That following week I did nothing but toy with my new powers. I had a whole six days to kill until Noir's deadline anyway.
Casting the carbuncle directly from my staff, I sent it to find the one thing I love most in life: making money.
I watched my summon dig into the earth, scavenging miles deep for a gemstone it could bring to me. I took the time to study my staff, the Twig of Yggdrasil.
The flower was like a lotus, with petals that spread wide and laid flat over another. I counted about thirty of them, every petal shimmering the familiar red of demiurge.
Each petal was made of some crystalline material. Even the cards for the summons had been transmuted into the stone material.
The flower was attached to the staff at an angle. This was the perfect angle for Bunsen blasting while holding the Twig upright.
The actual staff of the Twig, the handle part, was carved of a super dense wood. I'd never seen this wood, but then again I hadn't had much experience with the trees and plants in this world.
The wood was what shimmered each prismatic color, shifting between shades of warm and cool and even neutral colors of light.
"It's like a rainbow being projected on wood." I gasped.
My carbuncle returned after a few hours. In its jaw it held a mound of pure gold. Shaking the dirt off of itself like a wet dog, it plopped the gold at my feet.
Normally, I could only keep a summon active for a few minutes. After that I'd suffer what's called mana fatigue.
"Normally I'd want to pass out after having you out," I told the carbuncle while petting it. "But I feel like I could keep you out for a few days and still be fine!"
The summon purred.
"Let me see what happens when I…" summoning the Seia, the liquid creature spilled from the Twig. The summon swam through the air around me.
"I need to test out my attack spells anyway." According to the system, the cool down time for Scarlet Bunsen blast was five seconds. That was a lot of time to waste in between attacks. "Maybe I could lessen that by continuously using the spell?"
I commanded my carbuncle to search for another mound of gold. Scampering over the surface, it sniffed the dirt. It ran from a bush in the flat land, cringed away from the corpse of a dead animal, crawled under a burrow before yipping at me.
"Bingo."
Sending my selkie over where the carbuncle told me the gold would be, it fired at the earth. Rearing its head back, its torso swelled up before firing the Bunsen attack at the earth.
The carbuncle darted away as dirt and soil rained down upon it. A whole six feet across was corroded into The earth. Immediately, the carbuncle jumped down the hole to retrieve whatever valuable it had sniffed out.
The selkie took to the sky, flying free like a bird. It climbed up to the clouds, scattering birds as it soared higher. Slowing as it disappeared into the blue sky, I got a notification.
"New skill available. Would you like to learn it?"
I clicked yes immediately.
"New skill name: EVOLVE"
I laughed to myself. "What is this, Digimon?"
I learned that evolve would, as the name suggested, evolve my summons to a stronger level.
"Evolve can only be used once a week." I read aloud. "Guess I'll have to be smart about who I choose to evolve." I definitely wasn't evolving the Scarlet Bunsen. That much I knew.
But who would I evolve? The Great Wing Demon seemed strong already. And that ugly mouse homunculi wasn't my style. I preferred summons with abilities.
This left the Carbuncle and the Selkie.
"The selkie is already strong. I mean, it can fly, dissolve and resolidify. It also has the Bunsen attack, while the carbuncle…"
The small creature emerged from the hole in the earth. In its paws it held a stone tablet.
"Bring it here!" I told it.
It dropped the strange stone at my feet. It looked tired but I couldn't revert it yet. According to evolve, the creature needed to be active.
Picking up the tablet, I took in the drawing it had on it.
A giant tree erupted from the earth, taller than the clouds that swam around its lowest branches. Gems hing like fruits from each branch, rubies and sapphires and emerald mostly. At the top of the tower was a winged lizard. At first I thought it was meant to resemble Demiurge, but my god was shaped more like a Chinese dragon than a western one.
The dragon at the top curled up like a cat, sleeping with its tail laid under its head. Beneath the tree was the depiction of four seasons. Winter was depicted as a chilling blue sliver. Next to it were the pink flowers of spring. On the other side of the tree was the green of summer followed by the browns of fall. A single word was written on the tablet.
"Ouroboros."
I didn't understand anything on the tablet, but I figured it'd sell for a lot somewhere.