Chapter 219 – Summoning Magic

Mo Lan felt incredibly fortunate. Thank goodness she had treated the golden bird as a mass of magical energy and hadn’t used the bad luck hex on it.

Otherwise, she would have been blacklisted by the Golden Bird Clan!

At the same time, a question she thought she already understood now had a new answer:

“So the reason the messenger spell’s progress bar never moved no matter how much I practiced wasn’t because I had no letters to send or because the magic wasn’t completing—it was because the golden bird isn’t magic and can’t be upgraded?”

“Exactly. The messenger spell is a Summoning Magic with a summoned creature. Any Summoning Magic that has a discrete summoned creature derives its strength entirely from the creature itself—it can’t be upgraded,” Amisha said. She then paused, “The only way you can improve it is to reduce wasted magical energy when casting.”

During the magic classes a couple of days ago, seeing how much Moira liked summoning the golden bird, Amisha had assumed she just enjoyed playing with it!

After all, many summoning witches liked to cultivate a bond with their summoned creatures, hoping that when they cast Summoning Magic to ask for help, the creatures might charge a little less magical power—give them a small discount, so to speak.

She never expected that Moira was trying to practice the messenger spell more to raise its level.

It was obvious she didn’t know enough about Summoning Magic. The Mo-Pic books focused more on spellcasting specifics, with very little theoretical knowledge.

Other young witches all followed the proper sequence—learning foundational theory first before attempting any magic.

Only Mo Lan could pick up spells at a glance from Mo-Pic books while being severely lacking in theoretical knowledge. Amisha reminded her:

“First finish reading all of 《the Apprentice Witch’s Spellbook》, then go find the foundational theory books for each branch of magic. Once you’ve read through all of those, then try casting spells and raising your level.

Don’t go doing something like trying to practice magic on a golden bird messenger again!”

Mo Lan wholeheartedly agreed, nodding vigorously.

This week’s schedule had been too packed, and she’d had to preview each day’s lessons in advance, so she simply hadn’t found time to finish reading 《the Apprentice Witch’s Spellbook》.

Today was Friday, and the weekend was just around the corner.

The only required theory class she’d had this week was 《Basic Mathematics》, and she didn’t even need to attend it anymore or do the homework.

This was the perfect opportunity to catch up on theoretical knowledge.

She also decided not to continue with the Magic Q&A class for now.

“Headmistress, I’ve finished asking my questions. I’ll be heading out first!”

She hurried back to the Dormitory, grabbed some Breadfruit Cake from the cabinet to tide over her hunger, and Mo Lan opened her Grimoire.

The textbook for the All-Element Magic introductory course, 《the Apprentice Witch’s Spellbook》, was originally designed as a guide to help young witches understand each branch of magic, providing direction for their future in-depth study of the corresponding schools.

Beyond the eighteen spells included as examples, the bulk of the content was theoretical knowledge and methodological guidance.

She had been squeezing in reading time whenever she could this week, and had just finished the section on dark magic.

Originally, following the order, she was supposed to read the section on healing magic today.

After the healing section, there were still the blessing, curse, and then finally the summoning, spatial, psychic, and necromancy sections to go.

After what had happened in the Magic Q&A class, Mo Lan decided to skip ahead and read the summoning section first, to satisfy her curiosity.

When she had learned the messenger spell, she hadn’t even used the Golden Pen Technique, nor had she signed any contract with a golden bird—the golden bird had simply appeared the moment she called.

If it hadn’t been like that, she wouldn’t have gotten the impression that the golden bird didn’t seem like a living creature, but rather a slightly animated mass of magical energy.

She had no idea what the underlying principles of Summoning Magic actually were.

She had originally assumed it worked like other magic—that because her casting instructions were clear enough, she had been able to summon the golden bird so easily.

Now it seemed that wasn’t the case at all.

After burying herself in the summoning chapter and reading it from start to finish, Mo Lan finally had her revelation. The principles behind Summoning Magic were completely different from the elemental branch magic she had learned before.

Elemental Magic converted Mana into the corresponding elemental force, then controlled it to take various forms, achieving different magical effects.

Each distinct magical effect constituted one type of Elemental Magic.

Summoning Magic didn’t work that way at all.

Its essence was converting Mana into a power of summoning and contracts, using that power to form contracts with creatures.

The contracted creature became the summoned creature.

This contract was also different from Sorceress Carmela’s contract authority—it was Contract Magic belonging to witches, originating from the power of summoning and contracts.

Each summoned creature required the witch to seek out and form a contract herself. Each summoning contract constituted one summoning spell.

Previously, in 《The Witch’s Complete Magic Compendium》 Mo-Pic book, Mo Lan had only seen three spells under the summoning category: the messenger spell, familiar summoning, and ally summoning.

She hadn’t found it particularly strange at the time, since the divination branch had an equally small number of spells.

Now she understood—summoning magic fundamentally had only two core spells: familiar summoning and ally summoning.

These corresponded to two different methods of summoning and contracting.

A familiar summoning’s summoned creature was a familiar. It wouldn’t leave when the summoning ended, staying by the witch’s side. When the witch grew stronger, the familiar could benefit as well, growing alongside her. Commanding a familiar didn’t require the witch to convert additional magical power or Mana through Summoning Magic into energy beneficial to the familiar.

A familiar’s life was intimately bound to its witch master—if the witch died, the familiar would die as well.

An ally summoning’s summoned creature was an ally. It would leave once the summoning ended, and required magical power or Mana as payment before it could be commanded.

The relationship between a witch and an ally was purely transactional—once the transaction concluded, neither party owed the other any responsibility.

These two spells could themselves be upgraded by continually seeking out new creatures to contract. However, once a corresponding summoned creature was obtained, the derived summoning spell’s strength was determined solely by the creature, and the witch could no longer train to upgrade it on her own.

The messenger spell was a summoning spell derived from ally summoning.

The reason witches didn’t need to seek out and contract a golden bird themselves was because the Golden Bird Clan was special—they were both a unified whole and countless small individuals.

It was a summoning witch ancestor who had combined her bloodline with ally summoning to sign an ally contract with the Golden Bird Clan, creating the messenger spell as an ally summoning spell that came with a built-in summoned creature.

Golden birds were allies—transactional in nature—which was precisely why angering them could result in them refusing to respond to the messenger spell.

If it were a familiar instead, even if a witch really did use her familiar to practice magic on, the familiar wouldn’t be able to refuse its witch’s commands.

Of course, no witch would ever do such a thing.

This chapter strongly emphasized that regardless of whether one planned to pursue the path of Summoning Magic, one should always treat allies and familiars with kindness and maintain one’s credibility.

That way, when witches ventured out into the world to seek summoned creatures, their search would go much more smoothly.

At the end, it included an amusing little story.

It said that if a witch and a human both had their eye on the same high-level magical beast as a potential summoned creature, the witch only needed to prove she was a witch to win out over the human.

This stemmed from the reputation summoning witches had built for how they treated their allies and familiars.

Some magical beasts who wanted to find a master to provide room and board would even deliberately come to the Wilds to seek out traces of witches.