My Summons Are Mythical Beasts

In a plain where giant, dark trees could be seen in the distance. Vaguely illuminated by natural light coming from above, the expanse showed withered grass as tall as an adult person's waist.

Waist wrapped in bandages, his torn shirt, worn akin to a blazer, fluttered in the wind.

Lucas stared ahead, his face pale, and there was a hint of exhaustion in his eyes.

Despite that, he was fully focused and committed to the scene ahead.

Spot, in his Hellhound Manifestation form, was fighting a beast akin to a field rat.

The field rat, however, was at least thrice the size of Spot in his Gentle Dog form. Its eyes were extremely red. Its gray fur added to the sense of dread it brought to the already decaying field of grass around it. The tail of the rat was also a curious sight, with the end tip carrying what seemed like a ball or a mace of some sort.

An Iron Grade-Iron Star 3 Mace Rat was a solitary beast found in this decaying field of grass situated parallel to the Giant Dark Forest. It was closer to the Safe Area, and hence, the beasts that roamed the field were mostly between Iron Star 1 and Iron Star 3 beasts like the Mace Rat—the reason why he chose this place as the finishing touch for his Day 1 journey.

Compared to the Shadow Lynx that was of the same grade and star rank, the Mace Rat was an easier prey, to say the least. It does not go around in groups and was easy to locate and spot in the field of decaying grass. Its mace skill was also not hard to avoid as long as one was not careless.

The Mace Rat should also be the next possible target of his classmates once they are done playing in the other areas.

The downside of the Mace Rat was that their numbers were limited, and while they were easy to spot once located, they could be quite difficult to find in the first place.

The Mace Rat that Spot was fighting was already the second they had found after more than two hours.

Although their efficiency had decreased, his overall safety had more or less increased as a result as well.

Here in the decaying field, Lucas does not have to worry about ambushing predators like Shadow Lynx and could put all of his focus on hunting the Mace Rat.

Anyway, Lucas was having a great time—except for his aching wound, at least.

After a few moments, Spot finished off the Mace Rat with one forceful slash of his sharpened claw.

[You have killed an Iron Grade-Iron Star 3, Mace Rat (100%): You gained 3.8 XP]

Spot returned to his side as Lucas took a look at this profile page.

[Name: Lucas Valen

Age: 17

Grimoire Grade: Unranked

Rank: Iron Star 2 (222.1/225)

Spiritual Energy: 49/58

Beasts: Gentle Dog]

Lucas nodded his head in satisfaction upon seeing his progress. Just one more kill, and he would finally advance to Iron Star 3.

As Lucas meditated between each hunt and even when Spot was still summoned, his Spiritual Energy had mostly recovered to full.

Now that he had hunted the Mace Rat in this location, though, it was now time to move to a different spot and search for another.

Thirty minutes later, Lucas turned off the flashlight he was holding and took a stop to meditate. The Mace Rat was still nowhere in sight, but Lucas was not anxious and instead took advantage of it to meditate and recover another batch of Spiritual Energy.

Before closing his eyes, he summoned Spot once again and told him to patrol the area and guard him from any possible threat. The Gentle Dog nodded obediently as it chewed the Moonlit Bone that was given to him by Lucas. This was also the last Moonlit Bone that he had.

Lucas had already mastered his meditation method. It was the most basic of the basics, and it has been taught to them since they were young.

Entering a meditation through it was fairly easy and only needed a little concentration. Nowadays, he hardly had any instance where he could not enter a meditative state in under two minutes.

Just fifteen minutes later, Lucas recovered fifteen Spiritual Energy in total. He actually planned to meditate more and refill all of his missing Spiritual Energy; however, Spot had barked at him and woke him up from his meditative state.

"What is it?" He asked.

Woof!

Spot barked and wagged his tail toward him.

A confused expression appeared on Lucas' face as he stood up from his sitting position.

Spot barked at him once again before hopping sideways. He then turned around and ran, and then looked at Lucas again.

Lucas was left confused but somehow understood that Spot wanted him to follow him.

Turning his flashlight on, Lucas followed behind Spot and realized that he was indeed trying to lead him somewhere.

After a while, Spot finally stopped in front of decayed grass.

The decaying grass looked normal at first, but upon closer look, Lucas realized that there was more to it than meets the eye. Their stalks were actually tied together into groups. The way they were tied created the illusion that everything was normal, but Lucas could tell that there was a huge space underneath them, hidden from sight.

Spot nose twitched as he kept on sniffing the sheaf of decaying grass, or whatever was hidden beneath it.

Lucas frowned, thinking that something was indeed wrong with this particular decaying grass.

"Spot, Hellhound Manifestation." Although he did not know what it was, it was better to be prepared in case something dire happened.

Spot barked and immediately transformed into his hellhound form, almost in an instant.

As cautious as he was, Lucas did not immediately try to check what was hidden underneath the clustered decaying grasses. Instead, with Spot on the lead, they surveyed the clustered grass to determine how huge it was.

A while later, he determined that it was not that big and was around eight yards in diameter at most. As he observed further, Lucas saw that one spot seemed to be out of place.

"An entrance?"