Ning was invited into the chief's house like an honored guest. The chief was respectful to Taron and Saph too, but not as much as he was to Ning.
Ning was happy that he decided to dye his hair red, or who knew what would have happened.
The villagers asked for him to show them how to summon stuff, but Ning told them he would do it tomorrow.
After all, he had no idea how any of it worked, so he planned on thoroughly learning about it tonight.
In the chief's house, they were given two separate rooms. One for him and Taron, while the other one was for Saph.
Just because the chief wasn't impressed by her didn't mean he wanted to embarrass a young lady from a rich house.
Who knew what sort of tragedy would befall him if he decided to anger such a person.
Around evening time, the old man called them for dinner and treated them in some of the finest food they had.
Which, unfortunately, was nowhere near as good as what they had just eaten for 3 days in a row for their party.
Still, they ate happily. The chief asked a lot of questions about the outside world, which Ning had to go through his mind every time to find an answer.
When he started asking questions about summoning, that was when Ning decided to stop the conversation.
"I'm sorry," the old man said. "Y'all mus' be bothered with ma talk about summonin'."
"It's fine," Ning said. "We're just tired for today, that's all."
"I understand," the chief said. "It's jus' that my daughter is leavin' for summonin' school in a few days, and I'm jus' worried for her."
"Your daughter?" Ning asked curiously. The old man hadn't introduced any daughter of her. "Where is she?"
"She's out helping a friend right now, but she should be returnin' soon," the chief said.
"I see," Ning said. "We will see what I can do."
"God bless y'all," the chief said and the three of them returned back to their room.
"How long are we staying here?" Taron asked.
"Until tomorrow afternoon," Ning said.
"But you promised to teach the villagers about summoning. Will you be able to do that in that short time?" Taron asked. "Besides, you don't even know about summoning."
"I will learn tonight, and ask Saphandra for some help," Ning said.
Ning then went into his mind and started learning about everything that he could about the planet, the people, and the power.
The planet Nulwurn was about 80% water, while the lands were almost all scattered around the world as a bunch of island.
As such, there was no specific continent. The people had different culture from island to island, but due to the improvement in the travel sector, that was starting to become a problem less and less.
They were currently on the quadrant of the planet where the Summoning Circle was least prevalent due to the influence of the Rising Flame empire who didn't like the influence of the Summoning Circle on their people.
Ning was too far away in a remote village to have either of these two things bother him.
As for the people side of things, fortunately, there wasn't anything weird about this world.
Ning then started learning about Bondforging, or rather just one aspect of it, Summoning.
When summoning, you used your Spiritual energy to call for something to come to your place.
To make them come, you had to offer something in exchange for taking something.
Ning was a little confused about this part, so he decided to asked Saphandra the next morning.
After a while, he felt quite tired too, so he fell asleep too.
The next morning, he found Saphandra and went out to the fields to practice summoning.
"Alright, tell me exactly what to do based on your experience," Ning said.
"Don't fret too much. You have Spiritual energy, so you will do just fine," Saphandra said. "Now, focus and try to touch your Spiritual energy. Feeling your energy is the first step."
"Feeling my Spiritual energy?" Ning thought and closed his eyes to focus fully on himself.
Not even a second later, he thought he felt something. "I think I can feel it," Ning said.
"Nonsense," Saphandra said. "No one can do it that fast. Keep trying, you will know."
Ning thought she was correct, so he continued trying to feel it, but every time he thought he did it.
'Wait a minute,' he thought. 'My new talent must be working already.'
"I think I did it," he said. "What's the next step?"
"Well, if you did it then try to use your Spiritual energy next. When you use it, you will find yourself connected to different beings. Try and call them," she said.
"Okay," Ning said and tried to use what he had felt before. Suddenly, he found himself in a sea of darkness and he was only surrounded by specks of white light all around him.
He looked at the lights for a while and wondered if they were star. However, they were too close to him to be stars.
So, he tried to reach for the white light and grabbed one of it. He waited for a while, but he didn't know what to do with it at all.
So, in the end, he let go of the white light and found himself back in his body.
"Woah," he said.
"What happened?" Saphandra asked.
"I did what you said, and I found myself in a dark place searching for something," Ning said. "But I don't know what to do after that. I know I'm supposed to make a bond, but what sort of bond?"
"Woah, you did that in a split second? Just how talented are you?" Saphandra asked.
"Split second? I was there for a good minute," Ning said.
"It's your mind," she said. "Things in your mind happen faster than in real. You were there for only a split second."
"Ok, so what next?" he asked.
