After the level up, Scarlett received a second notification.
She was exhausted after fighting through two sanctuaries, but never exhausted enough to ignore something like this.
Success! She had unlocked a new skill: Spirit Link.
Spirit Link was an innate skill not unique to her. There are some general skills all summoners could unlock, and it was one of them.
"We unlocked Spirit Link!" Scarlett announced to her phoenix, jumping for joy and hugging it afterwards.
Summons could reduce their size depending on how many forms they possessed.
The Phoenix had two forms: Juvenile Empyrean Phoenix and Empyrean Phoenix. Anytime it was near Scarlett, it would take the form of the former just to match her height.
This explained why Scarlett could wrap her arms around its neck.
"Maybe... with this skill I’ll finally get to understand you. Maybe we’ll know what the other is feeling, and we’ll find a way to improve our bond so we can become stronger together."
Scarlett thought she was communicating, but the Phoenix was just tired. After fighting that many monsters, even a Mythic beast has to pay the toll of battle.
Scarlett helped it recover by feeding it some medicine and treats from her summoner supplies.
While the beast ate what she provided, Scarlett stroked its feathers, hoping for the day that she could hear a level-up notification for it too.
Since Scarlett first awakened the phoenix at a fortitude of 2.5, she could only get it to 2.7, proving just how hard it was to train a Mythic beast.
She was still spending time with her beast when Luke interrupted.
"How much longer are you two going to have your moment? I’m jealous," Luke said, walking toward them.
Scarlett replied with a smile, "Don’t flatter yourself, husband. Nymeria has my heart."
Luke stopped walking and inspected the phoenix himself, acknowledging the bruises. In his opinion, the beast still needed armor.
"If she has your heart, guess I have the rest of you then."
CAWWWW!
It seemed like the phoenix didn’t really like hearing that at all.
The bird flew away and sat on top of a pillar, seemingly going back to its rebellious behavior. Scarlett looked at what just happened, and it forced her to cross her arms, giving Luke a strict face.
"You don’t have to be a pervert about it."
"Fine, fine," Luke said, waving his hand in the air to brush it off. "We should get moving anyway. If we stay here much longer, the mutation will rise again. But hey, I noticed you leveled up just now. What skill did you get?"
"Spirit Link," Scarlett replied. "It lets a summoner and their summon share emotions, awareness, and even pain. We can understand each other much better through it.
With this, I think I might find a way to rewrite our contract.
Thank you for letting me fight alone with my beast earlier. I don’t think I would’ve awakened this skill otherwise."
"The pleasure is mine, my lady," Luke grinned, happy for Scarlett.
A Mythic Phoenix under control was not just good for her but good for everyone else.
Also, if this was what Scarlett and Nymeria could accomplish while still struggling to understand each other, then Luke wasn’t sure anyone was ready for what they would become after fixing that problem.
But Scarlett’s level-up reminded Luke he was different from other summoners.
Scarlett had Echo. Now she had Spirit Link.
Those were summoner skills.
His system didn’t offer him those kinds of skills.
Every new skill Luke unlocked revolved around beast armor, like Auto-Forge and Instill.
This meant that after reviving a beast, Luke couldn’t activate skills like borrowing their abilities unless he desummoned the beast and wore the armor in its place.
He also couldn’t develop a spirit link with them like Scarlett just had.
It was as if he was less of a beast master, and more of a force of nature who brought back legendary beings from forgotten eras who retained their independence and willingly fought for him in return.
His armor was his strength. It was never about the beasts that came after.
"I will remember that," Luke whispered to himself.
Soon, the three left the second sanctuary and entered the third before the mutation could rise again.
Every Chapel Keeper they defeated dropped more Mutation Elixirs, guaranteeing they could keep resisting the dungeon’s curse for a while longer.
Other than the elixirs, there wasn’t much worth stopping for.
Even though there were about a hundred dungeon cores left lying around, Luke kept his sights set on the master core instead.
Plus, someone else seemed more interested in taking them, so it wasn’t like the cores were going to waste anyway.
The weapon hunter. He was picking as many as he could.
He wasn’t like Scarlett and Luke, who had access to lots of resources. He might be a Gold-rank hunter, but he got there through hard work, so selling this loot was how he made a living.
Watching him collect the cores reminded Luke of something Principal Claris’s Owl had once told him.
"Hey, I have a question," Luke said. "Do you summon those weapons?"
"Me? No, I’m not a summoner," the guy replied. "Are you asking that because of all the weapons I have with me?"
"Yes," Luke answered. "You seem to bring some out of nowhere, so I wondered if your niche was summoning weapons."
"Don’t be ridiculous. No one summons anything but beasts," the young man snorted. "I never awakened a beast, so I trained with weapons instead."
Luke and Scarlett looked at each other briefly and then back at the hunter, taking in his words.
Grace had told Luke about the 0.1% summoners who had unconventional summoning theories. Apparently, the person before them wasn’t among those people.
The man then showed them his skill sets with his weapons and how he could pick from a varying arsenal using an artificial inventory he had.
It was impressive. It also reminded Luke that some people could adapt to what life gave them.
Some relied on summons. Others did not. This man relied on weapons. Different paths, same destination for survival and power.
The man hadn’t awakened a beast, so he had trained until weapons became his own strength. In a world like this, it was nice to see persistence wasn’t lost.
The three advanced into the third sanctuary, and the crisis increased.
Thanks to Luke’s 150,000% defense increase and the sensing powers of his mask, he detected the presence of phantoms in the air. The phantoms were holding spears and were half-invisible.
Their job was to appear out of nowhere and stab intruders.
Luke only had enough time to save one teammate, and chose Scarlett without hesitation.
Schlk.
The weapon guy screamed out loud in agony as a phantom shoved a glowing spear straight through his chest and fed on his essence.
"Damnit!" Luke whispered under his breath, clenching his jaw as even more phantoms started manifesting.
Scarlett manned him bravely, holding her flaming sword to the monsters. The armor Luke equipped her with covered key parts of her body that could shield her against the phantoms and reduced knockback, making her solid on her feet.
"Purgatory Charge!"
Luke eliminated three phantoms with Purgatory Charge. Scarlett helped cut down one who tried to sneak up on her, while Luke’s spear finished the job, whistling around until all phantoms perished.
Just like that, the sanctuary became quiet again.
Scarlett walked over to the weapon hunter and confirmed he was dead. "I don’t think that vampire is going to be happy with this outcome," she said.
Luke wore a frown, looking down at the dead man.
What if the vampire harms his sisters in return, thinking he and Scarlett killed his ally?
Luke stayed on that thought, but if the vampire was even half smart, he would know Luke and Scarlett had no reason to kill his ally.
The man had been the only one with experience here, so his death only made things worse for them.
The chances of two rookie hunters surviving a Sigma manifestation were less than 1%. This means not even strength or the power of love could keep Luke and Scarlett safe from the doom that awaited them.
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A/N: Thanks for reading!
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