Chapter 2: Summoning Familiars

“Now then, as I had already told you, every god has the chance to give the heroes their blessings. Some are more common, such as the blessing from the god of war. Others are a bit rarer, as the blessing from the god of the underworld.”, Father Alexander said as he moved behind the desk and sat down on the chair.

Confused, I asked, “And what does it mean for my blessing? Is it one that was rarely given?”

“In a sense that is correct. The blessing that you had received was from Echidna, the snake goddess. And as far as I remember, the last time that she had given her blessing was over 1000 years ago.”, Father Alexander said with a serious look.

“Echidna…”, I said while thinking back to the statue of the goddess.

“Did you feel drawn to the statue of Echidna?”, Father Alexander asked while raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, I was. But there was another statue that was drawing me in, it was the statue of Tiamat.”, I answered honestly.

“Both Tiamat and Echidna? That is quite strange. Not that you were drawn in by the statue of the goddess that had blessed you, that is quite normal actually. But that also her statue was drawing you in…”

“Is it bad that I had reacted to both?”, I asked a bit scared.

Father Alexander stopped for a second before hastily saying, “No, no, no, no. It is not bad perse, just unusual because as far as we know, something like that never happened. However, one thing is clear about it, it was a sign.”

“Why?”

“Because Echidna is one of Tiamat´s many children. Tiamat is mostly known as only the mother of all dragons, but she also had many other children. Besides the first dragons, she also created the hydras and multiple other gods, such as Echidna for example.”

“Is it such a big deal? Wouldn´t it be weirder if I had reacted to the statues of two unrelated gods?”, I asked, trying to understand the significance of the situation more.

“Maybe so, but the fact that it was Tiamat is the most important one. Tiamat is one of the oldest beings in the world, even older than almost every god. And in the entire recorded history, there has never been a case where Tiamat had given her blessing to anyone, nor has there been a case where someone was drawn to her statue.”, Father Alexander said, trying to explain why this was such an important thing.

But I wasn´t getting it.

Luckily the device made a small noise and stopped glowing, the water had been heated.

Father Alexander stood up and poured the hot water into the cups and put them on the table plus a bottle with honey and one with sugar.

Over the tea, he continued to explain to me why it was such an important thing, but I just wasn´t able to understand it, but I did learn what a big number Tiamat was, which didn´t help me in understanding the blessing that I had received nor the goddess that had given it to me.

After a few hours of talking, Father Alexander brought me to a large room.

This was going to be my room from now on.

And to be honest, it was far larger than I had imagined it.

I lay down on the giant bed that was standing in the middle of the room, thinking about everything that happened today.

But what was occupying my mind the most was simply that so-called blessing that I should have received, I still had no idea how to bloody use it.

Wait, what?

Name: John Erling

Race: Human, Otherworldler (Summoned

Blessing: Echidna

Magic:?????

Abilities: Summon Familiar, Infrared Sight, Poison Resistance (Small), Magic Resistance (Small), Poison Creation (Finger, Tongue), Enhanced Reflexes (Small)

Contracts with Familiars: 0/3

Am I hallucinating or is a grey display floating before me?

I tried to touch it and it had mass, not sure what I was expecting.

Am I going crazy? There is no way that something like that would just suddenly appear before me, right?

I mean, this is not a game, this is real life.

(AN: Do you want to explain the whole metaverse and stuff to him or should I?)

Ok, calm down John, you can do this.

I tried to calm myself down and after a few attempts, I was able to relax.

Ok, let’s see here what we have here.

I experimented around a bit and learned something about the display.

It seemed that it was displaying the benefits that Echidna´s blessing was granting me.

And after thinking about it, most of them seemed to be related to snakes, which wasn´t as shocking as one might think, after all, it was the goddess of snakes that had blessed me.

But some things were rather confusing.

Why do I have magic resistance? Why is my magic just a bunch of question marks? And what do you mean that I can summon familiars, and why three of them?

I clicked on the words ‘Summoning Familiar’ just to see if that would activate it or do anything at all.

Well… Something did happen

Familiar Summoning: As the hero that was blessed by the Echidna, the goddess of snakes, you can form contracts with her children and summon them when you need them. The number of contracts depends on your strength. The ability of that familiar is also dependent on your strength.

IMPORTANT: You can only form a contract with only one being per species. Even if it would evolve into a higher species, you will never be able to form a contract with a being of that race ever again. If a familiar dies, then it cannot be summoned for a specific amount of time.

Ok, that was a bit more detailed than I had expected.

But how do I make a contract, and how do I summon them?

Maybe like, imagining it in my mind?

Worth a try, I guess.

I closed my eyes and stretched out my right hand, I imagined a summoning circle right before me, summoning a being.

My mind became clear, and in my thoughts, an ocean of stars appeared.

A pulse, a second one, a third one.

Something was answering me, I concentrated even more.

The pulses became stronger, and three stars began to shine brighter and brighter.

Until, I could feel them, and then… Nothing.

I opened my eyes, believing that it had failed, but before I was three different snakes.

All three of them were about a meter in length, but none of them looked like any snake I had ever seen.

The most distinctive one was by far the one in the middle because it was flying in the air.

The snake had light green scales and two feathery wings.

The feathers of the wings were yellow and there were also some feathers on its head and its tail.

Name: ????

Race: Flying Snake

A Snake that has a weak affinity with wind magic. Their wings allow them to reach almost every area, but they rarely fly above the treetops, out of fear of predators. They are by far the fastest snake race of their size class, but a rather frail and have only a weak poison. Meaning that their only way to hunt for food is with their affinity with wind magic.

The second one was completely white; its eyes were golden.

If not for the eyes I would have thought that it would be an albino snake, but it didn´t seem like one.

Name: ????

Race: Holy Snake

A snake imbued with holy attribute magic. This snake has lost its toxic venom and has now a venom that heals whoever it bites. It can also detoxify almost any poison and is highly intelligent. Many keep them when they have no access to healing magic.

The last one looked like a two-headed boa, the two heads had their necks, and they could move separately.

I have seen some two-headed snakes before, but their heads were always right beside each other or were only separated down to their necks.

(AN: Yes, snakes have necks.)

But this one was completely different.

The heads were separated for almost a third of the entire length of the snake.

Name: ????

Race: Two-Headed Snake

A snake with two heads.

Wait, that´s it? Seriously?

Does this mean that it is just a normal snake with two heads? I am completely confused here.

Unintentionally, I moved my hand toward the snake with two heads, both of the heads seemed rather curious and when my hand was right before them, they leaned forward and touched it with their heads.

I could feel a static shock run through my mind and I instinctively knew what had happened.

I had formed a contract with them.

Summoning was only the first step, the next step was the actual contract, to which both sides had to agree.

I repeated the process with the other two and both of them accepted without any hesitation.

And after I had formed the contract with all three of them, the flying snake landed on my head and coiled around itself.

The two-headed snake and the holy snake climbed up my legs, which was rather weird at first, but it didn´t take them long before they arrived on the bed.

The two lay down either on me or beside me.

I am not going to lie; this is just wholesome.

But sadly, for me, I could enjoy the snuggle session with the three only for around an hour, afterwards, the three disappeared into nothing and once again I was alone.

Tapping on the summon familiar words again showed me that I can only summon each of them for only an hour, they would then return to their space, and I would need to wait three hours before I could summon them again.

The duration of the summoning and the cool-down were both influenced by my strength.

Does it mean that at one point, I could summon them indefinitely?

Because I would like that.

Not having anything else to do, and feeling a bit exhausted, I lay down on the bed and quickly fell asleep.

In the innermost sanctum of the church, the priests, the knights, and Father Alexander were discussing the training of the heroes.

“Should we do this? I don´t think that she would be the right person to train the heroes.”, Orion said.

“I know what you mean, Brother Orion, but we sadly have only limited choices and from them all, she is the best choice.”, Father Alexander said.

“Are the preparations for the war against the demons already so far that the generals are being stationed at the borders of the kingdom?”, asked one of the priests.

“It seems so. It took us many years to convince the kingdom and the other human nations to ally against those vial demons. They may have defeated us 100 years ago, but from the records, we know that they are in a weakened position. There is no better time to strike than now.”

“What about the one that has been blessed by Echidna?”

“John… He seems to be a good kid and gets easily lost in his thoughts but not our enemy. However, we must not forget that the last recorded hero, blessed with Echidna´s blessing, was 1000 years ago. I do not know why she had now decided to bless a hero, but we have to be careful, the world is about to change, and we will bring justice to those uncivilized demons.”

While the nations of the humans and the demon empire got ready for yet another war, the nations of other races had mixed reactions.

Both the elves and the dwarfs wanted to stay neutral, but they didn´t forbid their people to participate in it and were ready to donate weapons and armors to the humans.

A kingdom ruled by vampires was getting ready to send their mages to the demon empire, to help them out, but didn´t have any plans to help any further, not that the demons would accept such help in the first place.