A Dual Crest Summoner In Infinite Summoning World

The villagers had gotten used to him being there after two years of constant visits. Auren had seen firsthand people's issues getting solved—and sometimes getting worse. Most of the time, though, the five elders of the village and Dante resolved the problems. 

But some issues, like lack of money and food, not having enough materials to make a strong house, sickness, the roads to town and other villages not being safe, domestic issues caused by low education levels—those were long-lasting.

They had a whole forest around them, but wood was supposedly useless against some types of thralls that threw fire. They also had to keep the outside of their houses well-lit with burning oil lamps so Thralls and Echoes wouldn't come near. Wooden houses did not go well with those—some, not having enough resources, did choose this path, and there had been two incidents in these past two years of wooden houses catching fire. 

It did give protection against the majority of Thralls and Echoes, so poor folks just used it while praying every night that their house wouldn't be in the path of a fire-throwing thrall.

For the longest time, Auren believed Thralls and Echoes to be just part of their religious belief—a superstition. Like spirits of the dead coming back for only the night or something. 

It was such a weird concept that he just never thought deeply about its validity and dismissed it completely. The issues related to them weren't usual either, only once every few months. Neither did people talk about it much. It was just one of many everyday things to them.

Monsters that were only visible at night. Such a video game-like thing. 

All his requests to see these creatures with his own eyes were refused by his family. He wanted to do it at night, sneakily, but he never got a chance. It had been only a few days since he seriously started believing in their existence.

The meeting went on as usual—the discussion on the Baron coming to their village for this year's harvest festival went on and on. The festival lasted a week, with the start and end being the most important. The Baron often visited some villages during this period, and this time, their village was among the ones to be visited by him.

It was still two months away, and the villagers were already going into hyperdrive.

The five elders: Tamun the Smith, Olda the Potter, Hanno the Hunter, Sura the Midwife, Mukishi the retired trader were the most gung-ho about it. Sura had been selected just last year when the last elder, Elban the Fisher, fell into the river while fishing and never returned home. 

Well, that's what his family said—one day he went fishing and never returned. To this day, they never found his body.

Auren remembered the long searches that had been organized for the old geezer. He was supposedly a pro fisherman—the villagers had a hard time believing the guy died like that. He even heard a rumor saying the geezer had always been a fish and now he just returned back to his original form.

When Auren had told that to Kenjo, the little dude had stopped eating fish for a whole month. Ah.. those were the days. The pipsqueak was starting to become too clever for such things nowadays.

The meeting ended, and Dante announced that he and Auren would come to visit each house today to ask for every family member's names and see their summons. No matter what the summon was, he informed them to have enough Chi to at least demonstrate it once. The villagers started murmuring, as they always did whenever something out of the ordinary happened.

Dante looked at Auren. He was standing just a little beside his father's old wooden chair—he nodded, satisfied with the notice. Auren had just thought about writing it as they described—good thinking by Dante to give him a live demonstration and have a confirmation for real.

The villagers left the village square. The five elders asked Dante in detail what he meant by making a list. Dante just said having one would help him manage the village better—which was the truth. Mukishi agreed, as Hanzo and Dante had predicted, and gave Auren a single empty paper and a quill with an almost empty ink bottle. He was supposed to return the quill afterward. Auren was afraid the ink would run out before he could write a hundred names.

Dante and Hanzo bought him and Kenjo the dumpling-like sweet called Dorondrem; the lady who made them only sold them every Sunday—it always sold out in hours. Dante was too respected in the village for him to stay waiting in line. Everyone moved away when he came, and the lady greeted him with warmth every time. She even insisted he not pay, but Dante being an ideal knight, always did.

After eating, they tried to go on their own separate paths, but it was too unusual for Kenjo, who insisted on tagging along, so Hanzo had to follow behind them as Auren and Dante headed for the edge of the village.

They started from the very far outskirts and made their way inside the village and then to the other side. Every time people saw him writing flawlessly on the paper with a piece of wooden board as support—they were awed. The village had an old scribe who taught young kids how to read and write and about history and such, but only kids above seven years of age were allowed to attend. They did not learn till they were 10 or even older unlike him who was home-schooled by his mother. 

The literacy rate was very low, and people did not see any importance in teaching their kids such things. Instead, they taught them how to farm the land, hunt, and craft things. 

Almost all sons followed after their fathers in whatever profession they had. Once in a while, some left the village and rarely came back. Some did, though, and indeed earned more than anything possible in this village.

Auren saw summon after summon, each even more random than the last. Mostly, they were all black crest people. The ones who had upgraded to the second stage as blue crest summoners often had useful everyday things.

Auren learned that summoning alone was not how one's summon leveled up a rank; the right use of the summoned item also played a huge role in it. 

A man who could summon an iron axe with a wooden handle could kill and fight to reach the next stage, but if there was a man who could summon a wooden bucket and his buckets were used by as many people as possible with satisfaction, then the bucket summoner would rank up quicker than the axe summoner.

It was only for object summoners though—beast and spirit summoners only leveled up their rank by hunting, fighting, and having a close bond with their summoned companion Dante told him.