Luna was on the private training ground together with her roommates. It was not huge as other high-ranking seniors but it was enough for them to practice with ease. After the class had ended, they agreed to practice and learn new fighting styles as two new members had just joined their team. Even though Blair came first before Luna, a month had not even passed.
At the training ground, she asked Elenor to summon a spirit which he gladly did so. His favorite spirit, the dryad one, was summoned. A swirl of wind that shone in green had appeared above the magic circle. The wind soon vanished after a green light took the form of a woman in her white flowy dress that reached the grass and her dark brown braided hair was adorned with tiny colorful flowers.
The dryad princess had finished taking form but her body was still glowing, a sign that she was a spirit, not a human. Then she looked towards Elenor and asked him.
"Oh, it's practice time," she uttered.
He nodded and said, "Yes, and she's a new member that wants to see me summon a spirit."
"Oh, hello," she said.
It was short. As a spirit, she was still cautious of other humans. Luna smiled at her then turned her head towards Elenor.
"It seems that taking a spirit form was longer than I anticipated. It is beautiful to watch but a shorter summoning ritual should be done. I'll search some basics about spirit summoning and help you out further, and your magic cir--" Luna said.
She was interrupted.
"Wait, it already came from you that you don't know about spirits. I'll deal with it myself and the longer the summoning ritual means the stronger the spirit you will summon. It would surely stomp enemies," he said.
Luna shook her head. "You are wrong, not all people are the same thus all will have different reactions. It is not a good plan, honestly. Imagine how long the strongest spirit will be summoned. The summoner might be killed by his enemies before the spirit appears at the site and," she said.
Luna stopped and told him to create the magic circle he used earlier. He followed her with a confused look on his face. He wondered how a new student can help improve his magic circle that he had been paying attention to and kept searching about magic circles from high-level books in the library.
"I know that seniors have been changing and increasing your magic circles but one should be careful. Just like this sign. The Eternal Life sign didn't seem to fit the construction of the other signs in the inner circle," she said.
Elenor quickly raised his left brow and questioned, "How so? The Eternal Life sign coincides with the Everlasting Tree sign, and by placing the Eternal Life sign in the inner circle, I managed to power up the dryad princess thrice."
Luna lightly laughed. "Do you know why it got strong?"
"Why?" he asked. He still refused to believe that he was wrong.
In the midst of it, the two other members began talking.
"Check mine later Luna!" Elle uttered.
"Mine too," Blair said.
Luna nodded to ease their excited gazes and then turned back to explain some terms.
"It is redundant. By doing that, it seems like you didn't trust that the Everlasting tree is everlasting by placing the Eternal Life sign into it. The strong effect is just a temporary one. The signs are fighting for dominance in your magic circle, releasing magic too fast thus it seems like the power doubled. Its efficiency will decrease over time if you refuse to change it," she explained.
Elenor stayed silent. The explanation Luna gave was not that familiar to him.
"What high-level books did you have access to know about that. It sure is lucky to have a master mage at your back," Elenor exclaimed.
Luna didn't say anything, but she stood up and faced him with a condescending look on her face.
"You might want to read the basics of magic circles' construction, this is where I learned it. With the number of books available in the library, you can have a trip over anytime. Moreover, it was what they are teaching at the lower students' class, but you didn't learn it?" she said.
He looked away with a slightly flushed face and then Elle lightly laughed.
"H-ehe, we barely attend academic classes when we are still lower students as we are busy training in the morning. It was our only way to catch up to our seniors though they just left our fleeting team and joined others," Elle said.
"Okay, I understand, but from now on, it will not hurt to read back the basic lessons about magic. I think it's not only you who continues to neglect it seeing that only a few have been able to graduate for many years. The basics may look unimportant on the surface but it is what helps us understand the complexities of magic," Luna said.
Seeing their discussions, the dryad princess started to look at her in a different light. She didn't know about human's magic circles but the lady seems to understand magic. The term was not only applicable to humans but other species as well.
One more thing, she was astounded as Luna didn't seem to be eyeing her like others. A dryad princess was not something they could encounter every day and one would be able to poach her away from her current summoner when she feels that the other one was better. Nonetheless, she was not the type to betray her summoner.
Moreover, it would take longer for the competitor to poach the spirit as the summoner who was able to summon them showed great capabilities as a magic source, in a harmless way to the summoner. They have to get something in return as no one would agree to be a slave of a human. It must give mutual benefits.
A non-spirit summoner could be a partner as long as they wield great capabilities. The only problem was they could not summon one. That was when someone with a spirit constitution was needed. They would try to offer the powerful spirit a summoner had and entice them with many things a spirit needed.
Meanwhile, the spirits' face twitched upon hearing Luna's words.
"Why don't you try summoning your other elements? It seems that they're weaker than the dryad princess but I'm glad to hear that. Summon it! I really want to see all of them!" Luna said.
Her twinkling eyes could be seen that astounded all of them. It was the first time they saw a person getting excited over common spirits.
"Okay, okay, your sudden change of mood scares me but I can only summon two of them in a day but the two that I summoned can be recalled anytime within that day," he said.
Luna curved lips flattened quickly. "You summoned one already. Hmmm, just summon one of the wind spirits," she said.
'You're the one who tells me to summon one earlier,' Elenor thought.
He summoned the wind spirit that quickly took form as a young girl with her glowing body like the dryad princess but the color leaned towards bluish-green compared to the yellowish-green light to the dryad princess' body.
"You finally summoned me after so many weeks! What can I do?" she said.
"Our new teammate wants to see you. Follow her orders for now. Don't worry she's harmless," he said.
The girl pouted though she walked towards the Luna.
"What can I do for you young lady?" she said.
'Aren't you the young-looking one between us?' Luna thought.
"Can you release cold air and hot air?" she asked.
The wind spirit nodded in delight. "That is a piece of cake! Let me show you," she said.
On her left hand, hot air started to swirl and vice versa.
"Great, great, now I want you to do it on a larger scale, about the height where you can reach the clouds," Luna said.
"The cloud?! That was very high! I can't do both while flying up, only one," she said.
"Don't worry, don't worry. First, you have to keep making wind out of hot air here in the ground but vertically. It will make its way to the clouds later then after I see that it was enough, you have to go up and fill the air above with really cold winds. The faster, the better," Luna said.
The wind spirit didn't know what kind of magic spell was that but she followed nonetheless.
"And do it near those clouds," Luna said as she pointed towards the huge cloud above.
"Okay! I'll start now, back away a little," she said.
All of them stepped backward and Elle even put up a defense barrier made out of water. It was better than nothing.
The wind spirit released a great amount of hot air vertically for some minutes and then went above the skies. They could see the clouds darken and got bigger as time passed by. The fallen leaves and small plants from afar started to rotate in a clockwise manner. The wind blew away their hair despite that water defense Elle had set up.
Soon after, a huge dark gray swirling wind was destructively moving near them. The eyes of Luna's roommates were as big as they could get and their hands started to tremble upon the torrential wind in front of them.
"What did you just let her did?!" Elle shouted.
--To be continued--