Divine Luck: SSS-Rank Battle Maid Harem

Zach's question stunned them both. If they got a contract skill with every familiar they summoned, and they summoned a whole swarm of familiars, they would get a bunch of incredible contract skills that would let them do all kinds of crazy things. They couldn't even imagine it.

But of course, neither of them knew the answer to Zach's question, so they had no idea how many familiars they would be able to summon in the future. For now, they knew that Zach could summon his second familiar as soon as he reached level ten.

Assuming that was the only requirement, it still didn't mean that it would be every ten levels. It could be an incremental level difference between each summon. And if it were every ten levels, it would still be difficult to summon more familiars since it got harder and harder to level up. Read the latest on m_v-l'e|m,p| y- r

The first few levels had been easy, but Zach and Yanael had killed more monsters than they could count on the way back home, and he had only gone up approximately one level and then another after killing the ratlings and their rat king.

If he had an ongoing supply of monsters like the rat king, it would be easy to level up. But he didn't have that, not to mention how dangerous it would be.

But their ignorance and lack of answers didn't stop them from daydreaming. They did it both alone and together. They didn't have much else in common but summoning. Yet, summoning was such a big part of both their lives that they still talked about it all throughout their return trip.

They regrouped with the rest of the club and gathered and sorted all the samples in a storage room Jarron had allocated them. Since it was so late, they would start the research some other time.

The next day, they had mundane lessons about the Empire and its history. It was something most nobles had already learned before attending the Academy. But the class wasn't only comprised of nobles. The information was trivial but necessary for life and work on a bigger scale in the Empire.

Then, there was a lesson about summoning the second familiar. Zach had already done that, so he didn't need to attend. He was slightly curious about what the theory behind it was since he had just gone to the Labyrinth of Jira and gotten lucky after reaching level ten.

But when he couldn't find the right classroom, he gave up and started looking for the storage room with the samples the club had gathered. Compared to the classroom, the storage room was much easier to find. He just had to follow the musty smell of decaying plants, mixed with the dusty smell of underworld energy.

It seemed he had gotten more sensitive after all his troubles with the Underworld. If he grew stronger with each level, it also made sense that his senses became better. It was only his sense of direction that was still so far behind it wasn't even in the same race.

Zach mused to himself that a sense of direction was unnecessary anyway as he opened the door to the storage room and frowned.

The room and air were filled with dark, smoky underworld energy, and many of the plants seemed to have withered overnight.

"...Well, that sucks."

Zach wished he had brought Julius' Mannequin with him so that he could clean up the underworld energy, but since he hadn't, he dealt with it on his own by opening the door fully and letting the energy drift into the corridor.

He ignored the worry and confusion from the other students in the hallway and entered to inspect the samples with Yanael and Alzara. He also had a barrier raised to keep the underworld energy from touching him.

After taking a look around the room, he could confirm that most of the plants were in various states of death and decay. Without a continuous supply of the underworld energy that had spurred their mutation to start, the plants had nothing to keep them somewhat intact. The various plants also had no way to retain the underworld energy on their own.

When taken out of the forest, the plants had a limited lifespan.

"Hmm."

'That's good to know.'

As long as they could stop the underworld energy from spreading and maybe even get rid of it, the forest would enter a state of death before being reborn, hopefully. The forest and the plants and monsters themselves weren't necessarily a problem or something to worry about.

They wouldn't spread the underworld energy further or contaminate other things. There wasn't enough underworld energy in them.

Zach had started figuring out what to do in more concrete terms than prevent the Froltip Forest's doom and the Underworld's encroachment on the surface.

They had to stop the spread of underworld energy.

Zach went through the samples they gathered yesterday and started throwing out almost everything. He saved a couple of plants that seemed to still have some stubborn life left in them. But he cleared most of the shelves and threw everything in the trash can, which he then placed outside the storage room.

And after a while, the rest of the club members showed up. His classmates came almost all together, and Liam arrived a little later. But when everyone had gathered, Zach shared his findings and thoughts with the club.

"There has to be a source," Julius said with conviction.

Zach and Dukiel looked at Julius and then at each other.

"It has to be that damn tiger," Dukiel cursed. Even in death, it was still causing trouble.

"To be precise, it's the arm the underworlders boobytrapped. I thought there was a finite amount of underworld energy in it, but considering the contamination is spreading without any signs of stopping, it's likely there's more underworld energy coming from down below."

Liam looked confused, even after Zach's very helpful addition to Dukiel's statement, so Dukiel quickly explained the situation.

"...That trap could have acted as some sort of catalyst or to open a path between the Underworld and the surface." Liam shared his wisdom as a third-year.

"It's decided, then. Find that leg and break." Zach grabbed the map and drew a circle around where they had fought the tiger.

Dukiel took the map and erased the circle and redrew it where they had actually fought, not where Zach guessed they did.