This takes place after leaving Sakura and Fen.
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"Hey Mary, what do you think it will be?" Chise asked her as they saw the portals for different size people.
"I don't know, maybe something about summoning as that's all I know about the HUB." Mary put out her opinion as they entered the same gate.
Inside was full of people of all shapes, some with features like Chise and some made of rock or something similar.
Soon the gate behind them stopped letting people in and the stage was brought up with a woman with snow white hair.
"Hello everyone, we will begin the entrance exam shortly after giving some information." Her voice was cold as if nothing could bother her.
"You have not been summoned yet, weather it's personal preference or your parents didn't want it." She turned on the screen behind her.
"Here is the basics of summoning, you will be sent somewhere to do something for the person, you will negotiate your reward, and you will always be sent to a task and world compatible with you." She explained about summoning before finishing up with the same spiel as the red haired man from before.
Magic circles appeared under all participants and the woman sent out the papers.
Mary grabbed hers and looked down to her circle and it was a different color, "Oh dear, that's probably bad, right?" She clutched her doll in her pocket.
And so she disappeared and was in front of a woman in yellow robes and witch hat who stared down at Mary.
"Uh hello?" Mary greeted her only to be ignored.
Suddenly the woman grabbed Mary's head and did something... and smiled.
"Ok here's how we will do this." She started.
"I am in need of a reciprocal of my knowledge and you will do well for that."
She attempted something only to be blocked by the magic circle and a message appeared in their minds.
[DEAL REQUIERED, FORCED WILL BE REJECTED]
"tsk, fine #@&$*(, if that's what you want." She was mad, but not at Mary.
"Ok, what do you want, I want you to store all my knowledge before I die." She stared Mary in the eyes with complete indifference.
Mary steeled herself, thinking about Sakura's comment about human lives. "I want strength." 'I don't want her to be forced to protect me.'
She nodded, "Quite the resolve, however, your body is weak and will disintegrate from my power and knowledge." This saddened Mary. "That's the bad news, now the good news, you have a strong soul and connection to the ethereal with your spirit magic, and your resolve for your wife will keep your soul from falling apart." And now Mary was hopeful.
"So, how about it, discard your mortal shell, we upgrade your little doll their to house your strong soul as well as give you an anchor to the world and to be able to influence it, and I give you my knowledge to use rather than what it originally was, which was to house the information for my next incarnation to find." She smiled to Mary, bringing out her hand.
Mary thought about it, no body to grow old, strength, and a lot of things she needed to learn, so she didn't hesitate and took her hand.
Silk strings tied around the woman's limbs and something wrapped around Mary.
"With this the deal is set." The woman commented.
"Where should we start? uh... who?" Mary asked.
"You can't hear my name, it'll kill you, and to start I will be showing you how to upgrade the doll to match your soul for a start." She stared at Mary like she was stupid.
Mary looked embarrassed at that before composing herself.
*clap clap*
The woman clapped and somethinghappened.
"What was that?" Mary asked.
"It was so that time moved faster here, now you will be able to learn while the outside is slowed."
"uh huh..." Mary was confused, earning a giggle from the woman.
"haha... well now is there anything important you want for the doll?" The woman started her lessons to the almost naive Mary.
Over the coarse of many days with the witch in yellow, Mary learned a lot about magic and the supernatural, including telepathy, as the doll won't have a mouth to speak from.
Soon it was the woman's time...
"Ok Mary, it's about time I start what I summoned you here for, sit." She motioned to a chair in front of her to which Mary sat in.
"Ok now I will start the process, you will lose your body so put your doll by your heart." Mary complied as the woman put her hands on Mary's head and started chanting something.
#Q(^ (Q#$)( ) @#)(#&$@ )@(#$*_!)_)$* _!#*$_!)@#*$ #@!%)*(&%#!@ _)
Mary felt herself float without feeling anything except the doll.
#%*!(()_!*& !*#( *% ()_!#*% %#!*(&!
Mary then felt the air and felt her mind tingle.
BY @#&%(* I GRANT KNOWLEDGE!
She stopped the chant and felt shorter and there was a lot of information appearing in her mind.
Confused she looked around, she saw an empty chair and a pile of clothes behind it.
She waddled over, realizing she is in the doll, and went to the clothes.
When she touched the clothes they disappeared into motes of light and it entered her soul.
With that done, she went to a mirror to look at herself.
In the mirror she saw a doll of herself in witches clothes, purple with pink accents, and a ghostly version of herself and upon realizing that her view switched to that of her ghost holding strings.
In this view she tested puppeting her doll self, eventually returning to her doll self to return.
'I guess it's over...' Mary thought as a magic circle appeared under her and she returned to the exam site.
When she looked around she tried looking for Chise, who wasn't there, so she decided to head with the crowd, and tripped from pain as she stubbed her toes on a rock.
'Wait pain?' She switched to ghost self as she looked at the doll.
Now it was pretty much identical to her ghost self, but it now had detachable parts.
'I should learn the size change spell soon...' She thought about Sakura before remembering that she now had a mouth and tried speaking.
"huu wooo (hello)" It was like a breeze coming from her mouth, 'I should practice.'
She entered the line and soon made it to the counter to which she used the telekinesis from her strong soul to bring it to the counter.
"Uh... hello?" The receptionist was confused as she looked for the owner of the doll before Mary spoke up.
'I'm here, the doll.' Mary waved to her and she regained her composure.
"Ok... then what's your name and sex, from before this." She waved to her situation.
'Mary, female.' She answered.
"Ok..." The screen had flashed as the receptionist put a paper to it as it copied her results.
"Here's your grade, go to the right portal." She directed Mary.
'Before that, was there a fox girl by the name of Chise who passed through here before me? If she hasn't I will wait by the portal.' Mary asked her with a tilt of her head.
"No, not yet, if she appears I will let her know you're looking for her." She nodded and went to wait by the portal.
Some time later Chise was told about Mary waiting by the portal and went looking for her.
"Mary! Where are you?" she yelled out
'Down here.' She looked down to see Mary's doll, reaching up to be picked up, also with a folded paper.
"Is that you Mary? what happened." She asked as she picked her up.
'It's a long story, tell you later.' She said as they went through the portal.
On the outside they were greeted by tents of different sizes and separated by gender.
"What grade you get? and trait?" Chise asked, "I got an S-tier, A new tail, and fox-fire"
'I also got S-tier, but it doesn't say what I did well or bad.' She was confused, 'As for traits, it's pretty obvious, no?
The entered the tent for women and got dragged for fittings.
"Alright miss drop the clothes, we need measurements for the uniform." She commanded, "I want to get this done and over with.
Mary jumped from Chise's arm, startling the stern woman and undressed revealing her soft and tiny self.
'What?' She asked, 'Just measure me already.' She crossed her arms to which the woman complied.
After she was done it was Chise's turn and much to her disappointment, there was still nothing on her chest.
"Alright that's done now please just leave I'm scared of ghosts!" She pointed to the back exit.
"haha ok ok" Chise picked up Mary and left.
Once outside they started asking people about Sakura and Fen, with most not knowing anything, those who knew only mentioning their features in lewd ways, so they waited.
Thankfully Chise was relatively tall with her ears and Sakura noticed them.
"Hey Chise!" She noticed a quick difference "Rocking a new tail I see!"
Chise nodded absentmindedly holding Mary.
"Why do you have Mary's doll?" Sakura's features darkened.
Chise quickly caught onto Sakura's concern and tried to make an excuse but was cut off by a voice.
'It's me Saki-chan, something happened and now I'm possessing the doll.' The voice was Mary's.
"You have to tell me what happened." Sakura was furious. "Don't. skip. a. thing."
And so she explained what happened during her summon.
After the lengthy conversation Sakura commented, "So that's why you're a ghost."
She stared at ghost Mary, startling her.
"You can see me? that's nice." She smiled. "I mostly became like this because I was just a boring human and didn't want to hold you back..."
"Thanks for thinking about me, now it's time to tell our stories!"
And so they explained what they went through and what they got from it.
Fen was asked to assassinate a rival group and Chise was asked to fight sword duels for knights to humble their arrogant attitudes.
After their stories they explained what they got, eventually a horn sounded signaling the next part.
So the group headed over and joined the crowd by the stage.
Spotlights appeared around what were the proctors of the previous segment, including the fiery man and cold woman from before, but there was an intimidating man in front of them.
*CLAP*
He got the participants attention, "Now that you have proven yourselves able to do your job as a demon well, we will move to the next section!" screens turned on behind him, with one for each tier, "We will be doing a tournament!"
(To be continued)