A Head Start?

In a huge clearing right behind the red manor, Miguel and Erika were facing each other a dozen meters apart. Marcel was also standing a few meters away, here to supervise their spar, afraid that something would happen. 

Yesterday, the two of them decided that they would spar today. 

For Erika, she simply wants to spend some time with Miguel and get to know him better. 

But for Miguel, this was a rare opportunity for him to determine how people, especially summoners in this world, fight. 

His battle with Jonas was like a war veteran beating up a defenseless child. His battle against the Hare and the Yak could not be counted as well as they don't know how to summon and even know how to properly use their own skills. 

Erika was supposed to be some kind of genius. She was at the top of her class in Red Family's own school. 

Miguel expected that she knew a lot of tricks that he would not be able to think of now. 

As always, Erika still had a gentle smile on her face as she looked at Miguel with anticipation. She already heard some words from her father that Miguel doesn't have an Innate Beast and Innate Skill, hence the reason why he gave him the tortoise as his first contracted beast. 

Erika naturally knew of the history of that tortoise. She saw how her father struggled to contract it and how her father cared for it due to its supposed to be Silver Grade potential. She even heard that it has already become a Bronze Grade beast, meaning, its potential was indeed true and it was slowly being realized. Paired with a competent summoner like her father, she thought that it was only a matter of time before the Volcanic Tortoise reached its peak Grade. 

"In a real battle, the time consumed in summoning the grimoire and the beast is very crucial. A summoner might still be summoning their grimoire when a martial artist, a beast, or even a talented grimoire summoner has already started their attack. In school, the first thing they will teach you is how to master the summoning technique and shorten the duration of your incantation as short as possible." 

"With enough practice, one could even summon their grimoire without needing to chant. However, this is extremely hard to master and hence, those who can do so are either already old and experienced, or a genius, there was no in-between. Of course, there are magical items that can shorten the summoning time of a grimoire as well." 

Erika explained patiently to Miguel. She has already awakened for two years and has already experienced and learned her fair share of battles and knowledge in school. She felt the need to explain some things to Miguel beforehand, afraid that he would get bullied in school for being 'ignorant'. 

"I'll give you a head start, you can summon your grimoire ahead of me." She stated with confidence..

However, what she did not know was that Miguel had already learned of this from Marcel. He smiled and nodded at her before he waved his hands in mid-air, summoning the jet-black grimoire instantaneously, without the need of an incantation. 

Seeing that,  Erika's eyes went wide in surprise. She felt heat coursing through her face, she felt embarrassed about what she said earlier. She turned to glared angrily at her father, as if asking why he didn't tell her this. However, what she saw just made her dumbfounded. 

Marcel was actually looking the other way while whistling, as if he was not aware of what just happened. He even blew the dirt on his fingernails, acting dumb in front of his daughter. 

'Right, I forgot to tell her that Miguel is not someone noob at all.' Marcel thought to himself in shame. 

Knowing Miguel's attitude, he was focused on not revealing Miguel's real strength to Erika when he told her about him, so he also kind of forgot to mention about him being able to summon his grimoire instantly. 

"You can summon your grimoire now," Miguel stated with a smile on his face. 

With her face still flushed red in shame, Erika nodded her head as she closed her eyes and began to chant the summoning incantation. 

The summoning incantation would be provided by the grimoire itself the moment it got awakened by a user. For Miguel, this was easy and he would only need to 'tell' the grimoire to get out, but for others, this was a process that required focus and attention. One mistake and it might make them unable to summon their grimoire, and worse, they might even get backlash from it. 

More than a minute later, a bronze grimoire finally appeared before Erika. Her cheek was still red in embarrassment. She even dared to give Miguel a heads up when she was clearly slower than him in terms of summoning a grimoire. 

Her bronze grimoire was different compared to Gasper. According to Marcel, this was actually normal. Each grimoire was unique and had their own unique markings depending on their user. 

Now that she had already summoned her grimoire, Erika did not waste any more time as she summoned the beast that she would use to battle against Miguel's tortoise. 

A flash of red ignited as a huge black-red sparrow flapped its wing in front of her. It circled around her for a few times before it landed on the ground in front of her. The sparrow was huge and had red-black feathers with white markings underneath it. In terms of size, its wingspan alone was already almost three meters wide. 

"This is my new summon, a Level 1 Bronze Grade Red Sparrow." 

Miguel nodded his head and summoned the tortoise as well. Of course, he would not use Aaliyah in such a low-leveled spar like this. Though, he was sure that he could also defeat this sparrow on his own if he wanted to. 

The next moment, the Volcanic Tortoise also appeared in front of Miguel. Its eyes were watery as it turned to look at Miguel. This was the first time that it was summoned since it got contracted by Miguel, it felt aggrieved and it felt neglected by its new summoner. 

Normally, when a summoner contracted a new beast, they would be eager to summon them immediately so that they could train them and get familiar with the newly acquired summon.

Miguel felt its emotion and could only smile wryly in response. He did not think of the need to summon it before as every day, an Apprentice Rank summoner could only summon one kind of beast per day. 

Aaliyah was his trump card and had to delegate the summoning spot for her these past days due to the threat of Jonas and for his own personal safety as well. 

Only now did he have the chance to summon the tortoise as he knew that he now had a basic self protection with the Shadow Steps paired with the absolute shield. 

Miguel could only apologize in his heart. But of course, this doesn't mean that he would summon it everyday from now on. 

"Right, how much training have you and your tortoise done? How many skills can you command it to do now?"