The Ultimate Summoner

Chapter 8: Preparing to Raid

Chapter 8: Preparing to Raid

He spread out his spirituality seeking a creature or spirit he could contract.

[Searching for contracts]

The system notification resounded in his ears as his spirituality depleted rapidly, he could only maintain this form for so long.

Just as he was about to give up when his spirituality was reaching critical levels he heard a notification and for the first time he couldn’t help but feel that the system had a very lovable voice.

[A Fire Spirit is seeking to make a contract.]

[Do you agree to contract Fire Spirit? Y/N]

Without hesitation Aldrin clicked on yes before he could see whatever notification was coming next he felt his astral body being dragged downwards at the speed of light and in no time he opened his eyes back in his tent, beads of sweat coating his forehead as a pounding headache attacked him violently, in exhaustion he collapsed on his back.

He looked as though he had just survived a deadly battle but the light in his eyes was totally in contrary to his exhausted expression and demeanour.

He instantly fished up his status panel

[Profile;

Name: Aldrin Draca

Race: Human

Age: 20

Alias: Trash

Class: Spirit Practitioner

Subclass: Summoner

Grade: Mortal

Level: 1

Stats;

Strength: 7

Agility: 8

Stamina: 8

Vitality: 10

Spirituality: 57

Zen: 0

Skills;

{Active}

>> Summoning {Mortal; Level 1}: Summons any creature contracted to host

>>Spirit Suppression {Spirit; Level 1}: Suppresses target(s) in a 5m radius via spiritual pressure, judgement based on difference in spirituality stats. Cost 20spirit per second. Pressure can be increased at an increase in spirit costs.

>>Power of Stars {Unknown Grade}: Unknown Effects

{Passive}

None

Contracts:

Salamander Fire Spirit {Mortal; Level 1}: Summons a salamander fire spirit to aid you in battle, costs 100spirits to summon and 5spirits per second to maintain.]

He skipped all the superfluous details and went straight to his skills and indeed a new addition was now in the contracts section but when he saw the costs of summoning and maintaining the fire spirit his mood soured a bit and he quickly made a mental calculation.

At his peak he could only maintain the fire spirit for six minutes and this was based on the fact that he didn’t use any other technique that would require spirituality, the cost was totally fraudulent but when he considered that before now he couldn’t use any skill or technique of his own being able to summon a creature that would fight for him even if it was just for six minutes was more than enough, when used at the right time it could change the outcome of a seemingly hopeless encounter.

Out of habit he checked his spirituality stat and let out a rueful sigh, just a few second out of his body and he was left with just a meagre amount of spirituality, he had wanted to test this new ability but it seemed that would have to wait till he recovered, from his experience in the last few days it would take at least a full day to fully recover which means he would have to wait till the following night to try check out his contracted creature.

…

Morning came in a flash and after everyone freshened up and had breakfast they dismantled the tents and continued their journey with more enthusiasm than the previous days combined, in less than half a day they would reach their targets and the raid would officially begin, while it was certain that some of them would fall in this mission, they were born and trained for tasks like this, their entire lives is to live and die for the ancient dragon clan.

After about half a day the troop was finally within range of the fortress, standing about 1500 yards away was an old stronghold made from stone.

“Who has a surveillance type technique?” Aldrin suddenly asked his troops and amongst the 300 soldiers only seven answered to possessing such technique

“What grade is it?” he asked further

“Grade 2.” Most of them replied, the ranking system for zen and battle techniques was the same for artefacts with them starting from grade 1 which represented the novice stage up till grade 6 which was the supreme master grade, it was unknown if artefacts reaching the level of demigods existed, if they did there were all top tier secrets of their owner but as for zen and battle techniques at that level they were no longer classified by grades anymore and were regarded to as extraordinary techniques.

Aldrin was a little disappointed just when he was about to accept fate a tine voice caught his attention.

“I have a grade 3 surveillance type technique.” A lithe figure pointed out, if this situation didn’t occur Aldrin wouldn’t have noticed her existence, a petite girl with a curly brown hair. While it wasn’t uncommon to see female warrior, it was pretty rare to see one amongst the ranks of death-sworn soldiers like this, what made this one more unique was also the fact that she lacked the hardened aura the others had.

Aldrin wanted to question her but he had his priorities straight.

“Good, I need you to check on what’s going on within that fort.” He said and she nodded while moving closer to him once she was beside him she began to make gestures to activate the technique when suddenly Aldrin stopped her.

He clicked his hand bands and dipped his hand into his tunic before fishing out a translucent orb the size of an adult’s fist and passed it to her.

“This should increase your range and accuracy.” He said with a smile, the lady glanced at the orb with a shocked expression, she hadn’t expected that he would fish out a scrying artefact, as a matter of fact no one expected anything much from Aldrin and were only going on this mission because they had no other choice but after speaking with the team leaders on several occasion they were more than convinced of his strategic mind but not much could be said with the others as they rarely had any contact with him.

Collecting the orb the lady began to make gestures while chanting arcane words suddenly the orb flew from her hands and darted into the sky while a translucent screen appeared in front of her exposing the situation ahead.

The fortress had a span of over 150 yards and the height of the wall reached a little over 50 yards, orcs could be seen marching atop the walls, all clad in mismatched armours and wielding various weapons, within the walls were also quite a number of Orcs carrying out mundane tasks with a lazy demeanour totally unlike a bunch about to experience a war, while this would have been a good thing for the army as they could take them by surprise although the sheer numbers of them made everyone feel a cold chill down their spine.

There were roughly 3000 orcs within the fortress, this outnumbered their army at a ratio of 10 to 1.

After a few minutes of thought Aldrin finally spoke up.

“We’ll follow the same plan, but this time you should make sure to spread out as wide as you can in order to thin up their numbers also don’t attract too much at a time.” Aldrin instructed the team that was tasked with luring the orcs.

The soldiers steeled their minds and cursed their fates internally when suddenly Aldrin began to fetch several pouches from his robes, many of them instantly recognized them as storage pouches, storage pouches were special tools created by master alchemist and were worth quite a lot, only rich scions and young masters of big clans were able to afford one amongst the younger generation but even at that they only had one and yet Aldrin had already pulled out about ten, this was a number that was surprising but what even surprised them most what the thought of what exactly could he have kept that would require ten storage pouches.

It was general knowledge that a storage pouch with the smallest internal space was the size of a small room, some were even larger than warehouses.

Not paying their thoughts and incredulous expression any mind Aldrin tapped his bracelets granting him the ability to activate any artefact that required the use of zen, he then began to open the storage pouches one by one and began to fish out several weapons of war, ranging from enhanced crossbows to catapults, explosive launchers and a myriad of large ballista.

There was also an abundance of single use materials like sealed scrolls and explosives, sealed scrolls were scrolls which contained circuits channelling various types of zen techniques, the scroll were created and sealed by high ranking zen practitioners, it allowed the low leveled practitioners to use techniques of a higher rank or of a class not belonging to them as the scroll only requires that one injects a small amount of zen to unseal and activate it which meant that even a novice grade practitioner could unleash the power of  a grandmaster with the aid of a grade 5 sealed scroll.

As Aldrin revealed the materials every single person within the small army were totally gob smacked as they could never have believed their commander would provide so many tools of war, with the amount on ground fighting one ratio ten was no longer impossible, in fact it was totally possible for them to still fight at an odds of one ratio twenty and still have a chance of winning albeit a very small chance.

Revealing all his cards Aldrin had a contented smile upon seeing the surprised expression on his men.

“Commander, you didn’t rob the clan’s warehouse did you?” Kane muttered, shock still painting his visage and Aldrin couldn’t help but smile wryly

‘Am I that unreliable?’ he questioned internally but shook his head

“Who said we didn’t have any supporters, it’s just that rather than waste the lives of men in a meaningless conquest such as this I’d rather waste consumables that could easily be replaced.” He replied with a smile and suddenly the expression on all their faces changed as they now bore respect.

Most leaders saw their subordinates as tools to be used and discarded, although they were ready to lay down their lives, if they were given a chance they’d gladly choose to stay alive and here was a man who shouldn’t have given a care about their lives and death actually catering for their safety, instantly their morale spiked to an all-time high.

The elder who was appointed from the ancient gryphon clan nodded in satisfaction at Aldrin’s words.

‘Now I understand why that old bastard had so much hope in him, he is indeed a capable leader.’ He thought to himself.