Proofread by Wang Xiaoyi and Peter Gong
In the year of Cang Yun 843, Mayor·Wolf left his hometown for Imperial City where he met his best friend Alan·Fox.
In the year of Cang Yun 858, The Foxes overthrew the decaying Red Moon Dynasty and established the Red Fox Empire. Alan·Fox thus became the first emperor of the Empire, known as Fox I.
This year was also the first year of the newly born Empire, and Mayor·Wolf had already become an Earl. Moreover, it was said that he would be made the First Grand Duke of the Red Fox Empire.
Later, however, he voluntarily returned to his hometown. The emperor agreed very soon and granted him the land of his hometown which was thus named after him, the Mayor Town.
In the 23th year after the Empire was built, Mayor passed away at the age of 55, and afterwards the Wolf Family began to decline.
Now it is the year of 323, three hundred years after Mayor's death, the Wolf Family is in jeopardy and the whole family is about to die out in history because Patriarch Brian is the only one with noble status within the whole family, but he has no lineal descendants to inherit his title.
According to the law of the Empire, non-lineal descendants are not entitled to the title, which means that upon the death of Patriarch Brian, the Wolfs would be deprived of their peerage. In addition, their estates and the Mayor Town which they have inherited would be taken back by the Empire.
The only way to preserve the Wolfs' peerage is that another member of the Wolfs could be granted by the Empire to gain the nobility before the death of Patriarch Brian.
Now, Rowen is the last hope for the Wolfs and the expectation they have placed on him is not only to ask him to preserve family's peerage, but also to rejuvenate the Wolfs since Rowen is a summoner.
Although summoner is slightly less than enchanter and warrior in number, summoner is not a rare occupation. But for the Wolfs, summoner has a special meaning.
There are only two summoners in the family history, one is Rowen, the other is Mayor who died three hundred years ago!
Mayor had brought the Wolfs to its glory time, and now the Wolfs place the same hope on Rowen, expecting him to lead the family back to the most glorious moment as Mayor had done three hundred years ago!
However, this hope turns to ash instantly because everyone knows that the future of a summoner can be told after he performs his first summon.
Summoners can be divided into ten levels, level I is the lowest level and level X is the highest. However, this level does not completely determine a summoner's ability.
In fact, summoner's level only shows how strong his magic power and spiritual power are, which only means the higher the level is, the more summoned beasts he possesses, and it has nothing to do with the level of summoned beasts. Actually, level-I summoner can also summon the level-1 or level-2 beasts or even beasts of higher level. Similarly, he who is a level X summoner cannot absolutely summon a level-10 beast.
However, it doesn't mean that there are no rules concerning what kind of beast a summoner can call out. After hundreds of years of research, the Summoner Union has finally found that the beast summoned is determined by another talent of the summoner.
Each summoner has a marvelous sensibility with his beasts, which is the essential talent of a summoner. It is this talent that enables summoners to summon all kinds of beasts. But this kind of talent differs from people to people, and the kind of beast one can summon depends on how strong the sensibility is.
Although this talent cannot be measured directly, it can be deduced according to summoner's first summon. When a summoner has his first summon, the higher level the beast he summons, the stronger his sensibility is. Another rule the Summon Union has found is that the level of following beasts the summoner summons will not be lower than that of the first one.
Because of this rule, the first show is essential for the summoners. For Rowen and the Wolfs, there is a record that cannot be ignored, that is, the highest level of a beast that a summoner can summon in his first time is only a level-4 beast, and this is what he got in his sixth summon when he became a level-VI summoner.
However, he finally gave up being a summoner. From then on, lots of summoners gave up when they had summoned a level-1 beast or pet beast in their summons. The level of summoned beasts is linked with the level of their summoners; the higher level the summoners are, the higher level the beasts will be, which makes this hierarchy more veritable---summoners of higher level will mean they possess more powerful abilities.
Tonight, it seems that the dream of being a summoner for Rowen has come to an end for the reason that experience accumulated from countless summoners in the past hundreds of years has told everyone in the Wolfs that Rowen is unable to become a powerful summoner.
Rowen shudders slightly as the chilly wind blows into the hall, and the wind also draws him back from contemplation. The hall looks desolate, and most people have already left except Patriarch Brian.
"Rowen, you should go back," Patriarch Brian taps him on the shoulder, saying exhaustedly.
"Sorry, Patriarch, I have let everybody down," says Rowen in a deep voice, as he knows exactly how much the whole family has expected of him. But just a few minutes ago, he could clearly read the disappointment in their faces.
"Boy, that's not your fault. Perhaps it is our fate," Patriarch Brian sighed slightly. "From now on, you could do whatever you like. You are only 15, and you don't have to shoulder such responsibility."
"But, Sir, I'm confident that I could be the most excellent summoner!" Rowen looks at Patriarch and says firmly.
"What?" Patriarch Brian is stunned for a little while, looking at Rowen with amaze. "Do you still wanna be a summoner?"
"Never give in! That's our Wolfs' first regulation," says he in a calm voice with a determined look on his face. "Our Wolfs nerve believe in fate, and we'll never yield to any people or any power. Patriarch, that's what you have been teaching me in the past ten years and I will bear it firmly in my mind!"
Patriarch Brian looks at the young man in front of him, and gradually, he no longer feels tired and bursts out laughing, "Well, very well, Rowen, you didn't disappoint me. Indeed, we Wolfs will never yield to anyone even though he is a God!"
Patriarch Brian puts his hand on Rowen's shoulder with much more strength than before and says to him with admiration, "Boy, try your best and I believe you will be the most excellent summoner and lead our family back to the past glory again in the future!"
"Yes, Sir!" Rowen nods.
"Well then, I have to go, and you'd better go to bed early."
"Yes, Sir," says Rowen with eyes on him when he left.
Only Rowen is left in the hall, but he doesn't leave at once because he really wants to figure out what this iron block is. In fact, he is still wondering whether it is a summoned beast.
There are thousands of different summoned beasts recorded in the Archive; although different beasts vary in all aspects, they still have one thing in common, that is, all summoned beasts are living creatures. However, the thing in front of him looks like an iron block without any signs of life.
In addition, summoners and beasts have already signed a special contract when beasts are summoned from other dimension, and they could contact each other spiritually. Thus, with this connection, summoners are able to lead the beasts to fight in the battle. But now, Rowen is unable to build any spiritual contact with this iron block. No matter how hard he tries to instruct it to attack, that block makes no response at all.
Here comes the question: if it is a lifeless iron block, then it is unlikely to be summoned, and if not, it should be a living creature.
"Maybe it doesn't attack because it is really a pet beast without any ability to attack?" he thinks.
He thinks for a while and quickly utters another incantation. When the incantation is over, that huge iron block lying on the ground suddenly disappears, which makes him arrive at a conclusion that that iron block is indeed a living beast.
Generally speaking, every summoner could create a summoning realm for beasts to stay. Once the beasts are summoned from the other dimension, the beasts could stay there waiting for the next summon.
In general, summoners don't have to say the incantation again to send the beast back to the summoning realm because they have already built a spiritual connection with each other. The only thing summoners need to do is to give instructions to those beasts. However, on some special occasions, for example, when the beasts are seriously wounded and lose consciousness, the connection between them may be interrupted. Under this circumstance, summoner should say a special incantation to send them back to the summoning realm.
What Rowen just said is a recall incantation which indeed sends the strange iron block back to his summoning realm, which means, this iron-block-like thing is actually his beast because only his summoning beast could go back to his realm.
But when he commands the beast to show up, it has no response again. He has no choice but to utter another incantation. Then, there comes a loud crash, the earth begins to shake and that huge iron block heavily falls on the ground again.
After several attempts, Rowen has finally accepted the fact that his first summoned beast is nothing but a weird iron block. He thinks over and over again, and comes to the conclusion that his beast may be wounded.
As mentioned earlier, the summoner would temporarily lose track of their beasts if they got injured. Once the beasts have been cured and recovered, this connection would be restored. Rowen feels relieved and relaxed when he thinks of this.
"I'd better go home first and ask the teacher tomorrow," Rowen makes the decision and walks out of the hall.
It is still snowing and blowing hard outside, and Rowen tightens his collar subconsciously. Stepping into the snow of nearly half a meter, he trots towards the northern corner of the Manor where the only house is located.
A few minutes later, Rowen arrives at the doorway. He pushes the half-closed wooden door open and walks into the room, and immediately he is surrounded by warmth. In the living room, there are two people squatting before the fireplace in which the fire keeps burning. They stand up and turn around and turn out to be a boy and a girl.
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