Being a Summoner on our Evolved Earth

New Summon (8)

In the leftmost circle was a young adult male lion with several claw marks and bite wounds over his body, but he still did his best to hold his head high with pride. The middle circle held a young stag deer with a chunk of flesh missing from its hind quarters, and still bleeding out. The rightmost circle held a type of monitor lizard, that was missing the end of its tail. It was completely covered in mud too so it was impossible to see its original appearance. Lucia came back from her shock a moment later and sighed when she saw that she actually got injured creatures to answer her summons. The lizard seemed to be in the best condition, though the mud made it hard to tell for sure. First she had to learn what their traits were. She walked over to the lion's magic circle and placed a hand on it to initiate telepathic communication silently to allow for some privacy.

{Hello lion, can you tell me what your element is?} Lucia asked, hoping it had enough wisdom to answer simple questions. The telepathy through the magic circle crossed language barriers and allowed the lion to understand her question.

{Wind. So quickly take care of me.} The lion answered haughtily as though it was hiring Lucia, rather than her hiring it with the contract. Lucia furrowed her brows in discontent at its behavior. She swiftly moved to the little male deer and asked it the same question.

However, all she got was it crying and saying, {It hurts, please save me!} Lucia sighed and moved to the last magic circle and asked the same question a third time.

{Fire.} The lizard answered without any superfluous words like the others.

{How are you at combat?} Lucia continued questioning.

{I can fight creatures around my size or smaller. My fire usually scares bigger opponents off.} The lizard answered calmly. Lucia pondered, not all lizards are able to hunt large prey well besides the komodo dragon. However, the power of fire is very tempting since she doesn't know how things will be in other floors. 

{How is your control over fire?} Lucia asked, but she was pretty sure she knew that she would pick this lizard. The lizard seemed to raise an eyebrow and then let out a breath of fire that hit the magic circle's barrier which caused it to flash. Then the lizard lit its body on fire and caused the wet mud on it to dry and crack, even falling off in some places to reveal a copper skin underneath.

{What is your evolution level?} Lucia figured it was a first evolution, but perhaps it was a second evolution.

{First...} The lizard seemed upset as it was the lowest evolution of the creatures that answered the summons.

{My name is Lucia, do you wish to form a master and servant contract with me in which you serve me, and I provide you with mana and materials for evolution?} Lucia asked in a gentle voice. The lizard blinked a few times like it couldn't understand.

{But I'm weaker than them?} The lizard doubted her choice and explained its hesitation.

{You won't be for long under my care.} Lucia smiled as she saw the lizard's doubt as modesty.

{Then yes! Please help me become strong!} The lizard looked eager as it climbed the magic circle barrier to place its claw by Lucia's hand. The other two animals who were waiting smugly for her to finish with the lizard were shocked as they were sent back to where they came from. The lizard who had barely supported itself to stand just now, collapsed with the barrier's disappearance after the contract was signed. Lucia caught the lizard and sat down.

"It will be alright." Lucia comforted as she cast her favorite healing spell, "[Healing Spring]" Then she proceeded to peel the dried mud from its body so she could get a better look at its injuries. The little lizard relaxed when it felt the relief from the healing spell overpower the pain from its wounds.

The lizard thought to itself, 'No wonder she was okay with injured creatures too. She's a healer.'

After an hour of effort, Lucia finally managed to clean the lizard of all the dried mud that was stuck to it. She found a large group of claw marks near the stomach which had probably caused the most blood loss. Her healing spell had already healed the wound quickly and the missing tail had regrown to half its length as well. Lucia wasn't sure if her healing magic could regenerate limbs or not, but some lizards were known for re-growing their own tails. The lizard had felt safe enough to fall asleep in her arms shortly after it's wounds started healing. Lucia's legs slowly grew numb from sitting cross legged with a large lizard laying across her lap. She decided to distract herself by admiring its copper scales. 

'I wonder what you can evolve into?' Lucia smiled happily as she thought of its future possibilities. Also, fusing it with the living armor will make it an armored lizard with great defense, on top of its fire for offense. She'll have a fire breathing tank to help her fight. Before the fusion though, she'll need to wait for her skeletal soldier to evolve and need to give this little guy a lot of mana so it will be ready for evolution. Thinking so, Lucia started to pour a bit of mana into the lizard. 

At the moment the mana started to flow into it, the lizard snapped awake and tried to bite at her arm closest to its head on reflex. Just as its fangs were about to bite down on her; the contract caused the lizard to freeze, unable to move its body at all. Lucia was shocked by this response as she stopped inputting mana and slowly moved her hand away to appease the agitated lizard. The lizard who was in a groggy state, quickly woke up as it realized it couldn't move. It watched as the human didn't act in anger, which allowed it to relax.

'Thankfully, she isn't angry...' The lizard thought to itself as it finally gained the ability to move and took back its fangs to hang its head dejectedly.

"Are you okay? Did putting in mana hurt you?" Lucia was worried that she had hurt the lizard and that's why it snapped at her. The lizard seemed shocked when it heard her question.

{You put mana into me?} The lizard asked stunned, through the telepathic link in the contract. 

Now it was Lucia's turn to be stunned, 'The lizard has spiritual wisdom?' She blinked a few times then answered, "Yes. I was trying to improve your state. I don't have fire crystal cores, so the best I can do is input my neutral mana into you personally." 

"If the element of the giver and recipient clash, then the recipient will be in pain from their mana trying to expel the foreign mana. Thankfully your mana seems to be neutral and doesn't conflict with any elements." The lizard explained while feeling a bit awkward. 'This human was clearly powerful, but how come she didn't know about this?'

"I'm sorry. My memories have been sealed in this place so I don't remember a lot of things. I'll remember what you told me and not do that without asking again." Lucia felt apologetic, then she remembered that she had done this to her skeletal soldier. However, her soldier didn't seem to reject her at all? Perhaps it's the difference in personalities. 

"So if we may change topic, I've been wondering if you had a name or would you like one?" Lucia asked as she had been wanting to know for a while now. 

"I don't have a name, you can give me one, but if it's weird I won't accept it!" 

"Are you male or female?" Lucia asked as she hadn't checked that part of the lizards body out of decency.

"I'm female." 

"Then how about Vicki?" Lucia suggested.

"Sure, thanks for the name." Vicki accepted the name.

"So you already have your spiritual wisdom?" This was bothering Lucia since the lizard woke up and talked to her.

"I suddenly felt like I woke up when I was running for my life from the predator that took my tail..." Vicki grumbled as she recalled those memories.