfortable?" Lucia thought it was uncomfortable to receive mana like this so she quickly stopped and looked worriedly at her soldier. Much to Lucia's relief, the soldier shook its head to say it wasn't uncomfortable.

"May I continue then?" She asked hesitantly, and the soldier nodded. Lucia resumed pouring mana into the soldier's body and she could see the yellow bones turning to an off white. Once they were all white, she still didn't feel that the soldier had reached the cap for mana it could hold so she continued. The off white bones started to look more pearl white and even went from rough to smooth like they were polished. Once the transformation of the bones completed, the max amount of mana the soldier could hold was reached. Lucia admired the shiny and smooth bones under torch light.

"You look great!" Lucia complimented as she then started to grab all the armors and weapon she collected. "Are you ready to evolve?" She asked while setting things up. The skeleton nodded and the soul flame flickered eagerly in its eye sockets. 

"[Item Fusion]" Lucia activated the spell to bind these items to her skeletal soldier. The materials melted down into liquid metal which wrapped up the skeleton and formed new armor in the places where it was missing. However, the evolution failed... "Why did it fail?" Lucia looked distressed as the white fog flew in front of her to answer her question.

"The creature has too much foreign mana in its body that needs to be converted to its own mana. This will take a day or two to do if it is recalled, longer if it stays by your side. In the future, using crystal cores to transfer mana of the same element over to the creature will be much faster for conversion." 

"Oh..." Lucia realized she had been too eager to help her skeletal soldier evolve. Now in front of her was basically a skeletal knight that was still at the skeletal soldier stage. The armor didn't look rusted anymore and had a clean sheen to it and it was a full body suit of armor now instead of just a helmet and breastplate. The wooden buckler was probably the only part that stayed the same. Lucia could still see the soul flame inside the helmet that looked curiously at its new armor. "We'll have to wait for you to convert the mana I gave you for you to evolve, so I'll be sending you back to rest." Lucia smiled wryly as she explained. The skeletal soldier nodded and Lucia used her [Recall] spell to send it back to whatever plane of existence she called it from. 

"Guess I'll try a new summoning. I have several contract spaces to fill." Lucia thought as she activated her summoning circle like the first time. The magic circle filled up the small space in the room. This time though, Lucia thought while she was casting, 'I'm even fine with a wounded creature, so won't something useful show up?' The Magic circle changed sizes very rapidly all of a sudden as though many creatures were fighting for the chance to be summoned. Lucia stared wide eyed as the circle changed to three with a figure in each of them.