SSS-Ranked Awakening: I Can Only Summon Mythical Beasts

The deeper they went into Greshan’s inner web, the more the city seemed to warp around them.

There were no uniform buildings here. Only tangled roads and alleyways stitched together like overlapping thoughts.

Colors were too bright in some corners, completely washed out in others. Market squares morphed into blacksmith rows, which bled into apothecary tents, which then collapsed into shadowy cafés half-occupied by masked wanderers.

Arielle strode forward with confidence—but calculated confidence. She knew how to blend.

Damien walked slightly behind and to the left, head lowered just enough to hide his eyes from passersby, yet his senses were stretched taut like a bowstring.

The first few minutes were normal.

Busy crowds.

Bustling stalls.

A few unusually long stares, but nothing concrete.

And then…

He felt it.

It wasn’t sound or sight. It was the faintest ripple of essence disturbance—like someone had dragged their fingers across the threads of magic near them. Not hostile, not sharp… but probing.

Damien’s lips barely moved. “We’re being followed.”

Arielle blinked, not breaking stride. “You sure?”

“Positive,” he murmured. “About thirty yards back. They’re not close, but they’re tagging our movement.”

She kept walking, scanning the glass windows as they passed.

“No one in reflection.”

“They’re good,” Damien said. “But not perfect. I felt it.”

Arielle gave a subtle nod.

They turned sharply into a spice alley, letting the smells of bitterroot and fermented amber flood the air. The noise rose just enough to mask their whispers.

“On three,” Damien muttered. “We stop. Turn.”

“Got it.”

They counted down in silence.

Three…

Two…

One.

They turned.

A full 180. Eyes hard. Senses flared.

But…

Nothing.

Only the city. Crowds moving. Merchants shouting. A boy carrying a basket of strange black apples.

But no one suspicious.

No signature.

No magic.

No eyes.

~~~~~

A dozen yards back, two figures melted into a narrow alcove between mismatched buildings—just barely avoiding detection.

Both were cloaked in travel-worn hoods. Neither bore armor, but the faint shimmer of concealment magic still flickered across their wrists like damp breath on glass.

The taller one, a woman with jagged facial tattoos hidden beneath illusion, whispered low.

“He felt us.”

The other—a lean, sharp-eyed man with two rings on his left hand—gritted his teeth. “The woman we were sent for… she’s the same. But the boy? The boy’s different.”

“He’s trained,” she said. “Or he’s not from around here.”

“I don’t care if he’s from the stars,” the man growled. “We don’t engage. We watch. Report.”

The woman’s hand hovered over her dagger. “They split up later. We pick one.”

“We wait for confirmation.”

She scowled but nodded.

~~~~~

Damien scanned every shadow, every unnatural silence, but it was like the feeling had evaporated.

He couldn’t hear the tracking anymore.

No essence drag. No distortions in air.

“They’re holding back now,” he said, eyes narrowed.

“You scared them off?”

“No,” he replied. “Just made them more careful.”

They didn’t speak after that. Not for a while.

Soon, the city’s rhythm forced them to blend again—back into the current of the day.

Damien took the lead when they passed a vendor holding an open flame—an older woman who waved off a boy trying to touch the bright orange coil. They were nearing the merchant quarter, where essence dealers made their trades in guarded corners and sealed kiosks.

When they reached a smaller courtyard surrounded by sandstone buildings, Damien finally halted.

“This is it,” he said.

He turned to Arielle. “Meet back here in one hour?”

She nodded. “North plaza. By the blood-bark tree.”

He turned, disappearing down a stairwell painted with worn runes, while she melted into the other side of the plaza, headed toward the potion markets.

Damien was the first one to get to his destination. He arrived at his exchange centre and without a pause, he weng into the first shop he found. The inside of the exchange was chilled—not by climate magic, but by intent.

Essence cores hummed on shelves, each encased in protective runes that suppressed their flare. The room was guarded by two armored mercenaries, both wearing blank helmets and breathing in synchrony. A gold counter stretched the length of the space, behind which stood a man with short white hair, a curved scar on his cheek, and robes of interwoven blue and gray.

He didn’t greet Damien.

Just raised an eyebrow.

“Sell or buy?”

“Sell.”

“Grade?”

“Four and Three.”

The man finally moved. “Show.”

Damien slid a small leather satchel across the counter. One by one, he placed three Grade Four essence cores, humming with fire and wind affinity, and two Grade Three, both tainted with lunar essence—rare and volatile.

The man’s eyes flickered. But he said nothing.

He drew a crystal stylus and tapped it against a glowing plate. The cores reacted—light pulsing, sigils flashing. He examined the output.

“All pure,” he said.

Then, quieter: “Where’d you get these?”

“Killed for them,” Damien said bluntly.

The man cracked a rare smile. “Fair enough.”

He tapped again.

A small tray slid out.

Damien counted seven hundred gold coins, and a small purple chit worth future merchant priority in Greshan’s central bazaar.

He took them both.

“Got anything better?” the merchant asked as Damien turned to leave. “Grade Two?”

Damien paused.

“If he did, that’s what I’d have first sold, don’t you think so? Besides, if I did have a Grade Two essence core, wouldn’t that be terrifying? Someone as young as me with a Grade Two?”

“I don’t ask such questions. You wanna trade? I trade. That’s all that concerns me.”

“I see. I do not possess a Grade Two essence core.” Damien nodded at the man’s words. And then he was gone.

On her part, Arielle had little patience for liars—but potion vendors had little patience for haggling.

She elbowed past a crowd gathered around a flashy potion artist with glowing gloves and instead approached a narrow tent draped in moss and drying vines. The alchemist here didn’t smile, didn’t shout.

But he had blackwater healing vials—triple-concentrated restoratives for internal injuries.

She picked up two, held them to the light.

“These stable?”

The man nodded. “Very.”

“Price?”

“Four gold.”

“Three.”

“Four.”

She sighed and paid.

“Any stamina blends? The ones without the crash?”

He hesitated.

Then reached into a cloth satchel and pulled a small vial of green-blue liquid.

“No label?” she asked.

“No crash,” he replied.

She stared at him.

He stared back.

“Tch! Give it to me.” She tookit and immediately paid for it.

And left quickly to her next stop.

An hour later, as agreed, they met again.

Arielle handed Damien the vial. “We’ll test this one later. Might knock us out. Might turn us into frogs.”

“I’m willing to risk it,” Damien muttered.

“You sold everything?”

“Everything I wanted to.” Damien corrected her. He still has a lot of cores but the ones he’d sold were enough to cover their expenses for a while.

He didn’t mention the gold total and she didn’t ask.

But as they moved out of the courtyard together, toward the safer outer roads, he glanced back once more.

The city hadn’t grown quieter.

Only smarter.

Something or someone had noticed them.

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