Chapter 471: Failed Summoning

He waved his hand.

"Yeah, we will just push that specific method out of the way for now. So what about the other two?"

Serena frowned as she stared hard at the open book.

"I could use the third method. The third version seems much safer and far more stable. But I will need a massive, empty area and a huge amount of mana crystals to even set the arrays up."

She flipped a page back.

"But we need to capture the monsters and control them ourselves. I also need to bond with them mentally. This will take a considerable amount of effort and time, since almost all of the monsters are incredibly hard to tame. If not close to impossible."

She sighed.

"Then there is the second method. That one could potentially be much more convenient if I find an actual Master of Creatures who can willingly lend me their monsters. Or well, different sort of beings like demons too."

Adrian nodded slowly.

"Well, let’s just say that I could easily cover the role for the second method as a Master. I can just give you monsters that you can freely control."

Serena’s eyes opened wide.

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah. But there is also another massive issue with that one."

Adrian crossed his arms.

"While it is not as big as the third method... which basically requires us to burn dozens of mana crystals so that your monsters don’t die during the summoning ritual, I cannot help you with that part. I will technically still be considered the owner for the monsters. If I relinquish my ownership over them, they will completely go rogue and feral so you won’t exactly have them under your control."

"But for the second method, the problem is you need a certain amount of your own mana to actively summon anything. The stronger the creature is, the more mana it will pull from you. So it will be completely dependent on your own internal mana capacity."

Serena nodded thoughtfully.

"Yeah. Keeping the summoned creature right beside me will also slowly consume a little bit of my mana as time passes. So I need to be strategic about my usage."

Adrian chuckled.

"Yeah, that is extremely true. If that wasn’t the case, I would have just advised you to meditate, summon something, meditate again, and repeat the entire process until you amassed an entire army of monsters. But since you technically need to passively continue providing your own mana just to keep the creatures anchored beside you, that is not exactly advisable."

He rubbed the back of his neck.

"There is another massive problem though. This summoning method states that it consumes more mana the higher the distance between you and the actual creature is. I don’t know how that is going to work for us."

He looked at her.

"Why don’t we just test it out right now?"

Serena blinked. "Right here?"

Adrian nodded.

"Yeah. Just use the floor."

Serena nodded eagerly.

"Okay."

She looked back down at the thin book resting between them. She opened it up to one of the middle pages and carefully studied the multiple summoning diagrams that were drawn there.

"Which one should I go for?"

Adrian thought for a second.

"Well, let’s start with one of the smaller ones I guess. Let’s go for a creature that is lower than five kilograms."

"Why don’t we go for something even smaller than that?" Serena suggested. "What about less than one kilogram?"

"I mean, sure, I guess. Not a big deal since we are just testing the mana drain."

Serena nodded. She carefully got off the bamboo bed and sat on the bamboo floor. That was when she paused.

She looked up at Adrian.

"Can I substitute my own blood for the monster’s blood? Because I don’t exactly have the monster’s blood right now."

Adrian glanced over at the book.

"Yeah, you can. Didn’t it say that you can use your own blood, but you will be a lot more restricted in what creatures you can summon?"

Serena shook her head.

"No, that specific drawback is for the other two methods. Not for this one. For the second method, it doesn’t really matter whose blood it is as long as you have the permission of the true owner of the monster. In fact..."

She traced a line of text with her finger.

"It doesn’t say it directly, but using the actual blood of the owner itself will help with controlling the monster significantly better and also vastly reduce the mana consumption. It doesn’t state how much, but it does say that the mana consumption is reduced. Not for the summoning itself, but mostly just for maintaining the summon’s anchor."

Adrian nodded slowly.

"Okay, well we don’t have to test that specific part right now, so it is not required."

Serena nodded. She grabbed a small, sharp knife from her spatial ring. She stabbed the base of her own thumb, squeezing a few drops of blood out, and started to carefully draw the intricate circular diagram onto the floor.

Once she was done mimicking the array, she casually used a low-tier healing spell to close the small cut on her hand.

She looked down at the bloody circle and started to chant.

As she started chanting, Adrian immediately opened up his system interface.

’System, quickly create a really small bird for me inside the dungeon. Something like a monster form of a sparrow.’

He paused.

’Actually, never mind. Just make me a basic Slime. That is probably one of the most lightweight monsters out there.’

[Affirmative.]

Almost instantly, a small, bouncy blue slime materialized inside one of the empty dungeon rooms.

As Adrian heard Serena continuously chant his name, actively calling him the true owner of the monsters to fulfill the spell’s requirements. he suddenly felt a slight mental tug on his end.

All he had to do was mentally accept the pull. He just thought of a confirmation to give her full permission.