"What is a [Familiar]?" Agatha asked to the css, they were once again in an auditorium, this time a bigger one, so it could hold almost as twice as many students. "Let′s start from the top five scorers for answers"

  Before anyone could say anything at all one of them spoke, "They are a liability, don′t listen to orders and nag too much for what they help," Akira didn't seem to have in good esteem the help of the Familiars.

  "Iing opinion that I′m sure has an even more iing reason to be, as far as we tell you haven′t summoned a [Familiar] before Mister Akira." Agatha said while raising one of her eyebrows at Akira, the kid must have had summoned one before in his previous world.

  It probably didn't like his antid so he must have been at odds with it, sucks to be him.

  "Sine Miser Akira has put us in this we will keep w from the bottom then, Miss Rena? what is your opinion in this case."Agatha asked Re, so then it would be Rossie, then Michael, and finally her at the end?

  "A[Familiar] is a type of tractual summo some type of entity to help us in bat and they in exge get mana from us to subsist."Rena answered back, quite cise answer, she holy didn't though the girl would even answer something like that, since Akira was at odds with the idea of summoning.

  "Correct, you didn't let much for your other embers either. So Miss Singh, what types of [Familiar tracts] we make?"Agatha asked her Rossie .

  Moving the theme to a more plex affair, no wait, if this kept moving wouldn't her questiohe hardest?

  "There are several types, usually we only have: [Bind], [Bargain], [Trade],[Help],[Equal] and [Iure]." Her Rossie answered, that...wasn't what she expected as an answer.

  "Correct, and befetting to the good stuff, Mister Shepherd... what are those types of tracts?" Agatha asked Michael.

  "[Bind]: As the name implies, this type makes a one-way deal with the entity, it is closer to a sve tract but it allows the entity some degree of intelligeo survive." Michael started saying, "[Bargain] and [Trade] are basically the same on different style, the first has the entity offer something to the tractee while the sed has the tractee and the entity make an exge for the tract."

  That...seemed to be more plex to be the same type of things, she could imagine a few sarios in which the first type [Bargain] was better tharade], after all... Most of the time the Magical Girls didn't know what to ask for.

  "[Help]: Is what the ates, the entity offers its help to the tractee to survive some kind of no-win sario. There are rumors that state that most of the primal or [inal] magical girls are of this type." Michael seemed to be unsure about that and he kept stealing g her, what did he want? "[Equal]: A two-way tract is made in which the tractee helps the entity as much as the entity helps the tractee, this is closer to a friendship of coworkers than an actual traot many are on this level."

  She wasn't quite sure if [Mother] had a familiar or not, but if she had o robably on the [Equal] front.

  "[Iure]...I will say that this one I loathe but for the sake of css..." Michael seemed to hesitate to even speak of this one, in the end, he relented anyway. "[Iure]: This is basically a sve tract, you bind the will of the summoy. They no longer have free will or any level of intellige is used on higher order summon to break their will and is sidered a hostile a."

  Yikes, [Mother] most definitely never had that ohat one was closer to home in most of her [Mother] stories, usually those ended with the womeo the will of someone and turned into something barely better than a toy.

  "Good, even if the method sounds evil. Depending on hainst what any level of summoning tract have its uses. [Iure] is good to deal with a hostile summons or to momentarily bind devils or demons that usually are hard to use like [Sughter Demons], it is a good way to curb the most vicious part of their nature and leave us with only the good parts." Agatha said, but even used like that... what was the case if they would return to evil after the summoning traded?

  Wasn't that worse?

  "Miss Starbright? As for your question...Tell me, what kind of tract do you think we will do?" Agatha turo her and said as much.

  That wasn't that hard of a question, to be ho.

  "I would assume it would be either [Bind] or [Iure], but for a first summon I would expect that we would attempt to summon a nonintelligent being, so the type of tract we attempt to do is a moot point." Elizabeth answered.

  All the while thinking about what type of tract she had with her [Shadons], she hadn't actually attempted to make oer all, instead she had just summohem.

  "What happens if we summoned something before knowing these?" Asked Elizabeth, she, after all, had done just that.

  "Usually the tract goes for 50/50 as the default unless you sciously try to twerk the retionship, these bels we spoke about are mostly cepts ical girls came up with when they noticed the different way others did their tract." Agatha answered her as she pooled the cept into the whiteboard. "Some preferred loyal subjects with no speck of intelligence."

  "As they should, why would anyone want a small fairy nagging over your shoulder about what you do." Akira spoke at the back while grumbling some extra words that she hadn't mao hear.

  "Why the question Miss Starbright?" Agatha didn't seem to pay much attention to Akira's pints.

  "I have something that you may refer to as a [Familiar] already, he is called [Nyx] but haven't mao summon him even though there is a mana thread between us." Elizabeth answered while tugging at that particur mana thread.

  It was quite the odd thing, she fed mana into it and then got mana back, the maurtuned into [Shadow Mana], but that only meant that she had a small pool of shadow-attuned mana at the back, ready to be used for her [Shadow] skills.

  "That is iing indeed, so you 't summon it at all?" Agatha asked while she materialized a magical circle with plex mandas on it, "Care to try?"

  "Should I try to summon Nyx or one of its minions?" Elizabeth asked, she didn't think she would be able to summon Nyx yet. But she could very well summon one of her minions.

  "Minions?" Agatha asked looking at her weirdly. "You 't summon your [Familiar] but still use one of its [Skills]?"

  What? The Skill was hers not of Nyx...Or should be, she got the skill first after all...Or was the skill existenfluenced by Nyx?

  "I'm...not sure to be ho, I don't know if I got the skill so I could summon Nyx ot the skill from being able to summon Nyx...Either way...[Rise]" Elizabeth said and raised her right hand over, projeg a shadow of her hand into the whiteboard.

  That shadow extended and from it a shadon rose iehe small little and adorable thing was quite solid already, only whisps of shadow mist left its body where the wings stood and from its smoll little maw.

  "That is one of my [Shadon Scouts]," Elizabeth said motioning at the little dragon, at seeihe little thing fpped its wings and did a small little jump into the air where it started flying in circles. "They are quite adorable the little things right?"

  "...An [Elemental Summon] huh, sorry to burst your bubble Miss Starbright, but the [Elemental] ones are strictly in the [Iure] type. They have no intelligeo speak for, so they are reliant oher a higher order summon to trol them or for a multitasking talent from the summoner." Agatha expined while motioning for her summon, at seeing this the little thing flew towards the teacher who patted its snout.

  "You have quite the good talent at managing this one, usually I would think your familiar [Nyx] is the one trolling it, but since you said you haven't been able to summon him...It must mean that you are the one in trol." Agatha tinued saying while casting a few spells on her small little dragon, "It is possible to grant them autonomy, some go the way of [Teage] and program them a core with an artificial intellige and, others use rituals to grant them souls..."

  "And those rituals...?" Elizabeth asked, worried that she had mistakenly done something.

  "Are things we will not discuss here, but they usually involve gruesome deaths to an absurd number of people iempt to harvest the soul of people. I advise against doing that, not because that would pinly make you a Super Vilin. But because those [Familiars] usually hate their tractor and will betray them at the first ce, it isn't a viable way to get smart summons." And wasn't that right, she didn't think those would be loyal, not at the same level her shadons were at the very least.

  "But if we get [Souls] that are loyal to us, then we make a smart [Familiar] that will do what we need?" Akira asked at the side, a very dangerous glint in his eyes as he sneaked a few peeks at Rena and Rossie.

  ...What was he pnning?

  "In theory yes, if by some ce the [Souls] held some level of loyalty to you, you could create smart summons willing to do your bidding. But that would require the [Soul] to want to do so, usually, a [Soul] will rather go into the circle of transmigration and move on. Only a [Soul] that has o go would be willing to do the biddings of another just to get a new body." A Soul that could not move on?

  Was that even possible?

  She knew a [Soul] could transmigate to a new world, so why would a [Soul] not be able to do so?

  Wasn't the four Heroes and her a good example of [Souls] transding those limitations?

  Or was the deal she and the four heroes got an exception and not the rule?

  Granted Alexanders, Rossie, Michael, and Rena were quite talented in their fields of expertise...Akria robably too, whatever his field of expertise was, debauchery? She didn't want to find out.

  Was that the reason they got a ce at living a new life? And in turn, was that the reason she herself could be here today?

  "Was that all your questions Miss Starbright?" Agatha asked her bringing her back from her musings.

  "What? Yes, is there a way to make sure a [Familiar] or in my case my [Minions] aren't bound by one of those nasty spells?" Elizabeth asked, trying to not sound too worried about that.

  "Why yes, it is quite the simple spell even." Agatha said while smiling at her, was she happy at her doubts? Rude! "I'm gd you are taking steps to discover such gruesome magid prevent them. And that you yourself are willing to subject your own magic to it to find how it works, that may be why [Odyssey] wanted me to keep an eye on you."

  ...No Agatha, [Mother] wanted you to keep an eye on me so she could sneak peek at me using you as a cameraman.

  "[Detect Evil], [Detect Binding], [True Seeing], [Detect Astral Bindings]" Agatha cast spell after spell, she felt the waves of mana and [Saw] the magic as it coursed through the shadon.

  "The first spell is the easy o is used to detect malicious i, in this case. I would be able to detect the remnants of evil iions if you have harvested the soul of someone and mutited it so it would fit the form of your [Shadon]." Agatha started saying as she drew the image of a human silhouette on the whiteboard and at the side a smoll adorable dragon. "As you see the [Soul] must match the summon, in this case, you would had o mutite the human soul to match the form of a [Dragon]. And since a [Dragon] soul is usually more powerful, you would have o supply multiple human souls or the soul of a powerful metahuman. This would accumute plenty ive karma or [Evil] in the adorable thing, and would sound arms to anyone susceptible to [Karma], [Holy] or [Divine] magic."

  "The shadons Eli-Eli summons don't have any of that." Rossie said at her side, a frown on her face at the implications that Agatha stated.

  "And they don't emanate any level of [Killing i], any accumution of that [Bad karma] you speak usually means [Killing i] is created." Rena also said on the side, that...she wasn't quite sure what to think of that either.

  "Exactly, now the sed spell [Detect Binding] is easier to expin, it searches for binds made betweearget and anyone else, in this case, if you had somehow mao cheat my [Detect Evil]. I would be able to find all the multiple seals you would o keep the dragon io do your bidding. Most [Iure] familiars have quite the amount of these too," Agatha this time drew a few s on the human silhouette, "Mostly to make sure they don't backstab you, but this little fel, only has ohat means the tract you have is closer to [Help] or [Trade], which is quite the feat as that means your achievements at trolling this fel are quite good."

  That sounded abht, her tract with the shadons was very loose, she asked them to do her bidding from time to time, but overall left them to do their thing in her soulscape, now a [Shadow Haven]... When she summohe rest they would probably spend most of the time flying from pce to pce, the pce was big.

  "[True Seeing] and [Detect Astral Bindings] are mostly for the same thing, the first one would allow me to see the [Identity] of who you bound to the shadon. What I saw in this case was...A small hatg dragon, nothing else." Agatha said and quickly moved to the part, "[Detect Astral Binding] allows me to see if this thing is bound to a third party, some try to use demons or devils to provide the souls and make a deal to offer them the souls of ahey kill. I didn't detey e to any of the infernal pnes nor heavenly pnes, so that means..."

  Agatha said leaving them in suspense, rude! That is rude!

  "...That your summon is okay, no evil rituals were made and no e to aernal pne provided you with souls to circumvent anything I know be done." Was the result from Agatha's study. "I will send you the name of the [Grimoires] for those spells and you study them in your free time, they be used for other things besides what I did, so they are useful to have. Not that you will hem as Miss Singh has better ways to deal with [Evil]."

  What did that mean?

  "Thank you Agatha," Elizabeth still thanked her and motioned for the small little shadon to return to her shadow. "tinue monit the area."

  She of course whispered that st part to her shadow, she may have ten shadow scouts right now, but she was still in need of increasing her surveilnce area.

  She, after all, o make an experiment with her shadons, to see if the limits of their newfound independence were something useful.

  Rossie had said that they had [Souls], and Agatha had stated that her summons hadn't gotten [Souls] from nefarious pces, so now... now she o find out if her pn could work.

  "Start operation Shadow Link."

  So with a mental and, she felt her shadow split three ways as three scouts went after their three targets, each dragon had a support that would stay hidden around to work as a spotter, should they need evacuation they would make a ruckus to distract their targets.

  Now, some may think this was ridiculous, but she o be sure, she o know for sure...

  Elizabeth would, after all, try to get a full [Apraisal] from Akira, Rena, and Michael, and eae of them was so much more powerful than her right now.

  But even as powerful as they were, they couldn't stay on guard 24/7. Her summons would stay in their shadow and find the moment they were at their weakest. Then and only then, would they try to use her [Appraisal] Skill on them.

  Would this moment be when they slept? Wheook a shower? When they were ihroom?

  She didn't know, and she didn't o know. She only o get their [Status].

  So for now, she would wait.

  She would wait for the report of her scouts... afterward?

  Well, she could decide what to do then.