It took days before Sera was walking unassisted again, which meant I got to spend a lot of “quality” time with her.
Normally, the mana in her legs would have recovered in hours, but she’d drained herself so significantly that her body was having to prioritize what it restored first.
The first mana potion helped speed the process along a bit, getting her to the point where she could stand, but she refused to drink the other two, claiming that they made her feel nauseated.
I looked into that a little — it was apparently a pretty common side effect. I decided to dig into how mana potions worked a little later. They wouldn’t offer permanent improvements like the enhancement elixirs I had tried to research before, but I knew it’d still be useful to figure out how to manufacture them.
We were heading to the dining hall when it occurred to me to ask a critical question. “Did they ever end up paying you?”
She shook her head. “I got a letter explaining that I’d get my cut in about three weeks. It’s pretty significant, though.”
“How significant is pretty significant?”
“Two hundred silver sigils.”
I let out an appreciative whistle. “I’ve never had money like that.”
She chuckled. “No kidding. I don’t think I’ve ever had a quarter of that. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with it.”
“Might I suggest investing in one of your favorite Enchanters?”
Sera let out a snort. “I’ll think about it. It does mean I can afford to have you make me a gauntlet, at least.”
“I could make you something much better than that gauntlet with two hundred silver. But it’d be smarter for me to practice on some smaller things first, so I was sort of serious about the investment.”
“I’ll think about it. For now, food.”
It was her first day back at the dining hall — I’d been bringing food back to her room while she’d been unable to make the journey — so she set into the hall with reckless abandon.
By the time we sat down, she was carrying two full trays, and I was carrying another tray for her, in addition to my own.
There was zero chance she’d be eating all this, but fortunately the dining hall did let us pack up any left overs. Which, by the look of it, would be virtually everything.
We hadn’t talked much about the fighting. She’d been pretty miserable during the recovery, so I tried to keep us focused on other topics. Now that she was back on her feet, though, I had some questions.
“That binding thing you were doing. That’s how Summoners get their new spells?”
She looked contemplative, even as she eviscerated a potato. “Sort of. The binding spell teaches my attunement how to make an inferior copy of whatever I hit with it. It’s not like having a real contract with a monster. A real contract is much more versatile.”
“So, if you can make a copy of something that easily, why don’t you have dozens of things you can summon? Wouldn’t your teachers just summon things in class for the whole class to copy?”
She shook her head. “Every binding we make takes up a little bit of our mana, for as long as we maintain the bond. If I had a whole bunch of them, I couldn’t summon anything at all, so it’s only worth it to keep a few.”
Sera paused, tearing off a piece of bread with her teeth. “We did learn a couple of basic summoning spells in class, but most of the teachers consider bindings worthless, since the monsters are so much weaker than the real thing.”
She took a breath. “Most people focus on making real contracts, since they have a similar cost in mana to bindings, but contracts give you more options. For example, if you have a contract, you can draw on the creature you’ve contracted for power without summoning them. That’s how I use my ice spells.”
I prodded at my own food, but I wasn’t nearly as hungry. “I remember you — or Teft, maybe? — saying something about summoning modified versions of things you’ve contracted?”
“Yeah. Like, if I had a real contract with an ogre, and I had some fire mana, I could summon a fire ogre.” She grinned. “A fire ogre. Now I want one.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, I get the idea. And you’re still not going to tell me what your contract is with, right?”
“Nah.”
I picked up a piece of one of her potatoes with my fork. “Well, if you’re going to be that way...”
“Hey! That’s my third favorite potato! You give it back!”
I popped it into my mouth.
Sera put a hand over her heart, giving me a lamenting expression. “Alas. It was so young.”
I chewed. “And salty.”
Sera tightened her lips. “I do want to tell you what my summoned monster is. But I can’t.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “What do you mean?”
She sighed. “It’s part of the contract. The creature is... eccentric. I’m not allowed to tell anyone I have a contract with it until it agrees that I’m ready.”
I blinked. “That seems like a pretty bad deal.”
Sera shook her head. “No, it’s a great deal. You’ll see why eventually. But in the meantime, I can’t tell you what it is.”
“Fine, fine. But it gives you ice magic in the meantime?”
She nodded. “Yeah. And some degree of control over ice magic, which is pretty useful.”
I’d noticed that when she managed to stop the karvensi’s spell in the arena, but I hadn’t realized the ability was from her contracted monster. Interesting. “So, different contracts offer different benefits, in addition to summoning. Could you contract an ogre to make yourself physically stronger?”
She made a ‘hmm’ noise. “Maybe? I’m not actually sure about that. I’ve only looked into summoned monsters that give me enhanced magical abilities, but it sounds possible, yeah.”
“Could that be how Derek was so strong?”
She lifted up a cup of juice and took a long sip. “Ahh, something that isn’t mana potion. Delicious.” After a brief moment of savoring the beverage, she continued. “Anyway, no, he’s not a Summoner.”