The Liberomancer [Isekai Progression LitRPG]

The time had come which I had been eagerly anticipating - rewards were being handed out for people's contributions during the war!

It turned out that Lance was very generous with the reward he had given me - one hundred thousand Denarii. The bulk of it was because I had saved his son and not necessarily because of my war efforts; but I appreciated the amount nonetheless. A part of me knew it would be more noble to reject the money and say that I didn't need it but... I really did need it.

A good portion of it went towards helping rebuild Granny Qi's village - when I gave her the money for the grimoire she had given me that taught [Grand Fireball] she looked very angry and seemed to want to reject the money.

"What's wrong with you, boy?" Granny Qi demanded. "Did your mother also demand that you pay her back for breast feeding you? Don't insult me by handing me this!"

I ended up convincing her only after saying that she could use it to better take care of the village.

I didn't accept most of it in coins, the Liberomancer's Guild was more than happy to credit an account under my name with the appropriate amount, functioning as bankers - and that too with no processing fee.

That would make keeping money around far easier, at least while I was in Chipker. I was planning on visiting the capital while I left and headed towards Hansini - the king had wanted to congratulate me personally, and I did not want to risk offending royalty by saying 'no' to that.

I decided that one of my specializations would be summoner - I didn't know if I wanted to pick up a second specialization later or not, but summoning just felt right somehow.

I picked up [Second Summon- Rank Two] a Rank Two skill that let one make two summons which were Rank Two every twenty-four hours instead of the usual one - they had to be different creatures, and they couldn't be active at the same time. There were also skills like [Second Summon- Rank Three] and [Triple Summon- Rank Two] but none of them were available in Arconia right now.

I got [Summon Red Fox] which was a Rank One summoning skill - the red fox was not very useful combat-wise but could be used for tracking, going into places I was too small to go into otherwise, or simply watching over me while I fell asleep. I needed a Rank One summoning skill for some of the grimoires I intended to add later, and also - the thing was just really adorable and could even be summoned inside a city without much issue.

I did need another Rank Two summoning skill to make [Second Summon- Rank Two] work, and I chose [Summon Bear] for that purpose. The bear was a far better offensive option than the Elephant Frog, though not as good when it came to mobility.

I also bought [Summoning Extender- Rank One] which increased the length of time that summons could be active by one hour each.

There were other grimoires I wanted, and not just ones which could grant you the ability to fly (I would likely only get that in Hitutsa or some other country rather than in Chipker).

There was the Rank Two [Twin Summons] ability that let you have two summons active at the same time, Rank Two [Shared Souls] which let summons share the stat boosts, buffs, and other beneficial properties of the summoner, and Rank Three [Recall Summon] which let you re-summon a creature if it had been killed without waiting for the cool down period to be over in twenty-four hours from when it had first been summoned.

However, using [Recall Summon] still counted as making another summon and would therefore need a [Second Summon] skill of that Rank.

While summons were very useful and could be effective even if you had a small mana pool, the issue was that they were generally lacking in both offensive power and range when compared to other skills and spells.

As an example, it would have taken several minutes for the Tyrant Arachnea to have killed those bandits if I had so wanted to, while a single [Grand Fireball] would do so instantly.

If there had been more of them, say, like fifty, it would have been a problem for the Tyrant Arachnea, but [Grand Fireball] would've once again, come in clutch. The combo I used on the dryads wasn't as effective on other races. Additionally, most summons had to get up close to their target to actually do damage or had very limited range, while the range of corresponding spells of the same Rank were usually far greater.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

That was why nearly all Liberomancers did use summons, but mainly as meat shields to protect themselves while they cast spells which did the actual damage.

'There is no strongest spell, only the strongest spellcaster!'

There was no objectively best specialization after all, each and every thing had its own drawbacks and strengths. Even the choice of not specializing at all came with its own perks and downsides.

If there was a video game based off of this world out there somewhere - and there was a PvP option, without a doubt summoners would be considered trash in that kind of meta, while elementalists would no doubt dominate it. Of course, the world was not PvP. Things were usually quite cordial between Liberomancers, on the contrary, and the odds were minimal that I would end up in an actual fight with one.

Still, I still had a few useful offensive options which I thought were good enough, and I could always become an elementalist as my second specialization - I just wasn't sure whether I wanted to do that, or just get a variety of generally useful spells.

I was beginning to feel the constraints of only having thirty slots for every Rank - before, it had felt like thirty slots was an enormous number when I was scrambling around trying to fill them in as fast as possible to get to the next Rank.

Now though, it was apparent how limiting it was when it came to deciding what you wanted to learn. There were a number of spells or skills I wanted or thought could be occasionally useful, but I knew that I just wouldn't have room for all of them.

Was there a way to expand the number of slots in a Rank? No one had ever found a way to do so as of yet so far as I knew, and not even in stories like those about the Ruler of the Astral Winds could you find a mention of a grimoire that did that, so it was highly likely it was just impossible.

There was a Rank One grimoire that gave [Extra Slot] which would create another Rank One slot after the slot it was assigned to, but given the fact that it itself did nothing this was of limited use as the effective number of slots was the same. And sadly, even if you used it on the thirtieth Rank One slot that you had, it would not give you an extra Rank Two slot - that might've been useful, but the skill just didn't work that way. It would just end up doing nothing if assigned to your last slot.

Fact of the matter was, I had reached the peak of where I could hope to realistically get to, speaking in terms of Rank - unless something extremely fortunate happened like me finally being able to charge up my phone, or I spent decades in Libraria, which I had no intention of doing.

The only way to really get 'stronger' at this point was to fine-tune my build.

Fully specializing, however, had to wait given I couldn't get a good number of the grimoires I wanted for even my main specialization of summoner.

Unfortunately, there was a bit of a drought in the grimoire market, especially with Rank Three grimoires, given all Liberomancers had been busy defending the city, but that was part of why I thought it was okay to delay leaving for a while. I wanted to be as ready as possible when I finally left.

They did find a grimoire that gave [Ansoon's Blessing] - but this was in the capital, though they agreed to buy it for me and keep it in the capital so I could pick it up whenever I dropped by there.

"Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy?" I intoned while giving the red fox in my lap a belly rub. It rolled around happily, until I heard Granny Qi's voice from downstairs.

"Stefan, someone's here to meet you!"

The red fox got out of my lap and leapt onto the floor.

"Wha-" I began to say, shocked.

The way that it had moved while jumping, landing on its feet, right paw forward, one of its ears slightly bent, and mouth slightly agape - it was like it had been possessed by Cheddar's ghost!

I had seen Cheddar strike the exact same pose countless times. The imitation was so perfect that I momentarily forgot that there was someone waiting for me downstairs.

Of course, I soon realized what was going on.

Summons shared memories and knowledge with their summoners - and were also designed to serve their summoners in any way they could. They would, without a single breath's hesitation, sacrifice their lives for their summoners.

And so, it must have detected how Cheddar acted from my memories and was doing its best to mimic the same - because it thought it would cheer me up.

It did initially - but I knew this was eventually going to be followed by an even stronger wave of sadness when the summoning time was over and it returned to whatever void summoned creatures did when they disappeared from the world.

The fox, no matter how hard it tried, could not actually be Cheddar. It was just a section of my own mind which was inhabiting the body of a fox, after all, when you got down to it.

This was no different than replacing Cheddar with a virtual dog with a similar personality - it could not live up to the real thing.

"Stefan - it's rude to leave your guests waiting!" Granny Qi shouted.

"Ah - sorry, I was just finishing something," I answered as I flew down the stairs to see who it was. As I saw the form of a lizardman out of the corner of my eye, I thought it might be Drake or Zeke who had dropped by for a visit, but when I turned my head it was someone who I had not been expecting to see me.

"Lauren?"