Being a Summoner on our Evolved Earth

Continuing Exploration (9)

"It's great you already have it. Well, want to explore the dungeon with me now that you are healed and rested? Oh right! Are you hungry?" As Lucia remembered about the food she reached for her backpack to pull out some jerky for herself and Vicki.

"If I'm your servant, why are you sharing your food with me?" Vicki looked at the food and saw Lucia eating it before she asked this question.

Lucia blanked as she pondered the question. "I only have this food available and there is nothing but skeletons on this floor of the dungeon..."

"You keep saying dungeon, what is a dungeon?" Vicki asked as her spiritual wisdom only gave her a strong learning ability and minimal pre-existing knowledge.

"A dungeon typically referred to a prison to keep prisoners before. However, now I suppose it also refers to a place that holds many creatures, traps, and trials to be passed for rewards and survival. Because of a creature several other human's and I defeated, we were trapped in these dungeons until someone as powerful as us appears in the outside world." Lucia explained to the best of her knowledge. Vicki seemed to look at her with awe for defeating something powerful, then pity as she realized that Lucia was trapped and had her memories sealed.

"Did you lose your previous contracted familiars during the fight?" Vicki asked as she realized this point.

"Yes and no. Only my unicorn technically entered a state of forced sleep after using a powerful skill that allowed me to escape death. The rest were alive and well, but when I was sent here, all my contracts were removed." Lucia explained so that Vicki wouldn't fear for its safety when traveling beside her. Vicki nodded its head in understanding. "Today is my second day here, and you are my second contracted familiar. My first one is a skeletal soldier that is consolidating the mana in its body so it can evolve."

Vicki's eyes sparkled as she thought about evolution and forgot about asking why Lucia remembered that when she said her memories were sealed. Lucia gently patted her head and finished eating the jerky. Vicki finally ate as well, then they walked out of the room to explore. Vicki's head was on a swivel as it looked all over the place for a bit, then she realized the place was monotonous and calmed down. It only took a few minutes to get to the last room that Lucia cleared the previous night and moved onto the next room. The next room surprisingly had a pair of wolf skeletons and normal skeletons. Lucia glanced at Vicki while trying to decide what buff magic would work best.

"Go ahead and fight, I'll be here to support you. I need to see how you fight to know which spells will work on you." Lucia turned to the human skeletons and used a spell that she almost never used, "[Pacify]" The two skeletons who were originally raising their swords, relaxed and watched the wolf skeletons rush forward.

Vicki moved forward to meet them as she watched their movements. Just when one of the skeletal wolves moved forward to bite her, she coated her body in flames while also whipping a flame breath at it. The wolf who suddenly had a mouth full of fire, also felt its fur and bones melting. It jumped back on reflex only to get smacked by Vicki's regrown tail that was also covered in flames. The wolf skeleton staggered back into the flame breath as it clattered to the ground with its soul flame extinguished. The other wolf moved in while Vicki's attention was all on the first wolf. She felt the fangs piercing into her neck while the wolf felt itself being burned. Vicki had to take a moment to move her head to breathe fire at the second wolf as it was out of reach of her tail. Her blood flowed out from the bite wound as the wolf's fangs kept digging in.

"[Healing Spring]" Lucia cast the healing spell on Vicki to help prevent the wolf from breaking her neck. The regeneration of the healing spell forced the wolf's fangs slowly out of Vicki's scales. All while it was getting roasted by her flame body and flame breath. It was a slow process, so much so that Lucia walked up and swung her staff down on the wolf's neck and shattered it. Vicki who had been focused, was shocked as it saw the wolf collapse. Lucia bent down and inspected the wound, and saw it heal rapidly under her spell. "So, is that how you usually fight?" Lucia asked with concern.

"Um... Yes?" Vicki felt depressed as she heard the disappointed tone in Lucia's voice. "You rely too heavily on your fire element. Some opponents need more brute force or agility. Here for example, skeletons are weak to brute strength that's able to break their bones. When you used your tail to attack earlier, didn't that first wolf go down relatively quickly? So for the second one, you needed to move your body to hit it with your tail rather than relying on fire when you saw it having limited effect." Lucia gave her analysis of the fight to help Vicki learn.

"That makes sense, let me try again!" Vicki accepted the advice and was eager to keep practicing.

"First, do you want to rely on brute strength or agility or both?" Lucia wanted to determine the direction of growth for Vicki.

"I... I don't know..." Vicki felt confused by the question, though she was leaning more towards agility.

"If you go the brute strength route, then my other creature can be fused with you later on to increase your defense immensely. With Agility, it means that you will need your fire more, and enemies with high fire resistance will still be a nuisance. The strength route means you'll have a harder time fighting enemies that are agility based though." Lucia explained the possibilities, then thought, "Let's keep practicing and you can decide through experience which path you want."

"Okay!" Vicki exclaimed happily as she moved to face off against the two skeletons that were under pacify. The pacify spell wore off as soon as hostility was directed at them. Lucia didn't use buffs so that Vicki could understand her own strength first. She should really save the buffs for emergencies or long fights. 

They passed through a few more rooms that seemed to get weaker with more animal skeletons than human ones. Vicki quickly got used to fighting with her whole body instead of just fire. After every room, Lucia would fill up the fire sliver made by Vicki to give her mana that had changed to fire attribute as a reward for her efforts. Lucia as usual chose left and was blasted with a gust of fresh air as she saw a black metal gate sealed with a magic aura. On the other side of the door was a deciduous forest full of green. Lucia unconsciously broke into a run as she ran over to touch the gate only to be pushed back with by the same amount of strength she ran forward with.

"Is that the exit?" Vicki asked.

"I think it is." Lucia sighed, she couldn't recognize the magic on the door at all. It was decorated with ten chains in a web like pattern. Lucia started thinking of casting spells to see their effects, but her mind suddenly became clouded and she spun around to go down the other path at the fork behind them. Vicki noticed Lucia's strange mood and just followed silently at her side. The other end of the fork led to a dead end with just some skeletal mice. So that meant there was only one way left forward, the arena.

Lucia recalled Vicki as she jogged all the way back to the arena with new found determination. When she once again faced the lattice gate, she took a deep breath before entering. However, upon entering, a cloud of white fog appeared and conjured a glass door before her. In the door she saw a man being chased by a group of red ants the size of large dogs. The white fog then wrote its mission for her.

"You already failed the combat arena trial, the alternate passing method is to help someone else complete their trial. Your mission is just to keep them and yourself alive. If you accept, just enter this door." Lucia entered the door quickly to get this over sooner.