Lumian understood Aurore's words deeply.
When he was still wandering, he understood that he should not look down on anyone. Some adult homeless people looked down on him as a child and thought he was weak, which led to their suffering. Some donors, although providing food with good intentions, forgot to consider the homeless people's physical condition as they had been hungry for a long time, which led to their doing the wrong thing.
Lumian thought carefully for a while and said:
"It seems that a relatively accurate description of the desired creature is very valuable."
"Yes." Aurore nodded with deep feeling. "The notebooks with the corresponding summoning spells are very valuable. Every spell, every description, and every comment on them are exchanged for life, blood, or pain. The simplest example is the three-part description when I summoned 'White Paper': 'a spirit wandering in the void, a friendly creature that can be driven, and a fragile sphere that can communicate with my mind'. If you want to try on your own, I don't know how many times you will fail before you can piece together the last sentence, and every failure means a great risk."
A fragile sphere that can communicate with me? Is this a description that a normal person can come up with, especially the words fragile and sphere... Lumian asked while complaining in his heart:
"So, you bought this from someone else?"
"No." Aurore shook her head and said with a bitter expression, "The path of 'Secret Peeper' is different from other paths. From time to time, you will be chased by a large amount of knowledge. You can't not want to know, and you can't refuse even if you can't bear it. When taking magic potions to advance, this situation of 'knowledge chasing you' is even more serious.
"Although most of this knowledge is useless, there is always some that is valuable, and the spell to summon 'white paper' is one of them."
“Indoctrination from the Hidden Sage?” Lumian understood what his sister meant.
Aurore looked at him in surprise:
"You know? The lady's teachings?"
"Yeah." Lumian nodded.
Aurore pursed her lips thoughtfully:
"From my personal experience, 'knowledge follows people' does not entirely come from the indoctrination of the 'Hidden Sage'. My so-called 'tinnitus' is indeed hearing His voice and gaining the knowledge He gave me. This always makes me miserable, my head is about to explode, and I wish I could just lose control.
"But sometimes, especially when I'm not in good shape and about to lose control, I have an illusion that the knowledge of the entire world has come alive, chasing me and running towards me, and I can't avoid it. The spell to summon the 'white paper' actively breaks into my brain in this way.
"When taking the potion, about 99% of the 'knowledge chasing people' comes from the 'Hidden Sage', and 1% is related to the knowledge that comes back to life."
"It's very strange and terrifying. It can scare everyone in the village." Lumian sighed very pertinently, while thinking for his sister whether there is any way to solve the problem of "knowledge driving people away", or to reduce its impact.
Aurore smiled bitterly and responded:
"It is because you often suffer this kind of torture that I don't want you to embark on the path of transcendence. But in this situation, becoming a transcendent is indeed better than being an ordinary person."
In order to remind her brother of the madness and danger of the extraordinary path, she pointed to her head:
“After being chased by knowledge and accompanied by pain for a long time, I feel that my spirit and personality have been alienated to a certain extent.
"Haven't I often told you that I have social phobia, but sometimes I'm very talkative and like to go out and chat with the old ladies in the village, tell stories to the children, and occasionally go crazy and borrow a pony from Mrs. Pualis to gallop in the mountains and shout
“Being particularly talkative is a kind of rebound from staying at home for a long time, unable to return to my hometown, and feeling depressed on the road to transcendence.
"And the occasional madness..."
Having said this, Aurore looked at Lumian and chuckled:
"You don't think this is just an exaggeration, do you?"
Lumian was silent, feeling that his sister's smile was both self-deprecating and bewildered, and also contained unspeakable pain and struggle.
Aurore then sighed:
"At that time, I didn't recognize myself at all."
"There should be a way to solve it." At this moment, Lumian felt deeply powerless.
"Hope, let's continue." Aurora pointed at the altar. "Once we sign a contract with the summoned spirit creature, it will be easy to summon it again. The last sentence of the description can be changed to 'a contracted creature that belongs exclusively to Aurora Lee'. It's accurate, isn't it? Besides, no one else can summon it again before the contract is lifted."
"Each person can only have one contracted creature?" Lumian was very concerned about this question.
"That's not the case. I don't know the exact upper limit, but there must be more than one, especially for some special sequences. When summoning, use the first and second contracted creatures of so-and-so to distinguish them." Aurore told the truth. "Also, you have to remember that summoning spiritual creatures will consume your own spiritual power. The more you summon, the greater the consumption. With the spiritual power of the Hunter, I estimate that he can only bear one contracted creature at most."
Knowing her brother's character, she further blocked any loopholes that Lumian might find:
"After being summoned to reality, each creature from the spirit world can stay for a limited time. The weaker they are, the longer they can stay. You don't have to think about summoning one first and then summoning the next one after its spirituality recovers, unless you choose very weak ones and their spirituality is significantly enhanced compared to now."
She then gave an example of "blank paper":
"If I didn't let the 'white paper' carry my abilities, it could stay in reality for twelve hours. If I shared the special power of my eyes with it and asked it to help me, it could only last for three hours at most, and my own spirituality would continue to be consumed."
Lumian, who had originally wanted to form an army of spiritual creatures, was very disappointed.
He thought about it and asked:
"Can we only summon spirit world creatures? Can we only summon spirits?"
"No." Aurore shook her head. "You can also summon creatures from the underworld and the mirror world, which are attached to the spirit world, the real world, and the astral world, as well as certain creatures from other worlds or alien planets, regardless of whether they are spirits or not. However, this is very dangerous. Most of the Beyonders who tried to do this died tragically, and a few disappeared mysteriously, leaving only the corresponding notes to prove what they had done."
“Can it summon something from the real world?” Lumian asked curiously.
Aurore thought for a moment and said:
"In theory, as long as the other party has a close relationship with the spirit world, or has reached a certain level, they should be able to hear the call and decide on their own whether to respond. However, such a target is either very special or very powerful. If you still want to live well, don't try it.
“Moreover, when the summoning target is not a spirit, the corresponding ritual requirements will be higher, more spirituality will be required, and even a large number of sacrifices will be required. Only in this way can the summoning gate be opened to allow non-spiritual creatures to pass through.
"With the spirituality of a Hunter, you can barely summon a blank sheet of paper. If you want to try something more powerful, you can only pray to a certain god or a hidden being. To do this, you may have to prepare spiritual things as sacrifices."
Lumian roughly understood the ritual magic of summoning, and said to his sister:
"What do you do next? Recite the spell to complete the summoning?"
"How is that possible?" Aurore sneered. "The ceremony has been interrupted so many times, how can it continue? In fact, normally, as long as the process is followed, it can be continued from the breakpoint, but I was mainly explaining it just now, and didn't distract myself to do the corresponding things."
You must have forgotten... Lumian muttered in his heart but didn't dare to say it out loud.
Aurore then continued:
"But I do have to perform a summoning ritual, partly to show you the whole process, and partly to ask for help."
“Help?” Lumian asked doubtfully.
Summon powerful spiritual creatures for help
Aurore explained:
"Among the countless spiritual creatures, there are a small number that can serve as messengers, private messengers. Uh, messengers can be summoned by others based on special contracts.
"For example, if I have a contracted courier, someone in Trier can summon it, give it a written letter, and it will immediately pass through the spirit world and deliver the letter to me.
"Because of the special nature of the spirit world and the connection with the contract, it only takes one or two seconds to complete the task of delivering the letter."
"It's amazing, as fast as sending a telegram." Lumian exclaimed sincerely.
The thoughts that went through his mind were:
I want one too!
"Don't even think about it." Aurore saw through his thoughts. "It's very difficult to summon a messenger. Unless you get the exact spell directly, it's unlikely to work out on your own. And the exact spell can only be mastered in a few special sequences, which your sister and I don't have."
Lumian was disappointed and asked:
"Are you going to summon a certain messenger and write to him for help?"
"Yes." Aurore nodded. "She is one of the few among us who has gone the furthest on the path of transcendence. She has her own messenger. I don't expect her to save me, but she should be able to give me some advice."
I'm afraid it's difficult. The mysterious lady said we can only rely on ourselves... Lumian asked curiously:
"We? You mean your pen pals?"
Aurore nodded first, then asked in confusion:
"When did I ever tell you about pen pals?"
“Last time. No, the cycle before that.” Lumian answered honestly.
"Okay." Auror covered her forehead. "Actually, it's a mutual aid organization that we, who can't go back to our hometown, have slowly established. We communicate through letters, share knowledge, and solve problems on a daily basis. We have small gatherings or communicate through messengers from time to time. She is the vice president of our organization and one of the initiators. Her code name is 'Hela'."
"Code name?" Lumian was a little confused.
Aurore said, “Hmm.”
"In the organization, everyone uses code names and does not reveal their real names. When writing letters, they emphasize that they are pseudonyms to avoid being discovered by the authorities."
"What's your code name?" Lumian was curious about this.
Aurore was silent for a while, then replied with a sigh:
"'Muggle'."
"What do you mean?" Lumian was puzzled.
Aurore replied with a dim look in her eyes:
"An ordinary person without extraordinary abilities."
Lumian knew that his sister wanted to be an ordinary person living in her hometown, so he quickly changed the subject:
"What's the name of your organization?"
Aurore's expression suddenly became complicated:
"Originally, everyone wanted to give it a classy name, but considering that we would be writing letters on a daily basis, a name that was too conspicuous would attract the attention of certain forces, so in the end, we decided on a name that sounded like an animal lover."
“What is it?” Lumian asked.
Aurore replied a little embarrassedly:
"The Curly-haired Baboon Research Society."
PS: I talk about ritual magic in detail because it will be used a lot in the second part. After all, you have to pray to the gods for blessings and gain power. This is the new system I mentioned, and the later parts will soon involve spiritual creatures and contracts.
PS2: Thank you Nashida for your attention and reward to the Silver Alliance