Several hours passed by in a flash as Hazel and Astrid waited for nightfall to come. During that time, the pair either rested, explored the rest of the Jetport, or did something else to occupy themselves. Right now, Hazel was going through some of the books she took from the Tower.

  While the Tower had a library inside, Hazel couldn’t take all of them with her. She could have if she had the storage bracelet before leaving the place, but that didn’t happen. So, she only had a few books and sheets of paper from the study room to inspect.

  She grabbed a few blueprints that she looked through before like the turret and the Automaton schematics. While she couldn’t understand most of what the sheets were telling her, she could at least try and see where that took her.

  There was one sheet of paper that she took that was more helpful currently than the rest. And that was a note sheet involving a magic summoning circle like the one from the tower. According to what she was reading, the sheet held instructions involving how she could make her own summoning circle to call upon another familiar.

  Sadly, after looking through the instructions, she was soon met with her first hurdle, which was the materials used to make the summoning circle. For one thing, you couldn’t just copy the design of a pre-existing summoning circle and call forth a familiar. To do this properly, you need a magic chalk stick to draw it. And unfortunately, the materials needed to make said magic chalk weren’t easy to come by.

  From what the paper entailed; the magic chalk is made from a type of mineral located deep within a mine that was filled with condensed mana. The Mana is soaked into the mineral, gifting it a bit of magical property. When mined and processed, it can be turned into a magic chalk used for summoning familiars. The magic chalk appeared to work as a sort of catalyst for summoning rituals and without it, the magic circle wouldn’t work.

  While Hazel found this kind of information intriguing, she was more annoyed than anything since she couldn’t replicate the summoning circle right now. What was worse was that she had no idea where she could even search for the mineral needed to craft the magic chalk in the first place.

  She figured that she could get one as a reward item, but there was no guarantee that she would receive one. And that only bothered her more.

  Considering that the magic chalk was from the Fractured Dungeon, there was a possibility that she could find the material there, but once again, she was faced with a problem. Hazel had no way to go back to the Fractured Dungeon. And even if she did, there was no way she would willingly return to that place. Not until she was a lot stronger to handle whatever was there on her own.

  Although she obtained valuable information regarding the summoning circle, she had no plans to attempt to call forth another familiar at the moment. At least not until she found the needed materials to make it possible.

  Speaking of familiars, when Hazel looked out the window from the shipyard restaurant, she noticed that it was dark out. That meant only one thing. It was time to resummon Nycteris and head back into the city.

  Hazel quickly placed all of her stuff back into her storage bracelet, watching them disappear in the blink of an eye. Once she cleaned up her mess, she went over to Astrid who was currently resting next to her. The dark elf’s back was leaned against the wall as she softly snored in her sleep.

  But, with a light tap on her shoulder, Astrid was instantly awake and alerted. When she turned to Hazel, the witch pointed outside, showing her that it was currently nighttime.

  “Guess it’s time to head out then,” Astrid said, staring out the window of the Jetport.

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  “That’s right,” Hazel nodded. “Let’s get moving.”

  With that, Astrid and Hazel got up and left the resting quarters, making their way over to the stairs. Before they did, the pair ran into Hazel’s mom who was still working on patients along with other tasks.

  “Hazel, where are you two going?” Evelyn asked, her voice sounding a bit concerned.

  “Taking a little walk outside,” Hazel said. “We’ll be back soon, though.”

  Although Hazel wanted to tell her mom about Nycteris and the like, she couldn’t risk having one of her biggest secrets exposed to Zoe and the others. While she did trust her mom, she was also aware that Evelyn was close to these people, and Hazel didn’t want to keep having her keep secrets from them like with her eyes.

  There was also the fact that if Hazel told her mom what she was really planning on doing, she wouldn’t let her go out. Despite surviving for nearly a month in that hellish fractured dungeon on her own, she knew that her mom wouldn’t accept her running off in the city alone.

  So, to avoid any obstacles, Hazel gave her mother a little white lie. Well, it wasn’t technically a lie since they do plan to go outside. Just not within the property of the Jetport. But that wasn’t something for anyone to stress over at the moment. Not really.

  Evelyn stared at her daughter for a moment, practically scrutinizing the witch to see if she was telling the truth. Hazel maintained a solid poker face, keeping her face neutral with a small grin on her face.

  This seemed to have done the trick because the mother sighed and turned around, likely needing to head back to work.

  “Alright, but please be careful out there. Unlike before the merging, the nighttime is a lot more dangerous, you understand?”

  Hazel nodded while grinning. “You got it.”

  After saying their farewells, the player duo went for the stairs and climbed up to the third floor. Then the very top which was the roof. Emerging from the door to the rooftop, the pair were greeted with a beautiful night sky with countless stars hovering above them.

  However, instead of taking in the scenery, Hazel and Astrid got to work. Walking a little further out onto the rooftop, Hazel got started in resummoning her familiar. Much like how she de-summoned him, all she needed to do was concentrate on calling him forth.

  She closed her eyes and began to focus, attempting to summon him back into their plane of existence. As she did, her chest flared intensely, practically turning into a mini oven behind her ribs and sternum. As Hazel’s chest was filled with an intense heat, she suddenly felt a click as her resummoning was activated.

  Before her, a magic circle burned on the roof floor, inscribing itself in the structure. The circle pulsed purple while making a somewhat loud yet harmonic humming sound. The purple light got brighter, nearly blinding the pair before suddenly fading away.

  Once the light was gone, a familiar figure manifested in the middle of the circle. It was Nycteris. The hulking bat creature towered over Hazel, staring down at her with its blood-red eyes.

  Instead of feeling intimidated, Hazel simply stared back with a small grin on her face.

  “Welcome back, bud,” she greeted her familiar. “How was your rest?”

  Almost immediately, the Nightwing lowered its head toward its master and began to nestle against her face like a dog or cat. Instead of pushing him away, Hazel simply let it happen and enjoyed the moment.

  “Yeah, I missed you too, bud. Anyway, you ready for a little night out on the town?”

  Hearing this, Nycteris’s eyes lit up with excitement before he lowered his body, gesturing Hazel and Astrid to get on. Hazel was the first to climb on, eagerly jumping on her familiar’s back like she was getting on a horse.

  Once she was on, the witch glanced over at the dark elf while reaching her hand out toward her. Astrid didn’t even hesitate and accepted her hand, letting Hazel pull her onto Nycteris. Once both players were on, Hazel lightly patted the Nightwing’s body, gesturing for him to fly away.

  “Try to stay quiet until we reach the city, Nycteris,” Hazel told her familiar. “We don’t want the other players below us to hear you and think they're under attack, okay?”

  “Under...stood!”

  Preparing for launch, Nycteris spread his winged arms before swinging them down and propelling them up in the air in mere seconds. Once the group was airborne, the Nightwing wasted no time and soared toward the city before them, which was nothing more than a dark and most likely desolate city filled with only monsters and the like.

  But that didn’t matter to Hazel, Astrid, or Nycteris. This kind of situation was just another day for them after everything they went through in the tutorial dungeon. And it was clear that this wasn’t going to change any time soon.