Chapter 5: A Brewing Storm

"I am so confused…." Leo thought to himself. Since he heard that he had potential to become a Summoner and that too a very strong one he became naturally ecstatic.

But over the period of time, he grew more and more confused.

About what exactly? One may ask.

And Leo would answer "Everything!" because since the Assembly they were simply being tossed around left to right, from one place to another. Nobody had even bothered to talk to them, even his temporary mentor Karlos had simply thrown him towards the treasury.

There he met this weird old man who talked nonsense about respect and understanding.

"Why can't they just give us some sort of introduction about being a Summoner and how do things exactly work around here..." Leo thought as fake tears appeared in his eyes.

He had just chosen his first Spirit, "The Flame Toad". It was neither too rare nor too common, but he liked the way it looked, it was as big as him and had flaming charcoal skin that spewed flames, the Old Man at the Treasury had told him to get it.

Originally, he wanted a Lion Type Spirit. But apparently, he couldn't find one.

"Where have they sent us anyway?"

Leo looked around as all the new entrants to the Sect were currently seated on the ground of a large field, the Old Man had sent them there. The field was quite large with a black floor etched with runes and in front were some tall humanoid dummies,

"Oh! Isn't that Atreus." Leo looked to the corner of the field, where a handsome young man dressed in a blood red uniform sat.

"He looks more at ease now." Leo was always intuitive of other people's feelings since childhood, earlier on the Ship Atreus looked to him like a wounded but very intimidating person and he appeared to be quite guarded to others.

"But now the sheer confidence he exudes is something entirely different."

Bang!

"What the-"

Leo was surprised as he saw a bald man in a deep red suit standing in front of them. He had seemingly dropped from the sky.

The bald man was called as Elder K, in the Inner Circle. He was tasked with the introductory lectures in the Sect.

"QUIET!"

The chattering in the field stopped as K began to speak, "I won't beat around the bush. A lot of you must confused because since you came to the Sect you haven't been taught anything about Summoning or even the Sect itself.

Do any of you know why that it is?"

It was clearly meant to be a rhetorical question and that combined with his Scary look prevented anyone from saying anything.

"Its quite simple actually. What you were being taught was the first lesson in the Sect. Can any of you worms guess what it is?"

Leo thought about it but couldn't think of an answer but just then he heard a voice, it was Atreus.

"Hmph! Clarity comes from self."

Hearing that everyone became confused but the Bald Man laughed, "Well spoken. It's a age old maxim in the Spirit World, in your path you will always stumble across many things that you don't know anything about and no one will be there to teach you! So, you must realize only from yourself can any understanding come!"

Leo was shocked and the more he thought the truer it seemed. For example, he already knew the structure of the Sect and how uniforms were distributed without anyone telling him, for example Outer Sect had bright red uniforms, the Inner had deep red and the core blood red.

Which in turn made him realize the value of Status in the Spirit World, he was an Earth Tier Talent so he got Inner Disciple Status which brought him respect and benefits, like more choices among spirits.

Elder K smirked, "Looks like some of you have already realized, that knowingly or unknowingly you have been integrating within the Summoners Community."

Though he quickly dropped his smile, "Well from today we will open all kinds of lectures. If you already don't know let me repeat. Outer Sect has only public lectures, Inner has special lectures for its Disciples and well you don't need know about how the Core Works. You can also use merit points to enter certain closed lectures.

What are Merit Points you ask? Go Find for yourself.

Anything you don't understand: 'Chase it, till you do understand'."

Saying that Elder K gave them one final lesson.

"Ha! All that said I must indeed teach you about Spirits and about summoning before we began the Event."

"What event is he talking about?" Leo was curious.

Elder K on the other hand gave them some basic information. Firstly, a Summoner could only contract Spirits which were the same level as him and each Summoner could contract a main Spirit which essentially meant placing any Spirit of ones liking into the core of the Mana Space.

The Summoner could only change his Core Spirit once every time he advanced and this was also the way of advancing one's realm.

"So, if my Core Spirit is Rank 2, I will be Rank 2 and so on?"

Leo raised his hand and asked.

K nodded, "Yes! Exactly. But a Summoner can only advance himself by raising his Core Spirit from Lower Rank 1 Stage."

Then a Girl asked from the crowd, "Can we contract as many spirits as we want?"

K once again nodded, "As long as you have enough mana because Spirits constantly need mana to soak in your Mana Space, this is also the reason higher tier Spaces can contract more Spirits than normal ones."

Another person raised his hand and asked, "Is there any way to increase our own Mana?"

K sighed, "Well there are many ways. Like consuming certain one time use Spirits or contracting support Spirits that can increase your mana capacity."

K then cleared his throat, "The last most important thing you all must know is Spirit Synthesis and Evolution. You can mix two or more Spirits to create new and powerful Spirits, this can either trigger Evolution or create new Spirits."

K then told them that they can use their Sprits by using their thoughts to summon it and then mobilizing their Mana to slowly discover their Spirits properties.

"Oh! Man, not even a demonstration!" Leo thought with a deadpan look on his face.

K ignored the groaning faces, and smiled "Now its time for the Blood Letting Ceremony."

"All of you are currently sitting on a small distance teleportation formation, and will be randomly transported to the Killer Valley at the bottom of the Sect. There we have let loose of a lot Magic beasts, you must have heard about them, right?

Magic beasts are beasts created from natural mana, they too Rank from 1 to 9 like Spirit Summoners and on death they rarely drop Spirits too. So, look out for that.

For killing a beast of Lower 1 Tier you get 1 Point, if you manage to hunt a Middle one you get 2 points as for anything above that don't worry the Sect will bury your bodies for you.

Also, you can get the points of any contestant you kill. Each point corresponds to 10 Merit points. For perspective with 1000 points, you can take any rank 1 Spirit from low to peak Stage in the Treasury!

Good luck lads!"

K then merrily giggled and began levitating in the air.

Flash! Flash!

All the gobsmacked participants started to disappear into thin air.

A light flashed in the bottom of a reddish and green colored Valley and besides a clear river a figure appeared.

"Ughh.."

Atreus shook the dizziness off from his body.

"Demonic Sects are truly crazy!"

He was naturally aware of the chaos that must be going through the minds of the Kids. But since he was naturally aware of everything, he didn't really bother with any of it.

"But this though…. What the hell is this Ceremony ?"

Even as a past Rank 7 Master he hadn't heard of such a bizarre ceremony. Those boys and girls didn't even know to use their arms properly, how could they even use their Spirits?

"Maybe it is to draw their demonic nature out…. But even then, whoever designed this is really a maniac…"

Achoo!

A black robed woman sneezed somewhere in the Sect.

"Who is cursing me? Hmm… it must be Sage Gotham, that old coot…"

Somewhere else in the midst of Purple Trees.

Leo stood there confused and scared.

"What the hell man they want me to kill other people! And what is this insanity about magic beasts." He soon started to regret his decision to join the Sect.

"No! No! No!" He slapped himself on the cheek, and stared with a determined gaze.

"I must fight. I can't forget my promise to her." A sweet figure appeared in his memory.

He willed his mana and called out his Spirit. The Flame Toad appeared in front of him. Leo tried to control his mana and imagined the Toad blasting a giant pillar of flame from his mouth.

...…. The Spirit blinked at him and ….

Nothing happened.

"Oh! Man, what the heck…."