Self-Summon [Demon Summoning/Evolution LitRPG]

Focus. Angelica raised her hand once more.

“Are you praying to Vissiem?” Her master couldn’t help but comment on her actions. “Or I suppose it’d be your Demon Lord. Hoping for a miracle?”

“Will you just-” Gelic cut herself off, but still shot him a dirty look, one she was unsure would properly translate in her cutesy rotund form.

Focus! If it didn’t work this time, she’d give up and concede, since she was getting nowhere otherwise.

[Frost Touch Lv.3]

[Might and Creativity increased]

[Glacial Attunement increased]

Not now, DGS. Okay, think about what you want to create. You’re an artist, so make a clear mental picture. She first thought of the trash poker, what she had the most experience stabbing with. But that was no good. Too short, probably too fragile.

So a spear then. That was getting somewhere. No, still too short. She needed an absurd amount of reach, a ridiculous amount, so she needed a ridiculous weapon, something no one would actually use. Yes, she had just the thing in mind, thinking back to the old days of jousting.

[Active Skill: Manifest Ice Lv.1 unlocked]

[Might and Creativity increased]

[Glacial Attunement increased]

[Glacial Attunement has improved from Aware to Touched]

An icy hilt appeared in the palm of her hand. From there, the weapon grew, like the longest icicle in the world, towering so tall that it immediately toppled over, landing on the ground with a thud. But even though it was made of ice, it didn’t shatter, strong enough to keep its form. And she wasn’t done there. Toxic Imbuement!

[Combo Skill: Frostbite Lv.1 unlocked. Manifest new ice creations and imbue them with the max Stacks of Toxic. Speed of imbuement is increased and MP consumption is decreased with Pestilence and Glacial Attunement.]

[Might, Creativity, Malice increased]

[Pestilence, Glacial Attunement increased]

Heck yeah! So she’d be able to charge up an ice weapon faster than a normal one, and less MP was always a plus. Gelic surveyed her newly created weapon.

[Ice Lance | Imbued with 10 Stacks of Toxic]

It was so big, so deadly, so magnificent. She couldn’t even lift it properly, but she didn’t need to. “Stab!” As her battle cry roared, the heavy weapon shot across the ground, its tip slamming into the Malignant. The clash made her lance and her whole body recoil, bouncing backward from the colliding forces. Half of the lance was cracked and shattered, so she mended it with Ice Manifest, which didn’t even lower the Toxic Stack count.

[Malignant Lv.23 | Health: 53% | Poisoned: Toxic - 10 Stacks]

[Malignant Lv.23 | Health: 48% | Poisoned: Toxic - 6 Stacks]

Huh?! That math didn’t add up. Her poison was only doing half as much while it was depleting four times as fast. In this tantrum mode, did it have higher resistance somehow? Grr, curse you, stupid rock egg!

But no matter. She had the winning formula, so all she had to do was keep up the assault. Stab, Stab, Stab! With the last attack, her lance shattered completely, so she remade it from scratch with Frostbite. “Looks like it’s working, Gelic, keep it up!”

“Well you can do more than cheer me on,” she complained to her master who was really just standing around doing nothing now, watching her work. “Here, I’ll make you one too!” She manifested a second ice lance and used as much strength as she could to chuck it in Rastille’s direction. Only for him to do the most surprising thing yet: yelp and skip backward like a scared schoolgirl who just saw a creepy bug.

“Are you crazy?!” he chastised her with genuine ire. “Imbuements aren’t like Runes. They’ll afflict their status on anyone who touches the object except for the person who imbues it. You would have poisoned me just now!”

“Ah, oops, sorry.” Well, that explained why she hadn’t been poisoned yet by holding the things. All she was getting was a bit of numbing in her hands from the cold. Thank you Cold Resistance, I wouldn’t be able to hold these things for this long without you.

The circumstance did also raise another interesting question. Why had she been able to throw the tainted weapon at the man? Shouldn’t their Contract have prevented her from trying to harm him? Was it because she genuinely didn’t know that it was a bad thing, or was that a loophole? If she wasn’t in the middle of a monster battle and thought that it would possibly strain their relationship, she’d want to attempt it again and see.

But no matter, if he didn’t want the lance, well now she had two. She activated Stab with one weapon, and while she was caught in the recoil, activated the other, stopping her flyback and keeping up the assault, allowing her to strike twice as often! This was letting her keep the Stacks topped off as much as possible. At this rate, it was only a matter of time until her foe was dead.

“Stab!” She didn’t move. “Err, I said, Stab! …Airstrike?” Nothing. Wait… She examined herself with Scrying Eye, but that cancelled itself out a second later, up just long enough for her to see her status. Fritsing hell! She turned to her master with panicked eyes. “I’m out of mana!”

She turned back to the Malignant, able to activate Scrying Eye again for just long enough to see her Stacks fade away and its Health start to regenerate rapidly. She’d gotten it down to 20% too, ugh!

“Very well.” Rastille rolled up both sleeves, and his arms began to glow. Light suddenly flickered all around the Imp’s body. “I still haven’t fully recovered from the large chunk I used to heal you earlier, but I’ll flow my mana into you at a steady rate so you don’t burn through it all at once. This takes a lot of concentration, so I won’t be able to do anything else. I leave it to you. There’s no shame if you can’t do it. We have a backup, but I believe in you, Gelic.”

Angelica could feel the power well up within her, not just the contributed MP. Someone actually believed in her, actually trusted her. Damn, it had been so long. She quickly turned away from him, since seeing his genuineness was going to make her cry.

“Alright!” She hoisted the hilts of two freshly created and reinforced lances. That exchange had been enough for the rock egg to bring itself back up to half health, but that was the last ground she’d let it recover. “It’s time to crack this thing!”

“Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!”

[Stab Lv.4]

[Stab Lv.5]

[Cold Resistance Lv.4]

[Manifest Ice Lv.2]

[Frostbite Lv.2]

[Toxic Imbuement Lv.2]

That last one was the most important, because it bumped the max Stacks of Toxic up to 15, allowing her to do more damage even faster, quickly overpowering the Malignant’s resistance. And then she hit it, her goal was achieved. Suddenly, she stopped attacking, let her weapons hit the ground, let her arms flop back in exhaustion. She was done.

“Giving up?” Rastille raised a brow, his mouth twisting with disappointment. “That’s fine, we’ll call the Ghoul.”

“No, don’t you dare!” She refused. “I’m not giving up my Essence. I stopped because it’s already dead. In three, two.” Angelica turned back to the Malignant and pointed. “One.” All of a sudden, the monster’s tantrum ceased. More cracks appeared all over its body, then a split-second later, its whole body popped like an egg in a microwave. Dots of Essence filled the night like stars, and then they all flew over to her body

[Malignant Lv.23 defeated | Gained 250 Essence]

[Might, Vigor, Competence, Creativity, Malice increased]

[Competence has improved from Mediocre to Capable]

Heh, capable, damn right she was. The system said so!

[Destruction, Glacial, Pestilence Attunement increased]

[You have enough Essence to increase your Demon Rank. Would you like to consume 256 Essence to reach Imp Lv.9?]

Nice, enough for two Levels again, but damn, it was getting expensive. Not right now, a little treat for later.

“Things all wrapped here then?” Vystal came jogging over with Sperado panting in tow and Xinder circling overhead.

“Yeah, she did good,” Rastille looked at her contracted Demon once more, filled with more parental-esque pride. “I think we’re done for the day. But say, Gelic…?” He went over in front of her and took a knee, getting as close to her as he could. “Thank you for your help. I think we made a good team.

“If you like, we could make it a more permanent thing. Become my Bound, and together we’ll accomplish great things. You may just be an Imp now, but that won’t be a hindrance for long, I promise you. We’ll get you up to a Hellion at least in no time. Then you can begin to really understand yourself, the type of Demon you’ll become, and we’ll forge a partnership that makes all other Demons and Summoners envious. What do you say?”

Damn, she was going to cry again. “No thanks.” Angelica flatly refused his offer, trying to make her tone as gentle as possible, which wasn’t easy when everything she said sounded like it came out of the mouth of a hoarse toddler. If the situation was different, if she had really been born a Demon, then yes, absolutely, she would be happy and proud to have a master like him. “Sorry, I’m already Bound to a master I trust.” Because if she couldn’t trust herself, then that was just sad.

“Ah, I understand.” The stoic man honestly looked hurt.

“But…!” Gelic was quick to jump on her next point, wanting that pained look to go away as quickly as possible. “I’d be happy to help you guys out in the future. More hunts or whatever else. If it’s something I don’t wanna do, I’ll just say no then. Oh, and don’t try to bind me again. You can call me when you want, but if you use a binding Circle I’m gonna be mad and ghost you all!”

“Heh, fair enough.” That made her master smirk. “Thank you again. Let me pay you properly and then we can end the night. What do I owe you?”

“Hmm, let’s see.” The former actuary got to calculating. “The Essence you can send directly. For the money.” She opened her mouth wide and pulled out her phone, causing winces all around. It was already pulled up to the right screen, and she also took a gander at the clock to see how much time had passed. “I take cash, card, or wire transfer. No checks.” Shown on the screen was a code that could be scanned for the transfer, and also the account numbers, with no name, so it could be done manually. And if they wanted, they could just touch a card, and it would accept payment that way.

“If we take into account when you first summoned me, and round up to the nearest full hour, that’ll be three hours!” Really, it was just two hours and change, but she wanted to see if she could get away with the extra. While he was nice, he was still a stinking-rich Summoner, so a bit of exploitation didn’t hurt. That said, if he fought back on it at all, she’d cave.

“And I killed, erm, crap, how many rock eggs was it again? Well, I got the 10-kill Achievement, then, so that’d have to be at least like fifteen. And then the big boy, should that count for multiple? No, that wasn’t in the terms. Screw it, we’ll just say fifteen Malignants. Bringing the grand total to 300 Essence and $3,000. Thank you for your patronage.”

That made the man stroke his chin for a moment. “I’ve never been great at math, but those numbers don’t seem to quite add up just right.” Then his confused face shifted to a smirk. “Oh well. We’ll call it gratuity for your exemplary service.” With one hand he transferred the Essence, and with the other, he pulled out a card and tapped her phone. “Thank you for all your help.”

[Contract complete]

Spoiler