A Dual Crest Summoner In Infinite Summoning World

6 months later.

It was a Saturday. Dante had come back earlier today—he had found a herd of deer and hunted two of them. Had to come back with that much weight. It was one of the good days for him. So in the early evening, around 4 o'clock, after having a light snack, the swordsmanship training had resumed.

Auren, Dante, Hanzo, and the young Kenzo. After half a year of persistent efforts, Kenzo had finally managed to advance a little in the way of the sword. He had understood at last that it was not part of playing. He liked doing the amusing stances and attacks but hated the basic training to build muscles and stamina that Dante and Hanzo made them go through every few days.

Auren had more or less mastered the basics of swordsmanship to perfection. There was nothing else to do—it had become quite an obsession of his. Dante personally trained him even in their backyard—giving him advanced lessons which were challenging for him at least for now. He awaited to master anything Dante taught him so he could learn what came next. It was like completing a game, always curious to find out what would happen after this.

In six months, he regularly summoned the black particles every single day—a few days he missed, but they weren't much. The white smoke-like energy inside his body—he had become a master in manipulating it by now. He could even use a very tiny amount of it to power his muscles just a bit at crucial moments and exert much greater force in various movements of his sword attacks. 

Even today, he had already summoned his black particles for the day and kept them all hidden in the same cloth in his backyard, except the little thread Sable had tied on his hand. He still had not revealed to his family the summons he had.

Auren did hear Dante and uncle discuss about 'When it was right to teach them to control the Chi'. That's what they called the white smoky energy present inside everyone. Apparently, kids normally did not have enough of it to activate the crest—only seven-year-olds and older could do that. And even that after constant practice to control the Chi for at least a year. So it wasn't a good enough time yet for him to reveal this.

Maybe because he was a person with two summons or probably because he played around and controlled the energy inside him every single day—he had enough energy even now to do three summons at once. The control of the obsidian stone remote also took this energy though, and he had to keep a little in his body at all times to not feel the backlash of it so strongly. He had learned that the hard way.

"Aonen, let's play catch after this."

Kenzo said while breathing heavily beside him on the grass. They had just done 100 forward slashes and were given a little time to rest. After this, there was more exercise and even running afterwards. And this dumbass wanted to run even more after that.

"Kenzo, do you know life is full of disappointments?"

"Diso-all-pants?"

"Yes, Diso-all-pants."

"Still we play catch."

"Playing catch won't solve issues, boy."

"Catch! We play!"

"Fine, fine. We will play afterwards."

They went back to do more footwork practice. Midway through, someone shouted loudly from his own house's direction.

"Hey!"

It was Sable. Apparently, some men had come to meet Dante. Hanzo also recognized the men and went with Dante to talk with them, telling Auren and Kenzo to keep practicing. Auren also knew the people—he had attended many Sunday gatherings and was able to recognize most of the village people. Those two guys were brothers—their houses were together and their wives constantly fought. Must be about another episode of that.

"I will count, you just follow me.." Auren said. He knew very well Kenzo could not count to 100.

But no answer came. He frowned and looked beside him—the kid was nowhere to be seen. They were in Kenzo's backyard and the fence gate was suspiciously open and moving a little . Unlike their house, Kenzo's house had two fence gates—one in front, one in back. The back one was mostly closed, not open like it was right now.

'That pipsqueak!'

Even though they were warned again and again never to go out of the fence gate, seeing the first chance, Kenzo had made a run for it. Auren also quickly ran behind. Some 20 meters into the forest, and he found the little troublemaker. Auren called his name, but the boy was too high seeing the unfamiliar sights to hear him. He was chasing a blue butterfly with a wooden sword in hand.

Auren used a little energy in his feet every time his forefoot pushed against the ground to move him forward; that increased his running speed twofold. After a few minutes of chasing, he caught up with Kenzo. Before he could reprimand the guy for running off without saying anything—a sudden unease washed over him.

He couldn't explain it, but the air felt heavier, like something was watching him. The forest had gone quiet—too quiet. No birdsong, no rustling leaves.

Suddenly a faint crack of a twig to his left made him freeze. Then leaves rustled behind him, but there was no wind. A strange animalistic noise from somewhere around them.

'Was that a growl?'

He caught a glimpse—low to the ground, right of Kenzo, glinting yellow eyes watching them. Something darted between the trees. Before he could see, it was gone. There were more than one.

He glanced at the ground—paws. Fresh. It looked like a dog's.

The growl came again, and Auren finally got a good look. Wolf. No—wolves. A whole pack of them. Kenzo was still busy watching a butterfly he had been chasing mindlessly for a while. It was high on the tree, and Kenzo could do nothing to it other than just watch, unaware of what had surrounded them.