My Ultimate OP System: Summoning All Dragons, Gods, Heroes & Villains-Chapter 82: Unexpected Gains

Albedo was chasing Finn around the open field with a devious grin on her face. She had this predatory look as her tail flicked behind her excitedly.

Finn, meanwhile, was running for his life.

His little legs pumped as fast as they could carry him while he clutched his revolvers tightly in both hands.

His blonde hair whipped wildly behind him as he glanced back every now and then in pure terror.

"Why are you chasing me?!" Finn yelled breathlessly.

Albedo laughed wickedly as she lunged forward in a blur of motion, her clawed fingers reaching out toward him like she was playing with prey.

"I just want to play!" she cackled.

Finn yelped and dove to the side just in time to avoid her grasp. He rolled across the ground and scrambled back to his feet before taking off running again.

"That’s what you said the last time!" Finn shouted desperately.

Albedo looked even more gleeful as she chased after him again with that same wild grin on her face.

Ethan watched them for a moment and shook his head amusingly. They had also been involved in today’s training session.

In fact, Ethan had sparred against Albedo first. Compared to their first fight weeks ago, this time he had the upper hand. He easily dodged her strikes and landed quite a number of blows himself before she finally yielded.

It felt good to see how much progress he’d made since then.

Right after finishing that spar session with Albedo, he’d called for Finn next. He had specific use for that summon today.

During their session together, Finn had been aiming and shooting at Ethan from different angles across the open field while Ethan did his best to dodge each shot fired at him.

After taking that bullet from Hitman X straight to the head, Ethan hated the fact that one of the reasons he couldn’t avoid it was because of how impossibly fast that bullet had moved.

So he used Finn to measure how quickly his body would be able to react to bullets fired from certain angles and distances so that he would never be caught lacking like that again.

But unfortunately...

At distances of three hundred meters and above, he could barely dodge Finn’s precision shots.

But any distance less than three hundred meters? The bullets still grazed or hit him more often than not despite all his efforts to avoid them entirely.

So he knew he still had some serious improvements left to work on before he could confidently say he’d never get shot again like that day.

And finally, Nina. The final boss he couldn’t deal with yet.

His sparring sessions against Nina served two specific reasons.

The first one was to test-run a magic spell he had learned from Jenner’s grimoire that morning. It was a sealing magic spell called Stillbind, and it was Tier 6 level.

The spell required at least a five-meter range between the caster and the target. But once successfully cast, it sealed all movement, forcing any item or person affected to remain in a suspended, animated state.

After seeing how disadvantaged he was against Percival in close combat, Ethan wanted to eliminate that weakness early without waiting until he’d fully trained his body to match that kind of speed.

Maybe this was owing to his previous life as Allen, but Ethan was the kind of person who never wanted to make the same mistake twice.

The second reason he was sparring with Nina was also about the same Stillbind spell, but specifically about how fast he could cast it.

How quickly one could cast a spell depended on one solid factor: how fast you were able to visualize the correct geometric pattern in your mind before it formed into a spell circle outwardly.

The speed of thought was one of the fastest things in existence, true. But a visualization process was something entirely different.

This was what determined the true mastery of a spell.

And that is why casters had to continuously train their usage of spells over and over until casting them began to feel like an extension of their own body.

Ethan knew the right patterns properly by now. He had memorized them perfectly bhut there was still that split-second lag in his cast of the spell right before Nina’s punch landed.

And that split second was the difference between success and failure.

"Again!" Ethan said, his voice filled with determination.

Nina’s eyes widened in shock. She could not believe her master wanted another go.

The eleventh time.

She tried to shake her head in refusal, opening her mouth to protest, but Ethan cut her off before she could say a word.

"It’s a command."

Nina’s shoulders slumped. She sighed deeply, still looking sad, then slowly stood up from where she’d been kneeling beside him.

Ethan then paced himself backward a few steps until there was proper distance between them again.

Now they were both at the ready.

Ethan stretched both arms out toward her as his eyes locked onto Nina with intense focus.

Nina took another stance. She hesitated for just a moment, then her expression changed into something serious.

If her liege wanted this done right, then she would give it everything she had.

Without warning, Nina moved.

She blurred forward in an explosive burst of speed, vanishing for a fraction of a second before reappearing directly in front of Ethan with her fist already drawn back to strike.

Then she lunged her fist forward with devastating force aimed straight at his torso.

Ethan’s eyes widened.

The geometric pattern flashed through his thoughts at lightning speed. The lines intersected, the circles overlapped, and symbols fell into place.

And then—

Just as Nina’s fist was mere inches away from slamming into his chest, a purple magic circle materialized instantly on Ethan’s outstretched palm.

"Stillbind!"

The air around them seemed to freeze.

Nina’s entire body locked in place as her fist stopped mere centimeters away from Ethan’s torso, so close he could feel the heat radiating off it through the air.

Her eyes went wide in shock as she realized she couldn’t move, not even a finger

Ethan’s eyes widened too. Then his face broke into the biggest grin he’d had all day.

"I got it!" he shouted excitedly, throwing both fists into the air.

He looked at Nina’s frozen form and let out a short laugh of pure relief and satisfaction.

"I finally got it!"

The spell held for exactly two seconds before it wore off, and Nina stumbled forward slightly as control returned to her limbs. She blinked a few times, still processing what had just happened.

Then she turned toward Ethan with wide eyes and said in an amazed voice, "My liege... you stopped me..."

Ethan nodded enthusiastically, still grinning.

Nina’s face lit up with genuine pride and joy, then she dropped to one knee and bowed deeply with her hand on her chest.

"Congratulations, my liege!"

Ethan laughed and waved his hand dismissively as he walked over to her. "Get up, get up. We’ll end here for today."

But Nina remained kneeling for a moment longer before she finally stood.

Right then, notification screens began pouring out before Ethan’s vision in rapid succession.

[You have completed self-imposed objectives:

∙ Completing 50 pushups: +3,500 XP

∙ Practicing sword stances: +3,500 XP]

[System Notice: You will no longer earn experience points from practicing basic sword stances. You have perfected them.]

[Additional objectives completed:

∙ Sparring with summons: +3,000 XP

∙ Dodge training with Finn: +2,500 XP

∙ Successfully mastering Stillbind under pressure: +4,000 XP]

[Bonus Reward for relentless training and pushing physical limits: +4,050 XP]

[Total Experience Points: 95,000]

Ethan’s eyes widened slightly as he looked through the numbers. He was this close to a hundred thousand.

But before he could dwell on that thought, another notification appeared.

[System Notice: Due to pushing your body through extreme physical strain over the last several hours, you have reached the First Foundation Stage of the Guardian Class.]

[As a D-level Guardian, you can only potentially reach the Second Foundation Stage]

Ethan stared at the screen in absolute disbelief.

Another notification followed immediately.

[Guardian Class Skill Unlocked: Provocation]

[Provocation → A skill that increases your threat level which compels enemies within 50m to target you. Affected enemies become vulnerable to allied attacks]

[Note: The level of effect this skill has on targets is highly dependent on your current Foundation Stage. Higher stages increase the skill’s effectiveness and range.]

Ethan couldn’t even control the excitement he felt from this stroke of luck.

A wide grin spread across his face as he let out a short laugh and said, "Well, well, well... what do you know."​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

——

A/N:

Hi guys, I hope this story has been to your expectations so far. We’re delving more and more into when the real fun begins.

I thank you all for the support