2 Catherine Lippi (2/2)

”Any of this sound familiar to you?” Joshua finally asked.

Catherine had listened to the story in great detail. She wasn't angry at Joshua but rather perplexed so when he told her his story she was all ears.

”For a regular human you seem to have a more powerful soul than average to be able to manipulate a soul environment like here, but that doesn't explain how you ended up as my Soul Guardian.”

Joshua started to ask her for more information.

She started by explaining her own situation. She was the third and youngest child of the Lippi family, a long line of summoners. Her father held a relatively high position in the king's court and her family was fairly wealthy. The ability to summon spirits was pretty rare in the country and only 5 families were known to produce summoners. The Lippi was one of them, her mother originated from another one but married into the family.

The kingdom was currently at peace but there had been a war with a neighboring kingdom a few years ago. While a peace treaty was signed, it was still fragile.

Therefore the king passed a simple law: everyone had to train to the best of their abilities. At the age of 6, every child in the kingdom had to take an ability test to determine how to maximize their potential Most people received fighter training but talented people could study magic. Summon magic was rare and usually, summoners knew other forms of magic as well.

From the way she explained things, Joshua guessed the level of technology was around medieval times comparing it to Earth.

”Can you take me outside of here? I'd like to see what this world looks like.”

Catherine nodded. Her soul form vanished and she opened her eyes in the real world.

She was standing in a remote shrine part of her family domain. It was an area with high spiritual energy that had been used to summon Soul Guardians by her family for centuries. Various magic symbols were traced on the ground and on the walls.

She pronounced the incantation to summon her Guardian and Joshua appeared.

Joshua was glad he still had his legs despite being a spirit. He was about 185 cm tall, and had short brown hair & eyes. His build was average.

Catherine looked at him. She had hoped once summoned he would reveal some sort of trump card but he still appeared to be an average guy. She could tell he was pretty smart but that was a very meager consolation price.

Joshua examined the room and found all this magic mumbo-jumbo very fascinating.

As a spirit, he found himself able to fly around although the limit seemed to be within 10 meters of Catherine's radius.

Now that there were in the real world, Joshua took a good look at the girl. She was a relatively tall woman, about 175 cm. Her hair was blond and came down to about shoulder length. She was wearing a long blue dress that made her look very pretty. Her facial features were fair and she seemed to emanate an almost angelic kindness. What stood out the most for Joshua was she had purple eyes, which is a color he had never seen on Earth.

Catherine opened the door leading outside and Joshua saw what the outside world looked like for the first time.

The time appeared to be late afternoon. The sky was clear and some bizarre bird species could be seen in the sky.

They were standing relatively high up on a mountain and judging by the snow, it should be very cold around here. In the distance, he saw what looked to be a very big city.

”That's Capital City” she said.

Joshua loved practical names like those.

Looking down the mountain, he saw what appeared to be a small town.

Catherine explained: ”My family lives there, along with our servants and students.”

Joshua nodded.

Catherine pointed towards 4 other mountains and told him that there were 5 mountains in the kingdom and a family of summoners ruled over each one.

”I was supposed to remain here until the summon is successful, but I'm not sure how I'm going to announce to my family that I summoned a regular human soul.” Catherine said in a sad voice.

Joshua looked at her, while she remained stoic, she didn't look well at all.

Joshua didn't blame her. He wondered if there was something he could do for her. He tried to summon a mind object but it didn't work in the real world.

He thought about it for a few minutes and smirked.

”Catherine, you said my home from now on will be your spiritual world acts as my home now and I can remodel it, right?”

”Indeed.” she said in a monotonous tone. ”You seem relatively skilled at manipulating that space, maybe you can make something nice looking.”

She clearly wasn't interested in whatever vacation home Joshua would build there.

”OK listen, girl, I don't want to get your hopes up, but those skills I mentioned before and you didn't understand, maybe I can find a use for it.”

Joshua returned to the spiritual world before she could say anything.