A month later, Mao saw Horii again. The girl in red silk pants sat quietly by the window and flipped through an ancient book. Her long black hair gently hung down and landed on her shoulders. She blinked her eyelashes twice and looked at the door as if she had sensed something. "Mao." She smiled.

"Looks like you've almost recovered." Mao walked to her side and said, "Lord Reiko's medicine is very useful." "Yes, she is very powerful indeed." Horii replied. After returning from Maple Village, Reiko began to let her consume the potion formulated according to the ancient recipe. In fact, the effect was indeed very good. In just a month, Horii’s voice had almost completely recovered. "Where's your ShiKi? Did you successfully summon it?" Mao asked again.

Horii shook her head. She tried many times this month, but all failed. On the other hand, Mao had summoned a pair of ShiKi after studying for a few days. Reiko also said that her talent was very high. In the future, she might even summon one of the Twelve Divine Generals. However, she knew that her talent was inferior to Mao's, so she wasn't discouraged.

"What an idiot!" Mao looked down at her and scolded her. Then, she didn't start again. She looked arrogant and said, "Anything that you don't understand that you can ask me, Lord Mao!"

This kind of aura emanating from her entire body, "Come and beg me to teach you." She looked even more childish than Eiko. Horii silently finished her evaluation in her heart, then lowered her head and wore a gloomy expression. Very soon, her book was taken away. "Well, actually you're not stupid" Mao said awkwardly, "High-grade ShiKis are indeed harder to summon than those low-grade … Hey! I apologize to you, why are you ignoring me!"

Hearing this, Horii smiled and raised her head. She caressed Mao’s head and said, "I'm not sad." Really, it's so easy to deceive, but there's not even the slightest bit of success in doing this. Horii thought about it and sighed slightly. "You …!" Mao pointed at her, her face flushed red with anger. "You deliberately pretended to be sad to deceive me again!"

"Yes, yes, this isn't the first time. Mao, why are you so easily fooled?"

"Damn it! I will never be tricked again!" Horii watched Mao leave angrily and couldn't help but bend her eyebrows. She just liked to see Mao’s angry profile. This habit seemed to be very difficult to break.

…

After another two days, Mao still did not appear. Horii wondered if she had gone too far. However, when she received the news from Reiko that Mao was helping to stabilize the barrier, she relaxed and went to the back mountain to continue practicing the ShiKi summoning.

Probably because it was already summer, the wind that blew towards him also carried a little warmth. Although Horii was not afraid of the heat, she still found a tree, climbed up nimbly, and found a comfortable place to lie down. The wind blew through the leaves, the mottled images of the leaves dancing on her body, the wide sleeves hanging down from the trees, swaying gently in the wind.

Hearing the sporadic cries of the cicadas, Horii thought to herself, if only time could stop here. "Hey, what are you doing?" The girl's cry came from under the tree, accompanied by a green and yellow fruit also appeared before her eyesight.

Horii wouldn't let the fruit hit her so she raised her hand to catch it.

"In order not to be called an idiot by someone again, I'm trying to study." She shook the book in her other hand and weighed the wild fruit up and down. "This fruit is not ripe yet, can't you wait for it to ripen before picking it?" "The sour ones are the delicious ones." Horii listened to her words and tasted it. The sour and astringent smell made her almost smash down. "It tastes bad." She commented. "You have a strange taste." Mao said with a unbelievable expression. Horii thought “Who exactly has a weird taste!”

"Oh right, aren't you helping Lord Reiko stabilize the barrier? Why do you have time to come over?" "Actually, the rate of loss of spirit power has slowed down. It will probably be completely repaired before winter begins. Furthermore, the monsters seem to be showing signs of retreating recently, so I'll be fine after I leave for a while." Mao explained while biting the wild fruit.

"Slow down?"

"Probably because of the recent destruction of quite a few nearby monsters." Mao said, "Just increase your strength as fast as you could. When Lord Reiko and I were busy, you were actually slacking off!" "Isn't this slacking off? I'm practicing summon ShiKi." Horii explained. "Hummm, I won't talk with you anymore." Mao stood up and said, "I'm going back."

Horii looked at her departing back and suddenly shouted to her, "Mao, will you come here again next summer?" "What nonsense are you talking about?" A green wild fruit broke through the air and smashed into her forehead, "Not only next year, the year after, but the year after. As long as I want to come, of course I will come!"

Horii covered her forehead and rubbed it. She couldn't help but laugh when she looked at Mao's bright and unbridled smile. "As you leave so tragically, making me feel like you're gone forever!" Another wild fruit flew over and was successfully dodged by Horii. "Don't curse me!"

After Mao left, the back mountain seemed to have returned to silence. Horii opened the ancient book and looked at it again. Suddenly, she was surprised to discover that even the contents that she originally couldn't understand were now understandable. "… Wandering soul, please listen to my summons …" Originally, she was just casually reading according to the book, but gradually, Horii noticed the loss of spiritual energy, and the spiritual energy in the air was slowly condensing.

Finally, the Spiritual Energy fluctuations stopped. Horii leaned her head and looked down with unique feeling. The woman in the luxurious twelve-piece clothes also happened to obediently raise her head. Her gaze fell into a pair of cherry-colored eyes unexpectedly.

Horii looked at this woman who had suddenly appeared. Her long smooth hair was like a waterfall, her features were like a picture, and her every move was elegant. If Horii hadn't seen the woman’s appearance with her own eyes, she would have thought that she was a princess. Horii's gaze landed on the flaming mark on her forehead and asked, "Are you my ShiKi?"

The woman leaned on the ground and replied respectfully, "Yes, Master." "Then what's your name?" "I don't have a name." Horii stared at her enchanting face for a long time before finally saying, "Since you don't have a name, I'll give you one." "From now on, your name is Masu."