Keep Knocking Them Out

He was a dragon, not a bird. It wasn't that he couldn't take off from a standstill, but doing so created far too much wind pressure, and the instant of takeoff demanded an especially great burst of strength!

The best way to take off was to jump, either straight up or from somewhere high. With magic, he wouldn't have needed to go to all that trouble. Unfortunately, he still hadn't learned how...

Even when he leaped into the air and began to fly, the wind from his beating wings sent the trees below swaying. Once he had climbed high enough, he discovered he couldn't see the castle!

It should have stood out clearly from up here, yet the castle Zheng Yichen ought to have been able to see had vanished without a trace.

"...You were right. I really wouldn't be able to get back without you."

The Ghost Maid nodded gently and sat quietly beside Zheng Yichen, cool as a little air conditioner. Still not sleepy, he turned his gaze back to the people lying there.

After recalling what he had learned, he drew on his mana and guided it with his mind, tracing a magic array in the air. The spell was Minor Healing Spell. This was another way to cast magic.

Rather than activating an array engraved in his consciousness, he used mental power to guide his mana and form a temporary array outside his body. The array was visible as the spell took shape, like the dazzling spellcasting in anime or movies.

Pale green motes of light drifted down onto the group. Their injuries were all minor, and a single Minor Healing Spell healed them completely. With nothing else to do, Zheng Yichen began looking them over.

There was nothing interesting about the middle-aged man, so he skipped him. The other men weren't worth looking at either. As for the girls... perhaps everyone benefited from the special powers in this world. None of them were bad-looking.

Zheng Yichen noticed his right claw rubbing restlessly and quickly pinned it down with his other claw. He had nearly slipped back into his old habits from before he met Lolise. That didn't stop him from doing something else, though, such as taking a curious look through their packs.

"Huh? Is this a pastry? It looks pretty good." Zheng Yichen picked up a pastry from an elegant box and gave it a gentle sniff. Its sweet aroma was almost intoxicating.

He wasn't fussy about food, but he certainly wouldn't turn down something delicious. "Want some?"

The Ghost Maid gently shook her head.

Zheng Yichen needed no further encouragement. He tossed the pastry, absurdly tiny to him, straight into his mouth. A dragon's body was powerful, no doubt about it, but in some situations it was a real nuisance.

If he had been human, he could have savored that pastry for ages. In dragon form, no matter how he tried, it was gone in one bite. He set aside the box, which carried a faint trace of mana, and continued rummaging through the other luggage.

Most of what they had brought was ordinary supplies and a few changes of clothes. Nothing special... Hm? What was this?

Zheng Yichen picked up a small card and studied it. The writing was in Common Script, so he could read it.

"Petty... Fergus? Summoning?" Reading the name and details on the card, Zheng Yichen fed a little mana into it. A three-dimensional image immediately appeared above it, allowing him to identify the card's owner.

A summoner, huh... Summoning was a specialized branch of the magical professions. Summoners made contracts with all kinds of creatures and called on them to fight when needed, but that didn't mean they lacked fighting power themselves.

Once they got going, summoners were formidable!

That was Zheng Yichen's conclusion after Lolise explained how the professions of this world developed. At first, summoners seemed to need summoned creatures to fight effectively. They weren't particularly strong themselves, and if an enemy forced their way in close, all they could do was take a beating.

But that was only at the beginning. By the middle stage—after they advanced into the ranks—a summoner's strength became clear. Not only could they contract with many powerful creatures, they could also draw on those creatures' powers to strengthen themselves!

That alone might not sound too extraordinary, but they weren't limited to one enhancement at a time!

An eagle's eyes, a wolf's ears, a leopard's speed, a bear's strength—a summoner could take on all such abilities. Enhancements of this kind didn't conflict with one another; a stronger one simply superseded a weaker one.

Of course, getting started as a summoner was difficult. Others needed only enough resources for themselves, while summoners also had to raise powerful partners. They might not need seven or eight times as much as everyone else, but two or three times as much was entirely possible.

All in all, it was quite a rare profession.

And he had run into one here.

Now that he knew what to look for, Zheng Yichen quickly found similar cards and checked everyone's information. Petty was the only one with an unusual profession. The rest followed fairly traditional paths; there wasn't even a Battle Qi warrior among them, though those were somewhat rarer.

"You're not afraid of sunlight?" As the sun rose, the trees that had been stained black regained their normal colors, and the forest once again looked like any ordinary woodland.

The Ghost Maid gently shook her head.

"Good." Muttering to himself, Zheng Yichen shifted his body but kept the slanting sunlight off her. Noticing what he had done, the Ghost Maid narrowed her eyes slightly and smiled without a sound.

The middle-aged man was the teacher leading these students. Zheng Yichen didn't know why they had come to the Illusion Demon Forest, a place that clearly posed a deadly threat to them. Still, since they hadn't entered it of their own accord, they would probably be fine...

As their teacher, the man was the strongest of the group, so he woke fairly early. But when he opened his eyes, they were still bloodred. He remained trapped in a hallucination. The moment he came to, he swung at a student beside him as if the student were his mortal enemy.

Thud—

The newly awakened teacher's eyes rolled back, and he passed out again. Zheng Yichen turned the wooden club he had carved while waiting idly in his claws. After engraving an array on it, he had greatly increased both its strength and its effectiveness at knocking people out. He had made it specifically to put them back down when they woke...