"I can't deny that this chalk is really helpful," Lily thought aloud as she drew. "If we get to keep our supplies, I'm going to be a bit sad when it runs out. It's ideal for drawing runes since it's so simple to erase any mistakes!"

Lily had spent hours recreating the inscription Arakil had designed. She started with the unmodified sections provided by Regarth but soon had to tackle the complex additions Arakil had made.

Still, she felt determined to do this and even started just keeping her body full of Mana to stimulate herself. As she had promised Arakil, she still hadn't ever used Mana enhancement on anything but her eyes to avoid harming her body, which meant refreshing herself this way as far as she could go.

Occasionally, she'd pause and pick up Arakil to get a look at her recreation, where he'd point out any areas of concern. To Lily's surprise, he didn't have her correct that much, which she couldn't help but ponder.

Due to the time limit, Arakil might be suppressing his perfectionism. He wants me to pass as soon as possible, so he's forgoing his usual mandatory practice.

Lily was missing lunch again and cursed her lack of foresight in grabbing a meal from the inn staff before leaving. Her stomach grumbled in protest, but she refused to stop, as there was no guarantee someone else might not enter the room during her absence.

When Lily finished the final strokes, she nearly fell on her butt as she sighed with relief.

"That was the longest drawing session ever! How does it look, Arakil?" Lily asked before showing the whole creation to him by waving his book around.

[Good job, Lily. This will be more than enough for our needs.]

"Are you sure? I'm sure there's some imperfections…"

[Any minor flaws won't be enough to prevent our success. More importantly, I need you to draw one more glyph, and it's relatively simple.]

"Oh? What kind?" Lily asked while turning to a fresh page for Arakil to draw it.

True to his word, it was a remarkably simple glyph, and Lily wondered what its purpose was as it seemed to lack a crest, which, as far as she knew, was the bare minimum of requirements.

[I need you to draw this on the book's last page. Ideally, we would have used one of the inner covers, but that could prevent us from restoring the book-consuming function. Also, I apologize, but you'll need to draw this using your blood and preferably using your finger as the brush.]

"What? Why!? Can it not be done another way?" Lily rapidly asked.

[This will mark our bond, and it's crucial for it to be done personally. It will ensure that I'm the target of the ritual when you activate it. I'm sorry, Lily.]

"No, it's okay," Lily replied, attempting some bravado.

She pulled out the dagger once more, nicked her thumb larger than yesterday, and began her grisly finger painting. Now she understood why the glyph was so simple if it was designed to be drawn by hand—literally.

When Lily finished, she quickly stuck her thumb in her mouth. She considered dipping her finger into the healing potion but realized that she would need to cut it again to activate the ritual. Not wanting to waste anything, she held off for now.

"Is that everything?" Lily asked.

[Excellent work. The main preparations are done. Now, you just need to place the offerings at their respective positions. Finally, you will need to set my book in the center of the inscription, where the gateway opened the first time. Then you can proceed with the ritual as you did yesterday.]

"Okay, thanks, Arakil—I won't disappoint you."

She began placing the offerings in the sections Arakil had marked. She hoped the school wouldn't be mad that they were using up almost all of them—the only things remaining would be the chalk and the monster's blood.

Lily could barely control her bubbling excitement as she placed each object. When the last one was done, she moved Arakil's book to the center, but she had severe butterflies in her stomach.

"Okay. I'm starting," she declared, her voice trembling slightly as she tried to mask her nervousness.

Lily reached inside to spin her core but realized she'd still held her Mana the entire time. She nervously giggled at her mistake and attempted to calm herself down.

Breath in. Breath out. Phew…

Feeling a little better, she reached down and filled out the inscription with Mana. She would need to use a lot more Mana with all of Arakil's additions, which she could thankfully provide due to her consistent growth since gaining her Mana Core.

When the ritual was fully saturated, she breathed in and out again. Then, she picked up the ritual dagger and brought it to her finger.

"This is it," Lily said before quickly adding. "Thank you, Arakil. For everything."

Lily sliced her finger, holding back the wince and watching the blood drip onto the inscription. Once again, the entire drawing began to come to life as it blossomed with the familiar red hue.

The offerings were taken one by one, but this time, she watched their energy flow toward Arakil's book. The energy kept gathering and gathering, reaching the point of climax where the hole appeared the last time.

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However, this time, it was different. Arakil's book began to vibrate from the Mana rushing into it. The book suddenly jumped up into the air, causing Lily to let out a startled squeak.

Lily heard the sound of rattling metal clinking together and soon saw that dozens of crimson chains were emerging from the outer rings of the ritual circle!

The chains shot out from the circle in unison, all aiming towards the floating book. They began to snake all over it as if alive, constricting and restraining it with magical force. Lily started worrying that something was wrong when a newly formed chain shot out from the book directly towards her.

"Ah!" Lily cried out and instinctually shielded herself with her Nebula Veil. The dark starry cloak appeared at a moment's notice and thrust itself forward to intercept, but the crimson chain penetrated through it entirely unimpeded.

Lily's eyes went wide as saucers, and she was about to scream when the chain reached her right hand and curled around it. Lily's sudden terror was transformed into confusion as the chain felt both warm and pleasant to the touch.

Was Arakil being extremely literal when he said he would bind himself to me?

Lily gripped the chain and gave it a slight tug, which seemed to be precisely what she needed to do as it progressed the ritual further. The bonds began to sink into the book before her eyes; Lily glanced down at her hand and saw that the chain she was gripping had also started to merge with her hand. Yet she felt strangely calm about it; somehow, she knew this was part of the ritual succeeding.

The chains were fading one by one, and so was the light of the ritual. With each disappearance, Lily felt a growing closeness to the book. She felt like she could close her eyes, spin around, and then point directly at it with a one hundred percent success rate.

The runes, glyphs, and inscription rapidly darkened and faded away, yet the book remained floating in place. When the final markings disappeared, there was a final burst of Mana, like a pressurized pop that normalized the room.

[Success!] An unfamiliar voice spoke out.

Lily blinked a few times and looked around. She couldn't exactly discern where the voice had come from.

[Very well done, Lily! I'm so proud of you; I knew you could do it.] His voice had an air of regal formality, his words precise and adorned with a practiced elegance.

"Arakil? Is that you?" Lily asked.

[Unless you've bonded to another talking book without my knowing, yes.]

"You don't sound anything like I thought you would," Lily admitted. "And you're even making jokes!"

[Is this revenge for me calling you short? I did apologize at the time, but it was rather astonishing, I must admit. I thought that halflings or gnomes had overtaken the gene pool.]

Lily pouted, puffing up her cheeks in protest.

[Sorry, sorry!] Arakil said as his book floated over to Lily.

Lily was so astonished that she dropped feigned anger immediately, "You can fly now!?"

[In a manner of speaking, although personally, I'd never call this flight; it's more of a casual hovering. However, it would be rather sad to anoint me you're familiar if all I could do was change the size and talk to you—at least this way, I can provide some visual confirmation that should silence any naysayers.]

"This is amazing. I never expected this was what you had planned."

[Well, I thought you'd enjoy the surprise. Later, we can consider improving the Familiar bond even further, of course, only once you've developed your Mana Core sufficiently.]

"Such as?"

[Two-way telepathic communication, for starters. Then you could also talk to me mentally rather than verbally, which would be useful for deception and secretive conversations.]

"Oh! That sounds so cool!"

[Cool… yes. But this way, I can tutor you much more fittingly. You will no longer need to constantly refill ink to converse, and I can provide suitable guidelines for enunciation.]

"That sounds really wonderful, although I'll miss our secret messages," Lily admitted.

[We can still do it occasionally if that is what you wish. I'll assuredly still need to draw out new glyphs and such for you to learn.]

"Oh yes, of course!" Lily said happily.

[Anyway, I suggest I stop floating for now so you can hide me. Considering the school was secretive about the ritual, there's a high probability that they want the Familiars themselves to be a secret. After all, we haven't seen any since our arrival.]

"That makes sense. Let's grab our stuff and head back to the inn."

[Well, I assume that Pete or another staff member will be waiting outside for us.]

Lily nodded and began grabbing her stuff. While she packed, Arakil spent some time testing out the limits of his floating. The further he got away from Lily, the slower his movement got until it reached the breaking point. They continued conversing while she worked, something they couldn't do until now.

"Do you not need to worry about Mana?" Lily asked curiously.

[You're currently supplying both the one-way telepathy and the levitation through your excess passive Mana regeneration. Since I'm not technically using the Mana myself, it bypasses the usual restrictions placed upon me when you donate it. After all, the reason for a Familiar contracting with a mage in the first place is to be fed Mana. It's perfectly natural.]

Lily nodded thoughtfully as Arakil spoke.

I'm just glad that I can finally be helpful to Arakil after all he's done for me. I hope that Regarth has plenty of knowledge for him to investigate.

Lily was honestly still quite bewildered by the situation. She hadn't expected this outcome and wasn't entirely sure how to react. Suddenly, Arakil could talk and float. Never in her wildest imagination did she expect both of these things to happen today.

"What were those chains? Was that from your changes, or is that from the original design?"

[Those chains were from their circle; we simply appropriated their original purpose. The rings performed two functions; the first was to form a protective barrier to prevent whatever was summoned from escaping. The second use was to create a Familiar contract with the target and bind it, and once it is bound, the protective barrier will be lowered. My modifications could be summed up as getting the outer ring to see my book as a summoned creature. I also included the telepathic bond and levitation, with room for further addendums once you've grown.]

"I see…" Lily mumbled in thought as she clapped her hands a few times to clean off residual chalkdust.

Her last thing to do was to pull out the healing potion from the box. Not wanting to waste it, she siphoned off a small portion with a pipette from her tiny alchemy supplies, bought from Camilla, and dribbled it onto her cut finger. The wound healed quickly, and Lily was happy to see her skin unblemished.

This is a very high-quality potion. I'm guessing it was to help us recover from blood loss. Typically, they'd have used a lot of blood to empower the ritual, unlike what I did.

Lily picked up her things, and Arakil floated before her before landing in her hands. She patted the cover of the book happily before heading towards the exit.

Lily opened the door and, outside once again, was greeted by the sight of Pete.

"Success?" he asked curiously.

Lily smiled radiantly and frantically nodded, her ears flopping cheerfully.