"Stop!!" Sabrina exclaims, interposing herself between Sofia and me. "There's no point arguing. Auntie, wouldn't it be better if you taught him, instead of him experimenting on his own and ending up like the mad king?"
"I guess you're right" Sofia murmurs.
When she hears her aunt's response, Sabrina turns around and, looking at me, says "And Xelean, isn't my aunt going to pay you a considerable sum of money just to come on weekends? You should be more appreciative instead of trying to blackmail her."
"Yeah, I guess you're right ..." I say, sighing.
"Good!!" she says smiling, claps her hands, and crosses her arms looking at us "now we can continue"
"We can't, maybe I haven't reacted well to your aunt's question, but it's true that I shouldn't have much mana left" I say, knowing it for sure, thanks to the interface and the feeling of emptiness that I have in my chest, due to my new ability to perceive mana.
"It doesn't matter" says Sofia looking amused at her niece and goes back to her desk to get a potion from a drawer, while muttering with a smile "my girl is always right"
"Drink it, you'll need to have all your mana." I approach the desk and obey her, with which I see my mana quickly recharge to the maximum, Sabrina has sat down again when she sees that we are not arguing again. "The only known spell of spirit affinity is the creation of spirit bound. It was discovered by the mad king, the first wizard with this documented affinity, so named because he died trying to perform this spell more than once. I say he died, but his body remained alive for a long time, although it was like an empty shell. " She says while stroking the hawk perched on her shoulder "I tell you this so that you understand the risks and decide if it is worth learning the spell. What you do is divide your own spirit and use a part to create an entity that will accompany you wherever you are. Once it is done it cannot be undone, you will have to constantly live with another mind in your head until the end of your days. In addition, when invoking this entity using mana to materialize its body, the body that you create will take part of you, so it will take you much longer to heal and also to regenerate your mana and stamina. And although the entity and you have separate bodies, you are essentially the same, so if its body is damaged, you will also feel part of the pain... as you can see, the spell has quite a few bad points, do you still want to learn it?"
I answer her with another question "Can the invocation help me fight?" since she still does not explain the most important thing in my opinion.
"Well… yes, naturally, but it only has a portion of the summoner's abilities and the fact of sharing the pain makes the idea quite unattractive in my opinion" says Sofía, shuddering as the hawk flies and lands on the desk "for example, this is Siri, my summoned companion. She can perform wind magic since I have that affinity, but she has a very little mana pool. Can you imagine her fighting something?"
It certainly doesn't seem like the best idea to fight aided by a creature with whom you share pain. If any hit hits the summon, it could create a serious distraction for the summoner and not even think about what the summoner must feel if the summon's body is killed... at this thought I ask "what happens if the body of the invocation dies? Will I lose part of my spirit?"
"No..." she answers, shuddering again "Even though you would feel horrible pain, nothing would happen. Your body is its main recipient, so you could invoke it again, but it costs a lot of mana to create the body of the invocation... I only created Siri's body once and luckily, I never had to recreate it, because the time I did I had a magical coma that lasted for three days."
Hmm, the spell doesn't seem to be very useful, but if I don't create a body for the spirit, the only bad thing would be that it would have to live with it. A companion who cannot die or abandon me... "I have made up my mind, what do I have to do to learn the spell?"
Sofía sighs in response and says "put on the crown, it will prevent you from going into a magical coma if you spend more mana than you have, and get up, it is better that you sit on the floor with your legs crossed" I follow her instructions and she continues "close your eyes and think of an animal, something that you identify with your second affinity, a creature related to fire in some way, that will help you visualize it. Tell me when you have the image in your mind." I search in my memories for an animal related to fire and, after a few moments, the dragon that saved me that day comes to mind. Its powerful and long neck, its wings, its dangerous claws, and its tail that knocked me unconscious without the slightest effort. I signal Sofía and she continues explaining as she walks around me "Visualize its body, as detailed as you can. Imagine that it moves, that it is alive inside you, and try to get it to come out. Extend your hands in front of you while you do it. "I see the dragon move in my mind, moving away and turning to look at me. I hear Sofia kneel next to me "make your mana follow your will, and give life to your mental image" I feel the mana leaving my body at an accelerated rate and I hear Sabrina mutter 'beautiful' but I don't open my eyes "Concentrate!! You are almost there. Think that you are part of the creature you visualize and that, at the same time, it is also part of you." I do what she tells me the best I can keeping the image of the dragon looking at me in my mind and a notification appears, that I see despite having my eyes closed [Warning: trying to divide the user's spirit, do you want to continue?] with a 'yes' and a 'no' below. I answer yes, without losing concentration on the image of the dragon and I feel as if a part of me is detached and begins to become aware. I begin to sense another will within me, a wild and dominating will that greets me from inside my head. The feeling is very strange and I get dizzy, losing the feeling of the ground for a moment, so I lean to one side, falling, but Sofia holds me "Well done, now you can open your eyes. I don't know where you have seen a dragon, but it was really hard for me to focus on the instructions as I watched it take form. Give your new partner a name."
Before me is a miniature version, the size of a little cat, of the dragon that protected me from the wolves, identical to my mental image, except that its colors are different. Its scales and skin are black with blue tones and its eyes are the same color as mine and my mother's... 'Azur' I say remembering the name of the color and I see a notification before me [New skill acquired: Azur Lv1] as I see its life, mana, and stamina added below mine in the interface. The dragon flies to land on my head hearing me and I can feel that it is happy with the name.
"It's a good name. And you didn't faint… I guess that's to be expected since your affinity is complete with spirit magic. I hope you don't regret your decisión in the future, there are times in which having a partner you can't get away from is problematic" says Sofia laughing.
"No... I don't think I'll regret it" I say feeling the warmth of the dragon above my head, it is strangely light for its size. I stand up and take off the crown without disturbing my new fellow, I put it on the desk.
"You're going to get a lot of attention with a dragon on your head on the way home" Sabrina says with a smile.
"Not necessarily, the drakes are not that rare" I answer with a mocking smile, while I feel Azur's shape-changing on my head, adopting the form of a drake, slightly smaller than its previous shape.
"What the heck... how did you do that ?!" Sofia asks wide-eyed, jumping up.
"If my invocation is a dragon and dragons can transform into drakes, isn't it logical that it can?" I ask, puzzled.
"I suppose... Do you say dragons can shapeshift? I had never heard of anything like that, although it is true that there is not much information about them..." Sofia murmurs, confused, rubbing her forehead with her thumb and forefinger "agh, who cares!!" she looks at her desk where there is a mountain of papers and turning her gaze towards me again she changes her expression to one of absolute seriousness "now you can go, but remember the story I told you and do not try again what we just did"
"I promise. Thank you very much... For everything, and sorry for what happened earlier" I say remembering my attempt to force her to teach me.
"No, I'm the oldest here and I should have handled the situation differently... It's just that when you live with a constant headache you don't have too much patience for some things… you will see when you come here on the weekend to recharge the artifacts. See you in a few days" she says, shaking my hand.
"See you" I answer and leave her office with Sabrina by my side.
After assuring Sabrina that I could go back alone since although she doesn't know, I can't get lost thanks to the mini-map of the interface, we each go back to our houses respectively. Mia is delighted with Azur and it seems that it also likes to play with her. Julia and Ragnar, on the other hand, were concerned at first, because they thought it was a dangerous animal, but when I explained that it was a part of me they calmed down.
Returning to my room after dinner, I am about to look at the skill description [The invocation reflects 11% of the summoner's stats. The invocation shares the regeneration of health, mana, and stamina with the invoker, taking half of these. The invocation can use magic of the user's affinity. If the body of the invocation is damaged, the invoker can repair it using mana. The invocation can move up to 1km away from the summoner. Cost 50% of the total mana pool]