Except... that there was actually a lot of exposed skin up there. Ashton was sitting there with his shirt off, treating some bruises and cuts from the day, while also helping the others bandage up their own injuries.
"... He didn't take his clothes off fully this time, right?" Sam asked, walking over to the watchman who had been standing on the roof, trying to look out for any possible new threats. He slowly shook his head.
"Not fully, no, but... Man, Sam, your friend is kind of a weirdo. And also insanely impressive," the watchman said with a wry laugh, and Sam just scoffed and nodded.
"You can say that again."
Sam walked forward to where Ashton and the others were sitting. They seemed to be getting along well enough. That was the first time Sam had seen Ashton get along so well with people that were effectively strangers. It usually took weeks or months of regularly hanging out with people for Ashton to feel comfortable with new people. Not that he was shy, of course, he just simply wouldn't care enough to talk to people.
Though, the air that was around Ashton wasn't exactly social, even now. He still had that hard to approach, loner demeanour, it was just that he decided to talk to others first now.
"Yo," Sam approached his friend, sitting down on the ground next to the fire, "You're sure this is safe, right?"
"It is, don't worry," Ashton said, not even looking over at Sam, "You're just in time, by the way. You said you wanted to see the summoning process, right?"
Sam's eyes widened, "Wait, you're going to summon something? Right now?"
"Mhm. Two somethings, at that," he explained, properly affixing a bandage to John's leg. Now that he was mostly done with that, Ashton quickly turned back over to the stack of paper he was keeping next to him with the pen laying on top of it.
Though, it wasn't the Pen of Insight. That one was still scribbling away happily, basically filling a page with ink until it was fully black. It was the pen that Ashton got from his beginner gear.
"Okay, is everyone fine now? Can I actually get started? Nobody has any other wounds that need to be treated?"
Everyone shook their heads, excitedly watching him. He dipped the feather pen's nib into a small jar with a rust-brown, reddish ink. It was fairly thick and seemed to stick to the nib like glue.
Ashton carefully started drawing the summoning circle. The magic circle itself had tons of rounded shapes that flowed into each other perfectly. Tons of small symbols that almost looked like runes were placed around the perimeter, and a number of smaller circles were filled with larger symbols that depicted the qualities of the elemental that Ashton was trying to call out to.
And then, when he was done, he grabbed a rock that he picked up in the botanical gardens earlier and put it into the middle of the magic circle. There wasn't anything special about this rock, it was just a random one that seemed like it would do the job. Luckily, gnomes weren't particularly picky when it came to what sort of 'earth' they took on for their bodies. It could be soil, mud, or hard rock like this. Gnomes were hardy like that.
He held his hand over the stone and closed his eyes, imbuing the summoning circle with his mana. As it began to glow, he spoke, "Oh child of rock and soil, of mountain and cliff. Heed my call, and join my side. Come to me, oh Lesser Gnome."
Shivers ran over Ashton's arms and back, and he could feel the hairs on his neck stand up as magic coursed through his body. Cracks began to form on the surface of the rock, and before anyone knew it, a small critter woke up from the rock. This gnome took the form of a small mole.
"Hey there, buddy. It's nice to meet you," Ashton smiled, slightly rubbing the elemental's rough back. It immediately seemed to push itself into his touch, as if it enjoyed the scratches.
And then, a series of messages appeared in front of Ashton's eyes.
[You have formed a contract with a [Lesser Gnome]!]
[[Lesser Gnome] is being registered in the [Elemental Summoning] Category]
Ashton smiled.
"That is so cute!" Nicole exclaimed with a happy smile, "You said it's a gnome, right? It looks like a little mole!"
"That it does. I guess that's the form this one feels the most drawn to, huh?"
Sam looked at Ashton after that explanation, "Wait, really? They don't all look the same?"
Ashton just scoffed, shaking his head. "Of course not. It's just what feels the most 'right' to them at any point. Their forms might also change over time. These fellows are still quite young, after all. Well, 'young' is relative, they're probably older than all of us combined."
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He slowly stood up while the others curiously looked at the gnome. Immediately, Ashton started trying to channel the elemental. Of course, he wasn't able to just create rock out of nowhere like this, but he could pick up some of the other stones that he had taken out earlier. With a few swings of his hand, Ashton made the stone fly around the rooftop, of course at a safe distance above everyone, so that he could try and figure out any quirks about manipulating earth like this.
And there was something that almost immediately stuck out to him. The rock moved and accelerated way faster when going in a straight line, and then rapidly slowed when it had to change direction. Frankly, like this, it wouldn't be any better than the wisp. However, he could already tell that there might be a particular advantage here.
Ashton grabbed his staff and started channelling the gnome through it. He also grabbed a small amount of pebbles from one of the nearby planters, and then looked at the watchman.
"There's no one out there in that direction, right?"
Surprised, he raised his brows and slowly looked down at the street. Watchmen had skills that boosted their vision, and even at a low level, this man should be able to see everything on the street pretty well. The moon was out anyway, so it wasn't pitch black. "There's nothing there. But what are you planning?"
Ashton smiled and started spinning his staff around. Once one end of his staff was behind him, he connected with one of the pebbles, and it immediately shot forward. And then, when that end of the staff was in front of him, Ashton just stopped the connection to the pebble. It shot forward immediately and Ashton was able to keep on spinning the staff.
"Perfect," he grinned, deciding to take things up a notch. He continued spinning his staff around, connecting to different pebbles that he just kept shooting forward at high speeds. It was basically as fast as you could get a sling to shoot one forward, but Ashton was able to fire them in much more rapid succession.
He would have to work on his aim like this, but it was already a great start. The pebbles seemed to hit the building on the other side of the road. Whether he could shoot larger rocks forward just as fast was a separate matter, but this was great.
With a happy whistle, Ashton walked back over to the fire where the others were sitting. They had watched him magically shoot those pebbles forward, and didn't quite know what to say.
"So cool..." Oliver whispered. Ashton heard him, of course, but he just didn't pay him any mind for now. Though, obviously, he was thinking the exact same thing. This was extremely cool, there was no denying that at all. Ashton's heart was beating pretty fast as well because of how excited he was.
And that meant, without further ado, it was time for Ashton to call on the next summon on his list. He cleaned up his feather pen and quickly started drawing the next summoning circle. These lowest grade contracts didn't really take a lot of mana to form, so Ashton could do a couple in a row without issue. Though, there was something else that he had to do for this summon in particular.
And that was to hold his breath. Ashton pulled in some air and then started drawing.
He had to hurry a bit, but of course he still had to be as accurate as he possible could be. Considering the complexity of these circles, it was a bit hard to do, but that was fine. It wasn't like he had to draw this while holding his breath, it just saved some time, so if he couldn't hold out before he was done he could just hold his breath again.
After three minutes, Ashton was done. The others were actually extremely shocked once they realised he had been holding his breath this entire time, but he just ignored them and kept going. He had to do this as much as he could.
The rock that he used for the initial summon of the gnome was saturated with mana anyway, since it was within the vicinity of the mana well, but this was different.
The offering that Ashton needed to give to the sylph was his own breath, saturated with enough mana. And to saturate the air he was breathing enough, right now, he had to hold his breath and fill the air in his lungs with mana from the rest of his body. There was just another hurdle, though. The chant.
Ashton closed his eyes, holding his hand over the paper. In a whisper, so that as little air as possible would escape him, he started.
"Oh child of the wind, of storms and the sky. Heed my call, and join my side. Come to me, oh Lesser Sylph."
There was still a little air left in him, so Ashton pushed it all out at once onto the summoning circle. His breath seemed to gather together. It pulled in more air from the surrounding, even creating a small gust, as a small, white sparrow formed on top of the paper.
Ashton finally took a fresh breath, trying to stop himself from coughing, and smiled. He had a fairly good collection of contracts now, so this was perfect. With a smile, he looked over at the messages that popped up, though there were a few more than he expected.
[You have formed a contract with a [Lesser Sylph]!]
[[Lesser Sylph] is being registered in the [Elemental Summoning] Category]
[Skill | Summoning - Level 7 -> Summoning - Level 8]
[Skill | Aether Sensitivity - Level 6 -> Aether Sensitivity - Level 7]
[Class | Summoner - Level 7 -> Summoner - Level 8]
Ashton held his hand out to the small sparrow, and let it hop onto his finger. He had a total of eight contracts now. This was a great start. If things worked out, he should get to level 10 in no time.
With a smile, he flicked his wrist and pulled up his status screen.
[Ashton Garling] [Age - 23] [Coins - 2261 -> 3075]
[Stats]
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[Power - 14]
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[Resilience - 11 -> 13]
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[Speed - 15 -> 17]
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[Spirit - 20 -> 22]
[Classes]
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-[Summoner - Level 6 -> 8]
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-[Aether Sensitivity - Level 3 -> 7]
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-[Channel - Level 5 -> 8]
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-[Summoning - Level 3 -> 8]
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-[Construct Summoning]
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[Pen of Insight - Level 2 -> 5]
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-[Elemental Summoning]
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[Lesser Gnome - Level 1] (New!)
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[Lesser Salamander - Level 3 -> 6]
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[Lesser Sylph - Level 1] (New!)
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[Lesser Undine - Level 2 -> 7]
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[Lesser Wisp - Level 5 -> 6]
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-[Fairy Summoning] (New!)
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[Flower Pixie - Level 1] (New!)
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-[Spirit Summoning]
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[Backpacker - Level 3 -> 6]
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