Nightmare Realm Summoner

Alex genuinely wasn’t sure which of the skills to take. The System had clearly come out swinging, and the Singularity Core had doubled down on top of that. Not a single one of these options was weak in any manner.

Each of them almost seemed to represent a different path forward. Run it Back let him summon his monsters back once a day, seemingly without any restrictions at all. It was a complete hard reset. It was basically a perfected version of Encore without a time limit.

Something like that was obviously incredibly useful to any summoner. It was a once-a-fight trump card. Something that would catch just about anyone off guard, and it wasn’t the kind of ability that could ever get outclassed in the future. Being able to summon all his monsters back would always be useful.

But, on the other hand, it was very much a once-a-fight ability. It had a cooldown of an entire day. Alex didn’t miss the fact that the cooldown had been written in brackets, implying there would be a way to lower it in the future, but the long cooldown was still worth considering.

The 2nd of the three options was different. Forceful Conductor was practically the exact opposite of Run it Back. Instead of a tide turning active, this was more of a passive. It wouldn’t have been wrong to call it a quality-of-life upgrade.

Smarter monsters that followed Alex’s desires perfectly was beyond just tempting. That ability would let him pull off even more of what he’d done with Wess. He could send his monsters off on missions entirely on their own, use them for complicated tasks and vastly increase the basic abilities of his fighting force.

The difference between having a monster that could instinctively react and process tasks and one that just followed the spirit of his orders would be astronomical. But there was one more aspect to that ability. One that Alex wasn’t too sure he liked.

I’ve never felt any intelligence from any of my monsters. They’ve always just been… well, I don’t know. There. And that’s about it. I don’t think they have any real consciousness. And if I take this route, I don’t think they ever will.

Something about the name makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. I’m not a saint. I’m not stupid enough to delude myself otherwise. But if there’s even the faintest chance that my monsters do — or could — possess intelligence… can I really take an ability that basically guarantees they’ll never get that intelligence?

Perhaps he could have been convinced that his monsters never would have been able of any thought whatsoever. They’d never done anything to make him think otherwise. There was no evidence to prove they could ever even have a chance of gaining intelligence.

That had been true up until he’d read the 3rd ability in his list.

And the implications of it were staggering.

I can communicate with the masters of the reflections I control?

That one sentence was multiple revelations all in one. And it made sense. Alex had Spatial Mirrors, so housing reflections within them felt quite thematically appropriate. But if these were reflections of the real thing…

Then there was some part of his monsters that did have intelligence. The masters, according to the ability.

I don’t know what this means beyond it meaning something. Have the monsters been basically puppets passing information back to some other version of themselves? Are the connections to their masters not even made yet?

And what the hell good does being able to speak with a master of one of my monsters do me? Shit. This basically opens up an entire new can of worms. But maybe that can has been open this whole time and I’ve just never known.

There were so many questions that he wasn’t going to get answers to just sitting around here and thinking. The ability might do nothing more than open up a magical chatroom to some redditor trapped within his Spatial Mirror that could do nothing more than act snarky whenever he got one of his monsters killed — or it could end up letting him summon forth the true, intelligent form of his Monsters that was a thousand times stronger than the normal versions.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit NovelFire for the authentic version.

He had no damn idea.

Each of the abilities had a good argument for taking it. A powerful fight boost to clutch up a difficult victory. A strong passive that would increase all of his monster’s potential… or a mysterious path that could either end up being very powerful, useless, or dangerous.

Alex paused for a moment.

Well. I suppose that really does leave only one option, doesn’t it? These are all great choices… but there’s only one that I think my curiosity will allow me to take. When it comes to the System, there’s one thing that’s more powerful than all others.

That old YouTube video of that one dude in his garage with his clearly rented Lambo talking about books was right.

It’s all about knowledge.

“Give me Symphony,” Alex said.

Bands of ice wound into his chest for the second time since he’d started meditating on his rewards. Cold pain sliced through his body as magic seared itself into him. He let out a hiss, jaw clenching tightly.

Then the pain was gone.

He’d earned his second new ability of the day. Alex sat still for several moments. He was still trying to process the ramifications of the ability he’d gotten, but it wasn’t working. There was really only one way to progress here.

Alex rose to his feet and headed down the staircase to set foot on the dark waters of his Mind Palace. He reached out to the magic lurking within him, calling for his new abilities — and neither of them responded.

He could feel the new magic within him. It was definitely there, but it wasn’t something he could touch. It was like trying to grab onto the air. A small frown pulled at the corners of his lips.

Well, shit. They’re passives, aren’t they? I guess that means I can’t just… turn them on. Maybe it affected my Spatial Mirrors directly?

Alex reached into the silver deck box at his side and pulled Spark’s Spatial Mirror free. He noticed the changes to it almost instantly. Where there had previously been rough, jagged glass was now a matte purple metal border.

It was like someone had taken all the chaotic Riftwarped energy of the Mirrorlands and condensed it into a luxurious material. The metal was cool to the touch, but a faint power pulsed deep within it. Ripples reminiscent of a distant storm shifted within it as he turned the mirror from side to side.

Whoa.

All of Spark’s information was there, as were the Soul Flames stored within the mirror. That part hadn’t changed. The mirror itself seemed roughly the same, even if the new Song of Binding ability had apparently changed the insides of the mirrors to be larger.

So how am I supposed to communicate with these Masters? The Revenant was definitely some kind of puppet thing before I stole it from whoever was controlling it. Was that maybe a different scenario?

Alex tilted the mirror back and forth like it was a lenticular bookmark, but that didn’t reveal anything he hadn’t seen before. It was still just a Spatial Mirror. There didn’t seem to be anything fancy hidden within it.

He briefly considered asking for Berith’s thoughts before promptly dismissing the idea. The less he needed to rely on the demon, the better. There was no reason to immediately go running to him the moment there was a minor confusion.

Alex pulled out the rest of his Spatial Mirrors. Princess’ mirror looked just like Spark’s. The only things within it were his monster and the Soul Flames waiting to be pulled free and used.

He checked Glint’s last. The mirror looked just like the other two did.

The frown on Alex’s features deepened. He tried checking on his newest ability again, but it stubbornly remained inaccessible. The ability seemed pretty determined to remain as a passive. It didn’t seem like something he could intentionally turn on.

So where’s the change?

Alex glanced over his cards once more. There really didn’t seem to be anything else off about them. A few seconds passed as he studied their glossy surfaces. Then he shrugged slightly. Symphony did imply this was communication with another sapient being.

Maybe I’ve somehow got to get their phone number or something. Easy enough. I’ll just swing by the cosmic entity bar and try to pick up the first one I see.

He was just about to put his Spatial Mirrors back into his deck when something caught his eye.

There was something on Glint’s card that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Faint purple words shimmered just within the mirror, twisting into existence right in front of his eyes.

Connection to this reflection’s master has been offered.

Accept?

[Y/N]

“Oh, shit,” Alex breathed.

Excitement bubbled up within him. It only seemed fitting that the very first monster he’d ever gotten would be the one he upgraded first. This was the whole reason he’d taken Symphony in the first place. He accepted the offer without a moment of hesitation.

The words on the card vanished, only for one new sentence to shimmer up where the previous ones had been.

[The Silver Conclave] has invited you to form a contract.