Chapter 681 Registering for a FightNing had gone out to help the girl's mother who was sick and had only just returned after roaming around the city.
The Pros all stayed in rooms provided by the arena inside the arena, so Ning was also staying here starting now.
He had already been given the talk about pros and matches and everything he needed to know.
Being a pro meant that one had to schedule a fight that would be advertised for people to come and watch.
As a pro, one had a specific period of time between which one could challenge someone and not get challenged by someone.
For the beast's scene, one had to fight every 2 weeks. Given that a fighter must be challenged 1 week prior to fighting, they really just had 1 whole week to choose a fighter.
Once they fought, their deadline would reset and they would once again have another week to choose a fighter.
On a good cycle, one could fight 4 times in a single month.
Challenging someone was mutually exclusive to being challenged. One had a 2 week grace period in which they couldn't be challenged at all.
After the 2 week grace period passed, they were free to be targeted. If they were, they would gain another 2 week grace period after they fought.
The structure of such challenging and getting challenged was a little more lenient for the pros that didn't fight with beasts. Due to the number of people in that group, they had more grace periods as compared to the people on the side with beasts.
Of course, there were people who had special privileges as to the requirements, but overall, everyone had rules they needed to work by.
Ning had to find someone to fight within a week, so he was mostly chill for the moment.
He was feeling tired of the most part so he went to sleep. The next morning, he woke up and went to the cafeteria to eat a hefty meal.
After that, Ning had nothing to do, so he decided to go to the arena to watch some battles and maybe bet a bit.
Just as he was about to walk out, Saphandra walked into the cafeteria. She found him and went up to him to talk.
"Hey, did you challenge anyone yet?" she asked.
"No, I have a week to do so," Ning said. "What about you?"
"I did, and you won't believe who I registered against," she said.
"Who?" Ning asked curiously.
"The strongest fighter in the arena," Saphandra said. "I decided to go straight for the top."
"Oh, what about the money?" Ning asked.
"This is how I get to earn the most, no?" Saphandra asked. "A newbie going against the best. Imagine the number of bets that would be against me. So much money at once."
"That's… actually a very good idea," Ning said. "When's the fight?"
"Like… next Monday I think?" Saphandra said.
"Tomorrow?" Ning asked with a surprised look.
"No, next one," Saphandra said. "We need to have a week in between of course."
"Right," Ning said. "I should probably get my opponent registered too next."
"Let's go right now," Saphandra said.
"Sure."
After Saphandra finished eating her meal, the two of them went to the registration area.
Ning started speaking to the staff about his registration and the staff gave a list of available opponents for him, as well as some basic information on them about their number of matches, their win-to-loss ratio, and their hair color.
Since they would be fighting with beasts, the last part didn't make much sense to learn for Ning, so he only focused on the first 2 parts.
"Hmm… this looks good. He's won 6 out of 10 matches, so he should be the favored one in the match. Considering he's fought nearly 22 times, the crowd will also recognize him," Ning said to himself.
"Please register my fight against him," Ning told the staff.
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The staff quickly prepared some papers and had Ning stamp his fingerprints on them.
After taking the print, the staff quickly called another staff and asked him to deliver the challenge notice to the person Ning had just challenged.
The staff walked out to put a name on the list of challenged and added Ning vs Hartmann as a match for next Thursday.
"More than a week away huh," Ning said as he saw the day.
"Hey Ning," Saphandra called out.
"What is it?" Ning asked.
"Are these two names the same?" she pointed to two names.
"Barry and Barry. Yeah, those two names are the same," Ning said. "Not sure about the person though."
"They are the same person too," The staff told them. "Mr. Barry is fighting this Saturday. It's quite a big event for the arena. To think he would fight twice in such a small time."
"He's the big man, huh? I guess we can see what he can do soon then," Ning said.
"Yeah," Saphandra said. "I guess we will."
Once they registered, Ning and Saphandra went to the beach. While Ning went into the water for a little swim, Saphandra stayed at the beach to sharpen her language even more.
By now, she could easily understand the most basic sentences and could make specific requests and questions.
Still, there was a lot for her to learn. After that, they went to the arena to watch the matches.
The days passed just like that. Between studying the language and watching the matches in the Arena, Saturday came by.
Both Ning and Saphandra were equally surprised to see the number of people gathering to watch the main event of the day.
Barry was fighting against the 5th most winning person in the arena. Due to the closeness in the rank, the importance of the event just increased by that much.
Ning and Saphandra got seats of their own for being pros and so they sat down and waited for the match to begin.
Only after watching this match would Saphandra truly understand why this man was the strongest in the Arena.
Chapter 682 Barry Vs VaronAs Ning and Saphandra waited for the match to begin, they noticed just how many people had come to the arena this morning.
"Look at those people, they look like nobles," Saphandra said.
"And that man over there, I think he's a well-known merchant around here," Ning said.
"Wait, aren't those the colors of the Darius royal family? Is a royal family member here today?" Saphandra asked.
They were truly surprised by just how massive the event was for what should have been a simple match between two summoners.
"I… might end up earning way more than I would have thought," Saphandra said.
"Are you sure you will be able to earn at all?" Ning asked as he looked around. "He might actually end up being monstrous given the people here."
"We'll find out soon," Saphandra said.
As if on schedule, a host arrived on the stage and started welcoming everyone in the massive audience. The fee these people had paid alone made the host be extremely respectful to everyone in the arena today.
The audience went quiet for the host to speak and the host graciously introduced the two fighters.
The man 5th in rank in the whole Arena was 39 times winner, with a 7:10 ratio of win to loss.
"Please give a round of applause to Varon," the host shouted.
From one side of the arena, a man wearing nothing but pants walked onto the stage. He was bald for the most part and had no facial hair, not even eyebrows.
He wordlessly greeted the audience and they cheered him.
Next, the host introduced the challenger that needed no introduction.
With 100% pro-scene win statistics for the last 65 games he had played, this man was the expected winner in today's match.
"Please welcome, the one and only, Barry!"
Before the host's words even finished, the arena was drowned in the maddened voices of the people that cheered for Barry.
"BARRY! BARRY! BARRY!" the voices called for him before he even walked out.
Barry walked out in simple battle attire with loose shirts and trousers to help him move around easily. The moment he walked out, his fabulous green hair surprised many that hadn't seen him before.
"Is that fake?" Ning wondered when he saw the hair.
"I can't tell," Saphandra said. "Can't you check?"
Ning nodded and did a simple analysis. Turned out he really did have green hair. He checked the other man and saw that he actually a Yellow-haired person.
However, his bald status didn't reveal anything to the public.
"They are both Rank 5, this will be an interesting time to see how much hair matters in a fight between two people," Ning said.
All of the different fights Ning had taken place in or watched were usually ones where the beasts were summoned. In those situations, the color of your hair didn't matter much.
However, when you summoned just a beast's abilities and attributes onto yourself, depending on how well your bond is, you could get up to a certain percentage of what you were summoned for the same low spiritual energy.
Since a person only needed to upgrade their hair once for it to be permanent and work with any beasts, most tried to improve it early on.
However, not many knew exactly how they could do it, so they were left with a low-grade hair.
Barry and Varon walked to the center of the arena and climbed onto the massive stage. As they waited for the fight to begin, the crowd started to go wild.
The betting house was filled to the brim as everyone wanted to bet on Barry. As such, Varon's price increased so much that even betting something simple as 10 Pearls would return in nearly a thousand pearls.
So, those that had money decided to take advantage of the situation and get richer by betting on Varon. After all, he too was an amazing fighter.
Still, most just bet on Barry.
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"Are you ready?" the host spoke to the two fighters, but his words reached the audience.
When the two of them nodded in affirmation, the host got back to the edge of the stage and shouted, "Fight!"
Without a moment's delay, Varon jumped high into the sky with fire spreading from beneath his feet.
He front flipped over to Barry, and as he did, his feel left an arc of fire that burned its way towards Barry.
Barry simply smiled and took a step to the left. Then, he moved his palms and shot out wind that blew away both Varon and the fire.
This simple conflict made the crowd go wild. They chanted Barry's name and he relished in the fame.
He gave a wide grin to Varon who gritted his teeth and crouched a bit to get into a sturdier stance.
He punched forward, each hit releasing fire towards Barry, but Barry simply dodged it or used his wind powers to spread the fire away.
Barry then got on the offensive and started running around in a circle trying to confuse Varon, but Varon stood resolute.
Barry shot out a blast of air towards Varon, but Varon too could simply get rid of it using his fire.
He used to opportunity to shoot fire directly at Barry and the location he was going to be at next.
Barry was stuck in between two attacks, so he was forced to slow down and use his wind power to destroy the fire.
However, at the same time, an arched fire slice flew his way from down below, aiming at his legs.
Whatever he did, Barry was going to take the hit, so he did what no one would expect him to do in this situation.
He flew.
He jumped into the sky and hovered there as all 3 attacks flew off from the stage and hit the walls
Varon looked in surprise. Not in a hundred years would he have thought that Barry could fly.
Since he wasn't able to, this was going to be a tough battle.
Chapter 683 Double SummonWith Barry flying, Varon became a sitting target.
"I'm sorry my friend, you lose now," Barry said as wind coalesced around his hand. He swung his hand from the sky and it flew toward Varon as a sharp slice.
Varon sent out a few balls of fire but everything was snuffed out by the unstoppable wind as it flew at Varon.
"It's over," Barry said as he heard a loud bang from his attack hitting Varon. He wondered if he overdid it and killed Varon, however when he looked down, his eyes narrowed in confusion.
Varon stood on the ground with an area around him untouched. Barry wondered what had happened until he saw the dust from the air unable to enter the area around Varon.
"A Barrier?" Ning thought when he saw that.
"Double Summon!" Someone shouted from the crowd.
"What?"
"Huh?"
"Really?"
People started getting surprised one by one.
Double Summon was as simple as it sounded. It was when a person summoned two beasts or their abilities at once.
Everyone was capable of doing that. All one had to do was find a beast that was willing to take a fraction of your energy in exchange for it being summoned or just giving away its power.
Using the remaining energy, one could do another summoning.
So, double summoning wasn't a rare thing at all. Many people did it every day.
However, in the context of a battle where every little strength mattered, splitting your energy to summon two weaker beasts was usually considered a really bad idea.
"You double summoned?" Barry asked with a serious look.
"Against you, I had to," Varon said.
"Good," Barry said and started flying around in circles again while Varon shot out fire from his fists.
Wind and Fire raged on the stage, but none was able to get the upper hand in the fight.
"Who do you think is going to win?" Saphandra asked.
"It's hard to tell," Ning said. "As long as Barry can bypass the barrier, he wins. But I'm not sure if he can do that."
"I thought so too," Saphandra said.
Suddenly, Varon opened his mouth wide and breathed out a voluptuous amount of fire into the sky, surrounding Barry from every side.
Barry put his hand together and made a spreading gesture that made the air around him rip into the fire and split it into two.
Just then, Varon flew through the gap in fire, surprising Barry. He reached directly in front of Barry and punched him in the face with a fist full of fire.
The crowd went silent in shock. The first successful attack had just landed, and it had been from Varon.
The crowd wondered if Barry lost, but Barry slowly rose up from the ground.
Varon was already back on the ground and had created a barrier around him to protect himself.
"Good, good," Barry said slowly as he felt the burnt skin on his face. "You ruined my good face. You will pay for it."
Varon simply smirked and scoffed at Barry.
Then, the barrier moved. The barrier split open and shot out forward.
Barry was attuned to the wind at the moment, so he felt something approaching and flew into the air.
At the same time, he sent out another wind slice towards Varon.
The barrier Varon had sent out dissolved into nothing as another one appeared around him.
Barry started moving his hand left and right, creating a small storm just on the stage.
Dust blew in the wind giving a relative idea of what the barrier looked like and where it was.
This time when it moved to attack, Barry could see exactly where the barrier was.
Wind, Fire, and Barrier moved around the stage as neither got ahead of the other.
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Varon's fighting style wasn't exhaustive, but Barry's was. He couldn't keep flying indefinitely and if he came to the ground, he would become easy picking.
"Just give up and save your face," Varon said with a grin, making fun of Barry's currently burnt face.
"You really think you've won, haven't you?" Barry asked as he returned a grin himself. "It's as if you forgot one of the most fundamental rules of fighting in a match."
"Oh? And what is it that I forgot?" Varon asked.
"Always act like you have nothing more to give so that the crowd bets against you," Barry said. "That's how you get rich."
Varon's grin disappeared as he realized what Barry was saying. "You have something else you've been keeping to yourself?" he asked.
Barry's grin never disappeared. "Did you really think this was all I had to show to you today?" Barry asked.
Varon's face lost color.
"Let me get you in on a secret," Barry said as he suddenly sent out a wind slash and lift a ton of dust into the air, reducing visibility.
Varon put up the barrier to protect himself but then a voice came from behind him.
"You're not the only one who double summoned in this fight."
A blow rang the side of Varon's head and he quickly lost consciousness.
The crowd waited with great anticipation for the dust to disappear. When it did, they saw Barry standing on top of the now unconscious Varon.
"WOOOOOOO!" the crowd cheered at the same time as Barry lifted his arms in a victorious pose.
"You're Welcome, folks," Barry shouted as the crowd kept cheering for him.
Barry had the largest smile on his face until he walked into the waiting room where his smile turned into disdain and hatred.
"That bastard! He dared ruin this fabulous face of mine. I even lost some of my hair," Barry grumbled. "Had it not been for this being a match, I would have killed that fucking bastard."
"Hey, you!" he suddenly pointed to a staff who joked in fear.
"Ye-yes, Mr. Barry?" he asked.
"Get me a healer and a hairdresser," he said. "I have a match with a beauty in 2 days, and I need to look the best I can."
Chapter 684 Barry's BetTwo days went by and Monday arrived. Ning woke up early and went to the cafeteria to meet up with Saphandra.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
"Yes, I'm ready," Saphandra said.
"Are you not worried at all?" Ning asked.
"No," Saphandra said. "I will win."
Ning smiled. He liked seeing that confidence in her. Besides, he realized there was no reason to be scared. After all, she was one of the finalists in a competition that spanned galaxies.
"Well, you'll need to be careful still," Ning said. "I'm very much sure he double summons as well. I don't see how simply wind alone can bypass the barrier in the last fight."
"Don't you dare ask your system for the answer," Saphandra suddenly said.
"No, no, I haven't. I promised I won't. Geez, you need to relax a little," Ning said.
"It's hard to come across a match that I am excited for. I don't want you to ruin the surprises that lie ahead," she said.
After the two of them finished eating, they left for the arena. Saphandra was taken away by some staff while Ning walked to the seats alone.
Once he was there, he once again was surprised by just how many people were there. There were just as many people here like last time.
'Are people that much excited about Saphandra's fight? Her first match shouldn't garner so much attention,' he thought.
Of course, Ning understood they were here for Barry, but as far as they knew, this was going to be a short fight. So it didn't make sense for them to have come here for Barry again and in just 2 days at that too.
"Did you watch the last match?" someone spoke near him.
"No, I wasn't able to get a ticket," another man said.
"Me neither. That's why I came so early today," the first man said.
"I heard Barry barely won the last match," the second man said.
"No way, he had the fight in the bag," a third person joined in.
As Ning heard their talk and the other people's talk, he quickly came to understand why the arena was so full today.
These were people that weren't able to see Barry's match last Saturday and had thus bought today's tickets to see him.
'He's quite the superstar, isn't he?' Ning thought.
The host came out and started introducing the new fighters. Barry needed no introduction, while Saphandra had nothing to introduce her by.
This was her first match so she was a blank slate.
After seeing the two of them walk out from either side of the arena, Ning walked over to the betting area.
High above the betting room, the two contestant's odds were written.
Barry had -92 on him, while Saphandra had 65. This means for every 92 pearls someone bet on Barry, they would get back a single pearl. However, for every Pearl they bet on Saphandra, they would get back 65 pearls.
It was obvious who the arena and audience thought was favored in his match.
Ning smiled a little bringing out about 100 Pearls to bet. However, before he could bet, the arena went silent.
Ning turned around to see that Barry had taken the center stage and was saying something.
"Forgive me for speaking out of turn, but since you are all betting on this match, I would like to place a bet with this lady too," he said.
Saphandra narrowed her eyes as her mind churned to translate the words. "What bet?" she spoke.
"If I win, I would like to make you mine," Barry said.
Saphandra didn't immediately understand what he said, so she didn't show any response. But the crowd understood it and was shocked.
After a few seconds, Saphandra understood it too and her eyes narrowed.
"What's in it for me?" she asked.
"If you win, I will give up my favorite suite to you," Barry said.
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Saphandra cocked her head as she didn't understand some of those words. Ning quickly translated the words and sent them into her ears.
Saphandra was surprised to hear him, but she didn't let it be shown on her face.
"Isn't the suite tied to the number 1 fighter in the arena?" Saphandra asked.
"Yes, it is," Barry said.
"Then no need. I can get there myself," Saphandra said.
"Ooh, ambitious, aren't we?" Barry said. "Then tell me, what do you want?"
Saphandra thought for a moment and said, "If you lose, we fight again tomorrow."
Barry's smirk widened. "You are a bit too ambitious, and that will be your downfall, lady," he said. "Very well then. If I win, I get you. If you win, you get me."
Saphandra smiled back as she understood what he meant.
The crowd was praising and booing from all around the arena as the talk of the bet was clearly heard by all of them.
Ning turned around to see that the betting odds had surprisingly changed after the bet as they believed Barry would fight extra hard now.
Now, the bets were -100 for barry, and 80 for Saphandra. Without any hesitation, Ning brought out 200 pearls and bet them on Saphandra.
The rest of the people went crazy and bet for Barry as they had come to do.
Ning returned back to his seat and waited for the match to start.
Once the two contestants had moved to the edge of the seat, the referee moved in between them and got them ready.
Saphandra took a deep breath as she calmed herself before the fight started. Her powers were of one note, so she had to be extra careful of how much of it she used in every fight.
She crouched a little as she got into a fighting position while Barry also got ready.
The referee saw that and shouted, "Fight!"
The crowd erupted into shouts and cheers as Barry made the first move.
He suddenly took off with incredible speed and appeared in front of Saphandra. Just then, his right arm changed as blood seeped out from inside and formed a blade around it.
Saphandra understood easily that he had summoned the powers of a Blood beast.
Chapter 685 Shadow BeastBarry wasn't seriously aiming for Saphandra with the blood blade at all. So when she dodged it, he wasn't surprised at all.
The blood blade liquefied as he used it as a whip to attack Saphandra.
Even as the whip arrived close to her, Saphandra didn't look away and simply put her arms forward.
She made sure not to use a lot of power and slightly pushed onto the oncoming whip.
The whip turned into drops of blood that fell onto the ground. However, they quickly moved again as they returned back to Barry.
"Not bad," he said.
Neither of the fighters had lost even the slightest bit of breath and that made the crowd rile up even more.
This time, they weren't just chanting Barry's name, but Saphandra's too.
"Aren't you going to attack?" Barry asked.
Saphandra didn't answer. There weren't many attacks she could do given her powers. Her powers were way too straight forward so she needed to use them in ways that made it look more fascinating.
Saphandra put her two arms to the side with her palms pointed towards the ground. Then in a single motion, she ripped out two small rocks each the size of a person's head.
Once she had them in her hand, she shot one of them at Barry.
Barry smiled and immediately made a sword out of the blood and sliced the incoming rock into two. The two halves of the rocks flew past him but Saphandra easily pulled them back.
At the same time, she threw her second rock at him.
Barry was caught between two attacks, so he realized he couldn't escape from this situation with simple attacks.
He sent a blood slice towards the single rock while creating a massive wall of blood behind him.
At the same time, the blood solidified into a strong wall that stopped the stones which shattered onto the ground.
Barry looked pale from using so much blood, but he quickly brought all the blood back into his body and was no longer feeling so bad.
Saphandra pulled more rocks from the ground and started shooting them up into the sky. At the same time, she also flew into the sky and floated there as she waited for the stones to come flying down.
Barry realized what she was doing and brought out two blood whips from the palm of his hands.
As the rocks came towards him, he moved his hands really fast in order to turn them into dust even as they approached.
All the audience saw was a bunch of red blurs followed by a loud explosion that resulted in the rocks turning into dirt.
Saphandra was out of rocks, but she could get more. She took a deep breath and focused underneath her a the arena shuddered.
The crowd went silent as they felt the vibrations coming from underneath them.
They wondered what was happening but that was quickly answered as they saw the scene on the stage.
Everyone, including Ning's eyes, went wide as a massive chunk of the stage was torn out from under Saphandra and it floated in the air beneath her.
At the same time, Saphanra quickly got behind the massive chunk of rock and thrust it back at Barry.
The blood whip disappeared from Barry's hand as he watched what was basically a small house made entirely of concrete fall on top of him.
"Oh no," he thought as the stage fell on top of him.
The loud smashing sound send waves of fear flying through the crowd's hearts as they watched the massive rock crush Barry.
"She… she killed him," one of the men said.
"No way," another person said as she couldn't believe her eyes.
"Good, you survived," Saphandra said from up in the sky.
"You tried to kill me," Barry said.
"Nonsense, I knew you would have survived," Saphandra said. "There was a reason why you could enter his barrier the other day, and now I know."
"Shadow beast, huh?" she asked. "Your 2nd summon."
Barry's eyes narrowed as he realized he had been made. "Nobody had ever found out my secret," he said.
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"I'm not a nobody," she said. "Now, let's see how good you are at using the powers of a Shadow beast."
Before Barry could even prepare, rocks from the debris started shooting at him from behind him.
Barry's body turned into a shadow and disappeared from the area before appearing somewhere else.
Even then Saphandra continued pulling the debris from behind him or pushing onto the ones that were in front of him to attack him.
Barry continued dodging and shot out attacks made up of both shadow and blood, but Saphandra simply pushed it aside before continuing what she had been doing the entire time.
Barry kept dodging and dodging, waiting for a single chance.
As the debris kept getting pulled or shot off, the stage started clearing up more and more until there was no longer anything on the stage to use.
"What? That's it?" Barry taunted.
"I'll show you if that's it or not," Saphandra said as she drifted down on the ground.
However, the moment she touched the stage, Barry smiled. She had fallen into her trap.
Barry needed shadow to use his Shadow Beast powers to teleport and dodge. Without it, he was a sitting duck. Once the debris was cleared, there was nowhere else to dodge.
However, ow that Saphandra had landed, he had a shadow behind her that he could use.
Instantly, a blood blade formed along the side of his hand while at the same time his body turned into a shadow and disappeared.
When he reappeared, he was behind the unsuspecting Saphandra. Then, he put all of his anger into this one attack as he slashed at her arm.
BANG!
A centimeter away from her arm, his blood blade stopped and couldn't move any further.
"Did you really think I don't know the skills of a mere Shadow Beast that I would come down here just because of your provocation?" she asked.
Then, she slowly turned around to look at the person that no longer had anywhere to go.
"I win!" she said as she placed her palm on his chest.
Barry felt a force hit him all over him as he was sent flying out of the stage and into the audience.
Chapter 686 Spiritual StorageThe crowd was silent as not a single one could have ever believed that this was going to have happened.
Even if they hoped Saphandra would win, they didn't expect such a massive victory.
The referee managed to put aside his shock for the moment and announced Saphandra's victory.
Finally, the crowd started making sounds, but most of it was just depressed noises for people who lost all their money today.
Since they had to bet 100 pearls just to earn 1 in today's match, they had put up a fortune in the betting area. Now, that was all gone.
The Arena was suddenly hundreds of thousands of Pearls richer than it was just a minute ago.
Ning himself was about 16 thousand Pearls richer than he was normally. He himself couldn't believe just how much he earned.
Ignoring the people shouting shouts of 'cheating' and 'match-fixing', Ning went to the betting area.
"There's too many Pearls here. How will you take it?" the people in there asked.
"Don't worry, I have a skill summoned," Ning said.
The people there nodded and gave him his 16 thousand Pearls.
Back in the Arena, Barry was brought back to consciousness after having been struck so hard and sent out of bounds.
Before Saphandra left, she walked by Barry and said, "See you tomorrow."
Barry's entire body shuddered as he remembered the bet he had made with her. He was going to have to fight with her once again tomorrow and he didn't know if he could do it.
Ning met up with Saphandra and told her how much he had made from the bet.
"16 thousand? That's nothing," she said. "Look, I make 30 thousand by myself.'
She showed a slip of paper.
"How will you take the money out?" he asked.
"I… don't know. It's going to be difficult," she said. While Spiritual Pearls weren't big and only around the size of peas, 30 thousand was still too many to simply carry around.
"I'll see if I can make a storage item for you," Ning said.
"You can?" she asked.
"I'll have to check with my system. Wait, "Ning said and started talking with the system.
"Alright, I see I can make it," he said as he brought his hand forward and a ring appeared on top of it.
"The storage area isn't large, only around a couple of metric cubes, but that should be more than enough to keep the small stuff," Ning said.
"Wow!" Saphandra said with genuine amazement. "Your system really can do just about anything, can't it?"
She took the ring and wore it. Then, she frowned. "How do I use it?" she asked.
"Use your spiritual energy. That's the only way to use it," Ning said.
Saphandra frowned even more when she heard that. "You know I don't have Spiritual energy," she said.
"Eh? Not even the tiniest amount?" Ning asked.
Saphandra shook her head. "Although I may have a way," She said and called out little blue. The tiny little blue spirit jumped onto her ring and put spiritual energy into it. Then, as if on command, the paper slip in her hand flew into the ring.
"Good, it works," she said.
Ning looked at little blue for a bit as she flew back into Saphandra's hair and disappeared.
"Did you know that there aren't that many spirits in this world?" he asked.
"I wouldn't be surprised. Spirits usually only form in places with extreme spiritual energy concentration for a long time," Saphandra said.
"Also, I read that the spirits are supposed to have great intelligence," Ning said.
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"Depends on how long they remain on their place of origin, or how long the concentration of energy lasts," Saphandra said.
"Either way, Spirits usually only leave when they gain enough intelligence is what I ready," Ning said.
"So? I don't see why you are bringing this up right now," Saphandra said with an irritated voice.
"I'm just trying to ask why little blue can't speak yet," Ning said. "I kind of feel like she doesn't have much intelligence."
"It doesn't matter to you if she had the intelligence or not right?" Saphandra asked.
Ning frowned when he heard the tone. "I feel like I stepped on a nerve here. If so, I'm sorry," he said.
Saphandra sighed. "No, I'm sorry. It's a touchy subject for me," she said. "Let's just drop it for now. I want to go get my money."
"Sure, go ahead," Ning said. Then he too left.
Since there was nothing to do for the rest of the day, he went around to the Summoning Circle to do some quests.
Unfortunately, there weren't any good Rank 5 quests, so he took a Rank 4 quest that had him help some fishermen go to the middle of the sea to help them catch some rather rare fish.
As soon as Ning accepted the request, he was sent to the dock to help them.
The fishermen that he expected to be in small boats, were actually using massive ships and had giant nets to catch tons of fish at once.
Ning summoned an aquatic beast that the fishes deemed harmless, but was also strong enough to protect the ship from other stronger beasts.
Ning didn't have much to do in the middle of the sea, so he just sat around and watched the fishes get hauled overboard.
The rare fish the fishermen were searching for was called a Silver Skyfish. It was apparently so delicious that any noble would pay over 200 pearls just to get a taste of it.
A full fish would normally sell at about 3000 Pearls, making this a really successful business for the fishermen.
When they finally caught one, the fishermen were so happy that they nearly didn't notice the battle between the two beasts that happened underneath them.
Ning's summon was much stronger than the hostile beast, so it easily defeated the attacker and killed it. Then, the fishermen had one more thing to carry back home.
Chapter 687 Ning's Summoning BattleIt was the next day and Ning arrived at the Arena to watch Saphandra's battle with Barry once again.
This time, the crowd numbered just as greatly as yesterday, but they were also chanting Saphandra's name more so than Barry's.
The boss of the arena was watching this match too from up in his little viewing area. He hadn't come to watch Barry's fight the other day, but when he learned that he lost, he had to come to watch it this day.
Saphandra and Barry both appeared on the stage after the host's announcement.
"Wanna bet again?" Saphandra asked. However, Barry didn't say anything and kept quiet.
Saphandra looked towards the betting zone and sighed. The odds were still against her, but it was almost nothing compared to the massive amount that was there yesterday.
'No point in fighting forever then,' she thought.
"START!" the referee started the match.
Barry suddenly slammed his feet on the ground as his feet sank into the stone. All around him, massive blocks of rock appeared that basically melted at his touch.
As if the rocks refused to accept his presence, his body would simply phase through the stones.
That was the power he had summoned today. Since Saphandra attacked him with the rocks so much yesterday, he summoned the power that would counter her.
He could also control the rocks easily, so he started shooting them at her.
Saphandra didn't even put up her arm as she stopped the massive chunks of rocks that were flying toward her. With just a thought and a glance, the rocks would stop flying towards her and then get sent back towards Barry.
Barry didn't dodge these rocks as he didn't need to. However, Saphandra simply shook her head.
"I think you forgot what happened yesterday," she said.
Before Barry could even realize what she was talking about, he felt a force push upon him, and once again he was sent out of bounds.
As easily as dealing with a child, Saphandra won her match.
The crowd cheered as Barry was no longer the number 1 in the arena. While he kept the title, everyone already started calling Saphandra the true Number 1.
The crowd stayed around for the following matches, but Ning left. There was nothing more to do.
For the next two days, he simply passed his time just roaming around the city, or reading books.
When Thursday came around, he finally got a chance to fight. After all, today was the day his match with Hartmann would take place.
Ning walked onto the stage and saw another person walk out from the other side.
The host introduced them, but Ning had no records to be introduced by so the audience watched him as he was a blank slate.
'Not as many people huh?' he thought. He didn't think he was going to earn much this time.
"Wear this," the host brought two black blindfolds and had both Ning and Hartmann wear them.
Ning didn't have to do this before, so he wondered why they were doing this.
After he wore the blindfolds, they were both told to summon their beasts.
Ning couldn't help but wonder what type of beast he should summon. More so, he couldn't help but wonder what type of beast his opponent would summon.
If only he could see.
'Ah!' he realized why they were wearing blindfolds and continued with the summoning.
"I need a beast that is strong both physically and elementally. As long as you come with me, I am willing to give you all my spiritual energy," Ning spoke the words of his bond.
The lights that shined all around him got brighter as they came closer to him.
Ning smiled when he saw the many lights and reached out his hand for the light that shined the brightest.
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As he grasped it, the bond was forged and the beast summoned.
Ning opened his eyes to look at the summoning circle, but the blindfold wouldn't let him see.
By the time he got rid of it, the beast was already summoned.
Standing in front of Ning was a yellow-bodied beast that stood on all four. Its body was the shape of a tiger, however, on its back was a massive armor-like shell.
Growing out of that shell were many thorn-like spikes that grew grayish in color at the stem but got purple as they reached the tip.
Its tail was spherical at the end with similar, but smaller, thorns growing out of it.
The head of the beast also looked like a tiger's but there were no stripes on its body as a traditional tiger would.
The beast growled at the hulking elephant was that summoned in front of it. The elephant was mostly blue in color and Ning quickly realized it was a water-type beast.
His own beast was unique in that it didn't any specific element it adhered to, but it did have poison on its spine which would prove fatal to any beast that it struck.
Ning wondered if that was a good idea or not.
'Their ranks are vastly different. He should be able to win without using his spikes,' Ning thought.
"Don't use your spikes at the elephant, okay?" Ning said as the match started.
The beast roared and dashed forward to attack.
Ning panicked a little. "Hey! Slow down. We need to keep the match going for a bit to earn," he said, but the beast wasn't hearing him.
It reached next to the elephant and at the same time, the elephant blew out water from its nose with an impressive force behind it.
Even then the Elephant wasn't able to stop the beast's progress as it appeared next to the elephant and hit it really hard on the side of its head.
The elephant was immediately unsummoned and Ning's victory was announced.
"Dammit! I told you to wait, didn't I?" Ning said. "I am never summoning you ever again. Now go back."
Ning waited for the beast to unsummon. However, it didn't go back at all. Instead, it stared Ning straight in the eye, daring to defy him.
Chapter 688 WordsThe tiger-like beast looked at Ning with a mocking smile.
"What the hell? I told you to return," Ning said, but the beast acted like it didn't hear him.
"Fighter! Handle your beast," the referee cried out.
"I'm trying to," Ning shouted. "What are you doing? You need to listen to me. Leave, right now."
'No!' a thought came back to Ning through their bond.
"What?" Ning was surprised and confused. Never had he had a beast refuse his orders before. Then, he got angry.
"Do what I say and go away," Ning commanded.
The beast slowly turned its head to look at Ning. 'You dare command me? You think you are safe just because you summoned me?'
Ning could see the hostility in its eyes as the spikes on its back started straightening and getting harder. He looked in the direction the spiker was pointed at and realized that if the beast let it loose, it would attack all the audience.
"Stand down, or I will be forced to—"
Before Ning could finish his words, the beast suddenly dashed toward him to attack him.
Ning took a step back and barely dodged the paws of the beast. The audience gasped in shock when they saw that.
The beast landed next to Ning and tried to strike at him with its spiky tail.
Anger flared in Ning's eyes and he punched the tail without any hesitation. The beast heard a crack and felt its tail break apart as blood dripped from the wounded tail.
It started whimpering like a small beast while the spikes on its back got ready to let loose.
Ning then moved next to the beast and took out a spear and hit the beast in the back, cutting through its entire spikes.
The force was so strong that the beast too skidded away as it went out of the stage.
"Did you think you can disobey me? Do I look like a pushover?" Ning asked with fury clear in his voice.
The beast was spooked. It had never fought a human this strong before. All the strong parts of its body were gone and it would take a long time to regrow the quills it lost today.
So, when it saw Ning walk toward it, it decided to leave immediately rather than take more damage.
A summoning circle appeared below it as it got ready to get unsummoned.
However, Ning wasn't going to let it go just like that. With just a single command to his system, the summoning circle was broken and the beast remained on this side.
The beast looked around with a confused look as it couldn't understand at all why it wasn't back in the forest where it lived.
Just at that time, Ning arrived in front of it and placed his palm on the beast's head. Suddenly, its mind went blank as a wave of power entered its head, overwhelming its consciousness and will.
Supreme Domination.
The beast's mind collapsed as it only recognized Ning as its master now. Finally, it would listen to his commands.
"You thought you could defy me and it wouldn't come back to haunt you, didn't you?" Ning asked. "Well, here's your final command."
"Leave and never get summoned again."
"Yes, master," the beast spoke in its own language and disappeared back to where it had come from.
Ning's anger faded once the beast was gone, and only then did he remember that he was still in the midst of the audience.
"I'm sorry I couldn't keep my beast in check," Ning said as he apologized and walked away.
As soon as he reached the waiting room, Saphandra was already there running toward him.
"What's going on? Are you alright? Did the beast leave?" she asked in a panicked voice.
"Yeah, it's fine. I managed to control him in the end," Ning said.
"Why did the beast even go rogue? Could you not control it?" she asked.
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"No, it simply wouldn't listen to anything I had to say," Ning said.
"What did you do? Did you not make a proper bond?" She asked.
"No, i—" Ning stopped as he thought back to the bond he did make.
'I need a beast that is strong both physically and elementally. As long as you come with me, I am willing to give you all my spiritual energy.'
Those were the words of his bond, and nowhere in those words did he tell the beast that they had to be loyal to him.
"Ah, I might have made a mistake in a hurry," Ning said as he finally understood the reason behind the beast's actions.
"You didn't make a proper bond?" she asked.
"I forgot to put the 'loyalty' part of the bond because I was so focused on finding a strong beast that would come with me," Ning said.
"How could you?" Saphandra said. "Why would you make such a simple mistake? Do you know how much it could have cost you? Do you understand the threat that you could have been under if you weren't stronger than the beast?"
"I know," Ning said. "As I said, it was a simple mistake. It won't happen again."
"You need to understand what you did wrong and how badly it could've gone," Saphandra said.
"I understand," Ning said while giving a confused look towards her. "Why are you so mad anyway? Everything was fine in the end, and it won't happen again."
"You need to be careful. You… sigh, never mind. Yes, it was fine. Just make sure to always be careful with the words of your bond," Saphandra said.
"You sound like you've suffered from a wrongly worded bond before," Ning said.
Saphandra shook her head. "Not me," she said.
"Your friend?" Ning asked.
She kept quiet and didn't say anything. "Go get your earnings, I made a bit of a profit thanks to you today," she said.
"Oh, right. Forgot about that," Ning said and walked away.
Saphandra had a conflicted look on her face for a second before she too followed him and walked away.
Chapter 689 Special QuestThe boss watched everything that took place in the arena from his spot high in the arena.
"Did you see that?" he asked the assistant that stood next to him.
"Yes," the girl said. "Not being able to control their own beast is a really bad sign for a fighter. Do you want me to cancel his earnings? Or maybe just kick him out."
"What?" the boss's attention wavered when he heard that. "Why would you do that?"
"He put the audience at risk," the assistant said.
"That he did," the boss said. "But I was talking about something else."
"I don't understand," the assistant said.
"Did you see the crowd go wild when he fought his own beast? In fact, I've never even thought of putting a human against a beast before," the boss said as a wide smile appeared on his face.
He turned to his assistant to his side and said, "I think we have a new scene for us. Man Vs Beast."
Ning was notified that someone had requested to battle him in a week. Remembering that he too had a chance to challenge now, he decided to challenge someone too.
Ning found someone higher up in the Beast fight ranking and challenged them.
After that, he had a week to himself where he could do anything he wanted.
With nothing else to do, Ning went back to the Summoning Circle to look for some quests to do in the meantime.
He looked through the quest board for anything that would catch his interest. However, nothing seemed fun at all.
Just as he was thinking that a person came next to him and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Yes?" Ning said when he noticed that it was one of the clerks working in this place.
"Sir, are you looking for some quests?" the person asked.
"Yes," Ning said. "But I don't think I like any of the quests in here."
Ning looked back at the quest board that was mostly about helping take people somewhere or helping with finding something or some much more mundane activities like gathering some plants and ores for the people.
Other than that. There was also the global quest about finding the missing people, but since it didn't originate in this place, Ning didn't bother taking those.
"Sir, there is a special quest that has been directly requested of you," the clerk said.
"A special quest? What is it?" he asked.
The clerk looked around and said, "let us go to the back room for more privacy."
Ning nodded and followed the clerk to the back room where no one was there.
"There is a direct quest issued by the royal family of the kingdom themselves," the clerk said.
"The Darius family did? How do they even know about me?" Ning asked.
"They didn't ask specifically for you, but rather the strongest person in the Circle. As far as we know, that is you," the clerk said.
"I see, what's the quest?" Ning asked.
"Starting immediately, you are to teach the royal princess about summoning," the clerk said.
"I... what?" Ning was confused. "Teach her about summoning? Why would I have to teach a princess anything? Doesn't she have a million tutors for that?"
"The King apparently wants someone really great at it to teach her," the clerk said.
"And I am that person?" Ning asked.
The clerk gave a confused look. "Are you not?" he asked.
Ning sighed. "Fine, whatever. How long is this task supposed to last? What's my payment?" he asked.
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"Well…" the clerk hesitated. "It's supposed to last until she can summon a Rank 2 beast. As for the payment…"
"Rank 2 huh? Everyone should have that sort of rank already in this world. Just summoning is hard," Ning thought to himself. "I should be able to do that."
"Right, what did you say about the payment?" Ning asked the clerk.
"The payment is… you get to marry into the royal family," the clerk said.
"Sorry, I get to marry into the royal family? What the hell kind of payment is that? Who would I marry? The princess?" Ning asked.
"Umm… I don't think you can marry the princes--"
"I don't want to marry anyone," Ning said.
The clerk flinched a bit at Ning's sudden shout. He quickly turned around and ran to a table before pulling open the drawer to look at a quest.
"Actually, if you don't want to marry anyone, then by default your payment will be 5 thousand full Pearls," the clerk said.
Ning's frustration lowered a bit when he heard the number. "5 thousand huh? I barely earned a thousand from my own match the other day. So this is like 5 fights at once."
"If I can get her to summon immediately, that's an easy 5 thousand pearls," Ning thought. 'Or actually, if I get dull ones, I can easily get 10 thousand of those.'
One couldn't simply keep that many pearls in the ocean as there wouldn't be enough Spiritual energy in the water to fill them all up. However, Ning could simply teleport away to the boat and tie the pearls at its feet.
Ning didn't need Pearls, but somehow knowing that he could earn a lot of them still made him happy. It was like knowing he could earn gave him some worth that he wouldn't have otherwise.
"Okay, I will take the job," Ning said. "When do I start?"
"Immediately," the clerk said. "Let me set up the paperwork, and then you can go over to the palace."
Ning nodded and waited for the clerk to be done. Once he was done, Ning got a letter of introduction that he could show to the palace gates to gain entry.
After realizing that there was nothing else left for him to do in the building anymore, Ning walked out of it.
Then he turned towards the Western side of the island where the Royal family lived and walked towards them.
Chapter 690 Arm WrestlingIn the midday heat, Ning walked past the bustling city until he reached the shore on the other side of the island.
Far along the sea, he could see quite a few ships roaming the bay, but none dared to come on close to the shore.
Had Ning not known that there was the Royal Palace on the shore here, he would certainly have been confused why there was an open area in the sea here.
The palace looked more like a beach house than a palace. Since it was built on a small cove surrounded by cliffs, it had its own natural barrier of entry.
Ning walked up to the gate and showed his letter of introduction. "I'm from the Circle. I'm here because I was requested," he told the guard.
The guards quickly relayed the information to the king and Ning was allowed entry.
A bare-chested, tanned butler walked out and brought Ning in. Ning was rather surprised at the muscles on the butler. He was more bodybuilder than servant.
When he reached inside, he was surprised to see that everyone here was the same.
When he reached the Palace hall, he realized why that was.
The king himself was a barbarian-like man, with a sharp, angular facial structure. His clean-shaven face made him look young but his physical bearing said otherwise.
"You are the person that is going to teach my daughter?" the king asked while flexing his muscle.
"Uh, yes that is me," Ning said.
"But you're weak," the king said suddenly.
"What? Oh, my hair? Don't worry about my hair, your highness. Despite having a red hair, I can assure you that I'm a rank—"
"Not your hair," the King said. "Your body. You're so weak and thin. Do they not feed you in the Circle. I knew I should have shut that thing down way earlier. They can't even follow simple instructions."
"But… I am strong," Ning said.
"I'm not looking for people that can summon strong beasts boy. Any old person can teach that. I'm looking for strong people, physically strong."
"I want my daughter to learn from people just like me," the king said as he flexed his biceps again.
At the same time, everyone in the room flexed their biceps as well.
"I…" Ning was way too dumbfounded to say anything. Not in a million years would he have expected to be in such a situation.
It took him a few seconds to understand what was going on exactly, and when he did, he took a deep breath before speaking.
"Do you think you are strong just because of a few muscles, your highness?" Ning asked.
"Of course I am," the king said.
"Then how about a match then," Ning said. "You and me, we arm wrestle to see who is the strongest."
The king gave a confused look. "What's an 'arm wrestle'?" he asked.
"Basically, we will use our arms to try and topple each other to see who is stronger physically. Let me show you," Ning said as he called one of the members close by and placed a stool in front of them.
Once in a position to arm wrestle, Ning said, "Try and make my arm fall on this side, while I will try to send yours on this side."
"Hmph!" the court official scoffed at Ning and tried to push his arm aside. However, Ning's arm wouldn't budge even the slightest.
"Come on, push," Ning said. "Use both your hand if you want."
The court official tried, but he still couldn't do anything. "He's cheating!" he shouted. "He must have summoned something."
"Go check," the king ordered.
Some of the court officials brought out a few pearls and put them next to Ning. Even during the day, the shine of the pearls was perfectly visible, and not a single light from it moved towards Ning at all.
"No, your highness. He hasn't summoned anything," they said.
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'Oh, that's a neat trick,' Ning thought. 'You can find out if someone is lacking in spiritual energy suing that and figure out if they have summoned something.'
Ning saw the problem with the technique immediately as well since one could have summoned something over a day ago and still be lacking in energy.
Had Ning been a normal person with no automatic spiritual energy absorption, this would have shown him as having summoned something when in fact he had not.
Fortunately, it all worked out perfectly in the end.
Once they figured out Ning wasn't summoning anything, they were truly surprised by his strength.
Ning then casually pushed on the man's arm and he felt his entire body move along with his arm as he fell to the side.
"I win," Ning said and turned around to the King. "Do you trust that I'm a strong person now, your highness?"
"Hmph! I will see myself," the king said as he jumped from his seat directly in front of Ning and placed his hand on the stool.
Ning smiled and did the same. He grasped the king's hands tightly and showed him his grin.
The King immediately realized he was in trouble. "You… you really are strong huh," he said as he tried to push on Ning's arms but as expected he couldn't budge it.
"What do you eat to get this strong?" the king asked.
"Me? Nothing much really. I just stay out in the sun for a bit and get this strong," Ning said.
"Is that so? Fine, keep your secrets," the king said and lurched a bit before pushing at Ning's arms.
His elbows even lifted from the stool, but Ning said nothing. "Do you give up?" he asked simply.
"Not yet," the king said and kept pushing and pushing, but he wasn't even successful as making Ning's clothes move.
Finally, Ning took pity on the king and decided not to humiliate him anymore. So, he slowly slammed down the King's arm on the stool and left him there.
"You lose, your highness."
Chapter 691 The PrincessThe king was disoriented for a while before he was pulled up by his people.
"Your highness, I suppose I am eligible for your request now," Ning said.
"My request?" the king asked. He still wasn't done with the shock it seemed.
"To teach your daughter about summoning," Ning said.
"Oh, yes. Yeah, you-you can do that now," the king said. He slowly walked back to his throne and gestured for one of the servants to go call the princess.
Ning waited for a bit as they brought the princess. He couldn't help but wonder if the princess too was going to be big and buff like her father.
He imagined a young lady that was jacked up and was immediately reminded of Merasi.
'Nah,' he thought. 'Given my luck, she's bound to be a pretty young thing.'
"The princess is here," someone said and Ning turned around just in time to see the beautiful teenage girl walk into the room.
Her skin was fair and her orange hair long. Most of all, she was thin, unlike the men around her.
'Oh thank god,' Ning thought. The princess wasn't buffed up unlike what he hoped.
'Rank 2 already huh? She has plenty of spiritual energy. This should be in the bag,' Ning thought.
However, just then he realized something was odd about this princess.
'Orange hair?' he thought. That was weird. How could the princess possibly have orange hair? Wasn't she only now going to learn about summoning?
"Young man, this is my daughter, Janice. She is the one you will have to teach from now on," he said.
"Janice, come forward," the king said.
Ning watched the orange-haired princess, but she didn't move at all. Instead, he saw someone else move.
From behind the young woman, a black-haired child moved forward.
Ning looked at the little girl that was barely 6 years old walk forward.
The timid little girl barely came up to his waist.
'I'm supposed to teach her?' Ning thought as all of his plans about immediately finishing the summoning and getting away with his 5 thousand Pearls came crumbling down.
Ning analyzed her a bit and realized that she was barely 6 years old and didn't even have enough spiritual energy to obtain a rank yet.
'What the hell? This will take a lot more time than just a few days,' he thought. When he remembered that he was supposed to teach her until she summoned a Rank 2 beast, Ning started frowning.
'That's going to take forever,' he thought.
"He-Hello," the princess spoke up in her cute little voice.
"Um, hello, you must be Janice," Ning said even as his head was thinking of a million different things. It was a good thing he had good control over his emotions at the moment.
The girl nodded but said nothing else.
"I'm Ning, your new teacher. Do you want to learn how to summon?" Ning asked.
The little girl's eyes immediately widened as if she heard something amazing. "Yes!" she exclaimed.
"It seems she doesn't hate you, so I will let you teach her as you wish. Joann will be there if you need anything," the king said.
"Joann?" Ning turned around to see the orange-haired girl bow toward Ning.
"I'm at your service," the girl named Joann said.
"Okay, I will go start teaching her then," Ning said dejectedly and left with the princess.
'Goddamit that clerk. He should've told me the princess was actually a goddamn child. I would've never taken this job otherwise,' he grumbled to himself.
"Are you okay, mister?" the girl asked.
"Oh, I'm okay," Ning said. "Right, I wanted to ask, who exactly are you to this girl?"
"I'm her main maid," the girl said.
"Oh," Ning said.
"Teacher," the little girl called out.
"Yes?" Ning said, a little surprised the girl was already calling him teacher without his prompting.
"When will I be able to summon?" she asked.
"Uh… do you know anything about summoning?" Ning asked her.
The little girl shook her head.
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'The basics huh? Well, she is a child,' he thought. "Before we can summon anything, I will need to teach you a bit about summoning and how it works."
"What? Can't you just show me how to summon it? Please?" she asked.
"I—"
"Please, just once. I want to see you summon a biiiig monster," the little girl said.
"I don't think I can do that. We are in the palace, so I can't summon anything big," Ning made an excuse. "So, let us just get straight to the—"
"We can go to the water," the little one said. "Right Joann? It will be fine if we go to the water, right?"
"Um," the maid didn't know what she should say so she looked toward Ning to look for permission.
"Do you mean the beach?" Ning asked.
"Yes," the little girl said. "It's big and wide and you can summon the big monster there."
"Well, if there is enough room…" Ning was getting roped in by the girl's request when he realized what he was doing and shook his head.
"No, we are going to learn about summoning and that's it," Ning said. "You can summon a big monster yourself after you learn how to."
"Oh," the girl made a curious face. "When will I do that?"
"Uh, maybe a few weeks," Ning lied.
"What? A few weeks? I want to see it now," she said.
Ning got frustrated. "No!" he shouted. "For now, we're going to learn about summoning. Let's go."
Ning started walking ahead, but he heard no sound of footsteps. Instead, he heard sniffing coming from behind him and turned around to see the princess with eyes full of tears.
As the tear flowed down her cheeks, she started crying loudly. "Meanie! The teacher is a meanie," she shouted.
"Hey, hey, hey. Don't cry," Ning said, but he couldn't stop the princess at all.
"Please stop crying princess," Joann said as she wiped her tears but Janice still kept crying.
In the end, Ning had no choice at all. "Fine, come I will show you a big summon," he said.
"Really?" the girl's tears ended in a split second as a wide smile took over.
"Come on then, let's go," she said as she took charge and walked in front.
Ning started to fear what sort of life he was going to have in the foreseeable future.
Chapter 692 Big MonsterNing arrived at the beach and saw the clear blue water extend to the horizon where only then did he see the ships.
Moreover, these weren't the typical travel ships or fisherman's ships, but rather military ships that guarded this open side of the King's palace.
Ning wondered why the king didn't simply make his palace at the center of the city like any sane king would do in this situation. But then he remembered how the king was and realized this was probably his choice to show no fear.
"Hurry teacher, hurry! I want to see a biig monster," the little princess shouted at Ning.
Ning turned around to see the cute, little princess and asked. "What sort of beast do you want to see?"
"A big one," she said, gesturing the size with her tiny little arms.
"Umm, do you want to see one that can walk in the land or the ocean?" Ning asked.
"I don't care. Just hurry and summon a big one," she said.
"Very well," Ning said and turned towards the ocean. Then, he closed his eyes and used his spiritual energy.
As a Rank 7 Bondforger, more commonly known as a summoner, Ning now had so much energy that he could start tempting the stronger, bigger, and more intelligent beasts to move.
Since he didn't have much requirement of them this time, he assumed there wouldn't be many beasts that would give up on the opportunity.
He then remembered Saphandra's angry face at messing up his bond earlier that day, so he made sure to make the bond with the least loophole.
"I need a giant beast, regardless of strength and potential to come to be summoned. In exchange for being summoned and controlled by me, I will give all the spiritual energy in my body," Ning said.
Many lights faded this time around due to his size requirement in this case.
Of the few lights that remained, Ning chose one that was particularly bright and summoned it.
"Woah!" the princess said with anticipation as light shined beneath the surface of the water.
Ning opened his eyes to see what exactly he was summoning. He could tell what he was going to summon if he focused enough on the light he captured, but that would ruin the surprise and his chance to guess from the summoning circle.
Unfortunately for him this time, the summoning happened below the water so he couldn't see anything.
Suddenly, the ocean exploded into a massive spray of water a the sudden appearance of the summoned beast.
"Princess!" Joann shouted as she went up to the little girl to cover her with her body from the water.
Ning simply put his hand up and created a golden barrier in front of him to stop the water from falling on them all.
When the sound of the rain disappeared, the princess started shouting from behind them. "Move away, I want to see. Joann, move away."
Recognizing that there was no reason to keep protecting the princess, the servant girl let her go and finally turned around to look at the beast themselves.
"Woah!" both the girls said at once when they saw the beast in front of them.
It was a massive octopus the size of a building. It was nearly three stories tall in comparison, even when half of it was clearly under the water still.
If it were to stand on its tentacles, Ning wouldn't be surprised if the beast was at least 40 or 50 meters tall.
"So big," the little princess said in awe.
"Of course," Ning said. "You wanted to see it right?"
"I… I don't think she meant this big," Joann said from the side.
"Huh?" Ning asked.
"The biggest beast she's seen yet are elephants. She probably meant beasts as large as an elephant when she said big, not… this," Joann said.
"Ah, well… that's no problem, right? I gave her what she wanted," Ning said before turning towards the princess. "Do you like it, Janice?" he asked.
He was desperately hoping that he didn't just scare the living hell out of this little girl. If she ever became traumatized about summoning, then this job of his would never end, and he would have to go back defeated.
He couldn't admit defeat.
"I… " the girl continued staring at the giant octopus as she tried to form her words.
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"I…"
"Yes?" Ning urged her to speak. 'Please don't say you're scared. Please don't say you're scared."
"I… " the princess' face suddenly lit up in amazement as she shouted, "I want to ride it."
Ning felt a wave of relief when he saw that dazzling smile. "Yes, yes, you want to ride it huh? Let's go ride it."
He suddenly grabbed the princess and jumped directly onto the octopus.
"Alright, octopus, take the princess in that—"
His words stuck to his mouth when he saw the many ships that were patrolling the waters were now coming towards him.
"Uh-oh," Ning said. "I think I caused some problem."
"What?" the princess asked and looked. "Hehehe, they want to play too."
"Uh, no they don't want to—"
Suddenly a cannonball shot from one of the ships at the front and attacked the octopus.
One of the octopus' tentacles flew out of the water and stopped the cannonball from hitting him.
"They want to play too," the little princess started giggling. "Occy, go play."
The princes shouted so loudly that people in the ships started noticing her.
"What?" the captains of the shops started getting wary of attacking the octopus. Then they saw Ning on top of the octopus with the princess in his grab and started assuming the worst.
"All hands on deck! The enemy has captured the princess," they started shouting.
"Uh…" Ning couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Summoners, start getting ready to fight. Everyone else, get to battle station. There should be more than one enemy," the captains shouted and were instantly in fight mode.
Ning had a blank face as he looked at the battleships surrounding him. "Uhh… how do I get out of this?"
Chapter 693 Lesson in the SeaAs Ning floated on the giant octopus with the princess in his arms, he saw many different aquatic monsters get summoned all around him.
They would of course not be able to stop the octopus, but if the octopus attacked back, there would definitely be casualties including some fatal ones.
However, if he stopped the octopus from attacking, they would still attack the octopus in which case it would be injured most likely.
"What's going on?" the King ran out of the palace after hearing the large explosion of water as well as the cannonball shot.
"Your highness, can you tell your men to stop attacking?" Ning asked.
"What are you doing? What is that beast? Why do you have my daughter there?" the king shouted.
"Your military, order them to stop please," Ning shouted back. "They think I've kidnapped the princess."
"Oh!" the king finally realized the severity of the situation and ran to the edge of the beach while waving his arms.
"Stop! Stop!" he shouted at the men in the ocean.
"What?"
"His majesty is ordering us to stop."
"Are we not fighting?"
"Captain?"
The people started looking at the ship captains, and the captains instantly understood what was happening.
"The king is afraid the princess will get hurt if we attack the kidnapper. We will need to do this silently," the captains talked amongst themselves.
Ning clearly heard them speak and realized they weren't going to budge. He suddenly turned around and grabbed the maid, Joann with his telekinesis and brought her on top of the octopus.
"Your highness, it doesn't look like your men are going to budge, so I will be gone for a bit while. Please speak to your mean about it all," Ning said.
"What? What do you mean?" the king didn't understand.
"I will return in just 3 hours," Ning said and touched the octopus. Then, they all disappeared.
The king was shocked, and so were the captains. They all searched around for Ning and the princess, but they couldn't find them anywhere.
Even though the King was sure his daughter would be fine, he still feared for her a little.
Ning and the rest appeared a few dozen kilometers out into the sea, in a location where not many ships roamed.
"What? Where are we?" Joann asked in surprise.
The young princess was too giddy about everything to care. "Woohoo, do it again, do it again," she shouted.
"If you want me to do it again, you will have to now keep quiet and listen to me teach you about summoning," Ning said.
"Oh, can I play with occy first?" she asked.
"After we are done with a lesson," Ning said, not budging even the slightest bit.
"Okay," the princess said dejectedly.
Ning brought out the umbrella from his storage and used it to shade Joann and the princess from the afternoon sun.
As for himself, he liked being in the sun as that only made him stronger.
"Do you know what we use to summon?" Ning asked.
"No," the princess said.
"Princess, you do," Joann said from the side. "We learned this already."
"Huh? Oh right, Spiritual energy," the princess said.
"Do you know where we can find the spiritual energy?" Ning asked.
"Everywhere," the princess said confidently.
"Correct, but do you know where we find it the most?" Ning asked.
"The pearls?" the princess asked.
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"I… was actually going to say the ocean, but the pearl is technically the more accurate answer," Ning said with a somewhat amused expression. "But do you know why the pearl has so much spiritual energy?"
Joann looked confused. Even she didn't know that answer, no one did as far as she understood. "Teacher, what are you teaching her?" she asked.
"I'm starting from the basics," Ning said.
"But… how would she know why pearl has so much spiritual energy?" she asked.
"Eh? Do you not know?" Ning asked. He had learned the information from the system, so he didn't know what was prevalent information and what was lacking.
"Do you?" Joann asked.
"Joann, let the teacher speak. I need to finish this lesson fast so I can play with occy," she said.
"I… um… yes, of course," she gave up in the end.
"So, here's the thing. There are very, very, very small sands in the water, and they carry spiritual energy. Which is why there is so much spiritual energy in the water compared to the air," Ning said.
"Ohhh," the princess made an understanding face even though Ning was sure she was doing it just to get done with the lesson.
He had realized halfway through that what he was teaching was a bit too advanced for the princess, but he still continued it now that he had started it.
Besides, Joann could learn something from it anyway.
"So, the ocean has these small sand in the water, right? And then we have the Spiritual Oysters."
"These oysters live in the ocean and they drink the water. When they do, they purify it and put aside any of those small sand that they find."
"Those sands that are responsible for keeping Spiritual energy are then slowly accumulated until they get mixed with the pearl the oysters make and become Spiritual pearls," Ning said.
"So you how spiritual energy appears in our surroundings," Ning said. "Now you need to understand how we can use it."
"Spiritual energy can only to used to connect two spirits," Ning said. "It can only be used to connect two different things and form a bond between them."
"That is why people that use spiritual energy are all called Bondforgers," Ning said.
"Bongforger?" the princess asked, having never heard these words before.
"Yes, Bondforger," Ning said. "It's unlikely that you've heard this word before as we are usually known as a Summoner."
"Summoner!" the princess cheered. "That's what I am going to be soon."
"Yes," Ning said with a smile. "If you take into heart everything I teach you here, you will become one of the greatest summoners out there."
Chapter 694 Bonding with Humans"So if I swim in the ocean, I can get stronger?" the little girl asked.
"Yes," Ning said. "But not until you start forming a bond. Let me get a beast for you to bond."
Ning jumped off from the octopus' head and into the ocean. He looked around for a bit and found a very young fish that was barely at Rank 1.
He caught the fish in a bubble of water and floated it up to the octopus' head.
"Wow, teacher, you can fly?" the little girl was amazed.
"You can too once you start being able to form bonds," Ning said. "Here, try and tell this guy to follow you and in exchange, you will give it all of your spiritual energy."
"This guy?" the princess cocked her head to the side to look at the weak little fish. "I don't like this guy. I want a big monster like Occy."
"You need to be big to have a big monster like Occy. For a small princess like you, this fish suits best," Ning said. "Now try and send your spiritual energy to this guy and say you want to control it in return for all your spiritual energy."
"Okay," the little girl said as she closed her eyes. "What do I do now?"
"Let your spiritual energy out," Ning said.
"Okay," the girl said and waited for a bit. "What's my spiritual energy?"
Ning sighed. "Try and feel it a power in your body. You should feel it," he explained.
The princess tried but there was no way she could feel spiritual energy in a single day after all.
"I can't," the princess grumbled. "Am I not good at summoning?"
"No, no, no. You're fine. Everyone takes time. I needed to wait until I was very old before I could even summon my first beast," Ning said.
"Really? I am going to beat you then teacher. I will try again," she said. The princess continued trying but to no avail.
Ning saw her confidence deteriorating so he let her play with the octopus for a while.
At the same time, he answered a few of her questions.
"Why is it that I have to bond with something in front of me when you can summon something from far away?" she asked.
"You can try and summon something from far away too, but it's easier to bond with something that is right in front of you," Ning said.
"Hehe, Teacher is right in front of me. What if I bond with Teacher? Can I get Teacher to do whatever I want? Ooh, I can play with occy all the time if I can do that," the girl said.
The maid at the side hid her smile and let her princess dream a little.
"Unfortunately, Janice, you cannot bond with a human. You can only bond with that which is not human," Ning said.
"Why not? I want to play with Occy," she said.
"That's just how it is. You cannot bond with something that is the same as you. If you are a human, you cannot bond with another human," Ning said.
"What if I was a big monster like Occy? Could I then bond with teacher?" she asked.
"Yes, you could. If you were an octopus like Occy, then the only thing you could not bond with would be another octopus," Ning explained.
"Oh!" the little girl said.
"Alright, let's return back for today. Your father must be worried right now," Ning said.
"Huh? So fast? I don't wanna," the princess said.
"Princess, it's time for you to eat something and start your other studies," Joann said.
"Those are boring. I want to summon monsters," the princess grumbled.
"Do you want me to tell that to your mother?" Joann asked.
The princess suddenly closed her mouth and didn't say another word. Ning was surprised at how easily Joann got her to stop her tantrum.
"Joann, you meanie," the princess started sulking just then.
"Alright, time to return," Ning said. "Say goodbye to Occy."
"Eh? Occy is going?" she asked.
"Yes, he has to go," Ning said.
"Where will he go back to? Does Occy have a home? Can I meet him again?" she asked.
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"Don't worry. Occy lives close by on the other side," Ning said. "And if you're a good little girl, I will let you meet her too."
"Okay," the princess said reluctantly.
"You can go back now," Ning told the Octopus who seemed reluctant to leave as well.
A summoning circle appeared deep within the waters and in a flash of bright light, the octopus disappeared.
"Aaaaaah!" the princess cried as she suddenly went into freefall. The same was true for Joann, but she had somehow already twisted her body enough to get next to the princess and grab her.
She embraced her tightly as they were about to reach the water. Just before they splashed, however, Ning caught them both with his telekinesis and brought them high into the air.
"Sorry about that. I might have stared directly into the light for a bit there," Ning said as they came closer.
"We're—"
"Hahahaha! Do it again, Do it again!" the princess started laughing all of a sudden.
"Okay," Ning said and took her from Joann. Then in a single throw, he sent her 10 meters high into the air.
"AAAAH!" the princess shouted as she came down, but Ning caught her softly again.
"Again!" the princess said.
"No, it's time we return now," Ning said. He turned towards Joann and grabbed her by the shoulder. In the next moment, Joann found herself standing on the beat near the palace.
"We're back!" the princess shouted.
"My daughter!" the king ran up to them as they had been waiting for him all this time.
"Are you okay?" the king asked her.
"Father, Father! The teacher is amazing!" the princess started saying.
"You aren't hurt?" he continued asking.
"Why would I be hurt?" she asked. "Listen, the teacher said that I will be able to summon big monsters very soon. I will get to play with them then right?"
The king realized that his daughter was fine and only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.
Chapter 695 Room full of PearlsNing returned back to the arena where he was staying and went to the cafeteria.
Saphandra wasn't anywhere to be found, so he had to eat his meal alone.
He would've probably gotten to eat back at the palace, but since everyone was so worried about the princess, they just let him go.
Ning sighed as he ate the piece of fish in his place. "Ugh! Fish again," he thought. Being a world with only islands, the cuisine of the world mostly revolved around fish.
'Can't they get some chicken or something sometimes? Just because this is cheap… sigh,' he shook his head as he ate.
"Hey, I need someone to help me build some houses. Can anyone help me?" someone spoke from way behind Ning.
Ning didn't respond and saw no one in the room respond either. He continued eating his mediocre fish. However, he was too fed up with the fish, so he simply created some chicken instead and ate it.
He went back to his room afterward and very quickly fell asleep.
Joann walked through the dark corridors of the palace late at night as she walked towards an underground room at the bottom of the beach.
The room was studded all around with tiny little pearls that stole spiritual energy from the water that flowed right above them.
In the center was a woman that sat there reading a book as her body naturally absorbed the spiritual energy that was pulled in.
Due to the spiritual pearls never being full, the light there was very dim. Still, the thousands of pearls helped fully illuminated the room.
There was a knock on the door and the woman finally stopped reading for once.
"Come in," she said and the door opened.
Joann walked in and suddenly got on one knee. "Your highness, you called for me?" asked.
"Joann~" the woman said softly. "I heard there was an incident today regarding my daughter's teacher. Do you have any information for me?"
"Yes, your highness," she said.
"Oh, there was information that you saw fit to hide? Go on, tell me," the woman said with an intrigued face.
"This man, this teacher of your daughter's that your husband found. He's incredibly powerful," Joann said.
"Oh? How powerful?" the queen asked.
"For one thing, he is absolutely a Rank 6 summoner, if not more. The monster he summoned today was also fully listening to him despite it being so strong," Joann said.
"Well, those are impressive, but not particularly much. Especially the monster thing. Anyone can get a monster to follow their commands so long as they are ready to give up a lot of spiritual energy that they won't gain back for a while," the queen said.
"That's the thing, mistre— I mean, your highness. Even after summoning the beast, he kept using other skills that are hard to come by without summoning multiple beasts."
"He could control objects with thoughts, he could travel to a faraway location not just by himself, but also the people and beasts around him. He could fly in the air without worry, and finally, he also had quite a lot of strength," Joann said.
"I heard about the last part," the queen said. "Apparently he won against my husband and everyone in a test of strength. Being able to summon so many powers… just what kind of monster is he?"
"What should I do, your highness?" Joann asked.
"Hmm, check just how strong he is for now. Aside from that, we need a definite answer on what his character is like. Whether he is trustworthy or not."
"We don't need people that we can't trust, now do we?" the queen said.
"Then I will start testing him," Joann said.
"You will do no such thing. Just do what you've been doing until now. As for the teacher, only look at him from the sideline," the queen said.
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"I see," Joann said. "I will do that then, your highness."
Joann stood and turned to leave.
"Wait, before you leave. Can you give me a full pearl? You have some right?" the queen asked.
"Yes, your highness," Joann brought out a glowing pearl that was brighter than all the other pearls around her.
"Here," Joann simply flicked the pearl from in between her thumb and index finger.
The pearl shot out like a bullet from a gun, but the queen caught it in midair easily and looked at it.
"Thank you. You may go now," she said.
Joann nodded and returned back to her fake task of being a maid to the princess, and the real task of being her guard. One that wouldn't hesitate to kill any enemies that would come for her mistress' daughter.
The queen looked at the Pearl slowly losing light as it was absorbed by her. 'Well at least my speed is still fast,' she thought. However, even after the pearl lost its spiritual energy, the queen still felt empty.
That was what she had been feeling for a very long time now.
Ever since she had been poisoned and her legs mangled, she was forced to stay in this situation where she couldn't move from her location and had to stay in one place until someone came to get her.
The reason she needed spiritual energy was to give it to this beast of hers whose powers she had summoned. She had promised it that she would give it her spiritual energy until it reached the next rank.
The beast in turn promised her to heal her leg and body.
It wouldn't be long now, only a few months before the day would come when she would have her legs back.
After that, she would have to train a bit to go back to being the same way she was in the past.
Then, she would attack her enemies, those that made her waste so many years in this backwater city.
However, her enemies were strong and she needed people for that. Fortunately for her, it seems she had found the perfect person to ask for help.
'A teacher huh? I can rope him in easily,' the queen thought and went back to reading her book.
Chapter 696 Cheap HumansNing returned back to the palace to teach the little princess more about summoning.
The princess wanted to fly for a bit so Ning took her on a tour of the sky.
"Wow! I can see the city. Can we go to the city?" She asked.
"No, you can go with Joann after you are done learning for today," Ning said and brought her down.
"Aww~" the girl was dejected a bit. "I want to fly like you too."
"You will," Ning said.
"I want to ride Occy again," she said.
"Not for a long while," Ning said. "You need to be a good girl and learn for now. When your hair color changes to Red or Orange, I will let you play with Occy."
"What if it is green?" she asked.
"Green? Sure that's better," Ning said.
"Yay! I can become just like a mother," the little princess celebrated.
"Your mother has green hair?" Ning asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Then as her daughter, you need to have green hair too," Ning said and started teaching her again.
As sensing Spiritual energy would take time, he wanted to teach her about how summoning worked exactly.
He told her about how you could summon the beasts, or just summon their powers. He told her how summoning changed once hair color and how that affected a person's summoning when the entire beast didn't come.
"Are you summoning a beast right now too?" the girl asked. "Is that why you can fly?"
"Yes," Ning said. "I'm summoning a beast's powers which help me fly."
"Why not just call the entire beast and make it fly you?" she asked.
"That's inconvenient," Ning said. "If the beast is here and I want to fly, I will have to tell it to lift me, fly me up, then fly me somewhere. It's annoying right?"
"Maybe…" the princess said. "But aren't you not getting to fly very fast, teacher?"
"Huh? What do you mean?" Ning asked.
"Well, you said red hair is bad right?" she asked.
"Ah, yes. My red hair is indeed making it hard to use all the powers of the beast's skills," Ning said.
"Then why not just summon the monster?" she asked.
"Well, sometimes the monster doesn't want to come, but you still need their power so you just have to accept their skill," Ning said.
"Why won't they come?" she asked.
"Well, there are a few reasons," Ning said. "First of all, as the beast become stronger and have more spiritual energy, they started getting more intelligent."
"So, at some point, they that they just don't want to go all the way to some other place to fight for some random human when they can just stay where they are and just give away their skills," Ning said.
"While some start to believe that what the humans give them in exchange for summoning just isn't worth it for them," Ning said.
"Not worth it?" she asked.
"Yes, beasts require a lot of spiritual energy to increase their rank, so they just don't think the little energy they will get is worth it to go all the way there," Ning said.
"Also, humans get quite cheap with their energy once they reach a higher rank," Ning said.
"Cheap with energy? What does that mean?" the princess asked.
"Do you remember what I told you to say when I asked you to bond with the fish?" Ning asked.
"Um… no?" the princess said.
"Didn't I tell you to say that you would give the beast all your spiritual energy?" Ning asked.
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"Yes?" the princess said.
"Well, humans don't do that why they get strong. Instead, they say they will give just a little bit of their energy," Ning said.
"What? No beast will come to them that way, will they?" the princess asked. "Stupid humans."
"They aren't exactly stupid for doing so," Ning said.
"But they don't even use their spiritual energy to summon. Cheap, cheap humans," she said.
"That's not their fault really," Ning said. "You will understand as you grow stronger, but at some point, it will take a really long time to fill your body with all the spiritual energy, so you need to be careful of what you spend."
"Really? But they are still cheap right?" the princess asked.
"Sigh. Yes, they are," Ning said. There was no point in telling any of this to a 6-year-old girl, was there?
After a while, Ning started having her focus her mind on her spiritual energy, but the energetic princess kept getting distracted and another day ended without any result.
A few more days passed with Ning teaching the princess fruitlessly. The 'easy 5000' he wanted to make was now turning into one of the hardest tasks he had done in a while.
The day came for Ning's next match in the Arena. This was the match that he himself had challenged. As for the one where he was challenged, that wouldn't happen for a while.
Ning's opponent was an above-average fighter with a good ratio of wins and losses.
She summoned a giant bird to fight him, while Ning simply summoned a cat-sized spider.
Ning himself was surprised when the spider came out, but given his demands, this was a very strong beast for sure.
"Begin!" the referee said.
The bird immediately took to the sky while the spider simply watched it fly around with all of its 4 giant eyes and 4 smaller eyes.
White webs oozed out from the spider's behind, and instead of pooling around on the floor, it started flying up towards the sky.
The spider had full control of its webs as if it was its own legs as long as it was attached to its own body.
The bird flew around to evade it, but the spider caught it very quickly. Once it was caught, it couldn't fly anymore and fell to the ground with a loud crash.
The bird disappeared and Ning was pronounced the victor. Once the spider disappeared too, Ning went to get his earnings.
Chapter 697 Recharge PearlsNing earned nearly 2000 pearls from the match he had just had. That was a good amount considering people would also bet on him quite a bit in this match where it wasn't well known who the winner would be.
Once done, he went to meet up with Saphandra to have some lunch.
She was getting harder to meet now that he had a job and she was off doing her own thing.
They sat down by the cafeteria to eat some food.
"How's your tutoring going?" she asked.
"Fine, I would say. It's annoying that I have to teach a 6-year-old kid, but I'm having fun too I guess," Ning said. "How about you? How are your studies going? You don't with the book?"
"Oh yeah, that history book, I'm done with it. I need some other book, but maybe not right now. I want to finish learning the language first," She said.
"Sure, that works too," Ning said.
"Oh right, I've come across some problems," Saphandra said.
"What's up?" Ning asked.
"So, I've been keeping my pearls in my storage right, but it keeps leaking energy," she said.
"Yeah, sorry I can't help you with that. Unless I can make the time stop, it will continue leaking," Ning said.
"No, no, I'm fine with it leaking. The problem is that now that it has leaked, the value of my pearls has halved," she said. "I need to get them recharged.
"Oh, yeah you can do it by handing the pearls over to the groups that handle this business," Ning said. "You should get fully charged pearls back in just a day or two."
"Yeah, well I know that, and I tried it, but there's a problem with that too. Two problems actually," she said.
"What's wrong?" Ning asked.
"Well, first of all, I'm too rich," she said. "I have nearly 50,000 pearls from my two matches and the ones that I bet on you. So, If I were to just give it over to the groups, they could just take it and run away."
"Right, 50 thousand is enough for them to start a new life somewhere, and if they distribute it, it would be annoying to go get it," Ning said.
"Right? But that's less of a problem compared to the next one. Apparently, for recharging pearls they charge quite a bit," she said.
"Oh, how much?" Ning was curious to hear about the cost as he hadn't interacted with such groups yet.
"They take exactly 1% of what you want to be recharged," She said.
"So, they want…"
"500 pearls, yes," she said.
"Sheesh, that's enough to buy your own small boat and drag yourself through the ocean overnight," Ning said.
"Yeah, so do you have any idea? Maybe you can just, I don't know, poof and have it be recharged?" she asked.
Ning chuckled a bit. "It doesn't work like that. If it did, I wouldn't just make dull pearls, now would I?"
"I guess? Then do you have any suggestions? I don't mind having dull pearls, I would really like it if I had ones with double the value," she said.
Ning thought for a moment. "I might have some way," he said. "Give me your storage ring."
"Huh? Here," she handed it over to him.
"I will try and see if my idea works," Ning said. "Damn, Janice is going to be super happy about this."
"Who's Janice?" Saphandra gave a quizzing look.
"Why do you want to know? Jealous?" Ning asked with a smile.
"Of course not," Saphandra said.
"Well, you shouldn't be. It's the princess's name. She's been bothering me to go to the ocean for a while, so she's going to get her to wish today. I just need to ask the king for permission," Ning said.
After finishing their meal, Saphandra returned back to her room, while Ning went over to the palace.
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By now, the guards were already familiar with Ning as the princess' tutor, so they simply let him walk in without much checking.
Once inside, Ning went over to the servants to try and get an audience with the king or someone who could approve of something.
"I'll see what I can do," the servant said and walked away.
Ning waited for a while for the servant to return. After a while, the servant returned back and asked him to follow him.
Ning nodded and walked with him to the back of the palace. There were a few ladies standing by a porch with a head full of orange and blonde hair.
In the center was a woman in a chair. She had strong facial features, while also looking delicate at the same time
There was a subtle smile on her face the entire time that only widened more when she saw Ning approaching.
Ning saw her face fully and realized that she looked similar to Janice. The head full of green hair gave away her identity immediately.
The servant that took him here walked away, leaving Ning alone. Ning walked over to the woman in the chair and bowed a little.
"I'm glad to finally meet you, your highness," he said.
"You know me? I'm surprised," the queen couldn't help but say.
"Your daughter speaks of you quite a lot," Ning said.
"I hear she does do that. So, tell me. Why are you here when you should be teaching my daughter?" she asked.
"Well, I was hoping to ask your permission for something," Ning said. "I wish to take your daughter for a ride around the ocean again. I caused quite a commotion last time, so I want permission to do so this time."
"You wish to take my daughter on a ride along the ocean? In what, may I ask?" she asked.
"Any sea beast I can summon," Ning said. "There's nothing particular in my mind yet."
"Hmm," the queen thought for a bit. "Sure, why not. But under one condition."
"Oh, what condition might that be?" Ning got curious.
The queen gave a genuine smile. "I get to come with you too."
Chapter 698 Cold Mother"You… want to come with us too?" Ning looked at her with a weird expression.
"Is that wrong? Do I not get to see what kind of man my daughter's tutor is?" she asked.
"Oh, no. You can. I mean, yes you can come with us. I was just surprised you know. I thought a queen would be too busy to just go around the sea," Ning said.
"I am not that kind of queen. My husband handles everything, so I am rather free to do whatever I want." The queen smiled at him. "I will see you in a bit then."
"Okay, I will wait until you give me the permission to summon." Ning bowed toward the queen and walked away.
The queen watched him with careful eyes with a mysterious smile on her face. Ning couldn't help but wonder why that smile.
Ning went over to Janice and gave her the good news.
"I get to see Occy? Yeah!!" she celebrated when she heard him.
"Wait, I don't know if it will be Occy or not. I'm not sure yet. I will try Occy, but you will have to do with other beasts too, okay?" Ning asked.
"What?" the princess exclaimed. "But I want Occy."
"I can't guarantee Occy."
"No!" she shouted. "I want Occy. I want Occy, Occy, Occy!" she started throwing tantrum all of a sudden.
Joann walked up and tried to calm her down, but she kept shouting about wanting to see the octopus.
"Janice, you don't want friends other than Occy?" Ning asked.
"Other friends?" the princess finally calmed down.
"Yes, there are so many other beasts out there. Do you really want to be friends with just Occy?" Ning asked.
"N-No, I want to be friends with all of them," she said.
"Okay then, let's go."
Ning took the two girls over to the beach where the queen was already sitting in a chair with two women by her side.
"Is everything ready?" Ning asked her.
"Not yet, we're waiting for the captain to come," the queen said.
Not long after, one of the ships sailed up to them and the captain dropped from there into the water.
He swam up to the shore and knelt beside the queen.
"Your highness, what orders do you have?" he asked. At the same time, he constantly side-eyed Ning. The captain and others just like him were angry at Ning for humiliating them a week ago.
Grabbing the princess, summoning big beasts, and disappearing from right under their nose had left them feeling rather angry at Ning, and at themselves.
They were fortunate the person they considered an enemy was an ally. If he was not, they would be in a lot of trouble at the moment.
"In 5 minutes, my daughter's tutor will summon another beast. Let your colleagues know that everything is okay," the queen told him.
"Again?" the captain looked to the side.
"Is there a problem?" the queen narrowed her eyes.
"No, your highness. Your orders shall be fulfilled," the captain spoke.
"Good, you may return."
The captain nodded and jumped back into the water before grabbing onto a rope ladder and climbing to the top.
The ship then sailed away and entered the defense formation it had separated from.
"Come here child," the queen called her daughter.
"M-mother," the princess timidly walked up to her mother.
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"How are your studies going? Are you being a good girl?" the queen asked.
"I-I am doing good, mother," the princess said.
Ning's eyes narrowed at the conversation between the two. It was so… stiff, and the princess was so scared of her own mother.
'What's going on here?' he wondered.
"Okay, go back," the queen let the princess walk away after a few more questions. Then, she stared into the ocean.
"Do you think of me as a cold mother?" the queen asked.
"Yes," Ning said without hesitation. "But I also think you're doing it on purpose."
"Hmm, quite perceptive of you," the queen said. "Yes, I'm purposefully being cold and sometimes even cruel to my own daughter. She is a princess and will definitely grow to be spoiled and maybe even rude. For that to not happen, I believe she needs to be scared of at least one of her parents."
"My husband could never be that. He's free-spirited and strong, but he can't be cruel. He doesn't have the heart to scold his own daughter. Due to that reason, I needed to step in and be the force that kept her in line."
"I hope you won't judge me too harshly for that," the queen turned to look at him.
"If that's what we are talking about, then I believe you are being a bit too cold towards your daughter. Yes, keeping her in line is good, but she doesn't need a scary mother to do that."
"A loving mother can keep her from being spoiled all the same. Or at least that's what I believe," Ning said. "But hey, what do I know? I don't have any children."
The queen chuckled. "You are too young to have children," she said. "Now go summon. I wish to see this monster of yours."
"Okay," Ning said and closed his eyes. A second later, a massive white light appeared from beneath the ocean.
The two ladies next to the queen suddenly brought out an umbrella and opened it while Joann did the same for the princess.
The water erupted and splashed all around them as the umbrella was barely able to protect the two royals from the water.
When the water no longer rained down from above, they got rid of the umbrella and looked at the beast that had appeared in front of them.
Floating atop the water was a massive blue-shelled Turtle with water flowing through its shell's crevices.
The shell itself was wide and accommodating, so there wasn't anything to worry about.
Ning turned to the ground with a smile on his face and said, "Shall we leave then?"
Chapter 699 Getting on boardThe queen stared in surprise at the beast that floated in the ocean in front of her.
'Rank 7,' she thought. 'That's definitely Rank 7. How is he summoning such strong beasts? Is he giving away all of his spiritual energy?'
That was the only way this could be done at all after all.
"Wait for a second, I have something to do first." Ning turned after speaking and created a massive thin and sturdy metal net.
"How did you create that?!" the queen asked him as it didn't make sense. He should have already lost all of his energy to the other beast, how was he still capable of creating something.
"Oh, I didn't create it," Ning said. "I simply took out what was in my storage."
The queen was even more flabbergasted. 'His storage? How the hell does he have storage going on, on top of summoning this massive beast? How strong is he?'
Ning proceeded to take out his and Saphandra's pearls and filled them into the metal net. Once he made sure there was no way the pearls would escape, he jumped into the ocean and swam his way to the turtle.
The queen watched as Ning tied the metal around the turtle's neck like a noose. He couldn't see anywhere else that would be better. The turtle's skin was too thick to feel it anyway.
Ning swam back to the shore in what felt like record time for the queen, and she couldn't help but wonder if he had any other skills summoned as well.
"Let's go," Ning said and went on to grab the princess' hand. He then walked over to the queen and grabbed her wrists too.
"What are you doing?" she asked with a panic in her voice.
"Taking you to the turtle," Ning said.
The queen saw a giant turtle in her vision floating in the ocean, as well as her two guards to the side that was about to grab onto Ning for overstepping his boundary.
However, in the next second, the scenery changed as she now gazed into the open ocean from high in the air where she could see the many battleships roaming the sea.
Her eyes slowly drifted downwards and she could finally she finally that she was sitting on the turtle.
"How…"
"Mother, isn't teacher awesome?" the princess asked her mother with a jovial tone in her voice.
She jumped on the blue shell with excitement in her voice as she looked around the ocean.
"Mother! Mother! Look! The ocean is so big from here," the princess said.
"Your highness, are you okay?" Joann left the princess' side and went to grab the queen before pulling her to a more comfortable place on the shell.
"What's wrong?" Ning asked when he saw her pale face.
"Nothing, I'm fine," the queen said, clearly lying through her teeth.
"You can tell me if you are scared of height, I can take you back," Ning said.
"No, no, I'm really fine," she said.
"Okay," Ning said and went on to make sure the princess was properly settled.
The turtle was so big that the shell was about 30 meters in width, meaning about 10 meters of it was on the top that was flat enough to sit at.
Once the princess was settled, Ning noticed that Joann was sitting by the queen's side more than she was by the princess.
"Are you sure you are alright?" Ning asked her. "I can really drop you off if you aren't."
"No, no. She's just here for me because of my leg issues, you don't have to worry about it as we won't be walking at all," she said.
"Let issues?" Ning got curious. "What kind?"
"It's nothing. My legs just don't work is all. Don't worry, I won't bother you," the queen said.
"Oh, what's wrong with your leg? I'm a doctor too, you can tell me," Ning said.
"A doctor?" the queen hesitated. There was no chance whatsoever that the young man in front of her was a doctor, but she couldn't say that outright in case she offended her.
She still needed to leave a favorable impression on him now that she was absolutely sure she wanted to recruit him for her own organization.
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"Yes, I'm a doctor," Ning said and walked up to her.
The queen hesitated a bit while Joann simply watched by the sideline as she was ordered.
"May I?" Ning asked.
"Okay," the queen said reluctantly just to not offend him.
Ning slowly reached out to the queen's legs and pulled it out. His eyes widened a bit when he saw some thin, blackened legs as if they belonged to a burned victim that also happened to have anorexia.
"What did this?" he asked with surprise.
"Poison," the queen said.
"I see," Ning said as he learned more about the leg. "Must be quite the devastating poison then. How long has it been? 7 years? 8?"
The queen gave a surprised look. "Yes, 7 years," she said. "How did you know?"
"I told you, I'm a doctor," Ning said.
"You did, didn't you?" the queen said quietly. "If you're done looking at my leg, can we leave now? I don't want my daughter to be tired from being so excited before we even leave."
"Oh, sure," Ning said. "Just one moment."
Ning placed his hands on both her legs and in an instant a white light glowed from his hands. The light entered the dark legs as it started cleaning the blackness from the inside.
The queen watched in absolute disbelief as her black legs slowly got back their skin color as well as their muscle mass as the blackness disappeared.
When the light passed through all her body, there was no more problem left in her at all.
"Here," Ning gave her his hands to grab onto and pulled her up.
The queen got up suddenly and stumbled a bit, but Ning caught on to her and didn't let her fall.
The queen then balanced herself on the shell and tears slowly dripped down the side of her cheeks.
"I… I can walk again."
Chapter 700 Turning RedThe queen's feet trembled on the shaky shell, but she still managed to stand up on her own.
"It's… it's really happening!" she spoke out loud in disbelief as for the first time in many years, she saw herself stand up.
"Mist— Your highness, are you sure? You can walk?" Joann was surprised.
"Mother?" the princess didn't understand what was going on, so she started to worry a little.
"I can walk, honey," she told her daughter. Suddenly, she felt something break inside her.
'The bond,' she thought. The bond she had made with this strong beast was now broken.
From the Queen to the beast, the condition was to forever provide the beast with Spiritual energy until it would go up in rank. The queen had made such a vicious bond knowing that it would take her years considering the beast was already at Rank 7 when she bonded it.
But she had to do it for the sake of healing her leg.
From the beast to the queen, the condition of the bond was that it would heal her legs.
Now that Ning had done the job for the beast, there was no more condition remaining and the bond collapsed on itself.
The queen felt a backlash, a hit to her spirit that only happened when you broke the condition of your bond. However, the queen didn't even care that she got a little backlash as she felt the Spiritual energy all around her slowly enter her and not disappear somewhere else.
She could finally gather spiritual energy on her own.
"How did you… how did you heal me?" the queen asked Ning. The queen was quite good at handling her emotion, so she moved aside her feeling for what she thought was more important.
"Its just another summon of mine, don't worry," Ning said. Even he was starting to realize a problem with saying everything was a summon. People would start to get suspicious soon. He needed to change the topic.
"Since you are fine, your highness, let us start moving."
Ning ordered the turtle and suddenly it started moving forward. The battleships moved aside as the giant turtle makes its way through them.
The captains couldn't help but look in awe at the size of the beast.
Ning didn't show any expression on his face, but deep inside he couldn't help but laugh at the people's reaction. Especially because he knew just how useless this turtle was.
The turtle was strong when it came to defense thanks to its thick skin and thicker shell, but it wasn't a fighter at all.
All it could do if something attacked it was endure it. As for the people on top of it, it couldn't care less about protecting them. Not that it could even if it did care.
Ning hadn't summoned it because of its fighting capabilities so that wasn't a problem for him.
The turtle was surprisingly fast in the water as it roamed the sea.
The little princess shouted excitedly and pointed at any fish or sea beast that came to the surface.
Ning couldn't help but smile every time. After a few minute, he started teaching her again.
The queen watched curiously as she wondered what he taught her and nodded to herself when she realized he was teaching her to feel the spiritual energy and summon something.
Over two hours passed in such a way. The queen was happy to be out of her small cave and freely enjoy the outside world for the first time in a long time.
She was so happy that she didn't even care that there was someone around. She tried walking a few times, but her legs didn't work like they used to before.
Just then she heard a commotion from the group. She turned around to look at Ning and the others and saw them celebrating.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"Mother, mother! I can feel it. I can feel the Spiritual energy," the little princess shouted.
"Really? Come here my child." The queen gave a deep hug to her daughter that left the princess surprised. Her mother never showed her love this way.
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"I'm really proud of you," the queen said.
The smile on the princess' face could not be any wider.
The queen heard a splash and turned her head to see that Ning was no longer there. "What happened? Where did he go?" she asked Joann.
"Most likely to get a beast for the princess," Joann answered.
Ning returned not long after with a small octopus that was blue and green in color, but was actively changing into orange to match the light of the setting sun.
"Come on, let's try bonding with Occy's friend okay?" Ning said as he placed the octopus on one of the crevice in the turtle's shell where water flowed through constantly.
"What do I do now?" the princess asked.
"Now, you make a bond," Ning explained. "Feel your spiritual energy and try to push it towards the octopus. Then, say the words of your bond. Your remember the words right?"
"Yes." The princess crouched in front of the octopus and tried to do as she was told. For a while, she didn't feel anything, but then she felt the Spiritual energy again and sent it out of her body towards the Octopus.
"Be controlled by me and in exchange you can have all the spiritual energy in my body," she said.
The tiny octopus couldn't understand the words of course, but the intent was apparent to it. It would get so much spiritual energy at once that would go towards its rank.
It happily accepted the condition of the bond.
The princess felt something change in her. At the same time, something else changed externally.
The black hair the princess had slowly started fading as if it were being influenced by the surrounding.
Slowly, it went from mild, to deep red. The princess watched in shock at her own hair changing.
"I did it?" she asked.
"Yes, congratulations Janice." Ning pat her head. "You're now a summoner."
