# 154
**Chapter 154: Summoning Magic**
Lin Qiye’s heart was in his throat as he stared nervously at the spinning wheel before him.
The wheel slowed to a crawl, the pointer gliding past one section after another. Under Lin Qiye’s watchful gaze, it finally stopped on a few small words:
—**Summoning Magic Mastery!**
Summoning magic?
Lin Qiye froze at the sight of those words. His mind instantly conjured up cinematic images of someone raising a hand and summoning a frost dragon in a blaze of glory. His blood pressure spiked.
Compared to the purely mental **Mortal Divine Realm** or the close-range **Umbral Erosion**, this one clearly had far more visual impact.
Lin Qiye reached out, and the small words dissolved into a beam of white light that flowed into his body.
> **Summoning Magic Mastery:**
> Gain all of Merlin’s summoning magic knowledge. Transform your body into a hyper-compatible summoning magic vessel. Reduce casting time, required materials, mental energy, and casting difficulty by 50%.
The moment he read those words, a flood of knowledge surged into Lin Qiye’s mind. At the same time, the white light rapidly altered his body. Nothing seemed different on the surface, yet everything felt... changed.
Half a minute later, Lin Qiye came back to his senses and rubbed his throbbing temples.
“Summoning magic... so this is summoning magic...”
According to the knowledge now in his head, summoning magic was broadly divided into three types: **Dimensional Summoning**, **Designated Summoning**, and **Random Summoning**.
**Dimensional Summoning** involved offering a large number of valuable sacrifices to send one’s soul to another plane and form contracts with certain creatures. Upon returning to the real world, one could summon them using magic arrays.
**Designated Summoning** allowed one to summon something already encountered in the real world, provided consent was obtained—such as people or objects. However, summoning people consumed vast amounts of mental energy, and if the distance was too great, it became impossible. Thus, it was more commonly used for summoning previously obtained items.
**Random Summoning**, as the name implied, was completely unpredictable. The medium could be anything—a pebble, a stick, a coin. You might use a leaf to summon a frost dragon, or sacrifice a divine artifact and get... a hen.
After carefully digesting the entire summoning magic system, Lin Qiye let out a long sigh.
Of the three methods, only the first two were reliable. But the second had too many limitations, while the first required a large number of valuable sacrifices...
What counted as “valuable”? What counted as “a large number”?
No clue!
Maybe... the corpses of mythical creatures could be used as offerings?
Lin Qiye shook his head, calmed himself, and withdrew his consciousness from the Asylum of the Gods, returning to the real world.
The moon was bright and the stars sparse.
Lin Qiye slowly opened his eyes in bed. Glancing at Baili Pangpang—who was sleeping like a dead pig in the next bed—he hesitated for a moment, then sat up.
No matter what, magic was still magic. To a kid like Lin Qiye who had grown up in the city, the word “magic” carried a special kind of charm.
Since he already knew magic... why not try it out?
He quietly slipped out of bed, picked up one of his own slippers... paused, then put it back and grabbed Baili Pangpang’s instead.
Since neither dimensional nor designated summoning was viable, he could only try random summoning. And while random summoning was, well, random, the vast majority of results were useless junk.
Sure, there was a 0.0000001% chance of summoning a dragon or demon or something, but Lin Qiye had never considered himself that lucky.
He placed the slipper on the table, dipped his finger in water, and began drawing a magic circle around it.
Random summoning was just like that—simple, almost childish. No need for precision or rare materials. Just... fate.
About four or five seconds later, Lin Qiye finished the array and infused it with mental energy. The watery lines around the slipper began to glow faintly blue...
**Whoosh—!**
The slipper in the center of the array vanished, as if it had never been there.
Lin Qiye stared intently at the circle. After a long moment... still nothing. Empty.
Huh?
Wasn’t this random summoning? Where was the summoned item?
Just as Lin Qiye was starting to wonder, a faint, familiar sound reached his ears...
**Bzzzzzzzz...**
“A... mosquito?” Lin Qiye scanned with his mental energy and confirmed it: a mosquito was hovering in the air. He was stunned.
It was only May—mosquito season hadn’t even started yet—but under the “mighty” power of Lin Qiye’s summoning magic, here it was...
The mosquito flew in a lazy circle, landed on Baili Pangpang’s thigh, and took a hearty bite.
Baili Pangpang grunted, scratched his leg, rolled over, and kept snoring.
Lin Qiye rubbed his chin.
This magic...
Was kind of interesting...
And so, he quietly extended his “sinful” little hand toward more of Baili Pangpang’s belongings...
...
The next morning, Baili Pangpang woke up groggily.
He stared at the ceiling for a moment, then suddenly felt an itch on his hands and feet. Looking down—
**“What the hell?! Why so many bites? Mosquitoes?!”**
He gaped at the twenty-plus swollen bumps on his limbs, then turned to Lin Qiye.
“Qiye, there were mosquitoes in our room—and not just one! Did you get bitten?”
Lin Qiye shook his head innocently. “Nope.”
“Strange...” Baili Pangpang scratched his head, then paused as he swung his legs off the bed. “Huh? Where are my slippers?”
He looked around, eyes wide with confusion. “Weird... both are gone. Under the bed maybe?”
At the words “under the bed,” Lin Qiye’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.
Baili Pangpang bent down and peered beneath the bed—then froze.
After a long moment, he reached under with disbelief and pulled out a pile of random objects...
“A cotton swab, tree bark, a lightbulb, a limited-edition Zenitsu figure, a box of fried rice, and... **stockings**?!”
He stared at the black stockings in his hand, then slowly looked up at Lin Qiye.
“Qiye... these...”
“No idea. Definitely not mine.” Lin Qiye shook his head firmly. “Why would I have stockings?”
“But...”
Lin Qiye pondered. “Maybe they’re Cao Yuan’s.”