After Undine, the next one to meet me was a fire spirit. It was a small lizard-shaped humanoid spirit called Salamander (Salamander). But it was so tiny it looked adorable, and it clung to me readily, apparently liking the fiery energy (fire energy) I possessed.
Then I saw the earth spirit, Gnome (Gnome). He somehow looked like a tiny clay person. The way he rose slowly from the ground and stood there seemed solemn and dignified, and the spirit’s actual personality seemed reserved and taciturn, too.
The next one I met was the wind spirit.
“H-Huh?”
I was bewildered as my body kept rising into the air and dropping back down.
What's going on?
“Ohoho! Sylph (Sylph) is very mischievous. Meeting a new master must have put her in a good mood.”
“Sylph?”
When I said the name, the air before me suddenly gathered into a white mass and took shape. It was a wind girl with 4 fairy-like wings, smiling a playful smile and spinning around.
When I called her(?) name, she nodded happily and circled me. A cool breeze blew around me, leaving me feeling very peaceful.
Ahh, a gentle breeze feels so nice.
When Sylph returned to her place, a fist-sized ball of light came before me. Looking closely inside, I saw a spirit of indeterminate gender wearing clothes with very long sleeves and a long skirt hem, with a faintly visible smile. The spirit floated before me, radiating light endlessly, and I reached out to touch it.
It came down onto my fingernail (toenail?) first, then bowed its head as though saying, ‘Please look after me.’
Hahaha, spirits are surprisingly adorable, aren't they?
“You're prettyyy.”
At my honest impression, the light spirit turned its face away. Heh, is it shy like Undine?
“It's Wisp. Will-o'-the-Wisp (Will’o wisp). It's useful in all sorts of ways.”
“Heh...... Can I have it?”
“Of course. From now on, you're the master of these spirits. Now, you'll need to make a contract, won't you?”
A contract? Couldn't dragons simply command spirits without contracts? Curious, I asked, and Mom said that even dragons couldn't just call up any spirits indiscriminately. They could freely summon only spirits bound to them by contract. Ordinary humans had to go through bothersome procedures such as reciting incantations to summon spirits, even after making contracts. Dragons, on the other hand, could summon them freely just by calling their names.
The method of contracting couldn't have been simpler. I only had to give each spirit a drop of my blood. That alone created a master-servant contract bound by blood between the spirits and me. Merely calling their names would let me call them—summon them, rather—from the Spirit Realm, the spirits' own world, and control them according to my will.
After that, I became absorbed in spirit arts, learning as I tried commanding and summoning them in various ways. It was simple play rather than study, but through that play, I learned all kinds of spirit arts.
Undine was probably the most useful spirit. Ask people what substance they used most in daily life, and they'd probably answer water. Whether washing yourself or breathing underwater, you only had to command a water spirit instead of using magic. Besides, I personally liked water. And Undine looked adorable, too.
Salamander was useful, too. Well, what spirit wasn't useful? But perhaps this fellow thought I was a fire lizard(?) like it, because it often rubbed against me to express affection. Watching it felt like seeing a puppy nuzzle its master. Fire was said to be humanity's greatest gift, so it'd be a great help in the future, too. Fire might seem unnecessary, but it found a surprising number of uses.
Gnome was quiet and had so little presence he might have seemed useless, but that was far from true. First of all, I lived with my feet on the earth. Aside from fellows like floating beholders or ghosts without material bodies, most creatures lived on the ground. That made the spirit of the solid earth a fellow I absolutely, positively couldn't overlook.
Besides, the precious materials dragons loved, such as gems, were in the ground, too. Gnome was indispensable for finding or making them.
Sylph...... was mischievous and innocent, just as you'd expect of a maiden of the wind. If she could speak properly, I might have had to hear a laugh like Mom's ‘Ahahahahaha......!’ every time I summoned her.
Their personalities seemed similar, too. Wind symbolized freedom, and Sylph was called a daughter of the wind, so I never knew which way she'd go next. For that reason, I gave up early on trying to control her completely.
Still, when I gave Sylph an order, she carried it out perfectly, sometimes even better than I'd imagined. So I tolerated her mischief to some extent.
Everything Will-o'-the-Wisp did was so adorable, so full of affection, that if it weren't a spirit, I'd have wanted to hug and nuzzle it. When I summoned it, it would blink on its own or circle me like Sylph, entertaining me.
I didn't stop at simply summoning them. I decided to summon 2 or 3 spirits at once and try making a sort of combination technique(?).
First, Undine + Sylph. This could create a waterstorm. It had almost no killing power, and perhaps its only use would be putting out fires. Or maybe watering a large greenhouse all at once.
Second, Sylph + Salamander. You'd probably know what this technique was the moment you saw the combination. The opposite of the waterstorm, it created a firestorm, turning the area it hit into a sea of flames. Wouldn't it look like a scene from hell?
Third, Salamander + Gnome. Asked to name the greatest natural disasters, you’d probably choose earthquakes and volcanoes. This technique attacked an opponent by making lava erupt along with an earthquake—or rather, killed them outright.—It could also secure my escape route, and was excellent for surrounding opponents with lava.
Fourth, Sylph + Gnome. A rockstorm. Vast quantities of stones whirled around, producing an effect like being struck with dozens of blunt weapons. When I actually tried it, the sight was so vicious that even I stepped back in surprise.
Fifth, Will-o'-the-Wisp + Sylph. This...... would only be for intimidation. After all, a storm of light could only look impressive, couldn't it? Light itself didn't have any special offensive power. Still, all that flashing would make an excellent distraction.
Sixth, Will-o'-the-Wisp + Salamander. What if I hid Salamander's flames inside Will-o'-the-Wisp's light? That would create an optical weapon (optical weapon). I could make a laser. It would look like an attack with a flash of light, wouldn't it? Within the beam lay tremendous heat...... Ohh, come to think of it, I could make an artificial sun, too, couldn't I?
Seventh, Undine + Gnome. This turned a fairly wide area into sticky mud, trapping the feet of anything passing through so it couldn't move. If I hardened it afterward, the opponent would be stuck in the ground, unable to budge, wouldn't they?
Eighth, Undine + Sylph + Salamander. I could use not just 2 elemental attributes but 3 at once. This combination spread fog across an area. The fog might be a little warm, but I confirmed that a whitish mist formed all the same.
Ninth, Sylph + Gnome + Salamander. Adding fire to the existing rockstorm, I gave the technique this name: ‘Meteor Storm.’ I named it that because it felt like countless meteors breaking through the atmosphere and bombarding one area. Its power was utterly vicious. Ahh, I'd rather not use it if I could help it.
Tenth, Sylph + Will-o'-the-Wisp + Salamander. What would happen if I added heat energy to the storm of light? I discovered that it became a weapon even more vicious than Meteor Storm. The dazzling mass of lights had the power to burn enemies away without a trace. To put it in a phrase borrowed from Mom as she watched my demonstration, it was this.
“Clean work!”
I created those 10 techniques. Summoning spirits wasn't particularly difficult, but apparently, humans and elves found it quite hard to summon spirits of different attributes together. They could summon several of one kind at once if they concentrated. But simultaneously summoning spirits with no affinity for each other, such as Sylph and Salamander or Sylph and Gnome, was enormously difficult.
Since the power of nature depended on attributes, leaning toward one made it very difficult to call a spirit of the opposing attribute. But as I'd said before, dragons were beings of nature. Calling all 5 kinds of spirits at once wasn't much of a problem.
Ahh, I'm so glad I was born a dragon!
It took me 10 years to learn and master spirit arts. Summoning spirits wasn't difficult, but their uses were so incredibly broad. I had to develop multiple summons and combination techniques, and pay attention to every summoned spirit so none would be forcibly sent back. That made spirit arts somewhat tricky to learn, but by taking my time and working through them patiently, I reached the skill of an advanced spirit wielder by human standards in 10 years. You could say those were days when I truly understood what it meant to have subordinates who sprang out the moment I called their names.
Only now, 10 years later, did I learn that there were spirits besides the 5 main kinds I commanded: fire, water, earth, wind, and light. All were based on those 5 main kinds, but possessed completely different, independent attributes. There were 5 kinds of these, too, called the 5 non-elemental spirits. To explain each, there were spirits of the forest and lightning—electricity, presumably?—metal—that was unexpected.—mind—that was unexpected, too.—and life—even life had spirits?—.
Honestly, metal and mind spirits were completely unexpected. I'd thought forest spirits might exist, so they didn't surprise me much, and I'd had some idea about lightning spirits, too. As for hearing there were life spirits, forget unexpected. I was so dumbfounded that I let it pass in a daze, so let's skip that.
The most unexpected thing was the existence of mind spirits. They governed mental processes such as the 7 emotions from Eastern Confucian and Buddhist thought that I’d learned in middle-school and high-school morals and ethics classes in South Korea (joy[delight], anger[wrath], sorrow[grief], fear[dread], love[affection], hatred[aversion], and desire[want]), as well as pleasure and terror. Apparently, everything about them was tricky, from summoning them to handling them, and controlling them after summoning was difficult, too.
That was because these fellows hadn't formed naturally. They came into being after creatures with emotions appeared and the energy of their expressed feelings accumulated until emotion covered the earth. So they had nothing whatsoever to do with the power of nature.
Summoning mind spirits required many mediums. First, the 7 emotions and other feelings had to be induced in creatures in one place, and they had to keep releasing mental energy until it condensed. In other words, you had to catch creatures and make them happy, angry, greedy, or mad with pleasure for 3 days and nights...... Could that possibly be easy? The answer was ‘no.’
Emotion was rather like crowd psychology. Gathering multiple living creatures in one place, at least beings with instincts, brains, and some ability to think, and inducing different emotions in each wouldn't be easy. However you did it, one side had to be happy while the other trembled in terror, and terror was a highly contagious emotion.
The idea of emotions spreading had no credible basis whatsoever, but once one individual began trembling in terror, its mental waves passed to other creatures, gradually spreading until the entire group suffered from terror. With several individuals together, emotion became a sort of crowd psychology, making it almost impossible to control or handle by ordinary means.
But dragons knew, possessed, and could use ‘extraordinary means’ to make possible what was impossible by ‘ordinary means.’ It was something I'd have to learn in the future, something I could use even without learning it.
‘Magic’ was exactly that.