Chapter 49: The City Lord's Gift, Essence Water
Early the next morning...
Song Qi slowly opened his eyes, feeling groggy, and rubbed his head. His mind had returned to normal—no more pain. Reaching for his phone, he checked his notifications. The transfer information from the burly man yesterday appeared before him.
“Ten million credits have already been transferred. I should pay off the credit card first,” he mused.
With a swipe of his phone, Song Qi cleared the debt from yesterday’s skill purchases. He also took the opportunity to settle his parents’ expenses from the recent period. After these payments, he was still left with over eight hundred thousand.
After a moment’s thought, he transferred half a million credits to his older sister, leaving a note: “Use this to buy equipment.”
Ding ding!
His sister replied instantly with two messages.
Sister Song Lan: “?”
“And why did you suddenly send me so much money?”
Song Qi: “I’ve reached the age where I can make gold rain down. [Grin]”
He attached a screenshot of the ten-million transfer notification.
Sister Song Lan: “Shocked.jpg”
“Little rascal, your big sister is very pleased.”
“But I still hope you keep it up and next time just send me the equipment directly.”
“By the way, since you’re awake, come down and have breakfast.”
...
After breakfast, Song Qi made his way to the dungeon plaza to find Wang Zihao and Gongsun Wuyue and explain his situation. Now that he was a mid-level professional, he could no longer help them farm low-level dungeons. But the two seemed to have guessed as much already and weren't particularly surprised.
After a brief exchange, Song Qi bid them farewell and headed to the city lord’s mansion.
...
Ding dong!
Arriving at the twelfth floor, Song Qi stepped out of the elevator and saw the city lord seated by the floor-to-ceiling windows, lost in thought. Beside his right hand sat a package—its contents unknown.
“City Lord?” he called.
At his voice, the city lord turned. Seeing Song Qi, he smiled and beckoned him over.
“Ah, Song Qi. What brings you here so early today?”
“But it’s just as well. Come, a little closer—I have something good to show you.”
Song Qi approached, and the city lord stood, patting his arm before asking with a trace of surprise:
“Just one day apart, and you’ve leveled up again?”
“Yes. I’m level twenty-one now, and I’ve already passed the mid-level professional certification.”
Song Qi nodded, admitting it openly.
“Tsk, you really are a monster,” the city lord couldn’t help but mutter.
Even with all his experience witnessing prodigies, he couldn’t fathom the pace of Song Qi’s progress. In just over two weeks, he’d gone from a newly-advanced Summoner to a mid-level professional? And it wasn’t just his speed—his talent was extraordinary, his comprehension unmatched, and his luck so good he’d managed to summon a mythic-level familiar!
It was almost too perfect.
The city lord had been suspicious before, secretly checking him countless times, convinced Song Qi’s talent was almost unreal. But every test had proved, without a doubt, that Song Qi was pure-blooded human with not the faintest trace of demonic aura.
“By the way, what about your second summoned spirit? Have you summoned it, or are you holding off for now?”
“It’s already here. Please have a look, City Lord.”
Song Qi summoned Ying Zheng and then opened the familiar’s stat panel, making it public.
“Let’s see...” The city lord took a sip of tea before rising slowly to take a look.
“A humanoid summon... seems quite formidable at first glance.”
“Saint Ying Zheng, rarity is... Saint Spirit?!”
Pfft!
The city lord actually spat out his tea.
“A Saint Spirit-level summoned creature?!”
His casual expression instantly turned to shock.
“Over 500 in strength? That’s decent, I suppose.”
“Constitution and agility both over 1,000? For a Saint Spirit, that’s about average.”
“But the mental attribute...”
At this, the city lord’s eyes narrowed as realization dawned.
“Mental attribute... 2,100?!”
“Such a high mental stat!”
But when his gaze shifted to the talent section below, his composure utterly crumbled.
“Huh?”
“Five innate talents?!”
“And these skills...”
“‘Unified Script’ is reasonable, but ‘Unified Chariots’ is just broken!”
“No matter how wide the gap in strength, you can just grab any creature at random and restrain them?”
“And what’s with ‘All Under Heaven Belongs to the King’?! How does your familiar have a domain-type skill?!”
“‘Sweep Across the Six Directions’? Group berserk? With no side effects?! And the number of affected units increases with the mental attribute?!”
“And then there’s ‘Terracotta Warriors’...”
“The summoned soldiers all have half his mental attribute for every stat?”
The city lord glanced at Ying Zheng’s 2,100 mental stat.
That meant four summoned soldiers, each with over a thousand in every attribute—fearless, deathless, and infinitely summonable.
The further he read, the harder it was to keep a straight face.
“Well then... strong control, debuff, buff, offense, burst, defense—your summoned spirit covers all roles single-handedly.”
“So this is a Saint Spirit-level familiar?” The city lord couldn’t help but draw a sharp breath, his eyelids twitching. He began to doubt his own senses.
Just how absurd was Ying Zheng’s stat page?
To put it simply: if Ying Zheng weren’t a summoned creature but an independent person, the city lord would only need to send him to the First District, and by the next day, the higher-ups would officially declare Ying Zheng as the new Holy Child of the human race!
Because these skills were simply outrageous.
Ignoring differences in level, strength, and attributes, all the buffs and debuffs were percentage-based!
A boost of ten or twenty percent might not mean much for a few hundred or thousand in attributes. But what if the target had tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands? With Ying Zheng’s presence, the top combat power of humanity would leap several tiers, while the demons’ strength would be severely diminished.
With such advantages, humanity’s disadvantage at the highest levels could be meaningfully narrowed.
But alas... Ying Zheng was this brat’s summoned spirit, and for now, couldn’t step onto those battlefields.
The city lord glanced at Song Qi, a touch of regret in his eyes—then his expression shifted to one of admiration.
To summon a mythic-level spirit could be called luck.
But two? And the second was Saint Spirit rarity?
That could hardly be attributed to luck alone.
“Song Qi, just how many more surprises do you have in store for me?” the city lord thought, finally calming himself as he gazed at Song Qi with deep meaning.
He sighed, then picked up the package at his side and handed it to Song Qi.
“Congratulations on summoning a Saint Spirit-level familiar. Take this as a token of my congratulations.”
“A gift? Thank you, City Lord.”
Song Qi accepted it eagerly and tore it open at once.
Inside were three tiny bottles, each no larger than a thumb, their packaging unusually exquisite. The bottles looked as clear as glass, but felt frosted to the touch. Even the caps were specially engineered.
But at a glance, Song Qi could see no difference between the water inside and ordinary water.
He turned to the city lord with a puzzled look.
“City Lord, this is...?”
“It just arrived this morning... Primal Source Water!”