The Reverse Summoning Technique-Did I Become a Summoning Beast?

"I'll go, I'll go!" Hatsumi waved her hands, barely able to contain her excitement. After seeing Great Ferocity's impressive display, she wanted to find out whether she could summon powerful bugs too—preferably enormous ancient ones. The cooler they looked, the better.

"Sure. Give it a try, just like I taught you. It's very simple." Tenzo nodded, feeling a little nostalgic. Back then, he'd been just as excited as Hatsumi and the others. Summoning beasts were a ninja's trusted companions. He'd completed several missions with Great Ferocity's help. Great Ferocity had stayed by his side through his weakest days, growing alongside him, and they'd long since formed a deep bond.

Hatsumi rolled up her sleeves and repeated the movements Tenzo had demonstrated. Then she bit her finger until it bled and, copying Tenzo, pressed it against the ground.

Tenzo reminded her from the side, "Don't forget to add Chakra. Feel out what's on the other side of the Summoning Technique's seal. Not every summoning beast is as easygoing as Great Ferocity. Some are short-tempered, and some will even attack anyone who tries to form a summoning contract with them. If anything feels wrong, stop the technique immediately."

Hatsumi nodded. She felt the Chakra draining from her body and focused on the sensations coming from the other side of the technique, patiently reaching out. Through the threadlike bridge formed from Chakra, she could sense all kinds of presences beyond the seal.

There was a soft, damp blue energy, like a lump of mud; a black-and-white, furry, ball-shaped energy; and a mass of purple, tentacle-like energy that radiated a twisted, uncanny madness.

Hatsumi roamed through the vast sea of energies. Some were powerful, while others seemed weak, but none of them appealed to her. Just as her Chakra was about to run out, she spotted an energy form she liked. It was a cluster of light that shifted between emerald green and withered yellow. It didn't contain much energy.

For some reason, though, Hatsumi felt that this was the one. The light shifting between yellow and green seemed to notice her, too. She reached out to it with her Chakra thread. After hesitating for a moment, the light responded.

"Poof!" A small cloud of smoke dissipated. Hatsumi collapsed to the ground, drained. She had almost no Chakra left, but at least she'd succeeded at the last moment.

"I... I did it," Hatsumi panted. As everyone stared at her in confusion, she opened her palm. A small cicada lay quietly there, as if it were an exquisite work of art made from brown wood and leaves.

Its head was brownish yellow, with rings like the growth rings of a tree. Its broad, translucent wings looked like two overlapping leaves. Both were marked with similar patterns: a typical network of leaf veins, with a thick central vein radiating smaller veins to either side. Its body was dull and rough, without the slightest sheen, like a piece of deadwood.

Its wings weren't the tender green of fresh leaves, either. They were withered yellow, like dead leaves about to fall in autumn. The tips were slightly curled and ragged, like the edges of fallen leaves. It looked so feeble that there was no way it could be healthy.

Tenzo looked at the sickly little cicada Hatsumi had summoned, then gave a slight shake of his head. He patted her on the head, trying to comfort her.

"Don't be discouraged. You can have many summoning beasts. As long as you have enough Chakra, you can form a contract with another one. But I don't recommend making contracts with too many at once, since that puts a heavy burden on the summoner. And you can always end a contract with a summoning beast. Don't lose heart." Tenzo thought Hatsumi was unhappy with the beast she'd summoned, so he tried to reassure her that she shouldn't be discouraged by this failure.

"Oh, I think it's fine. Besides, I really like this little guy. He may be weak now, but I think he'll become very strong someday. Great Ferocity started out weak too, didn't he, Sensei?"

"And you said summoning beasts and ninjas choose each other. Isn't it cruel to choose each other and then abandon them? I've decided: I'm going to raise this bug until he becomes a summoning beast even stronger than Great Ferocity!" Hatsumi was delighted. This bug was exactly her kind of thing; strength was secondary.

Tenzo paused, then gave a wry shake of his head. He'd always focused on value and strength, instinctively believing that only powerful summoning beasts were worth raising. Now it seemed his students were the ones teaching him a lesson.

Zi Xu leaned in to look at the bug in Hatsumi's hand. It seemed that the road to becoming the strongest trainer in the ninja world had gained another formidable rival. Meanwhile, Silent Clone, fast asleep in his room, rolled over and kept right on sleeping.

Seeing Hatsumi successfully form a contract with a summoning beast, Chino wasn't about to be outdone. Without waiting for Tenzo to prompt her, she formed the hand seals, bit her finger, and completed the summoning seal in one fluid series of movements. Tenzo nodded to himself. As expected of an honor student with excellent grades—she learned fast.

Chino closed her eyes and used her Chakra to reach out to the summoning beasts in the other dimension. Among the dazzling clusters of energy, she searched for a beast that suited her. Unlike Hatsumi, she picked hers almost immediately.

Zi Xu and Tenzo had just been about to take a closer look at Hatsumi's bug to see whether it had any special abilities when a cloud of white smoke appeared around Chino. She released the technique and stepped out of the smoke.

"Huh? That was fast. What's your summoning beast?" Hatsumi put away the bug and squeezed her way over. Since she wasn't as tall as Zi Xu and Tenzo, only half her head peeked out over Zi Xu's shoulder.

Chino wore a strange expression. Zi Xu and the others had never seen her look like this before. She seemed both amused and exasperated. She stretched out her left leg, and only then did everyone see her summoning beast.

It was a furry creature with two dark circles around its eyes, like a pair of thick, black number eights. Its nose looked like a tiny cake: a black, upside-down triangle with a bit of white cream beneath it. Its little paws were still pink, not yet completely black. At that moment, it was curled up, clinging tightly to Chino's leg.

"Now that's a crime. It's too cute to be locked up!" Zi Xu exclaimed. In his previous life, someone like this would've been sentenced to decades in prison for dropping the soap. This—this was a panda! And a cub, too! This was...

"A Panda Cub. It's very cute, but its combat ability is a little lacking. Hmph. I hope it won't hold me back." Chino said the words, but Zi Xu could tell the corners of her mouth were about to curl upward. She was doing her best to keep her hands from petting it, and she was even trembling all over.

"Wow, so cute!!! Sniffle, sniffle, sniffle!" Hatsumi had no such reservations. She rushed at the little panda and immediately started cuddling it, rubbing its fuzzy little ears and its soft, pink paw pads. The Panda Cub was badly frightened and clung even tighter to Chino's leg.

Chino lifted the black-and-white ball of fur from her leg and held it in her arms, blocking Hatsumi, who was practically drooling. Then she nodded at Zi Xu, who was still wondering how many years he'd be sentenced to. "Hurry up, it's your turn. I really want to see what your summoning beast is."

Tenzo looked at the Panda Cub in Chino's arms and silently repeated to himself, Great Ferocity is the best. It's all right if I can't pet you. Great Ferocity is the best.

Zi Xu came back to his senses, too. He didn't want to form a contract with something weird. He just wanted a normal summoning beast. His standards weren't high. From what Chino and the others had said, all you had to do was pick an energy cluster, right? Just choose a normal one. Zi Xu was about to form the hand seals when a system notification appeared again, after a long absence.

[Temporary Mission: Reverse Summoning Technique]

[Mission Requirements: Use the Summoning Technique in reverse]

[Mission Description: How can a ruler of the seas fear anything? Only by challenging the unknown can you temper your Conqueror's spirit]

[Mission Reward: The host's willpower will increase]

[Accept the mission?]

"..."

"What's wrong? Go ahead and form the contract. It's not that difficult; you can do it." Seeing that Zi Xu still hadn't formed the hand seals, Tenzo thought he lacked confidence, so he encouraged him to get him going.

"Oh, right." Zi Xu had initially wanted to refuse. Wasn't "increasing the host's willpower" something that would happen simply by doing this? But in that moment, for some reason, forming a contract with a summoning beast made him think of drawing cards in his previous life... drawing cards... drawing cards!

That got him wide awake. People had said that using a lucky pose could improve your odds of getting a good pull. Once he thought of it, he couldn't stop. The system's temporary mission was basically a guide to lucky card pulls. He accepted!

As Zi Xu formed the seals in reverse, he felt a connection to the Summoning Technique. Tenzo hadn't even finished reassuring him when Zi Xu completed the hand seals. Since Tenzo wasn't focused on him, he didn't notice that Zi Xu had performed them backward.

Zi Xu's experience was much like what Chino and the others had described. He sensed clusters of different energies floating in the air. But there were several large ones before him: one was a warm, gentle dark gold; another was a damp blue-green, brimming with vitality; and the last was a violent, icy white.

There was no way he'd choose that savage, frigid white cluster. He tried approaching the dark gold one, and everything went smoothly. Nothing seemed to go wrong.

"This is going pretty smoothly," Zi Xu thought. But just then, an unexpected change occurred. A tremendous force of suction came from the violent white energy. Zi Xu's Chakra tether couldn't resist it at all; it was pulled straight into the white energy cluster.

In the real world, Zi Xu's body changed, too. With a "poof," white smoke appeared. But not only had he failed to summon a beast—he himself had vanished.

Great. Drawing cards really can be dangerous. Did I just become a summoning beast? Zi Xu felt himself being transported and wondered silently.

"Poof!" When Zi Xu appeared again, he was in a dim cavern. The constant dripping of water and the smell in the air made him uncomfortable. A long-haired man in plain clothes stood nearby, staring at him in confusion. The man had golden, snake-like vertical pupils, purple eye shadow, and an odd expression. He glanced at his own hands, seemingly unsure whether he'd used the wrong technique.