Inflame (The Completionist Chronicles Book 6) by Dakota Krout (best romantic novels in english TXT) 📕

Then Joe was back in the cave, staring down at a completed Planar Shift ritual. He blinked a few times and blearily scanned the enclosed space. Just like every time before, it seemed that no time had passed at all. He couldn’t be certain of that, as there was nothing in the cave to show time, but he felt that it was correct. “I… okay, I think that entire thing was telling me that what I really need to do is create a permanent building where I do my crafting. I need a potent array if I ever want to work with Mythical aspects, otherwise the loss is gonna be… just… huge.”

Wisdom +1!

Joe gasped in pleasure. “A mental stat increase! Ooh!”

Chapter Forty

Joe was dazed by the shift away from the misty tutorial world and back into his expanded cave. It took a few moments to reorient himself, so he reviewed his notifications. Nothing pressing or overly important demanded his attention, so he turned his eyes back to the summoning circles that were prepared and laid out in front of him. “That was a serious diversion, but at least I have a better understanding of what I need to be doing.”

“As for this summoning circle… If I’m missing anything, I can’t think of what it might be. Let’s use the Planar Shift.” Something was calling for attention in the back of his mind, a warning that he just couldn’t put into words, but… he couldn’t think of anything he was forgetting. Joe slammed his hand onto the circle and released a thousand mana into it before he could talk himself out of doing so. The outer circle lit up, then the inner, and finally the last one shifted from grey to black in an instant; the entire interior was saturated with the inky color, as if he had used the ‘bucket fill’ function in a paint program.

The black space seemed to drop, as if it had cut a deep hole into the earth that was trying to pull everything into it. He stared at the summoning spot for a long minute, nearly getting knocked back as a wave of heat blasted out and up. Instead of abating, the sweltering heat only climbed higher and higher, reaching a climax as a creature pulled itself into view. “Fire! Hot! Enclosed room! That’s what I was forgetting!”

Reductionist class experience gained: 100.

Slag elemental. The entity was hard to describe, as it had no features. Even Joe’s coffee elemental had tiny coffee beans for eyes, but this? There was only a strange pile of multiple goopy metals and impurities that bubbled and frothed, exuding heat the entire time. It was like… a metal slime. Joe reached out with his thoughts and his words, not entirely sure what would be the best way to open a line of communication. “Can you understand me?”

There was a returned feeling of agreement—and slight hostility—as well as an angry emote that the being was cold. It demanded heat as payment for continuing to remain on this plane, but… getting access to heat was why Joe had summoned this thing in the first place. He needed high temperatures from this thing. “Slag… pile. What I need is for you to heat things for me. Metals especially, but other implements as well. What can I do to make that happen? To make a deal between us?”

Mana.

The concept, as well as instructions, struck him like a hammer ringing a gong. Joe needed to link to it and let his mana feed the beast. All Joe needed to do was agree to the terms of the deal. If he cut off the flow of mana, the elemental would return home. If Joe turned hostile… he was threatened with becoming nothing more than a handful of impurities on the surface of the elemental. Joe had no problem with that, as he needed to work, not fight. In agreement with each other, the human instantly flushed red as mana started to drain out of him in a strange and unpleasant way. It felt as though his internal energy was being converted to fire before leaving his body, and he did not enjoy the process.

Link to Slag Elemental successful! Mana investment: 300, +30 per second. -4 health per second.

Skill increase: Planar Shift (Student 1). You did everything right, and even bonded the summon to your will on the first try! Critical success!

Caution! Although you do have a perfect fire affinity, as this is your first time using fire-type mana, you may experience some unpleasant side effects.

“That’s an understatement.” Joe wiped his nose, his sleeve coming away bloody before his Neutrality Aura scrubbed away all traces that it had ever been there. Joe watched the floor nervously as the summoning circles lifted and surrounded himself and the elemental, binding the creature to his will at the same time as putting the details of their bargain into play. At this point, if he had made a small error in the creation of the circles, the binding would fail and the creature might become hostile to him. Yet, his fears went unrealized as the elemental started following his orders right away. It moved into the exact center of the room and shifted its malleable form to focus and maximize the heat directly above itself.

“Right. The first thing I want to do is bind a characteristic to one of my Ritual Orbs, so let’s make a…” Joe checked the data of the orbs, and shifted the direction of his thoughts. “Nevermind! That’s an enchanted ritual circle. Which I could have done without a Slag Elemental. Or instead of summoning it. I… let’s pretend this wasn’t an accident and bind a spell. Potion making time!”

Without further ado, Joe dropped his cauldron out of his ring and on top of the elemental, which started sending him excited emotions. It rubbed against the metal of the cauldron, but it couldn’t leave a mark,