Alex nodded and stood in front of Ralph. We were all in a circle a little bit away from the orb that we had just used.

Alex, being in the center, closed his eyes and a flash of light appeared. When the light disappeared, it was replaced by a cute creature.

It had white fur with black stripes. A short black tail was behind it. Its ears were short and were perking up. Its nose was triangle shaped pointing down and whiskers grew right below it. It was a white cat, or more like a white cub of some large cat type creature.

It meowed really cutely and Nathaniel couldn’t help but say, “Hahaha, how is that supposed to be any help!”

“Nathaniel quiet. That summon is a White Chaos Tiger,” said Ralph, “Right now all of your summons are in their child form and they will grow with you. It may not look like much right now but when it reaches adulthood, it would be a match for a greater dragon.”

I was shocked, I heard about the dragons as magic beasts. They are different than the race of Dragons in that they are not as intelligent nor sentient. They were indisputably the king of all magic beasts. If Alex’s summon is that strong when it gets older then I can’t even begin to imagine how strong the Dragon race actually is.

The cat meowed again and climbed up Alex and rest on his shoulders. It rubbed its face on Alex’s side contentedly.

Hard to imagine something as cute as that to be really powerful, I thought.

“Next, Jared.”

Jared had black hair and eyes, brown skin, and a tall and solid build.

He closed his eyes and fire surrounded him. I feared that he was going to be burnt but when I was about to do something, the fire disappeared and in front of him was a flaming gorilla?

It definitely looked like a gorilla. Its face was exactly the same but its eyes didn’t have any irises but rather were fire. It had a two large canines that reached almost halfway down his neck. Around its muscles were veins, but they looked like they were on fire as they trailed around him. That was where the resemblance to a gorilla stopped though. From the waist down he didn’t have legs but rather it was fire. The gorilla like creature was floating in the air with fire for legs.

“A Fire Spawn, one of the greatest fire elementals,” said Ralph, “make sure to keep it away from water.”

“Next, Darren.”

He had blonde hair, fair skin, brown eyes, and his physique was scrawny. Jared went away and the Fire Spawn followed behind him, and Darren replaced him. He had blonde hair, fair skin and brown eyes. He looked scrawny even though our robes usually hide any deficiency in weight, except for those like Jared.

Darren stood in the middle and a purple light surfaced. This light wasn’t as intense as the others, it felt gentle and kind. When it disappeared it was replaced by a fairy.

The Fairy Queen looked exactly like a queen. She was very regal wearing her green robe and a wood staff on her right hand. She was flying with her near transparent wings. She had her ginger colored hair flow down up to her waist. Her ears were elf-like that they pointed backwards and up. She had fair skin and as I couldn’t see very well from my position, beautifully colored eyes that seemed to change color every now and then.

“That Darren kid will be famous,” said Malakir, “He will be important to all summoners as he is someone who has a connection to the Realm of Summons.”

I nodded thinking of the burden of having a Fairy Queen as a summon. Darren looked really happy as he stood next to Jared and Nathaniel. They were talking really close so I guessed that they were friends for a long time.

The next two summons were a Wind Devil and a Golden Slime.

The Wind Devil was a bird-like creature. It was made of swirling wind and at times you would not be able to see it flying. It had a proud look on its face and it belonged to a girl named Janice with short red hair, green eyes and fair skin.

The Golden Slime was exactly as it sounded. It looked like a gold blob of jelly with eyes. It moved pretty fast for something that looked to move slow as it climbed up the shoulders of the girl who summoned it and looked at all of us. The girl was named Anne, she had brown hair, red eyes and fair skin.

According to Ralph, the Wind Devil was a lesser wind elemental and the Golden Slime was a mutation of the regular slime summon.

The fact that summons could mutate made me think that summons were almost exactly like animals, except they were more powerful. When I mentioned this to Ralph he just said, “Animals can also be summons. In our realm we can only find animals that can use Holy magic, but in the Realm of Summons, the chances of finding a creature that can use other types of magic is greater. The Realm of Summons is just like ours and only summoners like us can enter and leave freely.”

We all nodded after this explanation and it was Nathaniel’s turn.

He walked up acting all smug and looked at me and said, “I bet mine is bigger than yours.”

He closed his eyes and a black light appeared and when it went, it was replaced by a wolf pup.

Its fur was a spiky and blue in color. Mist came from all four paws. Small canines protruded from its mouth. Its face looked like it was saying, ‘don’t bother me’. It looked at Nathaniel and he picked up the pup and he held it out saying, “Look at how majestic my summon is!”

The pup looked like it didn’t like what Nathaniel was doing and had an expression that seemed to say, ‘why are you doing this human?’

“A Stormwolf,” said Ralph, “Its power is on par with the White Chaos Tigers.”

I was stunned, are all cute looking summons supposed to be powerful? I thought.

Nathaniel went back to his spot with the Stormwolf on his shoulders that seemed content to just be laying down.

“And with that we are done,” said Ralph.

“Wait,” Nathaniel spoke up, “Zed hasn’t shown us his yet.”

“I’ve already seen his and I can assure you his is much more powerful than yours.”

Nathaniel didn’t seem like he would give up and said, “I can’t accept this, why does he get special treatment!”

“If you really want to see, I’ll show you,” I said with an edge to my voice. I walked up and said, “Show yourself Malakir.”Malakir did and I said, “Happy now?”“Heh, it’s a book, a book can’t help you!”

“That book is a Codex of Magic, the only one of its kind. It knows everything about magic and can cast any spell. Do you still believe that it is weak?” said Ralph.

Gasps could be heard from around us. Alex looked proud while Nathaniel just became even more annoyed.

Thinking that he wasn’t going to stop, I said, “Chronos come out.”

Instantly, the area around me felt like it froze. Bit by bit, pieces of Chronos appeared and assemble itself into the golem. More gasps could be heard and even the summons stood wide eyed at what was going on in front of them.

Once Chronos finished appearing, he said, “Master... what is... your... wish?”

His voice felt like it was getting used to talking but it was still a little bit hoarse and choppy.

“Nothing, I just needed to show you to everyone.” “I see... Chronos... is proud...”

“A timekeeper,” said Ralph with a gaping expression, “never in all my years have I thought to see a timekeeper. They are the only creatures capable of manipulating time perfectly. Even your Codex will have difficulties in manipulating time, but this timekeeper does it just as easily as we do breathing. Kid, how’d you activate it?”

“It’s a secret.”

Ralph nodded and told us that we were to keep our summons out so that we can get more accustomed to them and dismissed us.

Alex and I ran as fast as we could before Nathaniel would start something as I didn’t want to deal with his childish tantrums.

When we got to the mansion, Chronos wouldn’t fit through the door and he said, “It is no... trouble... I can... enter easily...”

After he said that, his whole body shook and parts of himself folded onto itself and he slowly shrunk and shrunk until he was a tiny version of himself. No longer was he a five meter tall golem, now he was barely a foot in height.

He was able to enter easily and we went to do our routine... or at least tried to. Asher, the White Chaos Tiger, was going to the curtains, furniture, and walls, and scratched his claws onto them.

Every time we were about to catch him, he just ran away to do the same somewhere else.

It got to the point that Chronos and Malakir had a little talk with Asher and he no longer did any of those things. Chronos helped a lot by rewinding the time of the claw marked house and returning it back to how it was before.

Alex and Asher were at the kitchen making dinner, while Chronos, Malakir and I were at the living room.

“How exactly do I rank up? I know that the more summons I have, my rank will increase but isn’t my magic Ethereal?”

“When you were given your ability to see your status, the gods only knew that you were a summoner. If they had known that you were Ethereal, then you would only be able to rank up through your Ethereal powers.”

“How does one exactly rank as an Ethereal?”

“Control of mana. Being able to shift your mana into all the others is a sign of an Adept rank as an Ethereal.”

I nodded at that and continued my training.

At dinner, Alex, Asher and I were eating when I said, “Chronos, can you help us with our training?”

Alex looked up and we both looked at Chronos who was standing near the doorway to the hall.

Chronos said, “Training?”

“Chronos could help,” said Malakir, “he can speed up your training time thereby making you both that much stronger and faster.”

“Speeding up... I can do... speeding up...” said Chronos.

After dinner, we all went to the training room and Chronos started by using his magic in the room. It didn’t feel any different at all but Malakir said, “Time flows differently now. One hour in here will be one minute outside.”

Alex and I couldn’t really understand that as it just too hard to think about.

We trained for what seemed like eternity but when we were done, it was only midnight outside. I was fairly getting used to telling time without a clock in my room as the stars outside my window allowed me to tell when it was midnight as I was used to the pattern.

Malakir told us that we were training for a total of ten days but it didn’t feel like that. Neither of us felt tired and he said, “I had Chronos change your perception of time as well. I also kept you both sustained so that you wouldn’t die from starvation or lack of water as you both can’t do it yet.”

Alex and I were shocked and happy that this amazing thing was happening to us.

“Chronos can you also help us with our sword training next week?” I asked.

“If master... wishes then... I would do... so.”

“Great,” I said and Alex and I went to our own rooms and slept for the next day.

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