The first thing Goodie did was look for a suitable creature for him to use as a summons. A task far more difficult than one would assume as the entire region had been over hunted by the various adventurers over the years, making even relatively benign creatures a rare sight, and any attempt to set up a zoo or trade market was always met with unfortunate circumstances that probably had nothing to do with politics.

In the end he had to settle on a choice between a rat, a snake, a spider, or a dog. The rat was simply a normal rat, with little threat value beyond their tendency to swarm, and Goodie doubted that a shadow demon could do that, at least at first level. The dog would have been ideal if he were looking for a bodyguard, but he wasn't. That left the snake and spider. The spiders of this region possessed a weak venom, barely capable of killing the odd unfortunate child every year, beyond that it was physically weak, slow, and not as agile as one would expect. Goodie had considered whether or not he could sell the spider's silk but it just wasn't worth the deviation from his master plan. So, it was the snake.

The emerald cobra was the local equivalent of a garden snake. Its venom was meant for tiny to miniscule sized creatures, humans being the average. Anything in the short category or above would at worst suffer mild nausea. Physically the snake was agile and stealthy with good strength relative to its size.

Hard to find but easy to purchase as the locals hunted them for their emerald green scales, which they would sell as a cheap form of jewellery, but the adventurers had a different preference for it. About thirty years ago, some wise guy from earth found that the venom reacted with the local alcohol, producing a substance that created a pleasant buzz in whoever imbibed the concoction. It had caught on since then, with the production of ‘Snake in the Jar’ having become one of the primary industries in the local economy. As homage to local pride, every bar in the city kept an actual snake in a jar filled with the glorified hooch, which is where he first encountered Her Majesty.

The guide book to summoners had listed the possibility of summoning oddities from amongst even mundane species if the situation of their binding had met certain criteria. These creatures were not necessarily elites, just odd.

The book, however, had no strategy for guaranteeing such an event, so Goodie had little choice but to look for any creature that stood out amongst its peers and hope for the best. With his options not limited to needing live specimens, he went looking for alternate sources and while the city did have various museums, even some to wildlife, each only had atypical examples of a given species. And yes, he tried creating shadow demons from the few examples of high-level monsters within their collection, but he was either limited by his level or his attributes as each attempt ended in failure. Thankfully, none of the exhibits had been damaged as far as he could tell.

It was then that he came across the Smoke House. A quaint adventurer's tavern near the centre of the city, said to be one of the first businesses to be owned by an adventurer. It advertised itself as catering to smokers. He wasn't sure why it did so, as there was no local stigma against smoking, as far as he knew, so he assumed that the owner had had bitter experiences back on earth, but that wasn't important. What was important was the crown jewel of this little landmark.

The largest reported specimen of her kind. Just over one metre in length with a body nearly as thick as his wrist. Her majesty, as the proprietress had named her, was everything he was looking for. Versatility, power, and a certain dignity that would, if he used her for peacocking, give him a decent social advantage. Social being the area which he was truly lacking in and would need every advantage he could get as it was the only other choice apart from combat that he could venture in.

The proprietress was thankfully greedy enough to let him try a summoning, unfortunately, she was also greedy enough to charge him a silver for the attempt. A price which, at the time, seemed a rip-off, but now it…well, he thought about it as he felt Her Majesty try to burrow further into his clothing to escape the nights chill. He was still undecided on the matter.

The summoning not only succeeded but had given him an oddity, just not the one he expected. He wanted her for her size, but what he got was…

[HER DRUNKEN MAJESTY] [EXOTIC] - EMERALD SNAKE

Having spent the better part of two decades submerged within an intoxicating liquid has blessed this serpent with the ability to render those she has bitten with the [DRUNK] status effect.

An interesting ability and one that would prove extremely useful to what he had planned, but Goodie was distracted from all this by the fact that said plan had just fallen apart.

He knew that his first summoned creature would start out weak. According to the library, those who specialised in shadow summoning suffered from this more than others. but with [SACRIFICE] and the sewers to farm, he was prepared to grind as he would in a game. He just didn't realise just how weak his shadow demons would be.

Zero. When he read about it in the library, he thought it meant her level. And it did, but it also meant her attributes. Which were all zero. Her Majesty was literally a shadow. Not a shaped pool of oil or ink as one would imagine but a distortion in the light, a slight darkening that would tempt the viewer to look around for the body that caused it. A living illusion kept alive only by his will and mana. A ‘stupid’ illusion, as she did not possess even the most basic mental acuity to understand his commands, let alone enough to obey or defy them.

He nearly threw up when he discovered this, stopped only by the impotent rage that overcame him as he was laughed at by the proprietress and her patrons. He remembered storming out of that tavern and hiding himself down the deepest, darkest alleyway he could find to calm himself by unleashing a torrent of words that even the world-weariest adventurers would have found shocking to hear. A stupid move, as on earth, he would have been lucky to have only been mugged. But here in a world with magic and monsters, the city had little excess population and enough jobs to ensure that there was little time for crime.

His original intent, or the grand plan as he used to think of it, was to use a combination of his two basic abilities during the initial grind. His shadow demon would be used to chase rats into a trap he would make with his second ability.

[SUMMON SHADOW STUFF]

literally stuff... made from shadows. like his snake, it was a shadow made real by his will and mana and given shape by his imagination. But unlike Her Majesty, he had attributes to boost its given properties. Although at his level the strongest he could create was a substance similar to plastic wrap. Stronger than one would think, especially when he created multiple layers of it, but he quickly discovered that again, unlike what the media of earth had taught him to expect from shadow related magics. Sunlight did not weaken them, but actually made them stronger, and so too was the opposite, with his summonings becoming weaker in the dark. Something he only found out as he first ventured into the sewers, his plastic-leather armour turning to sludge as he descended. At least he would come to call it sludge. His first term for it was…snot. Because that's what it looked like and, much to his dismay, what it felt like.

Not the unbreakable, spider-man bungee cord that would cling to any surface. no, no. that would have been useful, albeit disgusting. No, this was more the translucent, watery drip that would flow out by the litre if you tried to stand up, kind.

His vision of rats doing the dinosaur in a tar pit of his own making had quickly fallen apart. A shadow demon that could not even be used to scare the rats as it had neither the scent of its kind, nor the ability to make a sound that he could discern, and was rendered invisible within even the shallowest of shadows let alone the darkness bellow, And sludge that couldn't even get that right.

He had asked around for possible ways of resetting his abilities but all he got in reply was motivational bullshit. Usually along the lines that he should "Stick with it." or "Work harder and you'll get there.”. Clichéd and stupid, but it was what was what he did. What other choice did he have? He couldn't go back to being normal, not now that he had had a taste, as bitter as it may have been, of being more than human. So, he stuck with it.

Every day he would descend into the sewers through one of the gates that lined the central canal. And then he would hunt rats. Every day for a month he would go down there and he would hunt them, he would chase them, and on particularly bad days, they would chase him. Not as scary for the average person when compared to someone who had to limp along with a busted knee. All this until he got that first level up. A disappointing achievement, with an even more disappointing selection of feats to choose from. He, of course, used [SACRIFICE] as originally intended, an action that presented him with a list of five options

[REWARD FOR SACRIFICE]

1 free attribute point to a random minion Satisfy all current physical needs Receive a silver coin 50% boost to next attack Increase height to the nearest inch

He chose the free attribute point, which he immediately invested in Her Majesty's intelligence. To say that he was underwhelmed by this would have been an understatement of epic proportions.

The one positive note in all of this was that he had discovered that his [SUMMON SHADOW STUFF] skill had access to [SHADOW RUN], or something like it, which allowed him to summon his stuff at any location, so long as he could see it. That included the vision he got from the link with his minion, which, at the time, was zero. So at least he now had teleport-bombing capabilities. Minus the bomb part. He had used the ability several times to shower rats with his sno…sludge, to try and scare them into his path but most of the time they would just scatter.

But that positive soon turned into a greater negative as he wondered why it wasn't mentioned in any of the books he had read. And he had read them all. Not something you could boast about at home as the Library only had six bookcases, with each shelf bearing multiple copies of each book. The books themselves commonly consisted of large writing and rarely approached fifty pages, the bulk of which consisted of the writer's self-worshipping fluff. Despite all that, the library was considered a wonder of the…of this modern world.

While the adventurers understood his opinions on the matter, mentioning it to the locals, which he had, would generally end with them calling him a liar or getting angry at him for reasons he couldn't understand. His social skills may have had similarities with a brick, but even he understood to keep his mouth shut in future. Especially about the little book in his bag. The little book with the little writing and no fluff. The little book that he could honestly say, contained a library's worth of information. The little book he was certain would not come back to bite him on the arse.

Goodie made a mental note to burn that fucker the first chance he got. Information may have been power but his life was his life.