In the morning Ren's plan was simple. Get up, eat breakfast, and get ready for a long day. He knew his Uncle would be incredibly pissed at Ren for missing three days of school so far if he found out, but for Ren school could wait. This was a matter of life and death and Ren figured, if all was better, he could go next week. He could easily do the printouts that had been delivered in the mailbox, as whoever delivered them probably didn't want to stick around, in a single day, heck probably even in an hour or so since he had gotten much smarter than he already was thanks to the Gamer Power. Besides, his Uncle hadn't even been here when awake, but definitely came around last night as the dinner he left wrapped up for him in the fridge was certainly gone, so all risk of currently pissing him off was out the window for now. First thing's first. Ren decided to try communicating with Demons. He was going to get all of the Rituals out of the way in the morning so the rest of the day could be spent Skill grinding. He wanted to up the levels of all of the newer Skills he had today before grinding a bunch tomorrow since if things worked out today like he planned; he would be able to get a good number of new and hopefully powerful Skills. So first was communicating with demons. From the knowledge he obtained from the book it was sort of like any other ritual, but special materials and powers could help. Using the tools in his Ritual Kit, he first decided to light the braziers with a tiny spark of Eldritch Flame, thinking that the demonic flame may help. --- Focus: 35 - 46 Focus - 5 Skill Bonus = -16 --- It was quite easy to use Eldritch Flame to make just small flames for lighting the five small braziers. Next he decided to use a couple of Imp Claws and Horns in the ritual as well, figuring that if he put one of each in each of the five braziers, hoping that the extra amount of demonic energy would draw forth something particularly strong as he wanted this Skill to get a suitable tank. After the extra preparations were complete, he began the ritual. Of course, he made sure to activate Mana Shield first, figuring that having a shield around him in case whatever he conjured tried to attack him was a good idea, Ren also making a Pseudospace inside of his room also just in case. His dagger was also out as well, as he wanted to be prepared, Undine also summoned and on standby. --- Demonology: 4 (Critical) --- Instantly the flames flared to life, an eerie, blackish-greenish glow filling the room as all other lights, except for the braziers, dimmed as Ren performed the ritual, hoping to get a strong, although he knew that it wouldn't be all that powerful thanks to he just being a beginner in this. Despite how frightening it all looked, he kept calm as probably thanks to the Gamer's Mind Skill. That, and Ren was a little hard to surprise anyway. Still, the ritual was going supremely well, and Ren could feel as though he had an excellent amount of control over it, so he desired something strong and sturdy, not really knowing else about demons much beyond that. Well, something did indeed come, but what it was being something Ren didn't recognize. Or more like, a voice came really. The voice spoke to Ren's mind as a dark, green glow emanated from the magic circle he was sitting before. [i]"So you wish to attain the service of demons, do you mortal? You indeed do have power, the power of demons already within you and you have a delicious smell about you... tell me mortal, why should I serve you?"[/i] Now in a burst of dark, green mist a creature appeared from the circle and from it, in a burst of fire, appeared [url=http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/041/1/0/Let_it_snow_by_Contugeo.jpg] a large and very savage looking dog. [/url] Ren was a bit put off by it, but ultimately remained calm. The space of his room changed the moment the beast appeared to some sort of underground, stone cell like area where its walls were lit with braziers holding within them dark Eldritch flame. Still, Ren was glad that he remained calm as suddenly the beast lunged almost instantly, aiming to shred Ren with is powerful, and for some reason glowing, fangs. --- Demon Attack: 15 Hit! Damage Dealt: 40 --- The fangs went right for his neck, but Ren made a good call on keeping that shield up. The attack hit, but the glowing fangs of the beast bounced harmlessly off of the shield as Ren, knife already in hand, called out [i]"Riposte!"[/i] to make an incredibly swift counterattack, this being one that he hadn't used in a while. --- Ren Riposte: 42 + 22 Skill Penalty - 25 Melee Weaponry - 14 Skill Bonus = 25 Tie Ren Luck: 4 (Critical) Demon Luck: 99 Fumble Hit! (Critical Hit!) Damage Dealt: 70 --- Ren's attack and its dodge were right at the same time, the blade would have barely missed, but the creature fell at the last moment out of just sheer bad luck of stumbling over the carpet with its claws, Ren managing to slam the dagger in the beast at the last given second right in the underside of its neck, making a loud, dog cry escape from it as he dealt a very lucky Critical Strike, quickly rolling away from Ren and standing up now before suddenly Fire began to cloak its fangs and claws. Ren didn't think he would have to melee with this thing, and realized that without a critical strike he probably wouldn't have done much damage, but luckily Undine managed to launch a quick and powerful Water Arrow at the beast, Ren glad that they were not fighting in his room apparently. --- Undine Water Arrow: 27 Miss --- The Water Arrow missed the demon, who above his head had Garm Lv 16 and above that Hell Hound, the text red indicating it was indeed hostile. Fortunately though, thanks to recent increases in Elemental Affinity and Intelligence, Undine's DEX had grown enough to where she was swift enough to quickly launch another Water Arrow in the next moment, Ren glad that the Water Arrows only took 10 MP. --- Undine Water Arrow: 14 Hit! Damage Dealt: 15 --- The creature yelped again, dog like, when hit by the second Water Arrow that seemed to have a slight more affect than it should have, growling angrily at both Ren and Undine, who had moved in front of Ren. Ren first used Mana Shield to replenish the nearly broken one. After that then had begun to charge up a Giga Spiral Bolt quite quickly, deciding to quickly put 200 MP into it before launching it at the creature within a few seconds, Ren hoping that the powerful blast would hit. Unfortunately the creature acted once again, its eyes suddenly turning red as it began to snarl and growl like a beast, its muscles bulging a bit as it looked like it was about to go crazy before it charged at Ren, strength in each step as it jumped straight around Undine, going for the more fleshy target, Ren completely open to Garm's fiery, glowing fangs while he was busy charging the bolt. --- Garm Attack: - Max Damage Hit! Damage Dealt: 64 (Shield Broken) Damage Dealt to Ren: 0 --- The attack hit, and with how pumped up Garm seemed it easily shattered the shield with its mighty, fiery fangs. Somehow or another though the mystical armor, plus Ren's own Resilience, managed to block the last of the attack completely, it feeling more like someone poking him really hard rather than a nasty bite on his shoulder. Undine moved once again, first using Aqua Shield to create a shield of water around Ren for protection before launching another Water Arrow at Garm to try and get the Hell Hound to back off of Ren. --- Undine Water Arrow: 71 Miss --- The arrow was completely off mark. With the bolt complete though Ren attempted to try and launch it at Garm, which was a bit difficult since Garm was right in front of him and would have an easier time dodging since all he would have to do would be to leap quickly right when Ren let go of it. --- Ren Giga Spiral Bolt: 29 - 31 + 25 Proximity Shot = 23 Hit! Damage Dealt: 376 --- The bolt barely hit the creature, as it may have been quick, but in this situation the bolt was big and Ren was quicker, slamming the mighty bolt into the creature as it struggled to endure the mighty blast, its HP draining bit by bit with each moment it tried to take the attack. Unfortunately, the bolt soon dwindled, and the creature was still alive by a mere 59 HP. Ren figured he could do this, but suddenly a voice entered his mind, the demon seeming to speak to him. [i]"That's enough, you are plenty strong."[/i] His voice was gruff and coarse, but easily understandable enough. [i]"I am Garm, I only serve those stronger than me. You are stronger than me Summoner, and thus I shall serve you."[/i] The creature walked forward, suddenly biting Ren on the wrist, but not aggressively, just enough to where it still indeed hurt thanks to how strong its fangs were, Ren quickly drawing his wrist back before suddenly his eyes widened, pain coursing through his body as he fell to his knees, trying to contain how much it hurt as a mark began to form on his right wrist. Soon enough though the pain stopped, Ren panting heavily as the eldritch flame scalding the mark into his wrist ceased, Ren looking at the new marking that had appeared upon him. It was some sort of intricate pattern around his wrist, with at the center, like some kind of bracelet, was the five pointed demonic pentagram. [i]"Congrats mortal, you are now a Summoner. Call upon me whenever you fight other strong foes." [/i] With that, the hound disappeared, the space also vanishing as Ren found himself back in his room. "Well... that was nothing like an Elemental Contract..." Ren took the moment to look at the new windows that had appeared, examining the newest Skill he obtained. It was nice, Demon Summoning apparently working differently from Elemental Summoning. "So Summoned Demons don't have an MP pool, but all of their abilities drain their own Demonic Force or... HP apparently... but the Skill itself uses a good bit of MP and HP per minute..." Ren sighed, glad that there was still the rest of this day, then two and a half more after that before the Quest as he had a good bit of work to do. This was incredibly entertaining for sure, but there were also times when it felt like work, but then again all grinding felt like work in any game, even if it was fun. With half the morning gone already from that tough battle, as Ren had to use Meditation to quickly recuperate his MP, having Garm summoned and Mana Shield active during this as even then regenerating his MP back to full only took five minutes, Ren decided that regenerating his MP could wait as he wanted to get the next ritual out of the way. The next Water Magic Ritual. Apparently, according to what knowledge was gained from the book, it was a ritual called Elemental Empowerment, and its primary use was empowering things with elemental force, but it could also be used to strengthen contracted Elementals if one had Essence to use. He would normally power up Undine, but he wanted to wait until he had some better quality Water Essence from Water Elemental drops. Instead, he decided to see about unlocking the ritual for a different purpose. After setting everything up, keeping Gram summoned and using Undine's 'Life Water' to heal himself after a bit of HP was deducted, Mana Shield being deactivated, Ren began the ritual, putting his knife in the circle as he decided to see about empowering that. --- Elemental Empowerment Ritual Attempt: 10 - 44 Ritual Water Magic - 3 Skill Bonus = -37 --- The ritual was incredibly easy to pull off, Undine's power being required here as suddenly the blade of the knife began to glow with a blue light for several moments before the blade became covered in water, the water disappearing before the same symbol for water that was on Ren's left hand whenever Undine was summoned appeared on the blade now. After the ritual was complete, this taking a good bit of time since rituals weren't always instant, alot of meditation, the Meditation Skill helping here, and incantations were involved and all of that other good stuff, Ren looked at the newest windows that appeared for him, admiring the new Skill he received. One more Ritual, then Ren would have all three rituals completed, the morning gone and Ren now working into the afternoon on this. The next of the beginner rituals for Black Magic. Hex forging. A bit different than the Black Marks, as this was more like Lucian's Nature Powers, not that Ren knew how they worked, in that they were temporary abilities with limited usages. Black Marks were like elementary hexes, granted a bit strong, but still elementary. It made Ren wonder if he would ever get into Necromancy. Well for now, he had a black magic ritual to attempt. --- Create Hex Ritual Attempt: 25 - 41 Black Magic Ritual - 3 Skill Bonus = -19 --- Again, this ritual was pretty easy as well. Ren tried to create a Hex that would drain a target's abilities and strength, using Force Siphon and Mark of Cursed Tasks as a reference point, since that was something required by Black Magic, something that could grant a feeling for the Hex, as black magic was more about creating the magic literally. And it was a success, Ren managing to make the desired Hex and unlock this newest ritual. Now it was time to use the rest of the afternoon to grind Skills. Namely alot of them with Ren's well thought up plan. A plan that required masochism, but a plan nonetheless. Once in his back yard, he constructed something called a Training ID. Apparently it made Skill Grinding go about 10% faster, which was nice and something he got at Level 9 ID Create. However, monsters couldn't be spawned inside of it, which was alright as Ren just wanted to Skill Grind for now. As he sat down he called Undine and Garm forth, the two of them invisible when summoned until called upon. "Alright you two, this is what I want you to do, listen very carefully. Garm, you need to bite me as hard as you can. Whenever you bite me, Undine will then heal me, twice if necessary. Ill be using Meditation while also practicing Mana Focus. I'm confident enough that with my high focus score, ill be able to keep that up while I get beat upon and healed..." Garm, at first, seemed displeased about the fact of not being summoned for combat, but when he heard what he had to do he bared his fangs a little bit, both tails wagging. "Heh, I bite pretty hard, you better not complain if I kill you..." --- Maintaining Focus: 1 (Critical) Maintaining Stamina: 52 - 16 VIT - 15 Focus Crit Bonus = 21 --- Maintaining focus was incredibly easy for Ren, way too easy. For the rest of the afternoon he meditated, focused his mana, and overall got a good bit done. He only had to take one break, for lunch, but other than that he got the whole afternoon for Skill Grinding. With Undine using her Life Water alot and Garm attacking using his own powers, Ren endured alot of pain and healing. It was incredibly tough, but by the end of it, grinding those skills for nearly eight hours straight, Ren felt like they were much more powerful now and that he could just let them grind naturally when he used them from now on. It was the evening now, Ren feeling a bit tired, so he decided to try and regain some of his strength while doing a bit reading for the rest of the evening, as he figured he might as well finish off that book while he could still actually learn from the book. --- Reading up on Water Magic: 47 - 44 Ritual Water Magic = 3 --- Ren didn't as easily get the rest as he did before, but he managed to polish off the rest of the book by the time the evening was over. It helped him learn a good bit, giving one more point in Water Magic. He figured that, since it wasn't a Skill Book, then perhaps he could sell it back to the auction or see if Saito wanted it, perhaps a book trade of sorts. Still, after examining his windows, Ren found himself to be a bit disappointed. While it seemed like he made alot of progress, in reality he hadn't grown all that much stronger today. His Skills still weren't entirely that great, yet anyway. He realized from his fight with Garm that his most powerful attack skill was indeed Giga Spiral Bolt as without that and that very lucky Critical Strike he got he may have even lost. Perhaps his INT making him think way too much on this, but he also somewhat realized that his other MP Skills weren't all that useful in a fight, especially from the time with those Hunters. He knew that tomorrow was a new day though, and that today was just laying the foundations for tomorrow. Still, Saito was indeed right about one thing. Time was the master for their power, without enough time there wasn't really a whole lot Ren could do and he knew that if his plans over the next couple of days didn't work then he would probably be screwed in the upcoming fight.