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"Gold! Jiang Ruoxue summoned a golden Contract Spirit!"
Underground City Square.
This was the liveliest place in the entire Underground City, and today it was more crowded than ever.
The annual Contract Spirit awakening ceremony decided the future fates of countless boys and girls.
In the center of the square, a massive magic array funded by the Federation government glimmered faintly. A spatial passage connecting to another world floated steadily above it.
On the raised platform stood a girl dressed in clothes utterly different from the plainly clad boys and girls. Her face was full of excitement as she stared at the spatial passage.
Jiang Ruoxue had A-Rank mental strength. Normally, summoning an A-Rank Contract Spirit would have been an excellent result.
The chance of summoning an S-Rank Contract Spirit was minuscule.
And now, this golden light meant she had summoned a Contract Spirit with S-Rank potential.
People had already begun whispering—
"A-Rank mental strength and she summoned an S-Rank Contract Spirit? How lucky can you get?"
"Did that Jiang Family girl step in dog shit or something?"
"Shh, keep it down. Her father's Jiang Yuanpeng."
Jiang Ruoxue stood on the platform, fists clenched, staring at the golden light without blinking.
She had waited eighteen whole years for this day.
The golden light began to fade.
A shape emerged from the radiance.
It was short and round, wobbling slightly on the ground, its black exterior looking like a blob of jelly.
The square fell silent for two seconds.
"...A Slime?"
No one knew who shouted first, but the crowd erupted!
"Am I seeing things? Is that a Slime?"
"It's black as soot. It's even worse than an ordinary Slime. At least ordinary ones are transparent."
"Slimes top out at F-Rank. How could one trigger a golden light? Is the magic array broken?"
"Hahahaha—the Jiang Family Heiress summoned a Slime!"
Jiang Ruoxue's face went red, then pale, before turning completely dark.
Bai Chen felt a little dizzy.
To be precise, he had no head. He was currently a blob bouncing slightly on the ground.
He spent a few seconds taking in the scene before him:
A massive square, packed with people on all sides, and the sky...
No, there was no sky. A rocky dome arched overhead, hung with rows of artificial lights.
He had finally been summoned!
Bai Chen was overjoyed.
After spending a whole year in that other world filled with Devil Creatures, Bai Chen had at one point thought he would die in that damned Dark Forest.
A year ago, he had still been an ordinary college student.
That morning, his alarm had gone off three times before he dragged himself out of bed. He had dashed all the way to make his eight o'clock class, only to miss a step on the dormitory stairs and end up in that world.
No golden finger, no newbie village, no gentle big sister from another world to welcome him.
He had opened his eyes to find himself in a pitch-black forest, with Devil Creatures that wanted to eat him everywhere.
His only support was the system that had come with him.
[Host: Bai Chen]
[Attribute: Shadow System]
[Species: Devouring Demon God (possesses authority over Devouring; can obtain abilities by devouring different Devil Creatures)]
[Abilities currently acquired: Slime (S-Rank Shadow Tentacles) 100%/100%]
[Level: 9]
[Master (servant): None (after forming a contract, gain one chance to directly devour an ability)]
Devouring Demon God certainly sounded impressive.
But the problem was, when he had transmigrated, he had been a ball of shadow with no abilities whatsoever.
The only things he could devour were the weakest Slimes wandering around the edge of the forest.
He had spent a year devouring Slimes again and again, painstakingly grinding the F-Rank tentacle ability upward, raising it from B-Rank all the way to S-Rank.
The price was probably that he now looked much like a black Slime.
That suited Bai Chen's wishes, though. As he understood it, the demon god race was considered the most evil existence in the human world, so he would do his best to keep a low profile.
The reason he had looked forward to being summoned was naturally his longing for the bustle and prosperity of the human world. The Demon Continent was covered in Devil Creatures and dangers lurked everywhere. He had spent every day in the company of Slimes, without even anyone to talk to, and was practically growing mold.
Bai Chen shook his body and swept his gaze around. The person who had summoned him ought to be nearby.
There was only one girl on the platform, who looked to be seventeen or eighteen.
Her long hair fell over her shoulders, and her features were exquisitely beautiful. She wore a carefully tailored black uniform, making her look out of place among the drably dressed boys and girls around her, though her expression wasn't very pleasant.
Bai Chen's mood instantly improved.
A beautiful girl! She really is a beautiful girl!
Heavens, you finally did something decent!
He bounced twice on the spot in excitement, then hopped toward Jiang Ruoxue.
He hopped up to Jiang Ruoxue's feet and put on a friendly pose...
Then a foot came kicking toward him.
Bai Chen was sent flying three or four meters. He rolled several times across the ground before landing with a splat against the steps at the edge of the magic array.
"A useless Slime wants to form a contract with me?"
Jiang Ruoxue's voice came from above him. "Ridiculous."
Bai Chen slowly slid down from the steps and froze in place for a moment.
Wait... lady, you're the one who summoned me! What do you mean by calling me out and then kicking me away?
Jiang Ruoxue didn't spare him another glance. She turned and walked toward a middle-aged man in an official uniform beside the magic array.
"Town Chief Liu, is this magic array broken? I clearly summoned a golden light, so how could it be a Slime?"
The middle-aged man called Town Chief Liu was named Liu De, and he was in charge of the entire awakening ceremony today.
Frowning, he stepped forward with a scanner in hand and swept it over the blob of black Slime—that is, Bai Chen.
Liu De's frown deepened.
"A level-nine Contract Spirit?"
"What?" Jiang Ruoxue didn't understand.
"This Slime's realm isn't First Tier, but Ninth Tier."
Liu De showed her the readings on the scanner.
"Devil Creatures summoned through the spatial passage are normally level 1, but this one is already level 9.
The spatial array's golden-light assessment is based on the Contract Spirit's overall energy level, not its species.
Level 9's energy intensity does meet the threshold for an S-Rank assessment."
"So..."
"So the magic array isn't broken. It was indeed summoned according to the S-Rank standard. It's just—"
Liu De glanced at the black blob of jelly on the ground and swallowed the rest of his words.
It was just that its species was a Slime.
A Contract Spirit that lacked damage and had no potential.
Jiang Ruoxue's expression couldn't have looked worse.
But just then, another golden light shot into the sky.
The clamor in the square abruptly stopped.
On the platform, a girl with twin ponytails sat quietly in a crude metal wheelchair at the center of the magic array, her unfeeling legs covered by a thick blanket.
She wore a gray school uniform that had been washed pale. Compared with the radiant Jiang Ruoxue, she looked shabby by more than a few degrees.
The girl had a rare head of white hair, and even beneath her loose uniform, the astonishing curves of her chest were visible.
A pair of pink, delicate thighs were exposed, and a faint natural fragrance drifted from her body.
This was a white-haired legal loli.
She even looked a little overdeveloped, but the greatest pity was that her legs seemed unable to walk, leaving her able only to sit quietly in her wheelchair.
The golden light was pouring from the magic array beneath her feet, genuine and guaranteed.
"Another golden light?!"
"What's going on today? Two golden lights?"
"Who is that girl?"
Someone in the crowd soon recognized her.
"Lin Luoluo! It's that Lin Luoluo from District B!"
"The orphan with disabled legs who uses a wheelchair? Right, her family's poor and she has a seriously ill younger sister, but her mental strength test result was... S-Rank!"
"It's no surprise she could summon a golden Contract Spirit!"
Within the golden light, a silver-white figure walked slowly out of the spatial passage.
Its forelegs were covered in silver-white fur, and a long tail rose high behind it. The silver-white coat covering its body shimmered brilliantly in the golden light.
Its slit pupils were a pale blue, proud as a glacier.
"A Cold Moon Fox! It's actually a Cold Moon Fox!"
"Now that's a genuine S-Rank Contract Spirit! Once it matures, it can even control the temperature within a hundred meters and unleash 'Ice Domain'!"
"How lucky is that girl?!"
When Lin Luoluo saw that she had summoned an S-Rank Contract Spirit, her eyes instantly reddened.
Tears welled up in her eyes, but she fought to hold them back.
Summoning an S-Rank Contract Spirit meant she had a chance to enter the Upper City.
That meant a stable income, that her younger sister's medical bills would no longer be an astronomical sum, and that the two sisters would no longer have to huddle in that tin shack in the slums that leaked whenever it rained.
Carefully, she leaned her upper body forward slightly. Unable to stand on her legs, she had to remain seated as she reached a trembling hand toward the proud Cold Moon Fox.
"Hello..."
Her voice was soft, gentle to the extreme.
"I'm Lin Luoluo."
The Cold Moon Fox's ice-blue slit pupils turned toward her.
Its gaze started at Lin Luoluo's white stockings, mended at the knees, traveled up her faded linen skirt, and finally settled on the motionless wheelchair beneath her.
Then, just as Lin Luoluo's fingers were about to touch the tip of its nose—
The Cold Moon Fox darted sideways, neatly dodging her.
Lin Luoluo's hand froze in midair.
Note: This book's power rankings.
Devil Creatures and Contract Spirits are ranked from level 1 to 99, with every 10 levels making one tier.
Contract Spirit Masters are divided into the First through Ninth Tiers according to their Contract Spirits' strength.
Each tier has its own title: First Tier, Star-Hidden Contract Spirit Master; Second Tier, Star Condensation; Third Tier, Star Vault; Fourth Tier, Moon Soul; Fifth Tier, Moon Wheel; Sixth Tier, Moon Vastness; Seventh Tier, Sunrise; Eighth Tier, Sun Radiance; Ninth Tier, Sun Firmament.