The pen of insight suddenly fell unconscious. That was a weird thing to say about a formerly inanimate object, of course, but it was quite troublesome in this situation.

  It was something that could happen at times right after a level-up. Of course, as the contract levelled up, the contracted being in question increased in strength. Sometimes, this could be a rather traumatic process. Even Ashton had to take a breather after levelling up sometimes.

  For low-level constructs, that had a relatively loose connection to their physical bodies anyway, it was something that tended to happen more often than for other summons. It was like the construct suddenly got confused and 'forgot' how to stay connected to its new body.

  And so, after two level-ups, something that confused and surprised Ashton in the first place, the pen must have gotten startled and was confused like that. Not that Ashton knew for sure, but that was the most likely explanation.

  Either way, this meant that the pen just had to rest for a little while. Ashton wouldn't be able to figure out what the last filter meant, but that was fine. Hopefully. Right now, he could feel that the pen's consciousness was quite literally asleep, so he wouldn't be able to summon it even if he wanted to.

  If he had forced it into submission like the Summoner had with all their summons, he could force the pen awake, but that was a jarring and stressful experience. It happened to Ashton a few times...

  Either way, for now, Ashton decided to be extremely careful. There were still twenty-seven minutes left on the potion's effect. But well, that was fine. Hopefully the pen being overwhelmed would be the worst of it.

  Honestly, Ashton should really head by the school again later and warn them about that potion. At the end of the day, it was a potion that was meant to 'disrupt stagnancy', or at least that's how Ashton would categorise these types.

  At the end of the effect, you wouldn't be in a far better or worse situation than before you drank it, it would just be a different situation. These things were useful for people that felt stuck in their growth or, frankly, just wanted to cause a bit of chaos. And chaos was probably the last thing that they needed at that school.

  Plus, the more people were involved, the more likely it was that other people would get dragged into your messed up luck. Another reason why Ashton wanted to go to the spider nest on his own.

  "Speaking of..." Ashton smiled lightly, as he spotted an absolutely massive spiderweb having been spun across the street. Within it, one of those spiders was currently wrapping up what appeared to be a goblin. "So it started already, huh?"

  At the beginning, when the selection of monsters in an area was more curated, things were relatively peaceful between the different groups. However, especially once the more animalistic monsters came in, they would start killing and hunting each other.

  Not because of that system-induced bloodlust, of course, but simply because that was the cycle of life. Monsters also had to eat and sleep. Sure, right now, most of them were going to be eating people, but due to the scavenger monsters and all the plants growing and overtaking corpses, those were going to be unavailable pretty soon.

  So, the easiest thing to do was to try and eat other monsters. They were the main ones that were roaming around the streets these days. A massive amount of people will have been killed during the tutorial.

  And then there would be another large amount that will have been killed because they either didn't want to or weren't able to kill five monsters. It was an incredibly cruel first quest, especially considering the sheer amount of talent that was lost that could have otherwise chosen to just become a production or other non-combat class because they simply weren't suited to fighting, but... that might have been the point.

  The council was also trying to profit off Earth by essentially televising this invasion. And having people just lock themselves away would make for a boring few first episodes.

  Ashton groaned and started to approach the spider's web. Now, he had a choice to make. Which elemental to use?

  He had all the summoning circles ready in his pocket, it was just a matter of which one he should use.

  The wisp was useful for the spiders themselves. Their exoskeletons were often resistant against both cuts and blunt impacts, so it was often easier to try and injure or kill them with blunt force because it affected their insides. That was also why the undine wasn't a good match, because the whip wasn't usually strong enough to cut through well-strengthened chitin, though if he aimed for the joints, that might be another matter.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Although, the whips were good to cut apart the webs themselves, so the undine was also added to the list together with the wisp.

  The salamander was a no-go. Spiderwebs were far too flammable. If this were the city from last week, it would be another matter, but with all these mana-overgrown plants spread around, he would be asking for a fire that could destroy the entire city-centre. It hadn't rained in a few days either, and the plants only pulled out any remaining moisture out of the area, so everything felt... extra flammable.

  And yes, Ashton could control flames and put out resulting fires to some extent, but there was basically a 'volume' limit to what he and the salamander could control together, so it was very possible for the fire to get out of control even for them.

  And then there were the two newest. The sylph and gnome. The gnome would be useful for similar reasons as the wisp, but the sylph was a bit more complicated to make work offensively. It would definitely be useful, but would require far more practice with real opponents.

  So... "Sorry, Salamander, but you have to sit out again. Fire is just too dangerous right now," he said, as the Backpacker gave him a bit of food Ashton prepared last night. Stir-fried veggies with some myconids mixed in. It was his dinner as well, and he had a bit for breakfast as well, and it was quite tasty.

  The Backpacker gave the food to Ashton, and he quickly placed the container onto his hand with the summoning circle underneath.

  With a spark of mana, Ashton called on the wisp. It was quickly formed out of the motes of mana that came from the food, and then Ashton moved right on.

  He placed the gnome's circle on the street, and summoned the earth elemental. Its small black asphalt body soon dug out of the ground.

  Ashton pressed the undine's summoning circle onto the outside of a water bottle, and then took a deep breath while holding the sylph's. As he took a deep, long breath, though, Ashton breathed in a bit of dust or sand, or maybe some kind of tiny fruit fly. Either way, he felt something in his mouth and started coughing, which was loud enough to draw the attention from that spider monster.

  "Damn, I wanted to catch it by surprise..." Ashton groaned. He channelled the undine to bring some water to himself, though he seemed to have misjudged and brought too much, too fast. Some of it splashed onto his shirt. "Okay, this is literally all bad luck. Is this because of the epic item? Urgh..."

  Well, if some bad luck was all he had to deal with in exchange for that item, then that was something he was okay with.

  Taking another deep breath, Ashton blew on the sylph's summoning circle. For regular summoning, there was no need for him to offer such a mana-filled breath, just a regular breath was enough. After that, the sylph could actually persist pretty well off just regular air, though Ashton would still have to give it a breath every once in a while.

  With all the elementals summoned, Ashton could get started, approaching the monster in front of him. The spider that had made this web seemed to be a bit larger than the ones that he saw in the Calibur building. A lot bigger, actually, at least twice the size.

  First, Ashton figured he should test the new elementals out in combat, starting with the gnome. Actually, this might be the perfect place for him to have a gnome with him. In a forest, it might be hard to get anything but soil, but here, he was surrounded by asphalt, concrete and hard rock. It was the perfect thing for both offense and defence.

  He channelled the elemental and focused its powers on a piece of asphalt. If it could form its body out of it, he should be able to control it. And just as Ashton thought, a small ball of asphalt, the size of a fist, soon split off the road.

  "Neat," Ashton said, as he threw his hand forward. The ball shot toward the spider fast, soon leaving his channel range. But of course, the Asphalt kept flying.

  The monster simply side-stepped the attack, though, which Ashton had sort of expected. And so, he started spinning around his staff. Each time the channelling end of Ashton's staff was close to the ground, he would make a small mass of asphalt split off. This happened fast, so they weren't as big as before, but they moved fast as Ashton shot a barrage of asphalt at the spider.

  And every single one of them missed.

  "Oh, come on!" Ashton yelled with a loud groan. This was more annoying than he thought. If he wasn't careful, this could actually be far more dangerous than he thought. The balance of his luck must have really been put out of order because of the epic item.

  Ashton was about to just run at the spider to kill it with his staff, but before that, he decided to go for it one more time. But this time, the ball of asphalt just hit the ground right in front of the spider. It shattered apart into small pieces, that all seemed to shoot straight into the spider's eyes. Literally all of them were directly hit and injured. There it was, a speck of good luck!

  Of course, spiders relied on other things beside sight, but for that, the sylph came in. Ashton channelled the small sparrow and held his hand forward, grabbing a small area mid-air that he started to rapidly vibrate.

  Something like this didn't actually require that much fine-control; making something shiver like that was pretty easy.

  The spider, picking up the vibrations in the air, was immediately disoriented and stopped running, no longer sure where its target was, though Ashton obviously never moved from this spot.

  And with that, he could move forward and hit his staff onto its abdomen. Its chitin cracked open, and Ashton immediately followed up and crushed its organs. The spider, though it looked a little rough at first, was killed pretty damn fast.

  "Yeah... This would definitely be enough to cause some chaos..."