Chapter 1656: 555. The Spring of Summoners: Freshly Baked Minotaur Summoner
While Murphy and the little players raced to fight the rats and save the pirates, the “Stone Slab Expedition Team” in Baphomet’s Earth Palace simultaneously pushed forward their work. Compared to the numerical advantage of the race’s mainline quest, this team, which has entered the mid-level of Baphomet’s Underground Palace, showcases quality as king.
There are two Golden Ones here!
The Grand Duke of Triss personally serves as the Spiritual Core, while the ever-attentive to perfect decorum, Rose Knight Palano, takes up the role of squad defense and close combat.
With these two fellows around, they can basically plow through Baphomet’s Underground Palace from top to bottom.
Even more outrageous is that tonight these two strong figures appear as support; the nominal leader of this “Stone Slab Expedition Team” is the chieftain of the Bloodclaw Clan, a scrawny werewolf named Hog, who has recently risen to fame in Transylvania.
Poor Hog, at any moment in his short-lived life, would never audaciously imagine that he could actually have two gold bodyguards one day?
This formidable treatment, which werewolf could have imagined?
Apart from these three, there is also support from the psychic Winnie Collando Le Senbra of “Red Devil Hall,” the leader of the Blood Rat Gang and the “Queen of the Sewers,” Miss Doris, and lastly, the Stellar Summoner Mo-ni Qiong, who was called over to broaden his horizons.
He came representing the players and his mentor, Mr. Murphy.
In the face of this wave of squad quality, Mo-ni Qiong is just a decoration.
He knows this too and hardly thought about fighting, using the Calculating Pearl throughout to take “handsome photos” for the big shots while documenting the preparation phase progress of this “super task chain,” which has not yet been developed for the player group.
Of course, since players were invited, even just to go through the motions, there must be decent task releases and rewards.
Mo-ni Qiong’s task reward this time is a summoning spell, but not his specialized Stellar Summon, rather it’s one of the more complex and grand “Otherworldly Creature Summoning Spells,” called Summon Minotaurus.
Probably to paint a picture, when everyone entered the maze, NPC Miss Winnie showed the only summoner among the current players the specific form of this summoned creature.
At this moment, Mo-ni Qiong is staring with envy, desire, and longing at the giant creature leading the way in the dim underground maze ahead.
That’s a Bullheaded Monster!
It embodies the rugged appearance shared by all Bullheaded Monsters from fantasy lore, standing over 3 meters tall, broad-shouldered, thick-waisted, with bulging muscles, dark brown skin, heavy hooves, wielding a Double-Edged Brass Axe from the Other World that shakes the earth with its steps, and a tail that can act as a whip.
The whole head is a standard bull head, with big eyes full of raging anger, and there’s a gold ring in its nostril.
Er, this solitary adornment all over the body isn’t self-equipped by Minotaurus, but was prepared as a “sacrifice” by Miss Winnie during the bullheaded person summoning, also a necessary “casting material” for the Summon Minotaurus spell.
This relates to an important factor in the profession route of summoners during the mid to late stages.
That is, all high-level summons have their preferences, and summoning them to the material world is just the first step. To require their service, you must make a contract and simultaneously offer gifts to win their favor.
Though one can use strong coercion to force them to fight for you, such forced commands easily lead to summons acting maliciously at certain times.
After all, most summoner spells can’t achieve 100% control over summons, under such circumstances, maintaining a good relationship with them becomes very crucial.
The Minotaurus, a medium-high level Otherworldly Creature, especially likes finely crafted gold nose rings. The more exquisite the craftsmanship, the more they adore it. A single gold ring can make the Bullheaded Monster serve the summoner until the current summon ends, that is until it is killed in the material world.
And Minotaurus isn’t a Star World Creature; if it dies in the material world, it’s truly dead forever.
Therefore, this thing is genuinely “money for life”; from this perspective, if the Bullheaded Monster goes through fire and water for you only for an exquisitely crafted gold ring as payment, that’s already a very fair price.
And if the Bullheaded Monster dies and the summoner wants to summon again next time, they need to first throw the used gold ring into the Bullheaded Monster’s world, then prepare a brand new gold ring.
It’s not because Minotaurus is greedy but because this species has basic emotions.
They refuse to use gold rings used by their peers; in their eyes, those things are “sacrifices.” If you attempt to deceive them, you’ll be easily found out and may trigger unnecessary battles. And when they encounter someone wielding a Bullheaded Monster’s gold ring in the material world, they will immediately fly into a rage and launch an attack.
Because they view them as shameless “tomb robbers.”
In summary, although Minotaurs already possess strong comprehensive combat power among medium-high leveled summons, it is indeed a very troublesome and unpopular summon, with few willing to specifically learn this spell.
“This special gold ring needs to adhere to certain requirements, ordinary blacksmiths can’t craft it, so before your summoning technique level rises to the point where you can permanently contract a Minotaurus, summoning such a powerful Otherworldly Creature is not only a test of summoning techniques.
It’s also a test for your wallet!”