Elric was ecstatic to hear the choice. A choice like that meant that there was still a chance for negotiations that meant he could escape with his life, bar some conditions.

“Be Sworn to me in Pact. Pledge thine soul for service, proffer thine mind for governance. Only then wilt thine life be spareth.”

To choose between life or death, that was a choice that Elric was very good at choosing.

And so after a short ritual, the demon had suddenly disappeared from sight.

Elric had let out a long sigh afterwards from his narrow escape with death. But the cost that accompanied this would not be known to him for the time being.

But then it happened quickly. He had realized that the second crisis of his life was incoming rapidly. A short quake later, the giant pentacle around him was supplied with enough power. The space around him soon began to surge and distort in preparation for something. If Elric was praying for a speedy resummon back to the human world a moment ago, then right now, he was praying with all his might to not go back to the human world. However, now that the array was activated, he would soon be confronted with Crazy. This had meant that Elric could only pray to any God that would listen that Crazy would hopefully be in a good mood.

After the quakes had stopped, the sleepy eyes of Crazy could soon be seen, and from that, Elric knew that the Gods in Zenitheim had not heard his prayers at all. It had taken a considerable amount of magic for Crazy to cast, and all that she could see aside from Elric right now was the very lack of existence of a demon. Shooting a bolt of lightning and a gale of wind to resummon Elric back to the other world, Crazy then went back to sleep.

For the next dozen years, it would only take the sound of lightning to strike for Elric to be frightened out of his mind.

On the second day, Kite and the others had arrived to help Elric out from the circle. It had been with a sorrowful voice that Jerry had uttered a single phrase that nearly pushed the already broken-bodied Elric to another mental breakdown. “Master Crazy wants to talk to you.”

Before Crazy could even ask, Elric had already spoke all that he knew in a single endless stream so that by the time he’d finish, he could await his death.

“Hahahahahaha!” A peal of laughter rang through the air in a symbol of the delight Crazy felt as if she had gone mad.

Waving her hand, a single magical array came down from the sky. A silvery wisp of smoke could be seen descending down from the ceiling as well.

“Did the demon look like this?” Crazy asked.

“Hah! You’ve actually made a pact with a stygian! Hahaha, hahaaha!” Crazy looked as if she had found something that appealed to her greatly.

“Stygians are so inferior a demon that they are barely capable of materializing themselves. They have no body, no power, no threat but words. What sort of pact was it? What conditions? Are you the master? An equal? Or slave?”

“I think it was a soul pact or something.” Elric answered.

“HAHAHA—hak!” Crazy began to laugh so hard that for a moment, she was unable to breathe. Her fist slammed against the table several times as if venting her laughter. “A soul pact! My my, aren’t you an easy person to scare, Elric.”

Seeing how all four apprentices were completely baffled, she began to explain herself to them. “A pact of the soul unilaterally benefits one side and one side only. They are, consequently, very common to see due to the conditions of one.”

But the apprentices still didn’t understand.

“Pacts were the first form of communion between humanity and the Gods and demons. Power given from a pact is proportional to the difficulty of the pact. In a pact where a human is the subservient one, they may draw upon the powers agreed upon earlier. A God or demon is capable of canceling a pact when both parties are equal; powers granted by this type of pact are usually of the same as the first type of pact. In the third case, where the human is the master, the other party must be given permission for the pact to be canceled. A pact of souls is the most unfair of pacts for humanity. Not only is it unbeneficial for the human, but their body and soul is now at the complete whim of the one they are Sworn to. The only requirement of such a pact is the complete willingness of the other party, the human. Any doubt prior to the completion of this pact will negate it from being formed, do you get it now?”

Crazy revealed a toothy smile when she saw Crazy go as still as a statue. Smiling sinisterly, she spoke, “Cute widdle Elric, you’ve angered me greatly by interrupting my slumber yesterday. Now, if you don’t sign a pact that is to my liking with me, then...”

Already on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Elric signed several pacts with Crazy before finally succumbing to yet another bout of unconsciousness.

Belladonna had rushed forward to try and heal the wounds on Elric’s body with her magic, but she had been interrupted mid-cast by Crazy who told her that because of the pact Elric had with the stygian, Belladonna’s light-based healing magic would be fatal to him.

By the time Elric had reawakened from his slumber, his entire body had been lathered and covered with herbal medicine. The spicy aroma of the herbs had pervaded the entire room and was enough to waken him. Trying his best to climb back up to his feet, Elric had came to the startling realization that the herbs had induced a numbing effect onto him and made it seem as if he was wading through a pool of cotton. No matter how hard he tried, his legs were rubber in sensation and did not feel any pressure he applied onto it. Pushing open the doors from his room, Elric had came to see a giant magical array scrawled across the center of the hall. In the center, a bloody Kite was completely drenched in sweat as he weaved left and right as if dodging something. But from where Elric was, he couldn’t see anything in front of Kite. Only Belladonna and Jerry were seated to the side as they watched Kite do whatever it was he was doing.

“Kite.” Elric called out to his friend.

In that moment of distraction, a bolt of lightning had appeared seemingly out of thin air and struck Kite in the left rib. Now that he had another injury to his body, Kite couldn’t bother to be distracted anymore.

Elric on the other hand realized that it was because of his distraction that Kite had suffered a wound in his training. Carefully making his way across the room without a sound, he spoke out to the other two, “Hey! What type of training is Kite doing?”

“Don’t bother me, it’s taking all of my concentration to maintain this formula.” Jerry grunted in warning.