Others Summon, I Forge Beast Armor

Seraphina’s heart overflowed with joy when the roots returned to Luke’s body from wherever they had gone

”That skill is an amazing skill, Master,” she praised, being sincere. ”You could sense threats from places you cannot see, even when they are beyond your normal perception. If something dangerous entered the city, you could know about it before it ever came close to you.”

”Yes, that is what I was thinking, too,” Luke replied as he examined the grounds in which the roots burrowed through. ”If the roots can carry information back to me, then distance shouldn’t matter as long as they reach the area.”

”You could also use it to find people,” Seraphina added. ”Or monsters hiding underground. If something is moving beneath the streets, you may notice it before anyone else. You can also tell whether something is moving inside a building, and even distinguish between different types of movement, thus identifying what it could be.

It would even be difficult for someone to plot an ambush against you, provided that you have Rooting Witness active. You will know where an enemy is waiting before they attack.”

Seraphina’s eyes were as bright as a new penny as she thought of the possibilities.

Meanwhile, Luke listened to her theories and agreed that all of them made sense.

He rubbed his chin as he replied, ”But I don’t know how much information I can receive at once, and that may be one of its limitations.

There could be a range limit, a limit to how many things I can sense, or maybe the information becomes less clear the farther the roots travel. I won’t know until I push it further.”

”Then you should keep training it,” Seraphina encouraged.

”I will. My dexterity in the Bodyplate is still low compared to what it could become.”

Luke looked at the armor covering his body.

”The more I understand it, the more those limitations might disappear before I could even encounter them in the first place.”

Yes, Luke wasn’t worried about these hurdles because while he continued getting better at a fast pace, those limitations would simultaneously wither away by the time he was supposed to be capped by them. Sincerely, he was glad that he had achieved resonance with the Olympian Serpent and her armor.

Achieving this level of resonance with a Mythic-grade is a sign that he was doing his job of understanding all the beasts he could revive, not only borrowing the stats of their armor.

Luke looked up at the darker sky now and agreed it was time to call it a night.

”Seraphina, can you fix up the courtyard before we head in?” Luke asked, pointing to the splintered dummies scattered everywhere. ”Rearrange the dummies and un-destroy them so they’re back to normal and intact for tomorrow.”

Seraphina did as he said, using her magic to restore the dummies to whole and everything else.

After the courtyard was clean and orderly, they got inside the fortress to finally rest for the night.

Inside the fortress, Luke and Seraphina made themselves at home.

The fortress was clean and orderly at all times because Seraphina couldn’t stand any dirt–even if it was a crumb on the floor.

Also, Seraphina took care of any malfunctions, like a squeaking chair or a cricket inside the house.

But she couldn’t solve the problem of no food. Luke had no choice but to order again.

This time he asked for ten portions because he had someone next to him with a black hole for a stomach despite her slender angel frame.

While waiting for the food to arrive, Luke couldn’t shake off a bad feeling about the fortress still being empty.

Principal Claris and Camilia’s absence made the place feel compromised, like he was in a trap.

Luke can understand the principal’s absence. She could be handling more things, dealing with the Confederacy and the Bureau, handling matters involving the academy, or responding to something that required her expertise.

But Camilia should be back by now, and she hadn’t even opened any of his messages.

Was she tied up with emergency meetings as well as the baggage of the Trials? Was she stuck on an errand?

The fortress, as one expects from its name, was supposed to be a safe place, but it felt vulnerable with these two people absent for consecutive days.

”What if something happened to them here and I’ve been too occupied with the Trials to notice? Luke thought.

So he went to Camilia’s room and later Principal Claris’s suite, where he placed his hand on the doors and summoned his bodyplate. With his newest skill, Rooting Witness, he checked inside without breaking in.

After checking, he was convinced there were no bodies or signs of struggle. But their absence was still a mystery, and it was telling him of a sharp, waiting blade.

After all, Claris and Camilia are among his few allies.

So, their vanishing act felt like someone was methodically picking off his support network one by one.

Luke was forced to check up on his other connections, texting Scarlett and his sisters.

While waiting for their reply and also for the food delivery, Luke returned to his room and slumped on his bed to rest.

Roselyn and Adrian occupied his mind since they were the architects of his undoing, so he couldn’t just ignore their existence.

There were many ways they could try to deal with him without fighting him directly. They could attack his already broken reputation, interfere with his position at the academy, create trouble with the Confederacy, or use their influence to restrict his opportunities.

Luke believed he knew why they are avoiding confronting him directly.

His armors must be too powerful.

And he also had an Empyreal Angel. Anyone who knew what he could do would have to think carefully before choosing a fight with him.

Because his prowess was unparalleled, Roselyn and Adrian must rely on things like poisoning, assassination, or kidnapping to take him down.

Luke would be waiting for them at every attempt.

Thinking about his ”unparalleled prowess” reminded him of the Dark Dragonlord.

It had been two days since he completed its armor set, yet there was no sign of it.

Meanwhile, Seraphina, the Empyreal Angel, had been revived, even though he had completed their armor sets at the same time.

Luke looked up at the ceiling, wondering if the delay meant stronger beasts took longer to be revived, or if the Dark Dragonlord was undergoing some form of transformation/metamorphosis before it manifests.