Heroine Creation: All My Summons Are Custom Made-Chapter 67: Thank You So Much, Miss Nightingale [Bonus - ]
The final day of the weekend came and when Lancet woke up, the pain all over his body reminded him of his grueling session with Astensia and Thor.
He was pretty satisfied with how far he’d gone in combat training. But to be a powerful Awakener, physical training was only half the battle. Lancet also needed to master the art of absorbing and retaining Grace.
In this world, ambient magic was simply referred to as ’magical energy.’ It floated in the atmosphere, neutral and raw.
But Awakeners could not just inhale it and cast spells. They had to perform the filtration process known as Separation.
When an Awakener drew in magical energy, Separation forcibly divided it into two distinct elements: Grace and Gloom.
Awakeners immediately expelled the toxic, heavy Gloom through their breath and pores, but kept the purified Grace to fuel their powers. Demons and beasts, however, operated in the exact inverse—hoarding the dark Gloom to mutate their bodies and expelling the Grace.
Thanks to the Orcs’ Heart, Lancet’s Grace retention limit had expanded to 1,250. But capacity meant nothing if his absorbing and Separation speed was still a slow trickle.
Between acting as the spiritual anchor for two Platinum-Rank legends and the new Skills he would have to fuel thanks to the Phantom Ring, he was would be burning through Grace faster than he could replenish it.
He needed a way to absorb ambient energy faster, and Separate it more efficiently.
Which brought him back to the golden halls of the Grand Library.
He pushed through the oak doors, meeting that library smell of books and wood. Like a man on a mission, Lancet marched straight to the front desk.
"You again," the elderly, sour-faced librarian droned, her lip curling the moment she saw him. "You know the rules, boy. You are a Bronze. Do not enter the Restricted Section. Do not touch—"
"Actually, I’ll do precisely what I want," Lancet interrupted smoothly.
He showed her his Student Card which had the insignia of his 1-Week Free Pass glowing beside his passport. The woman’s eyes widened in surprise.
"Seeing that this is an Academy facility," Lancet said, smiling like her condescendingly, "my pass grants me completely free, unrestricted access to everything and anything in this library."
The woman’s sour face contorted into an expression of stifled rage. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. If she dared contest this, it meant she was challenging the Academy.
So she watched, completely handicapped, as Lancet casually walked right past the security barriers and into the atrium.
It was a small, petty victory, but it felt fantastic.
Lancet navigated the shifting shelves easily, heading straight for the sections on Grace Mechanics and Separation Theory.
Now that he had unrestricted access, he bypassed the general history sections and stepped into the area with darker lightning, where he found heavily warded alcoves of the advanced archives.
He pulled several heavy tomes from the shelves and settled at a secluded reading desk.
’Alright,’ Lancet thought, cracking open a book titled The Flow of Grace. ’I just have to find that technique and refresh my memory on how it’s done.’
He spent the next hour immersed in the text, looking for the particular technique he half-remembered from the novel.
On another note, he also learned some stuff. Lancet learned that some Awakeners relied on passive Separation, using an enhancement that lets their lungs filter the energy naturally.
It was expensive and required magical surgery.
Lancet ignored that.
He continued to read until he finally found what he was looking for.
Right there on one of the restricted Chapters of the time, he saw a technique called the Open Pores.
From what Lancet remembered, it was a notoriously difficult and dangerous style of absorption. Even the book warned him as well.
However, the benefits were just too juicy. The book explained that the technique bypassed the lungs and even the core entirely, filtering magical energy directly through the Awakener’s pores like a sponge.
If learned correctly, an Awakener could regenerate Grace so quickly they could essentially never run dry, regardless of how wide their well was.
But the text came with severe warnings. Any minor errors could cause a Gloom expulsion that could lead to instant core combustion.
And when the core combusted and all that was left was Gloom, a Purification Bath would be completely useless. The Awakener was bound to turn into a Beast.
It was far too dangerous to try alone. He had to find someone to teach him.
Lancet sighed, rubbing his temples. Who the hell is going to teach a Year One Bronze an advanced, life-threatening absorption technique?
He raised his head, and his eyes suddenly caught a sight deep in the back of the atrium.
In front of the large, circular glass window bathing the floor in colorful light, he spotted a solitary figure sitting at a mahogany table.
Lancet’s breath staggered. It was Miss Estelle Nightingale.
’Woah. What luck!’
The Professor sat in a silence she seemed to enjoy, reading a thin book open in front of her. She was a quiet, serene woman with an appearance that was undeniably striking.
She had a pale, flawless skin and raven-black hair which was elegantly streaked with deep, blood-red highlights. Today, she wore a matching, deeply colored crimson gown, and her lips were painted a stark, immaculate red.
As Lancet knew, Miss Estelle Nightingale was an Empath Mage, capable of manipulating emotions. She was the Instructor for Enchanter-D, and almost everyone in the Academy—students and fellow professors alike—was utterly terrified of her.
Powers that messed with the mind left people deeply paranoid about what she might be doing when they were around her.
It was the reason she was practically invisible during the Dungeon expeditions and other competitions; she was so quiet, so isolated by the fear of others, that she faded into the background.
’But she’s exactly the type of person I need right now,’ Lancet thought.
He was right. In the novel, Estelle Nightingale was part of the prestigious Nightingale Family, a legendary bloodline that had birthed the most powerful Enchanter Class Awakeners in the world.
She even had an elder sister right there in the Academy: Serena Nightingale, a Temporal Mage who taught the elite Enchanter-S class. One could imagine how powerful she must be.
If there was any Class Group that intimately understood the magical element of Grace, it was the Enchanters. And Lancet knew for an absolute fact that Estelle Nightingale, despite her chilling reputation, knew the Open Pores technique.
In fact, he could swear she was using it right now.
Lancet swallowed his nerves, stood up, and slowly made his way across the library.
As he approached her table, the pressure started getting to him. Her aura was so strong it made him stop farther than he normally should’ve.
"Excuse me, Miss Nightingale," Lancet said softly.
Estelle slowly raised her head. Her striking, cold dark eyes locked onto his, making Lancet feel as though she were reading the very marrow of his bones.
"Lancet Leogardt," she murmured coldly. She recognized him. Of course she did. She had watched him become MVP during the expeditions for two weeks in a row.
"Good morning, Professor," Lancet greeted respectfully, keeping his posture straight. "I was... I was trying to learn how to absorb magical energy better. But I keep hitting a dead end, and... uhm..."
Lancet gulped. "I was hoping that you might help me learn the Open Pores technique."
Estelle stared at him. It was like she was incapable of blinking. For a long time, she simply studied his face, then her lips softly parted
"You’re serious?" she asked, toneless.
Lancet nodded firmly. "Yes."
Estelle slowly closed her book. She folded her slender arms across the dark red fabric of her gown, leaning back in her chair.
"Many others would have been thoroughly frightened at the mere thought of standing this close to me," Estelle stated quietly, her eyes piercing through him. "Yet, you are standing here and asking me to teach you a technique so incredibly dangerous, it has been outlawed quite a few times in this Institution’s history."
Lancet shrugged nervously. "...Pretty much."
Silence stretched between them as Estelle continued to watch him, her Empath abilities likely searching his aura for deceit, arrogance, or hidden motives.
Whatever she found, it seemed to satisfy her.
"Very well," Estelle finally said, still no tone in her voice. "Meet me in the Class Group-D Grace Hall every other school day during recess."
Lancet’s eyes widened. He had expected a test, a rejection, or at least a scolding.
"Really?" Lancet gasped. He quickly caught himself and bowed deeply from the waist. "Thank you so much, Miss Nightingale. Thank you!"
Without waiting for her to change her mind, Lancet turned and hurried away from the table before she changed her mind.
As soon as he was safely out of her immediate line of sight, he aggressively pumped his fist into the air, a massive grin splitting his face.
Estelle Nightingale tried to return to her book, but her serene eyes lifted again, staring at the space where the Legend Summoner had just been.
"How curious."
