Spirits in Romantasy 2
Vesperia, who had stepped onto the platform, took a deep breath. She then channeled her mana into the magic circle.
Swoooosh—
The light bursting from the summoning circle began to dye into pitch-black darkness. The darkness gathered in fluffy clumps, taking on form. Soon, a small and adorable black kitten appeared.
"Meooow~"
The black kitten mewed in front of Vesperia.
"Kyaaah! So cute!"
Vesperia let out a cheer and scooped up the black kitten in her arms.
Purrr— Purrr—
The kitten, liking her embrace, purred affectionately.
Vesperia lifted the kitten high and said, "You're cute because you're so black, so your name will be 'Blackie'! What do you think?"
"Meow!"
Blackie wagged its tail in response.
Watching the scene, Rian let out a deep internal sigh.
'Blackie… same name as in the original.'
He had a tendency to name things casually himself. But not to the level of Blackie.
Vesperia returned to her seat, holding Blackie and grinning ear to ear.
"Rian, look! Princess, see? This is my spirit! Isn't our Blackie cute?"
Vesperia immediately showed off her spirit to the two of them.
"Yeah."
Rian responded half-heartedly.
On the other hand, Ardelia smiled softly and said, "Hehe, yes. Just as you say, Lady, it's truly adorable. Then I suppose I should hope for a cute spirit like that too."
Next, Ardelia rose gracefully from her seat.
'A spirit isn't a bad thing to have.'
Ardelia's red eyes calmed steadily.
In her previous regression, she had no interest in things like spirits. Unable to imagine her father's tyranny would go as far as killing her, she had simply lived in daily fear.
But this life had to be different. To survive, she needed to scrape together even the tiniest speck of power. At the very least, it could deliver secret letters for her.
If a powerful spirit matching her light attribute appeared, it would surely help.
"Um… Ardelia, please come up."
Since it was during class, Professor Elmiana called Ardelia by name. But calling the princess by name alone felt awkward, so she stuttered slightly.
"Yes, Professor."
Ardelia walked to the center of the summoning circle and injected her mana.
Fwaaah—!
A dazzling golden light illuminated the classroom.
"Ugh!"
"So bright!"
The students hurriedly covered their eyes with their arms.
As the brilliant light faded, a spirit lightly landed on Ardelia's palm.
"Tweet tweet!"
It was a sparrow small enough to fit perfectly on her palm. A sparrow made of light chirped on Ardelia's hand.
"……."
Ardelia's elegant smile stiffened ever so slightly.
It was cute. But she couldn't guarantee this spirit would be useful.
'No, there must be some way. Especially… with that person, there might be an answer.'
Ardelia glanced at Rian while thinking that.
Rian might know how to make use of this spirit.
Suppressing her disappointment, Ardelia filled her heart with anticipation. Her touch gently stroking the sparrow's head grew even softer.
"Do you like it?"
"Tweet tweet!"
The sparrow spirit chirped happily at Ardelia's touch.
Seeing that, Ardelia smiled benevolently and said, "You're such a radiant child. So your name will be 'Brightie'."
"Tweet tweet!"
Brightie flapped its wings happily.
"……."
Rian watched the scene and pressed his forehead in disbelief.
'Black cat is Blackie. Light sparrow is Brightie. Wow, like true twin sisters—their naming sense is a perfect mirror. Can't cheat genetics.'
He had expected those names since he'd seen them in the original. But witnessing it firsthand was even more absurd. Absurd enough to chase away his drowsiness for a few seconds.
"Hmph."
At that moment, Asrion snorted and strode up to the platform.
'Pathetic things. Despair before my overwhelming familiar!'
He glared sharply at Rian, as if conscious of him. Believing Rian's overwhelming mana was a trick, he planned to show him what a real spirit was.
'You fraud. No matter how many scary artifacts you have, you can't fool a spirit summoning circle!'
Asrion reached the summoning circle and poured a massive amount of mana into it.
Roooar—!
Fierce flames swirled. A spirit of a completely different scale from Marten's fire lizard appeared.
A blazing hawk spread its wings. With wings spanning a meter, it was quite intimidating.
"Woooah!"
"Amazing!"
"As expected of Asrion! The spirit's size is on another level!"
The students cheered and clapped in admiration.
Asrion perched the blazing hawk on his arm and lifted his chin smugly.
But Rian, the one he glanced at, was dozing off without even looking his way.
'That, that commoner bastard…!'
A vein popped on Asrion's forehead.
At that moment, Professor Elmiana clapped.
"Excellent, Asrion! A very powerful fire spirit. Now, finally, Rian, please come forward?"
At Professor Elmiana's call, Rian dragged his fatigue-heavy body from his seat.
"Yaaawn… Okay."
As he stood, Rian thought,
'Putting all my basal metabolism into body reconstruction made me way too tired.'
Apparently, fixing his malnourished body all at once was too much. He'd have to slow the cell division rate a bit to stay awake during class.
'Shortening a three-month fix to a few days has serious side effects.'
Dozing as he descended, Rian passed Asrion without a glance.
At the thorough disregard, Asrion's eyes trembled with rage.
Gulp!
But Asrion's glare didn't even register with Professor Elmiana. Tension filled her pink eyes.
'I heard it was really something.'
Actually, she had been out on admission exam duty yesterday and hadn't seen Rian's massive incident firsthand.
But yesterday, she had received a magic communication from her senior, the elf great mage Iril.
"Elmiana. Tomorrow, a commoner kid named Rian will be in your class. If that guy shows any sign of pulling off something insanely out of the norm, prepare to evacuate the students first. His talent is a disaster."
In the video, Iril was sweating coldly. It was the first time Professor Elmiana had seen her meticulous senior of hundreds of years like that.
So Professor Elmiana felt fear. At the same time, intense curiosity as a magic scholar welled up.
'Just what kind of spirit is this tired-looking boy going to summon for my senior to warn me like that?'
To prepare for the worst, Professor Elmiana had set a limit on the summoning circle. If a spirit exceeded a certain level, the circle would shatter entirely.
"Now, stand in the center of the summoning circle, relax your mind, and inject your mana."
Professor Elmiana instructed, swallowing hard.
"Okay."
Rian held back a yawn and injected mana into the circle.
Vwoooom—!
The moment his mana entered the magic circle, the summoning array engraved on the classroom floor began to vibrate wildly.
Crackle! Crackle!
"Wha…?"
Professor Elmiana's pink eyes widened to the tearing point.
What poured from the summoning circle had no form. The space itself was distorting and screaming under immense pressure.
It meant the spirit exceeded what the summoning circle could handle.
Rumble rumble rumble—!
The academy's sturdy classroom shook as if hit by an earthquake.
"Kyaaah!"
"Earthquake!"
"Everyone hide!"
The panicked students dove under desks in chaos.
Professor Elmiana thought, sweating coldly,
'Oh god! It's way beyond what an indoor summoning circle can handle!'
If the spirit Rian was summoning emerged here, not just the classroom but the whole building might collapse.
"Stop! Rian! Stop injecting mana!"
Professor Elmiana shouted, pale-faced.
She had set a safety device to break the circle in emergencies. But even that felt inadequate now.
The half-summoned spirit, with the circle cracking, still exuded massive energy.
"Ah, this won't work."
Rian said that and withdrew his mana. The earthquake stopped astonishingly fast.
Crack! Shatter!
The intricately engraved summoning circle shattered into countless fragments.
"Ah, looks like the summoning circle's durability couldn't handle the output. It seems structured to explode if it exceeds a certain value, right?"
Rian casually tapped the shattered floor with his toe and said. He had zero curiosity about what spirit had almost emerged.
His mind was solely focused on reverse-engineering and analyzing the circuit structure of the summoning circle on the floor.
'Guess I need to study magic circles and summoning arrays too.'
Rian roughly grasped the summoning circle's structure. He could probably replicate it. But his understanding was still lacking info.
"Rian's spirit… seems too big. We'll have to do it later outdoors with a special summoning circle."
Professor Elmiana said, sweating.
She understood Iril's warning now.
'Definitely a spirit tens of meters or more.'
Professor Elmiana seriously considered banning Rian's spirit summoning.
'In the original, spirits were just cute fashion accessories for the shoulder.'
Apparently, his fashion accessory was seriously oversized.
Rian thought that.
