Aurelius nearly fell over on his ass right then and there.
“You want me to contract… an angel?” Aurelius asked incredulously, backing away from the sage in absolute, unbridled terror.
“Yes. We’ll talk about this more tomorrow.” Sage Yeltz replied dismissively, as if this whole suggestion was not even something worth musing about.
She then proceeded to wave and smile at Seraphine like a semi-normal person, returning to her stoic wait for the return of her other, more favoured intern.
“W-Wait. At least tell me if the Djinn is an incarnation of the Pultris from the archival records!” Aurelius whispered fiercely.
Contracting with spirit realm denizens was no small matter.
Of course, the binding power of contracts was unquestionable after signing.
However, getting a spirit world denizen to agree to contract was not something that one could engage in thoughtlessly.
The main issue was the fact that the contractor would not be aware of the exact spirit being summoned, nor their nature. And given the fact that a lot of the spirits of the spirit realm were borderline insane, it was unwise to barge in thoughtlessly in contracting.
That’s why one of the most important assets of the Magical Families was the invaluable list of spirits willing to contract with members of their families.
Spirit contracting useful spirits were usually quite powerful beings, and difficult to fight against effectively due to their pseudo immortal status.
Low level spirits had limited uses, such as the imbuement into golems, or small one-time tasks like delivering a message. And compliance during summons was ensured usually by simply dominating in a showdown of soul against soul.
In fact, even normal civilians could contract these low level spirits with their diffused souls!
But spirits above this rank required a collateral for answering the summoner. This meant that mages or summoners had to prepare sacrifices to allow them partial manifestation into the plane of reality.
And if you summoned them wrong or pissed them off during contracting, the spirit could just flee or attack you during their manifestation, leaving you with an expensive loss or injuries in the process.
That was precisely why Aurelius felt unwilling to contract Pultris if they really did have a history reflecting their trial records.
A simple twist in wording during contracting could leave him stuck with some sort of subservience or possession clause, or kill him outright by accident.
“Relax, kid.” Sage Yeltz said smoothly.
“Do you know how the Commission has access to spirits to contract?”
“We did cut a deal way back in the day with the nobility to hand over a few of their generational contracts after the war, but we also formed a relationship with those little sexless critters at the Churches.” She said bluntly, leading Aurelius to find offense at her blatant disregard for the religions.
Aurelius was pretty sure that only the extreme factions of the Churches engaged in celibacy. And even if they all did practice such a lifestyle, Sage Yeltz probably was someone they could… relate to anyway. So the insult felt like it was lacking… impact.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“...What were you thinking just now?” Sage Yeltz growled, making the little maggots under Aurelius to crawl in horror.
Ignoring the flustered Aurelius, Sage Yeltz continued.
“But around a fifth of our spirit contracts still come from Djinns and sealed artefacts. We even have a division to create more of them by chasing down troublesome spirits directly.”
“There is a reason for this kind of reliance. And that reason is the fact that bound spirits cannot talk or protest back to us when we make contracts with them. Plus it’s actually much cheaper in the long run since we don’t need to offer much tributes.”
“And even for the cunt of an angel, Pultris, I’m confident that you won’t face much issue during the process.” She finished, glaring back at Aurelius as if to say ‘stop whining’.
And while a short pause followed, Aurelius just could not shut upp…
“...But is he the same guy as from the records?” Aurelius asked meekly again, earning another bout of ire from the sage.
“Yes.” She replied in annoyance, snapping her finger to teleport the paling Aurelius around 10 meters away from her in the process.
???
“Ok. This guy is actually evil.” Aurelius mused, reading through some of the historical records on Pultris in the nearby library.
For the amount of impact that this man had on the Commission, Aurelius was surprised to find that there was not extensive materials on the man.
However, the available records were plenty enough to give Aurelius a deep, pungent wave of stomach acid to churn in his belly.
Contracting an Angel with such a vile history was out of the question! He had to get the hell out of doing this as much as possible!
“Is that you, Aurelius?” A voice called out behind a pile of books, leading Aurelius into a small scream at the comment.
“Ahh- Oh. It’s you, Seraphine.” Aurelius replied, suppressing the scream in his throat.
“Why’re you at the library? Did you come straight over? You’re not the type to be studious though…” She asked curiously and matter-of-factly, ignoring the psychological damage that she was inflicting on his poor ego…
“Ah… I had to check something out. Why are you here? Don’t you ever rest?” Aurelius shot back weakly, returning his book back into the shelf.
“I’m picking up some books for my research at the Commission.” Seraphine responded, peeking out from the spines of a dozen books.
“How about we grab some dinner today? We’re colleagues at the moment after all, shaman boy.” She said, grabbing another book out of the shelf in the process.
“...You can always come back tomorrow for some of those books.” Aurelius said in judgement as Seraphine put the newly picked book unsteadily up to the top with magic.
“Nope. Dinner shaman boy?” Seraphine replied playfully, recklessly launching the books a hair’s breadth into the air to adjust its position.
“Ok, ok. I’ll grab dinner with you. Please give me half the books. You’re going to kill someone if you trip over something!” Aurelius folded, shifting over and taking up around 2/5ths of the books in Seraphine’s arms with a small ‘oof’.
???
“So, the fae, hm?” Seraphine said casually, munching on the butt of a chewy fried potato intently.
“...Yes. The fae.” Aurelius replied nervously.
He had no idea what Sage Yeltz had told Seraphine earlier that day, but he was also aware that his secrecy clause was still very much in effect and held his heart in its grips…
“How’d you get into this mess?” Seraphine asked curiously, lifting Sylven out of her pocket onto the table with her left hand.
“Confidential stuff ma’am.” Aurelius replied semi-seriously, taking a stab at the minced meat steak on his plate.
“You’re no fun shaman kid.” Seraphine said haughtily.
“...” Aurelius ate his meal without response.
Seraphine stared at her junior in vague interest from the corner of her eyes, feeling out a conversation in the midst of their chewing.
“...What do you know about spirit contracts?” Aurelius asked, folding again to the unresolved tension on the table.
“Oh, it’s nothing too serious. I’ve got the backing of my family after all.” Seraphine said sourly.
“And I also have Sylven here if I want a contract. She can make sure that my contracts get signed or chase away unruly spirits without much issue.”
“Benefits of having a familiar, you know.” She said, nudging Sylven on the back with a spoon playfully.
“Indeed.” Sylven replied flatly, observing Aurelius’s face through the beady eyes of the rat body.
“What if you had to contract an unsavory spirit?” Aurelius pressed further, looking at Sylven this time.
“Hmm… I would not recommend it.” Sylven responded.
“There are a lot of things that could go wrong with the contracting process with unpredictable spirits. Even bound spirits should be approached with caution if you are not certain of the restrictions of their seal.” Sylven said.
“...Hypothetically, what could go wrong if I were to contract a bound angel?” Aurelius asked.
