“Amm, no, stop!” Rick covered his head with the blanket. But the sharp tapping on his forehead did not stop. Finally giving in, he pulled the blanket off and cried aloud, “Stop! I am up, I am up!”

“Peep peep!” she happily chirped before trotting her way out the room.

“Aah,” he sighed. Turning around, he looked out of the window. The dark sky was slowly relenting as the shadows receded, brightening up the room. Groggily he pushed himself off the floor.

“Oh wow,” he shivered as the cold air brushed by him. He pulled the blanket closer and held it close. It was another cold morning. He had considered using the Hot Hands spell, but it just didn’t feel right to use magic for mundane things. Instead, he put on a sweatshirt before walking out to the kitchen.

“Thank you Pip,” he said climbing onto the chair. He had put Pip on alarm-clock duty and she had taken it on with extreme diligence.

“Peep peep peep!” she chirped cheerfully.

The two had their meal happily chatting away about everything and anything. The conversations with Pip were his only respite and he enjoyed every moment of it.

Once done with his meal, Rick immediately rushed back into the room.

‘Four done, only five more,’ he counted.

Day turned into night as he kept at his elemental-control practice without pause. Ending it only when his mind could not take it anymore and exhaustion took him away to slumber. Only to be woken up by Pip the next morning to repeat the process. The same continued on every day, without exception. Even though his body required less food and sleep now, this was still taking a toll, but he carried on.

Finally, on the ninth day, the routine broke. “Yes! I did it Pip,” Rick walked out of his room elated at around noon. “Pip!” he called out again.

His hair was dishevelled and there were dark circles under his eyes. But a wide smile covered his face.

“Peeep peep?” she asked worriedly.

“No no. I am fine. I did it look,” Rick said holding up his finger. His smile faded as he concentrated, his eyes focused at the tip of his finger. “Lumite,” he spoke softly.

In a second’s time, an orange-red orb appeared floating atop Rick’s finger. The fiery orb was bright enough to lit up a dark room!

“Impressive right?” he guffawed; his eyes fixated on the bright light. He had created light with magic!

“Oo, oo,” Pip nodded her head.

He spent another hour or two playing around with the Lumite, testing it out. “Now onto bigger things then,” Rick said between pants. He had just finished a set of sit-ups to ‘test’ his control.

He snuffed away the orb floating on his palm. It was too early to relish on his victories and stop.

“Pip I need complete-” Rick said standing up.

“Peep Peep!” she interrupted before Rick could finish.

“Thanks, Pip. You are the best,” he shouted back as he walked back to the room.

‘I will need to treat her with something good,’ he decided. He sat down on the floor and opened the Lemegeton.

“On to Fire Sealing,” Rick said, making his mind up. Pages flipped over on the Lemegeton from the Lumite spell to open up at the page describing the Fire Sealing spell.

“So, if I can seal five hundred fire-elements, I can draw some of it later to cast fire spells faster. Or I can bomb an enemy with the five hundred fire-elements. Right?” Rick asked the Lemegeton pensively.

The language in the grimoire was getting dangerously complicated and he did not want to set himself on fire or worse on accident. But Rick’s presumption this time around was correct as a single word appeared on the Lemegeton,

“Yes.”

As he read further, he realised that the Fire Sealing spell was different from the other two he had learnt till now. For one, unlike the others, he needed to prepare things in advance to complete the spell.

“Hmm… The first thing I need to do is control twenty fire elements,” he realized. That was the number of elements required to complete the seal. “But I should go for twenty-one.”

Shaking his head in dismay, he realized what he had to do. He closed his eyes and circulated the Fire-path as he tried to control the tenth-fire element.

The routine took hold once more. Days rolled by once again as Rick immersed himself in fire-elemental control. Slowly, his efforts started to show results.

From nine to ten, from ten to fifteen and finally to twenty, the number of fire elements he could control slowly increased.

The monotony of the work was getting annoying, but he pressed. Every time he thought of caving in, the image of Jay popped up, lying on the street, bleeding away.

Finally, one fine day there were twenty-one fire elements slowly rotating in the palm of his hand.

“Fuck yeah!” he let out a deep grunt pumping his fist in the air. Tired, he leaned back onto the floor. Before he knew it, he drifted off to sleep.

--------------------------------------------

“No no, please,” Rick pleaded swatting at his forehead, but it did not stop. With no way out, he finally opened his eyes and picked the little chick up. “Pip! I am awake! Please stop.”

“Peep peep!” she chirped happily.

“Yeah, you are a good girl,” he yawned as he pushed himself off the floor. It was morning again.

“I should finish the Fire Sealing spell today,” Rick said picking Pip up. “If everything goes according to plan, we will be able to leave this place soon enough.”

“Peep?” she asked

“Yeah, we can finally get out of this house again,” he smiled. It had been more than a month since they had been cooped up in the house. Pip especially had had enough of it and wanted to leave as soon as possible.

“Now, I need something to seal the fire-elements,” he said absentmindedly between bites, as he considered what he could use to seal the fire-elements in. It had to be something that was not flammable. But the toolbox Samira had left behind would be too bulky for him to carry around. It had to be something small, something that had an affinity to fire, but a high-melting-point as well.

“It’s trial and error then,” he decided

‘I could try the Signet,’ he thought, rubbing the crown of the ring on his finger. But immediately rejected it, ‘The demons will definitely kill me without the Signet on me.’

“Peep peep peep?” Pip offered, chirping from his shoulder.

“Feathers are not fireproof at all you little thing,” he chuckled, patting her on the head. With no one else around, Rick had got into the habit of talking with Pip about his plans.

Suddenly a yellow feather, the size of his finger drifted over on the tabletop.

“Peep peep peep!” she chirped.

“Why did you do that?” he asked holding the feather, before adding, “Ya fine I will use it, you don’t have to get all pouty.”

He finished his meal and walked back to the room, Pip’s feather in his hand. Closing the door behind, he flipped through the pages of the Lemegeton. Although he could perfectly recall every word in it, he still preferred browsing through the pages a second time when he could.

‘I have my first test material as well,’ he said holding up the feather, a gentle smile on his face as he recalled Pip’s insistence.

Next was to learn the sealing process itself.

“Hmm, okay, okay,” he nodded to himself as he turned the pages.

The process was simple enough. All he had to do was arrange the fire-elements in a set pattern with the fire-core rune at its centre.

‘And to release the seal,’ he read along.

“Okay I am ready,” he said rubbing his hand ready.

He put the feather on the floor before him and closed his eyes. Slowly, twenty fire-elements gathered at the palm of his hand, emitting an orange glow. Carefully, he arranged them into the shape of the seal and then inched his hand closer to the feather.

‘It’s just the first try,’ he consoled himself, preparing for failure. He was more distraught by the fact that he would have to tell Pip he burnt her feather than failing on the first try. He brought the fire-elements in contact with the yellow feather, but his fears didn’t come true.

Pip’s feather did not catch on fire.

‘It’s working?’ he gasped, unsure. A soft pulsating glow appeared as the seal formed.

But the celebration was short-lived as the fire-elements disappeared, sucking all of the twenty under Rick’s control.

‘Shit!’

He rushed to create more fire-elements to maintain the seal and immediately controlled twenty-one fire elements. Twenty of these would go into maintaining the seal alone and only one would be sealed.

‘That too if everything goes well,’ he let out a long breath and slowly directed the extra fire-element into the seal.

Just then, a string of notifications rang.

Ding

[New Spell Learnt]

[New item crafted]

“Did it!” Rick clenched his fist, stopping his sealing and opened his notifications instead.

[Congratulations!]

[You have learnt the spell Fire Sealing]

[Congratulations!]

[You have crafted a new sealing item]

[What would you like to name it?]

‘Hmm’, he wondered. He did not expect to get a chance to name it. “Fire-feather, Flame-feather, Yellother,” he racked his brain trying to come up with a cool name.

“Name it Plame then,” he said with a wide grin feeling very proud of the word-play with Pip and flame.

[New sealing artefact Plame has been crafted]

[Plame (Paragon Artifact)]

Please check the Lemegeton for further information.

“How is it possible!” Rick said shocked. The only other Paragon artifacts he owned were the Signet and the Lemegeton. Without missing a beat, he turned to the Lemegeton and instructed it. A new description appeared.

[Plame]

It is a sealed artifact crafted by Rick Hanique using a feather of a Firebird. Its origins are unknown.

The fire-elemental capacity of the Plame cannot be estimated.

Number of Fire-elements currently sealed: 1

“Firebird!” Rick explained at the description. This wasn’t the first time Pip was referred to as the firebird. The Kings had also called her the Divine Firebird. But with the Lemegeton calling her an oversized chick and Pip’s own demeanour, it was hard to take her to be anything more than an ordinary hatchling.

“Show me all you have on the Divine Firebird,” he immediately instructed the grimoire.

[Firebird]

An ancient creature, known by many names, the Summer Bird, Destroyer and the Sun-goddess among others. The firebird is one among the five ‘Divine Creatures’, and not much information is known about it, including their society, habitat and reproductive means.

As the embodiment of the Fire Divinity, the Firebirds are known to have a body made of flames and its appearance is marked by flames scorching the place to its last bit.

A single feather of a Firebird was plucked by Solomon in the battle known as the Hell’s Scorn and the feather’s details recorded in the Lemegeton. However, before any detailed analysis could be done, the feather was returned to placate the rampaging Divine Firebird.

Rick Hanique procured a single firebird feather through unknown means to craft the sealing artifact Plame.

There were several sketches of this firebird along with the description. But the gigantic creatures with flaming combs did not look anything like his yellow chick.

“Maybe, maybe,” he reasoned silently. The only explanation why the grimoire could not recognize Pip had to be because the Lemegeton itself knew such little about the Firebird.

“I have to protect her,” he decided.

The last time only Eira and Alex had come after them, thinking Pip to be a spirit beast. But if they knew Pip was a Firebird, all of the Celestial Devotees would come for her, he was sure of it.

“It is good no one knows anything about you,” Rick said holding the Plame in his hand. “That will make things much easier.”

He stood up but hesitated. Should he ask her? But then it would be futile to confront Pip, for all he knew even she did not know of her powers. And if she did, there was definitely a reason she wanted to keep it a secret.

“Fuck it, she will tell me when she is ready,” he decided and sat back down.

Rick continued channelling fire elements into the Plame for the next several days. Slowly, the number of fire elements sealed within the Plame grew. From one to two, to eight, to eighteen… the fire-elements sealed in the Plame increased. Simultaneously, the number of fire-elements he could control increased from twenty-one to twenty-eight as well!

“Okay done,” one day he declared. He had enough fire-elements stored in the Plame.

He carefully put the Plame into the storage ring. It was now one of his most prized possessions after all and walked out of the room.

“Pip, we are leaving this place in a week, max,” he declared aloud. It was the twenty-third day since he had last gone out. It was the trip to the Rose Forest with Jay and since then he had been busy training ever since.

“Peep peeep!” she let out a long squeak, happiness visible in her voice. With the Plame ready, Rick felt confident enough to leave.

The next few days were a hectic fury of final preparations, but Rick welcomed the change. It was much better than sitting days on end stuffing fire-elements into a feather.

“Lemegeton, show me all the dungeons that have not been cleared,” Rick said, as he hunched over the grimoire under the yellow light emitting from the palm of his hand.

It was late at night and with all his preparations done, there was only one thing left to do- to find the best dungeon that suited his strengths and take it down. While a lot of them were already cleared out, humans couldn't make out a dungeon from an ordinary house without entering it first, that was sure to leave a few of them undiscovered.

Samira had already warned him that it was becoming difficult to find dungeons and at times even blocked from entering as different groups staked their claim at clearing it out. Afterall even if some died in the process, the rewards for clearing a dungeon were truly enormous.

But Rick was not worried about finding dungeons. For as long as people knew about a dungeon, it could not be kept a secret from him.

A list of dungeons appeared on the page.

“Sort it out by those closest to me,” Rick instructed and watched as the list reshuffled its order.

[St. John’s Mummies]

[Grim Keeper]

[Darlingtonia Lis]

“There are still quite a lot,” he murmured, hunched over the book. They were quite close by as well.

Rick carefully combed through the list, checking the creatures inside, their weaknesses and the structure of the dungeon itself. “Got you,” Rick exclaimed, closing the grimoire.

It was finally time to leave the nest and hunt.