Others Summon, I Forge Beast Armor

For sure, Cedric Kingsley had filled his children’s heads with negative things about the Blackstones.

So rather than spend his time giving Luke his own opinion and trying to change what he had been taught, Loki thought showing Luke some facts—by giving him a tour—would be better.

Luke had a lot of things to go back to, like today was the 2nd day of the academy’s trials, but he didn’t mind knowing some history.

There were framed pictures all over the castle, especially along the hallways.

Loki knew where to begin, so he started at one end and walked with Luke, explaining the history of both families from the time the Apocalypse descended two centuries ago.

The pictures were the kind you’d see in patrician homes, showing important family members and the events they had taken part in. The difference was that these were summoners, so their beasts were included in the pictures too.

One Blackstone had a Venom Scorpion. Another had a Solstice Owl. Another was pictured with an Onyx Cobra, etcetera.

Their genre of beasts was interesting.

They weren’t as folkloric as the summons in Scarlett’s family. These felt like true beasts.

Now, back to the origin of the feud between the Kingsleys and Blackstones. It had three layers.

The first was after the apocalypse, a hundred years ago.

The Kingsleys and Blackstones were powerful factions in a world that demanded power.

They were powerful because they summoned stronger beasts and knew how to evolve them to fight against the apocalypse.

So after the apocalypse was fought against and civilization was starting to grow again, both wanted the title of Duke.

A dispute was held to determine which family would receive it. The Kingsleys won, but the Blackstones believed they had used underhanded methods to win.

That became the foundation of the rivalry.

The second layer was like a Romeo and Juliet story.

Decades later, an attempt was made to unite the families through a marriage between a certain X Kingsley, Luke’s ancestor, and a certain Y Blackstone.

Meanwhile, the Blackstones had just finished their war with the Blackhearts, and that left them smaller in number. So, Y, a girl, was their lifeline.

However, X and Y entered an origin realm together, and Y never returned.

X survived, so the Blackstones blamed him for her death. With their numbers already low, losing Y got the family even closer to extinction.

And the final layer of the feud is more recent.

To Luke’s surprise, it had to do with his mother, Penelope Kingsley.

Loki explained that Penelope was close to him despite being betrothed to Cedric Kingsley. But she wasn’t close to him for relationship-sake.

They had similar ideologies on how to fight against the apocalypse, and they regularly shared their plans.

But Cedric thought Loki was trying to kill her or use her to accomplish something as revenge for everything that had happened between the families.

So, Cedric declared the Blackstones permanent enemies of the Kingsleys after that.

By Luke’s generation, the original dispute, which was over the title of Duke, was forgotten!

"Your father misunderstood what was happening between your mother and me. I wasn’t trying to covet her," Mr. Blackstone said.

"Penelope and I only had similar ideas about how to break through our summons from one plane to another. We were trying to achieve a specific cultivation breakthrough, so we spent a lot of time discussing our methods and testing them together.

Though I won’t lie to you. I did have feelings for her, but I doubt she ever felt the same way about me. She always thought we were just friends and cultivation partners."

Luke raised a brow because he didn’t miss that part.

So his mother had been Loki’s crush, and they had cultivated together while the man kept those feelings to himself.

Even after all these years, he still seemed to have them. Maybe that was part of the reason he treated Luke so well.

Luke wondered how stunning his mother had been to leave a man holding onto feelings for this long.

"What cultivation breakthrough were you two trying to achieve?"

"Knowing that won’t do you any good," Loki replied. "Understanding something is its own. But you should know your mother always had humanity’s interests in her heart.

That was what we had in common. It’s also why the Blackstones and Kingsleys aren’t as different as you were taught to believe."

"I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t want to live my life based on what happened before I was even born," Luke said. "Whatever history in the past doesn’t matter. I will do to my destiny what I’ve always done best.

Forge it."

Mr. Blackstone couldn’t argue with that. From the day Luke shook his hand at the eatery and immediately started looking for a way forward after his shop was burned, he knew the boy wasn’t someone who could be swayed easily.

"You are right, Luke. Now, speaking of forge, Lin Moon has a lot of things to discuss with you concerning the shop."

"Darn, I almost forgot about that."

Luke had enough points on the leaderboard, so he wanted to rest for today, but it seemed he would have to trade his rest for a visit to his mega workshop under construction.

Luke bowed before Mr. Blackstone left, leaving him alone in the hallway beside his mother’s portrait.

Luke looked at her aura.

The more he learned about Penelope, the more he felt there was more to his mother than just being the woman who gave birth to him.

Luke could hear grunting and beast commands from somewhere in the castle. It sounded like Lucy.

She must be training her beast and not in her room as she said. So he followed the sounds through the castle until he found one of the baileys.

Lucy was there with her Malefic Spider. The beast was being trained through basic cultivation exercises, strengthening its body while Lucy guided its movements and helped it control its power.

The spider noticed Luke first before Lucy, growling and moving toward him, trying to tell him he was unwelcome.

With a summon of that size and appearance ready to attack, Luke almost stumbled. Beasts were protective of their masters, even more protective when they sensed someone they didn’t recognize approaching them.

Lucy opened her eyes from meditation and saw Luke about to be swathed by her Malefic Spider.

Her face was written in black. After a long week, she finally had some time to cultivate, only to be disturbed by this.

Her problem was both Luke not minding his business and her beast threatening him. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

"Leave him alone and get back to my side...!"

The Malefic Spider lowered itself and obeyed.

Luke had thought the opposite would happen. He guessed wrong that Lucy’s summon was rebellious when it could just be the most obedient he had ever seen.

But there was something else he noticed about the interaction he just had to mention.

"Lucy, wasn’t your command a little harsh? It was only protecting you. I can protect myself or get away if I need to."

Lucy stood up and dusted herself. She didn’t look pleased with the foot this kicked off with, or maybe something else was the cause of the frustration.

She replied to Luke, "It doesn’t matter. What if the person approaching me couldn’t protect themselves? What if they were weaker than you? Your beast needs to understand that it can’t attack everyone just because it thinks you’re in danger. Your beast needs to understand you."

"I agree. Maybe you’ll have to strengthen your Spirit Link. That’s what helps a summon understand their master and vice versa. Is that what you were cultivating?"

"No. I’m focusing on my resonance," Lucy replied. She seemed a little anxious when she added, "I don’t have Spirit Link yet."

"No Spirit Link, but focusing on resonance..." Luke mused.

He remembered when Lucy was reading a book about Resonance back in the library. So she had been working on it for a long time. This must be part of the plan to solve the problem of her beast having no growth for more than a year.

"So if you don’t have Spirit Link yet, you can’t really expect your summon to know that you don’t want it to attack someone."

Lucy looked at her Malefic Spider. The creature had several mandibles and six fiendish eyes, making it difficult to imagine it as something that couldn’t understand complicated instructions without the right route between them.

"You’re right," she said. "Maybe I just thought it should know after all this time. Doesn’t experience count for something?"

Luke laughed. Experience? Maybe. But that’ll take a lot more time.

"I was expecting you to apologize or hug it, maybe pet it. But I guess acknowledging that you were wrong works too."

Lucy looked at him with confusion as if he said something alien. She was about 5"8, slender, and well-proportioned.

"Apologize to a beast?"

Luke was lost in looking at her body that he replied hastily, "Yes, is there something wrong about that?"

"Why should I?" Lucy asked again, tapping one of the spider’s hairy legs as if it were nothing more than a piece of furniture. "It’s a beast, not a human."

Luke sighed, aware he shouldn’t turn it into an argument. Whether Lucy apologized to her beast or not was her business.

But the way she handled it still bothered him.

It seemed the Blackstones didn’t treat their beasts like they were something that could think, feel, and be loved.

Just look at Lucy. She hadn’t even given her spider a name. She called it "it," "hey," or just "spider."

What did he expect from a family that owned the biggest pet shop on earth, where beasts were sold as assets?

Luke had grown up in a family that loved their beasts, so seeing this really didn’t sit well with him. He would never treat Amigo like he was just a thing, and he wouldn’t treat any of the beasts he planned to revive that way either.

Which reminded him that he had his Mythic Forge Slot full of new Mythic Draft Cards, and he had to attend to it as soon as possible.

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