Just like before, the dense, arcane runes shone from the void, the circle array of runes emits a glowing light and slowly shrinks.
Tang Yu held his breath, praying in his heart.
It would be great… to summon a potion master.
BUZZ.
Suddenly, as the circle of light shrank to the core, a blazing white light erupted from the summoning spell.
Tang Yu's hand-blocked in front of his forehead, his eyes could not help but narrow. His heart was half a beat slower…
White light?
No, that's not right!
This doesn't seem to be the light that appears when the adventurer's shadow appears. He looked through the bright white light to the spell formation but couldn't see any vain shadow. Yet the light on the spell formation grows brighter and brighter.
Suddenly, Tang Yu seemed to notice something. A translucent screen changed out in front of him. The spirit stones stored in the warehouse appear in digital units at the screen's upper left corner.
However, at this moment, the number representing the number of spirit stones stored was decreasing frantically.
It was rapidly decreasing at a rate of 10,000 per second!
This was a situation that Tang Yu had never seen before. His eyelids jumped wildly as he stared at the numbers on the panel. Feeling his heart aching so much that he couldn't breathe… But he didn't stop the summoning spell formation from sucking up the spirit stone energy.
Half a minute later.
The energy drawing speed finally slowed down.
Two minutes later, the number that represented the amount of spirit stones storage finally stopped decreasing. Tang Yu roughly estimates it has consumed half a million spirit stones.
HALF A MILLION!
This was the cost of upgrading the territory from level four to level five!
At the core of the circle of light, a golden light burst out.
Tang Yu did not have time to think about it. In his mind, the long-lost system notification sounded.
[Ding! Summoning energy replenishment is complete, start summoning.] [Ding! Uncomplete conditions, summoning failed…] [Ding! Uncomplete conditions, summoning failed…]
"..."
Tang Yu: "!!!"
What the hell?!
It failed after everything he had spent?!
Give me back my 500,000 spirit stones!
Tang Yu was lost in thought as he looked at the summoning spell. As if the world in front of him had turned grey.
"Wait…"
He froze and noticed. Although the summoning was a failure, the summoning spell in front of him did not disappear. The golden light at the core of the circle flickered and jumped around. But he couldn't see the adventurer's figure. As if… it was half summoned, but held back and couldn't come out?
Tang Yu did not know why he had this thought, he couldn't care less about the heartache of the 500,000 spirit stones. He frowned and pondered the reason for the failed summoning.
From the pub's instruction, the only difference in the summoning was only between qualification and job. There's nothing saying about more or less spirit stones consumed. And there has never been a failure before. He had never seen the pub needed to absorb a lot of spirit stones along with the summoning ritual.
The energy for the summoning spell was already spent at the beginning. This situation was like buying a 200 dollar train ticket, only to be told by the attendant halfway through that you still need to pay for the 20.000 dollar fare. And if you can't, you'll be thrown off the train.
Tang Yu feels that the current summoning spell was such a situation. If the amount of spirit stones stored at the warehouse wasn't enough or he chooses to cancel, the entire summoning spell will collapse.
And now after making up for the fare, the train has arrived at the end of the line. But it seems to lack a certain condition that causes the train door to not open.
Tang Yu carefully recalled, "The description of the pub… Qualifications are divided into D-C-B-A and above. They didn't mention S-rank. But the golden light represents the S-rank qualifications…"
"The difference gap between S-rank and A-rank should be huge. Just like the awakening class and transcendent class. The energy of summoning A-rank adventurers is not much. But when summoning an S-rank, in addition to 500,000 spirit stones, we also need to make up for a certain condition."
He had asked a thousand times to the system in his mind. Yet the answer he received was still the 'incomplete condition'.
Fortunately, the summoning spell formation was still hovering quietly in mid-air. And it looked like it wouldn't collapse for a while.
Tang Yu had asked Elaine and others when they responded to the summoning. It looked like the contract was signed only after they agreed…
He thought for a moment. Could it be because the adventurer on the other side refused the contract? This was what caused the summoning to fail.
But soon he shook his head again.
He had summoned so many times. He already knew the basics of the summoning mechanism. He also has some understanding and speculation. The Law of Causality might be involved. That every chosen adventurer at the moment of being chosen, in fact, had abroad the ship. Et cetera.
This looked like an accident and taught Tang Yu that the system also comes with flaws.
"If I can make up the conditions and summon the adventurer, we may be able to further access the system's core secrets."
...
Castle Hall.
After the internal welcome party, Tang Yu was the one to receive the newly arrived followers.
The nine people… some were still wearing their original clothes. Some were already in critical condition before being summoned and changed their attire into rather modern clothing.
Tang Yu's gaze was focused on three of them.
The three A-rank qualified followers were also the three strongest among the nine people.
One Eleventh Awakening Stage, two Tenth Awakening.
The Eleventh Awakening follower's face was shrouded in a black robe. She was silent and could only be judged from the curves of her body.
Red Moon Witch.
Her real name was Red Moon, or she has abandoned her past name. She stood there, surrounded by dead silence. The others were standing a few meters from her. Although they were companions, a rich blood scent coming out from her body made them frown.
Tang Yu, who had read her profile, knew that she was truly a ruthless person who had once slaughtered 50.000 people to achieve her goal. It was said that in her region, the name Red Moon Witch was enough to make a child stop crying.
She was ruthless, but not without reason. That massacre was the result of various reasons overlapping together. Otherwise… even if her rank was A, Tang Yu would cancel the summoning.
"I intend to divide you into three groups and send you on a mission. Mainly to spy on intelligence and collect rare resources…" Tang Yu paused.
"Especially the secret realms. No matter how, as long as you find the information about secret realms, report it immediately."
Finding the secret realm meaning, he would find the rift crystals.
The summoning spell energy was enough, the remaining missing conditions were most likely related to space. The only thing he can think of related to space was rift crystals. Not to mention the things from the secret realms contain high-valued items.
Zhor, the skeleton, crack of the abyss…
He might find the answer in the secret realm.
At this time, a cold voice rang out.
"I don't need help."
Tang Yu looked over in amazement, and the eyes under the hood met his.
Dead silence… Mountain of corpses and blood…
After a brief pause, Tang Yu spoke. "Alright." He looked at the two people intended to be assembled in Red Moon's team. "You group up with Gretel."
Gretel was the Tenth Awakening Stage followers whose long hair shaped like steel needles.
Hearing that, he took a step forward, glanced at Red Moon. He stretched out his hand and put his fist on his chest, grinned and said, "My Lord, wait for our good news."
Tang Yu looked at the last follower. After lingering on her face for a while, his gaze moved up and landed on top of the girl's head, on the pair of fluffy pointed ears.
Wolf Girl Fanny.