3 days later...

As I have just started a new class, my exp requirements once again dropped down, but grows at a much faster rate than before. The only qualitative changes to our hunting has been the introduction of Tier 3 beasts and Summon’s Network allowing my summons to communicate and coordinate with each other. Summoner Teleport has been helpful, but not really necessary since even if I can teleport to a summons location if they find a pack of orcs, we still need to wait for my other summons to join together to fight them as a whole party. 

Tier 3 beasts are actually pretty insane. They are huge, perhaps elephant size. Not all of them of course, but most of the ones I have summoned showed a simple increase in size. Pretty much all of their physical attributes increased, with a minor growth in intelligence. With this taking care of the current orcs and hobgoblins have become much easier. The most interesting aspect with tier 3’s, however, is the introduction of special variants. Instead of a wolf that simply becomes elephant size, I have summoned special variants like lightning wolves. In addition to having an elemental attribute to increase their attack power, their intelligence is actually high enough to communicate. The lightning wolves are even more powerful than the giant wolves. Although lacking in raw strength, their offensive prowess and mobility allow them to dominate a giant wolf if one wanted to. They can’t communicate or understand anything too complicated, but language is still a major step up. 

For instance, a giant wolf can content with a couple of orcs, but it would still take a while to kill one if they are working together. On the other hand, a lighting wolf can easily eviscerate an orc before pouncing on another with its lightning infused claws, fangs, and long range attacks. With its speed and agility, it can easily walk circles around the orcs, taking virtually no damage, while taking them out one by one. In this way Giant wolves are better as frontlines, but elemental wolves are often much more suited towards hunting and killing. I can only wonder what new kinds of variants of other summon types would bring. 

I am also more than halfway to completing the Evolve skill, so only 3 more levels until I can upgrade my life Summons. I wonder actually, if any of my life summons could evolve into a variant? Or maybe they already are variants. Nix is actually quite different compared to the Merc Summoned earth elementals. It’s intelligence and adept earth manipulation are quite intriguing. 

On another note, after getting to know Ciel better, well she is quite like a butler in a lot of ways. Her attire, while not a suit, gives her an attendant like disposition, in addition to her well mannered countenance. She is a lovely person to talk to at night, since she will just listen for the most part unless I directly ask her a question. Asking her about what she might remember before being summoned, she answered similar to SIgrun in how she has all of this knowledge about an underworld and other demons, but nothing personal about herself nor what her previous name could be. With this quite of trend, I believe that my summoning skill might actually be creating creatures rather than summoning them. Ciel did remember about our previous encounters, and how I summoned her before as a Merc Summon but nothing in between,  so perhaps my skill might either be creating a summon and then storing them, or summoning a creature and wiping its memory but leaving it memories of its summoner? 

Well, in the end, all I care about is loyalty which Ciel certainly has shown to be full of. Reviewing my current party, there is me, Sigrun, Nix, Laos, and Ciel. 3 frontliners and two backliners, although since I have been devoting myself towards the summoner path, my own active skills only amount to mana arrow which has shown decreasing effectiveness on the new and stronger monsters already. That leaves only Ciel as a sort of backline summon, although I contracted her to be mainly a scout for our party. With my next life summon, I hope to get another backline, but I also want to wait until I unlock tier 3 summons, to see if I can find a variant suited for my desires. I think that the most ideal life summon to get would be either a dragon mage of sorts as dragon summons should be the highest rated race I can summon, and a mage would act as the main backline for our group, or perhaps a Spirit summon of sorts to be our backline mage. On the other hand, getting a cleric or support type summon might be good as well for our group, but I already somewhat fill that role with my S. Heal, S. Replenish, and buff skills for my summons, so all we need is a backline. 

Anyways with the introduction of variant tier 3 summons, our hunting speed has increased even further, and only a few levels away from unlocking the Evolve skill for our next power spike, I should be able to quickly increase my strength.