SSS Awakening: Only My Summons Evolve

"That was a good day of hunting."

Verso wiped a thick layer of grey dust off his face and looked around.

He was standing on top of a massive landfill of rubble, these were the pulverized remains of dozens of golems he had dismantled over the last few hours.

Standing around him like ancient sentinels were eight gigantic golems, each twelve feet tall.

They were goliaths compared to the ones he had started with as their stone bodies were reinforced with an extra layer of jagged rocks and brighter golden runes.

"This was completely worth it."

Verso had spent the past two weeks in a state of high efficiency multitasking.

During the day, he was a model student, studying in his room and attending his final high school exams.

While every spare second he would get, he would spend in the Shattered Wilds, pushing his limits and farming beast souls with the efficiency of a machine.

"Let’s take a look."

He focused his mind, pulling up the blue translucent window to check the progress of his grind.

[✦Summoner Window✦]

Name: Verso

Title: -

Talent: [Endless], [Son of The Seas]

Core: Uncondensed (70%)

Stats:

[Strength: 10]

[Agility: 9]

[Endurance: 10]

[Mana: 10]

Summons: [Nameless Skeleton], [Minor Stone Golem (22)], [Stone Golem (8)]

His smile widened as he looked at the summon list.

The composition of his army had changed drastically as through constant synthesis and hunting he was able to replace his smaller units with a large quantity of heavy hitters.

"I literally have an army of my own." He muttered, letting out a short triumphant whistle.

With a mental command, he pulled back all eight of his summons as the twelve foot goliaths dissolved into grey particles, vanishing into his soul space.

Verso started walking down the trail, his boots crunching over the gravel and debris that now coated every inch of the path.

’I should be able to rank up in a few days...’

He looked at the seventy percent progress on his core’s condensation. The Passive Mana Cultivation function had been running the entire time in the background and was slowly but surely squeezing his mana into a solid form.

But a new issue was starting to eat away at him. Now that he was approaching his rank up, the attribute crystals he was getting from the standard golems were going to be ineffective.

If he wanted to reach the new stat gap of twenty once his core condensed, he needed crystals with higher stats than what the giants could offer.

He looked down the trail toward the deeper and darker sections of the crater.

"There is no better time than now."

He made up his mind instantly. He wasn’t here to play it safe anymore, he was going to do anything it took to become a monster before the Academy Exams.

Verso started parkouring through the jagged rocks and leaped across deep crevices as he started making his way down to the center.

After several minutes of travelling at full speed, Verso stopped.

He crouched behind a massive, floating boulder and looked over the edge into a large clearing.

In the center of the clearing stood what looked like dozens of stone statues, but they weren’t golems. They were lean, muscular and possessed large bat like wings.

’The Gargoyles.’

Verso had read about these in the school’s bestiary.

They lived deeper in the crater, acting as the mid tier predators of the Shattered Wilds.

Their stats were on the high side of the Mutant rank, often exceeding the golems in both Agility and Endurance.

But the stats weren’t why Verso had avoided them until now.

Suddenly, one of the gargoyles snapped its head toward the sky. It let out a screeching cry and flapped its stone wings.

With an explosion of dust, the beast took flight, moving at an insane speed as it zipped toward a massive castle in the distance.

Even Verso’s eyes struggled to follow the movement.

This was the exact problem he was facing.

Unlike the golems, which were slow and predictable, the gargoyles were aerial predators.

Their flight patterns were erratic and their speed increased massively once they were flying.

If Verso missed his first surprise strike on the beast, it would be almost impossible for him to land a hit on a flying target.

’But it’s not just me who they are fighting.’ Verso smiled.

He stepped out from behind the boulder and opened his summoning space wide.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

All eight of his gigantic golems slammed onto the ground besides him. They stood like a row of towers, their sheer mass causing the ground to buckle. The sound of them landing at once was like a bomb going off.

’Well, there goes my surprise.’ Verso cussed in his head, realizing that he already lost his surprise element.

The dozens of gargoyles in the clearing turned in unison, their glowing red eyes fixing on the intruder.

"Aim and take down as many as you can! Fire!"

The eight goliaths straightened their massive stone arms, their golden runes burning with mana.

But the gargoyles didn’t wait. They simultaneously took flight as a swarm of grey stone and flapping wings rising into the air.

They were much faster than anything Verso had ever fought as he watched them dive toward him from multiple angles, their claws screeching against the air.

BOOM!

Right then, eight pillars of golden light tore through the air. Most of the beams missed, hitting the ground or the surrounding rocks as the gargoyles performed rolls and dives to avoid the blasts.

But just as the swarm closed in, one of the beams connected with a flying beast’s chest.

"Got it!" Words slipped out of Verso’s out in excitement.

The gargoyle plummeted, its body crashing into the dirt with a heavy sound as Verso waited for the system notification.

But the silence was deafening. There was no notification.

He looked at the fallen gargoyle.

’It’s not dead?’

Despite taking a direct hit from a maxed out Mutant Golem’s beam, the creature was already scrambling back to its feet with its stone skin full of cracks.

Verso’s heart skipped a beat.

These things weren’t just fast but their endurance was also significantly higher than the golems.

It looked like killing them was going to be a grueling challenge.

Just as the realization hit, the first wave of the swarm reached him. He did not even have time to pull out a weapon.

SHREK!

Four gargoyles dove at him at once, their obsidian hard claws slashing through the air.

Verso felt a momentary sting before his entire world tilted and went black.