Alric rentals are pretty cheap this season. Only 4 DEC per day for in my opinion, one of the best level one summoners you can find. I was tasked with the Snipe quest today and so I use the Pirate Captain as my Snipe monster a lot of the time.
After the quest, there was an opportunity to try and promote to Silver. That meant a couple of battles where I was able to use Alric freely including an equalizer one where there were some good hits in.
Didn't get much rewards today as it was only a 1 DEC and 1 alchemy potion for the day but as you can see, it is a Silver 3 rewards. With the rented Alric, I think I can make the climb fairly quickly at least to Silver II. Silver I might be a bit too far, though.