Summoning Book

A Magic Weapon projection with up to 99% of its original power—that was Zheng Yichen's final specification for the Magic Weapon Summoning Contract. Lolise helped draft it, and they revised the other terms to account for Magic Weapons as well. It was an Equal Contract, and it could only be an Equal Contract.

After all, that was the most permissive kind of contract. With anything even slightly stricter, Zheng Yichen's method probably would not work, or it would take extra effort. Either way, it would be a nuisance.

Making the Summoning Book took a full week. Because it used physical materials, many parts required painstaking work. What it consumed most, though, was Zheng Yichen's mental energy. Nearly eighty percent of the vast amount he expended went into the Magic Mark inscribed in the book.

Through that mark, Zheng Yichen could remotely activate the book's Magic Array Patterns even if no one fed them magic power to activate the Projection Spell. That way, when he made new Magic Weapons later, he could add them to the book...

The illustrations were imprinted with the Image Recording Spell. Because the Magic Mark held so much of Zheng Yichen's mental energy, any magic someone else cast on the book would trigger his "talent" on contact. A Conversion Magic Array Pattern inside the book would then turn that magic into reserves for the Summoning Book. Lolise had guided him through inscribing the pattern step by step.

Even an object made of ordinary materials could become top-tier material if steeped in abundant magic power, though nurturing it that way took considerable power and time.

Lolise had also designed it so a Summoner only needed to sign a contract with the book. Since the Summoning Book held so much of Zheng Yichen's mental energy, she used a secret technique to create a wireless-like link between it and the mental energy in the Magic Weapons. They came from the same source, so connecting them was easy.

That made the Summoning Book much more convenient to use. The only extra cost came the first time someone summoned a new Magic Weapon: it consumed some mental energy to establish a true connection with the replicated Summoner Mark.

This saved Summoners the trouble of contracting with Magic Weapons one by one. For now, it was manageable, but if Zheng Yichen made dozens of them someday... He might not mind the trouble, but those Summoners would probably go mad. Even if one contract cost little mental energy, signing dozens at once could leave them flat on the floor!

In short, while making the Summoning Book, Zheng Yichen got to experience being carried by a seasoned expert. The idea was his, and the nature of his talent had made the whole plan possible.

But Lolise had fleshed out more than half the details. With her help, the Summoning Book turned out several times better than Zheng Yichen had expected. Every problem he had set aside to solve later had been overcome.

"How are you so good at this?" Zheng Yichen set the finished Summoning Book in front of Lolise and gave her a curious look. She was holding a cup of black tea. Its main ingredient was... his blood.

Well, Lolise's constitution meant that anything "living" she touched would change. Even ordinary water became poison to anyone else after she touched it. It did not affect her, but as for the taste, Zheng Yichen had once been foolish enough to try it.

It had tasted like eating super-concentrated licorice. The shock to his whole body had nearly brought him to tears.

"I've done something similar before." Lolise looked out the window and spoke softly. "About four hundred years ago, I think."

"Ahem. That's quite a long time ago." Zheng Yichen coughed lightly and promptly gave up on asking more. The gap in time was so vast that learning the details hardly seemed to matter. He did not notice the trace of gloom in her voice.

"Mm. I'll deliver this book tomorrow." Zheng Yichen flipped through the Summoning Book. While making it, he had added several new Magic Weapons: basic ones with similar properties. There were blades, spears, swords, halberds, axes, lances, staves, and hammers. Basic Magic Weapon Creation hardly took any effort anyway.

If some weapons had not been too obscure for anyone to use, Zheng Yichen would have included all eighteen traditional kinds.

He had not made any more advanced ones because he lacked the energy, but he still had over a month to improve the selection at his own pace.

"So, who wants to sign a contract?" Zheng Yichen waved the Summoning Book at the Ghost Maids before him. Summoning arts were not impossible to study alongside something else. Like magic, they could be learned on the side by anyone with enough energy and talent; the real question was which discipline they chose as their focus.

Of course, the storage limit of the Sea of Consciousness still made that approach inadvisable. Signing just one contract, though, was another matter. Even a Mage or a warrior might meet a companion like a battle pet during their career.

"I'll go first," Lolise said without hesitation. Zheng Yichen did not give it much thought before tossing her the book. She had contributed a great deal to its design. Although Zheng Yichen's power formed its foundation, she had the authority to influence it too.

Once Lolise had gone first, the Ghost Maids came forward to sign contracts one after another. Only that day did Zheng Yichen find out how many there were—nearly eighty of them!!

"Why are there so many?" Zheng Yichen asked, stunned.

"They accumulated over time." Lolise looked out the window. "Half those Ghost Maids were victims in the Illusion Demon Forest."

"..." Something stirred in Zheng Yichen's heart. He leafed through Bonnakane's magic book and found exactly what he was looking for: a spell specifically for making ghost servants. But the required materials gave him pause.

They were not hard to obtain; they were just... unsettling. It felt like refusing to leave even the dead in peace. The spell required both the deceased's soul and their remains as its main materials, transforming them into a special kind of undead.

Caught between having a physical body and having none, the Ghost Maids could switch easily between the two states.

Lolise kept the Magic Weapons linked to the Summoning Book for now. Zheng Yichen did not have her ability to carry a space with her. That, too, was a kind of magic: one could use oneself as an anchor to open a connected space. The prerequisite was obtaining a Space Fragment, and those were exceedingly rare.

If a Space Fragment was not collected immediately after appearing, the world would soon correct itself and erase it. Storage equipment did exist, but it was not quite like the conventional sort. A ring still required a Space Fragment as its foundation, along with special materials. Rather than spend those materials making a Space Ring, would it not be better to bind the fragment directly to oneself?

That was why such rings existed but were extremely rare. A Space Bag was a different kind of storage equipment. It did not need a Space Fragment; magic simply expanded the space inside it several times over, or even dozens of times. It did not negate the contents' weight, either.

"Connor, what's this?" At the edge of the Illusion Demon Forest, Petty looked curiously at the book Zheng Yichen was holding. It gave off a strange, somehow familiar fluctuation.

"Something good." Zheng Yichen tossed her the book. "See for yourself."

Petty caught the Summoning Book and ran her fingers over the patterns on its cover. The fineness of the workmanship clearly marked it as a master's work. The patterns served only to distinguish the front from the back; the cover bore no title.

As for its contents, the first two pages held an introduction. The dozen or so pages after that were an illustrated catalogue of weapons, each with a description beside it.

"This book lets people summon Magic Weapons?" Petty asked in surprise. Apart from the basic Magic Weapons, it listed very few others, and most of the remaining pages were blank. Even so, its contents amazed her.