Perched on the ground inside the cell house, Sylus had many books open in front of him, and at the side, toothpicks and glue.
His knowledge of the world was limited to what he was taught; as such, he needed to learn more.
What kind of materials exist in this world?
Is technology invented yet?
How strong and dense are the metals?
Only after he had rounded up all this information, would he be able to move forward with his plan.
If this world was even a bit identical to his former one, then he could use that to his advantage and make his work slightly better.
While it's true Sylus was once homeless, that wasn't entirely the case. There were often times when he tried to get jobs and was fired almost immediately for either smelling badly or being too malnourished to lift anything.
Some of those jobs were construction, teaching, security guard, and delivery.
He landed no jobs in any of these categories but somehow managed to learn from them days before he applied for the application.
As such, his intelligence was very vast in these areas.
Beaming at the book before him, Sylus paused—
'This is going to take me a long time to finish. I still need to find a temporary way to fix the transportation problem in a day's time.'
Normally, he would handle things like these half-assedly; he was only 5 years old, surely they couldn't be expecting him to pull off a miracle.
However, the case was very different this time.
Failing meant Zani getting locked up in jail. And knowing his father, it was likely going to happen.
'I need to do this quickly.'
Now looking at Zani, who was seated in front of him, checking out her master while carrying the raven, Alie, on her lap.
Concluding from what he already knew, there were two ways for a summons to evolve or upgrade.
Man-feeding and the natural course.
With time, every summon will emerge into their true form, just like how humans grow. This method was referred to as the natural course.
And for mana feeding, this gave quick growth and power-up boosts to the summons compared to the natural way.
This method involved the master of said summons constantly supplying the summons with a large amount of mana. Once it provided a certain amount, the summon would undergo evolution almost instantly.
The bigger and stronger the summon, the more mana was needed; as such, many people refrained from this method because of the fear of dying if all their mana was used up.
'Not a bad idea to try. I have been gathering mana for a while now in order to learn Erica's ability. Now is a good time to sacrifice it.'
Sylus stretched his hand out.
"Zani, keep the bird still; I want to try something."
Zani tipped her head to the side; she clearly wanted to ask why but was quick to remember her place.
Sitting upright, she made up her mind to wait and see what he was going to do.
Sylus's eyes were already closed, trying his best to focus.
The human body was made of unique designs called magic circuits. Depending on how strong or weak a person is, the magic circuits will adjust their shape to match that.
It acted as a container and a generator at the same time, influencing the amount of mana that could be absorbed and the amount that could be released.
Being able to use your mana to increase your physical capabilities was one of the first things students were taught in school.
Martins, although having the ability to command anyone, was also well skilled in combat. So much so that the only person who could stand against him when it came to combat was the general of the Red Army.
In fact, it's no secret that the people from the Astrodial family had large magic circuits, making them even more remarkable, apart from their star blessings.
As of this moment, Sylus's magic circuit had developed to be two times the size of what it was before.
From what he had studied, the usual shapes of magic circuits were circles, triangles, and other regular types of shapes; only rarely are they complicated types.
'Why doesn't mine have any shape?'
Meditating, all he could see was a magic circuit taking the form of multiple filaments intertwined with one another. Shapeless, with no guidance or position.
'How come weird things like this always happen to me?'
He got rid of the thought from his mind and continued his meditation until he could fully feel the mana perceiving from his magic circuits.
Ordinarily, only people who have been in the academy for about a year could pull this off; still, there was no reason why he couldn't try it.
'There…I see it.'
The mana proceeded all the way from his arm to his fingertips and then discharged right out of his palm.
Unexpectedly, as soon as the mana left his body and came in contact with the raven, the whole place began to shake as though it was going to collapse on itself.
The bed at the side of the room flipped over from the intense wind whistling from Sylus's body.
Even Zani struggled to remain still; one of her hands had to balance her on the ground, or she knew she was going to get blown away.
It got to a point where even the iron bars of the cell house began trembling, threatening to fall right off their hinges.
All this happened while Sylus was still feeding the raven his mana.
And then—
"Young prince!!!"
A familiar voice called out to him; if he didn't know better, it should be Alfred.
Sylus quickly opened his eyes, and the sight in front of him blew his mind.
Right there, standing in front of him and looking him dead in the eye, was a giant raven, so big that its butt had already poked out of the iron bars and was now lying flat in the hallway.
[Congratulations, your summons have undergone evolution.]
[New traits have been added to the summon.]
Sylus was still bewildered by the view in front of him.
Slightly shifting his gaze to the right, he could see that somehow, Zani was already outside, and Alfred was right beside her.
"I-I have your solution… tadaa~" he tried to force a smile.