Being a Summoner on our Evolved Earth

Returning to the Dungeon (13)

Soon they heard a gasp of shock from nearby as a little girl with long bright orange hair ran up to Lucia and grabbed her hand. "Why are you disappearing?"

"What the heck?!" Xantos exclaimed as both he and Lucia could see themselves slowly becoming more and more transparent. The other villagers soon gathered around to watch as well with feelings of fear or curiosity.

"It seems that we can't escape our prison this way for long..." Lucia sighed as she patted the child's head.

"I guess not..." Xantos sighed as well.

"We are trapped in dungeons at different locations, only through a small trick could we come out for a while. You all cannot rely on us appearing again to help you as we don't know when we can find a way out again. Grow strong and train your bodies, all of you whether man or woman if you wish to survive. Only when you are strong can you survive." Lucia decided to give some advice in hopes of motivating them to grow their own strength instead of trying to wait for people to save them every time.

Xantos put on his most reassuring smile while thinking, 'Good luck...'

"Anyone can become strong?" The orange haired girl asked with bright eyes.

"As long as you train your body and study strategy as much as you can and push past your limits, then you can even be stronger than us." Lucia kneeled down to speak to the girl at eye level.

"Just remember it takes time, so don't hurt or kill yourselves by rushing for results." The girl nodded energetically as several other kids also felt motivated. The optimism of the younger generation even motivated several teenagers and adults. After today, they realized that things couldn't continue like before the change. Of course not everyone was willing to not be lazy anymore.

With a few moments left Lucia stood up and raised her hands to the sky, while channeling a large amount of mana. "[Cleansing Drizzle]" Without clouds, clear rain fell from the sky and absorbed into every living thing it touched. 'This spell should give them a decent start since it cleanses diseases, and poisons. There is no guarantee that diseases didn't carry over from before the reset.' Lucia thought as everyone marveled at the sight.

Soon Lucia and Xantos were returned to their respective dungeons. Lucia looked around, but she found herself alone with her skeletal soldier and a treasure chest in front of her. Before bothering with the treasure she turned to check on her soldier.

"Sorry for summoning you when you were supposed to be evolving. I was rash going into the arena..." Lucia repented to herself even if her soldier couldn't understand, she felt she needed to reflect. Her decision inconvenienced her familiar, her companion. The skeletal soldier's soul flames jumped when it heard Lucia apologize. Lucia didn't notice as she was lost in self repentance, that her skeletal soldier had raised its hand unsure of how to act, instead it clenched its bony hands tighter like it was resolving itself.

After reflecting for a bit, Lucia then proceeded to examine her skeletal soldier as she remembered its unusual toughness during the fight earlier against the large ant that was clearly a third and almost fourth evolution creature. That's when she noticed that the mana her soldier held was depleted incredibly.

"Did you use the mana to increase your defenses and attacks earlier?" Lucia questioned out loud after discovering this. The skeletal soldier nodded. Lucia furrowed her brows, "Do you already possess spiritual wisdom?"

There was a brief pause as Lucia and her skeletal soldier stared at each other in silence. As Lucia had guessed; her skeletal soldier nodded, allowing her to relax.

"It took me a while to discover this huh, were you disappointed in me all this time?" Lucia chuckled self mockingly. 'To be honest, I hadn't wanted it to have wisdom since I was going to use it as evolution material... Now though, I can't just treat it like materials.' While Lucia was feeling depressed and relieved, her skeletal soldier took a step back and kneeled like a knight. It looked up at her and took her right hand in its hand. Then placed its cold skull against her hand, like it was offering a kiss of loyalty. Lucia resisted the instinct to retrieve her hand from the cold smooth surface and smiled wryly instead.

"I will not doubt your loyalty. You even allowed me to inject mana into you directly without rejecting me. You are truly better than I deserve with how I was treating you... It's a bit late, but how about a name? I hope you will approve of the name Aegis. I've had it in mind for awhile." Lucia spoke earnestly and seriously with a hint of expectation. Aegis nodded its head and saluted from its kneeling position to thank Lucia for the name. Lucia shook off her unhappy mood and decided to move forward without repeating past mistakes.

"Well, are you going to stay kneeling the whole time Aegis?" Lucia chuckled as it didn't look like Aegis was going to stand on his own. Hearing Lucia's remark, Aegis stood up while rubbing the back of its helmet looking awkward. "Let's refill your mana for evolution first." Lucia pulled out all the filled death type core crystals and passed them to Aegis to absorb mana.

Only once Aegis was taken care of did she turn to look at the chest. It was a little run down looking, like it would break with a couple good kicks. Lucia reached for the lid and opened it carefully. Inside the chest Lucia found a piece of paper, a small pouch, a potion with green liquid in it, and an ingot of black metal. Lucia picked up the paper and read it first.

'Congratulations, here are your rewards for beating the first floor. The pouch is a temporary item bag holding food, once the food is removed it will turn into a normal pouch. The green potion is a potion for boosting the physique of whoever drinks it, but it does not work on undead or constructs. The metal ingot is black iron, a more reinforced version of iron, but still not as good as steel.'

Lucia thought for a bit, 'The potion can help Vicki, the metal ingot could boost Aegis after he becomes living armor, and I suppose the food is for me. Though I won't mind sharing if Vicki wants to try it. I wonder what food it is?' Lucia reached for the small pouch and opened it, inside was a pot of some kind of soup with chunks of unknown meat and small veggies floating in it. 'I really hope the meat in this is animal and not human...'

After giving a sigh, Lucia placed the potion and black iron ingot in her backpack and tied the pouch to her belt. In dungeons and dragons it was very dangerous to put one spatial bag inside of another, and she definitely wasn't going to risk it here. It took ten fully charged core crystals to refill Aegis mana to the point of starting evolution again. Lucia recalled him and summoned Vicki to guard her as she went to the bedroom to sleep. She was exhausted from all her efforts today. First she spent hours training Vicki against undead, and then over another almost two hours of running around and fighting in the arena.

"Good night Vicki..." Lucia murmured as she quickly fell asleep. Vicki curled up at the side of the bed facing the door and quietly kept watch while absorbing mana from the two fire core crystals Lucia had charged a moment ago.