3 Chapter 3: Five years later

"Do you seriously think you can defeat me?"

My opponent scoffed as he punched me. I blocked his fist as best as I could, but his strength was overwhelming. Despite my best efforts, I was sent hurtling several meters back, slamming into the ground with a cough.

"Ugh…"

Wiping the blood from my mouth, I climbed to my feet and narrowed my eyes behind my glasses. Good thing that punch didn't knock my glasses off my face, or I would have been blinded. And in a fierce battle like this, losing my vision (or having it blurred to near blindness, thanks to my horrible eyesight) would cost me the match.

My opponent leered, already thinking that he won. And he had every reason to. In terms of parameters, Tie Quan's stats were above mine except in magic. But I hadn't been able to cast a single spell.

"Give up," Tie Quan sneered as he stepped toward me. I merely dropped to a crouch and got ready to cast the only spell I knew.

I was confident that if I succeeded in casting it, I would win the battle.

Unfortunately…

"You think I'm stupid enough to let you cast your summoning spell?!"

Tie Quan suddenly appeared in front of me, hammering my midriff and interrupting my spell. I doubled over, blood bubbling from my mouth. He them smashed an elbow into my face, knocking my glasses askew and reddening my vision. As I sprawled on the ground, he stomped on my spine, causing me to shriek in pain.

"The match is over." Teacher Ruff Fielding quickly interceded and stepped in to separate Tie Quan from me. He gave my opponent a stern stare. "You've already defeated your opponent. There is no need to go overboard."

"Hmph. It's that trash's fault for not giving up."

Tie Quan gave me a baleful stare before leaving the arena. The gigantic holographic billboard above us announced his victory, and showed how many points were allocated. Tie Quan snorted when he saw that he only earned two points.

As for me, I normally would have points deducted from my Matchmaking Rating, but right now my MMR was zero.

The ninety-ninth loss in a row, huh? I thought bitterly to myself as I tried to crawl to my feet. Teacher Fielding offered me a hand and I gratefully took it.

"It's not too late to change your class, you know." Teacher Fielding looked at me in concern. "The summoner class may be powerful in the late-game, but right now the meta revolves around fast, early-game aggression. Your opponents are not going to give you the time or chance to cast your summoning spell."

"…I know."

I merely nodded as I accepted Teacher Fielding's assistance to get to my feet. If I had mastered a few summoning spells, perhaps it would have worked out better. Generally, the more powerful the summoned beast, the longer the time and the more magical energy it required to summon it. I had learned extremely advanced summoning spells, but the summoned beasts I had dominion over took too long to summon. Three minutes at least – more than enough time for my opponent to pummel me to a pulp.

Just like how Tie Quan obliterated me earlier. And not just him – I had been losing miserably for the last ninety-nine matches.

Before I could summon my magical beast, I was completely helpless and vulnerable. Summoners could be powerful when allowed to complete their casting, but opponents knew that and often exploited the window in which they were weakest, taking them out before they could summon their familiars. the current meta relied on brutal, swift assaults that took out the opponent in under a minute, or at least defensive magic that helped to mitigate that and turn it into a battle of attrition in the wielder's favor. Unfortunately, summoning as a class of magic fell out of favor of most people and became unpopular because of its tremendous weakness and the impractical time window it required for the caster to finish his spell.

The reason was simple.

The monsters in the real world weren't going to obediently wait three minutes just because you asked them to. And neither were your opponents obligated to do nothing and wait for you to cast your spell either.

I now understood that Angelica was a special case. I didn't know how Dad – Shun Yin – did it, but he was able to summon Angelica near instantaneously. Yet Angelica was extremely powerful. Was it because she was a human-type spirit? An Angel? Or was there something different about their contract? I wasn't sure. Dad told me that Angelica was different, was special, and Angelica told me that Dad was an extraordinary summoner, but that wasn't helping me in my own summoning.

Right now, I was crushed one-sidedly by every student in my school.

"You should head to the infirmary," Teacher Fielding instructed. I nodded wearily, and trudged in the direction of the infirmary.

While walking along the corridor of Jing Tian Magic Academy, I could feel the stares from my fellow schoolmates weighing down on me.

"Look, it's that Richard Huang again."

"He's in quite the miserable condition. He probably lost again."

"How many times has he lost now?"

"About a hundred?"

"Why does he insist on using summoning?"

"How would I know? Maybe something is wrong with his brain."

"Or he's just stubborn."

Vicious gossip floated around me. I gritted my teeth, but ignored them all.

Five years. I had spent five years looking up to Dad and adoring him. I respected him and wanted to be a powerful summoner like him. That was why I pored over all the summoning tomes, learned magic as best as I could, and even succeeded in mastering the most powerful and advanced summoned beasts that I could.

If only I was given a chance to summon them…then I could show everybody just how powerful I was!

Unfortunately, reality was harsh, as I had personally experienced for myself. In my inexperience and naivety of the way magic worked in this new world, I didn't expect there to be such a huge time gap between fighting and summoning. After all, Dad always summoned Angelica immediately without any delay. I had naturally assumed that I could do the same.

It was only after I had spent four years learning summoning magic and entering Jing Tian Magic Academy that I realized the truth. Power came with a price. Summoning wasn't something that could be cast instantaneously. And my opponents weren't going to wait for me to flashily summon my ultimate familiar to lose to it. They were smart enough to take me out.

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That was the harsh lesson I learned in my single year in Jing Tian Magic Academy. I wished Dad told me about the risks and weaknesses of learning summoning magic when he taught me. Then again, given his carefree nature, it probably didn't even occur to him. And when I came back complaining about it, he merely laughed it off, telling me it was tough love, and that I had to find a way to figure it out on my own.

How irresponsible.

The spots in magic academies were highly competitive. Most students didn't mess around, nor could they afford to lose. In magic academies, ranking determined everything. Fame, status, even money. If I didn't have Dad supporting me financially, I would have been kicked out of the academy long ago. Thanks to me being last placed, my scholarship funding was severely cut.

Our school funding was proportional to our rank, after all.

"Ugh…what do I have to do?"

I honestly couldn't afford to change my classes, as Teacher Fielding suggested. I had no background in any of the other magic. Dad only taught me summoning magic. Asking me to switch to elemental magic, or learn close combat now was ridiculous…

Wait, Dad did teach me military combat techniques, but they were useless against close combat mages like Tie Quan. I remembered how Tie Quan conjured magic to harden his defenses and boost his offense. There was no way I could challenge him in close combat, not when I had only skimmed the surface of it.

Plus I had dedicated too much time and effort into summoning to give it up. I wanted to make it work, no matter what.

"There has to be a way…how?"

Sighing heavily, I stepped into the infirmary. Teacher Mary Cure lifted her head and spotted me as I entered.

"Oh, it's you again." she paused for a moment. "Another loss?"

"…" my shoulders deflated, and I nodded with a sigh. There was no way I could trust myself to speak.

"Still using summoning magic?" Teacher Cure smirked. "You're quite the stubborn one, aren't you? Most people would have given up by now."

"I'm not most people," I replied flatly, not caring that she was a teacher. Teacher Cure didn't care about such things, anyway. Having been a regular visitor of her infirmary over the past year, I had gotten to know her pretty well.

"I'm sure," Teacher Cure agreed cheerfully, and then she turned serious. "But there's the matter of your scholarship. If you remain at the bottom of the rankings, sooner or later you'll be kicked out of school."

"That's fine by me." I was too tired to care. Jing Tian Academy used to be prestigious – Dad often talked proudly of his alma mater, and the heights of glory that it used to achieve, but that was over ten years ago. Things had changed since then, and Jing Tian Magic Academy fell into a decline since Dad's generation graduated. The school had slipped in the national rankings, and was currently ranked eighty-second.

A pretty far cry from the powerhouse who used to bulldoze its way into the top ten.

In any case, I couldn't care less if I was expelled because of poor results. There was nowhere else to go. I might as well transfer into an ordinary school and live a normal life. I was sick of losing, sick of being humiliated, sick of people talking behind my back like those readers on Discord criticizing and making fun of how trashy my stories were, and how I should delete them.

Teacher Cure looked at me sympathetically, but knew from long experience that she wouldn't be able to convince me. She sighed, and then gestured for me to take one of the empty beds. Her skills were top notch. I knew it wouldn't take more than half an hour for her to fully heal my injuries.

"All right, let's start the treatment," Teacher Cure said as she rolled up her sleeves and began casting the healing spell. "Are you ready?"

"As long as it's not The Wrong Way to use Healing Magic," I replied, and earned a smack on my head. Damn, wasn't she supposed to be the infirmary teacher? Why resort to violence? It wasn't as if she was Teacher Rose…

Oh…looks like my Dad's otaku influence was rubbing off on me…if only I had learned as much summoning from him as I did about manga and anime…