Heads turned as the audible door swung open. Its appearance deviant from the other doors: larger, adorned with golden decorative features that sprawled out across its surface like branches and most important of all, the radiant glow that emanated from behind it.

Slowly, the chatter began to return. Some whispers sent gazes towards the newly summoned Keristis.

"What is that?"

"Is that Aurelius' Summon?"

"It must be his new protector."

"It defeated Fallantis?"

Aurelius gave a quick sign of recognition to all the surprised faces and laughed,

"Looks like you've piqued their interest."

Serulia replied, "And I'd say understandably so, Fallantis was not an easy opponent to beat in a duel."

Aurelius snickered, "You and your Summons know that all too well, don't you?"

She scowled with a gaze so cold that it could freeze a desert instantly.

"Anyway," he awkwardly veered the topic away. "What do you think? Like the place?" queried Aurelius to Keristis.

Keristis gave a thumbs-up and scanned the large hall; it was similar to the room he was in before, but with a lot more comfort.

"Right, that's good. Now, we're finally gonna get your aura checked by Serulia here, then I'll explain everything."

Serulia directed Keristis to the desk on the other side of the room, hovering above it was a strangely shaped crystal that was orbited by golden rings, twirling and spinning in all directions. Serulia and Keristis walked towards it as Aurelius sat down at a table.

As they walked past the other Summoners and Summoned, mumbling and excited whispers danced across the room. Heads turned to look at the returning spirit from 500 years ago. 

She informed him, "That over there is the Curing Crystal. It prevents Summoning Blight which is something you don't really need to worry about right now. However, all Summons are required to be purified using that crystal in order to be indexed."

Serulia sat down behind the desk and with a quick movement of her hands, the crystal descended to eye level.

"Take a seat Summon, you can put your spear next to you."

He pulled out a chair from beneath the desk and lowered himself, his weapon leaning on the wall next to him. Surprisingly, the seat held his weight amongst all the heavy, protective armour he wore.

"All you need to do it place one of your hands on the crystal."

Just before his hand made contact, it started crackling with a large concentrated spark of energy. Its appearance changed, becoming a dark shade of green that replaced its original clear transparency and a familiar voice spoke once again,

| Do not worry Keristis, you are immune to the corruption in the first place. This reaction is more useful to us than to her. We shall meet soon... |

As it faded away, Keristis noticed that the room was once again silent, as the surrounding stares seemed to pierce his armour. Serulia waved her hand and the crystal returned to its normal position.

"I guess the surprises never stop with you do they?" Serulia laughed, her demeanour much different to what it appeared to be at first.

Aurelius quickly ran over, the sound that came from the crystal still reverberating across the room. 

"Serulia? Are you alright? What was that?" he exclaimed.

Nonchalantly, Serulia reassured him, "You ask too many questions, everything is fine."

Aurelius retorted, "Seriously, what was that noise? It didn't sound, well, normal?."

"I'll tell you about it later, I just need to check his aura." Serulia turned back around to Keristis.

"Riiight... do whatever you're doing then. I'm not going anywhere though." He couldn't determine whether it was his curiosity or fear that made him stay.

Keristis, being in the centre of this entire ordeal, was still sat down. He was as confused as ever, why was everything he did a cause for surprise? It was as if he was an anomaly, not intended to be here but against all odds, he was. 

Bright green light dashed across the desk, bringing with it Keristis' aura. The information was hovering in magic text that was levitating just high enough to not touch the fine wood of the surface below it.

Serulia was immediately intrigued. "What is this?" 

Her words were stretched out, droning on as almost all of her attention was focused on reading the unordinary rundown of Keristis' abilities.

Something stuck out much more than the others, a foreign symbol obstructing the bottom half of the text, it had lettering on it that read:

'Courtesy of the Watchers - Permission Requested'

The voice immediately returned, as if it had never left,

| One moment please Keristis. I admire your patience for not demanding an explaination. |

Keristis thought that the voice was ridiculing him. After all, how was he supposed to demand if he couldn't even communicate properly in the first place?

Serulia dismissed the symbol and continued to read what was not obstructed by it.

"Let's see what we have here... First I'll read out your summon abilities, to put it in the most basic of terms they're essentially the foundations of what you are able to do."

She continued to explain, "They're usually accompanied by information about the ability, like a brief overview of what it can do."

Keristis couldn't read upside down very well but he made out that the numbers next to the abilities were fairly low, was he actually weak? 

The eyes of the Summoner before him widened greatly. She leaned back in her chair.

"Something is wrong. Your abilities aren't displayed, instead there's something about... Stages? Everything here is displayed at Stage 1 apart from... Sovereignty, which is Stage 7. I have no idea what this is about."

Aurelius chimed in, "See? I told you something wasn't right! Let me look."

"Stop it Aurelius, this is serious." Serulia snapped, "What if your Protector here only got rid of Fallantis through some favourable mishap?"

Defending his Summon, Aurelius argued, "What do you mean mishap? You saw it yourself, in fact, you're the one who pointed out the weird thing that went on during his fight! Aren't you literally the person in charge of aura measurements?"

Serulia hung her head low and sighed, "I doubt my abilities are as accurate as I believe they are."

"Are you doubting yourself? Serulia, you usually never concern yourself over anything at all. But now all of a sudden when another unusually powerful Summon comes along, you start reconsidering your own capabilities? You shouldn't be like that, we both know that you're accurate and plenty powerful."

Aurelius' frustrated words turned into motivation for Serulia as a slight smile formed at the corners of her mouth. She replied with a single word, 

"Thanks."