After showing my new friend to Eina, we had an emergency extended meeting to discuss the little guy.

"Cheep cheep?" The tiny golden bird... or rather, the Jack Bird was sitting on Eina's desk in front of me.

Eina stared at it in wonder and then shook her head. "I still can't believe it. You either have the best luck in the world, or the worst."

I scratched the bird's head, getting some cute coos in response, and then said, "What's the problem? Is it dangerous?"

"No." Eina shook her head. "Jack Birds might be monsters, but they're the least dangerous monsters in existence."

"...So why is it such a big deal?"

Eina sighed. "Because no one in the history of Orario has tamed one." She paused. "Or maybe they did and kept it secret. Either way... This is trouble." She straightened and said, "Bell. I know you want to protect it, but as your advisor, I'm telling you to release the Jack Bird. That, or kill it."

The bird froze, starting to tremble beneath my hand.

I gently patted it. "Don't worry little guy. I won't kill you."

"Ch-Cheep?" The bird turned to look at me, pleading with its rainbow eyes. "Cheep?"

"Yeah, I promise."

Eina blinked and said, "You can understand it?"

"What?" I laughed. "Of course not. It's a bird. But it can understand me."

"...Can it?"

As if annoyed, the bird looked at Eina and started cheeping. "Cheep! Cheep cheep cheep! Checheep!"

Eina smiled at the bird's antics. But then she sighed. "Even so... If you don't want to kill it, you should still release it, Bell. The situation might be different if you were in the Freya familia, but otherwise, it's too dangerous."

I frowned.

Eina specifically mentioned the Freya familia... meaning that it would only be safe if I was in the strongest familia in Orario.

Did the bird sense my concern. It trembled and nuzzled against me.

I patted my little friend's head to calm it down and then said, "You still didn't explain why."

"Because the Jack Bird's drop item of a golden egg is guaranteed and worth a million valis."

I froze.

The bird did as well. And then it twittered, something like a nervous laugh. "Ch-Cheep?"

Eina stared at the bird and frowned. "I haven't heard of a Jack Bird being this small... or this pure golden color, but there's no doubt about it. While the larger Familia might not care-"

"Basically everyone else and their mother will try to get their hands on this little ball of sunshine here."

I frowned.

It was basically a golden goose. And while the drop item was guaranteed on kill, since it was an egg... and since birds laid eggs every now and then anyway, if the little guy stuck around, it was inevitable I'd get one eventually. And probably a rarer one considering the little guy seemed to be a variant.

The tiny bird turned around to look at me.

I stared back at it.

The golden bird was so tiny. It probably was just a baby, barely knowing anything about the world. No, it definitely didn't know anything considering how delighted it had been at seeing everything around.

If I let it go... I was sure. It would die right away. Monsters coveted it, and adventurers would too for that amount of money.

"Cheep?" It tilted its head, as if wondering what I was thinking.

"Bell?"

I stared at the little guy and then sighed. After that, I smiled and picked it up.

"Ch-Cheep?!"

"It's fine." I placed it back on my shoulder and looked to Eina. "Thanks for the advice, Eina. And thanks for the worry. But..." I shook my head. "I can't."

"Cheep!" The bird let out a happy trill and then nudged its head against me.

I smiled and rubbed its chin with my finger.

Eina sighed. "I should have expected it." She smiled and said, "I had a feeling you were that sort of person. In that case... should I register you as a tamer then?"

"Do I have to?"

Eina paused. "...You don't. But in that case, if something happens the Guild can't intervene to help you."

"In that case... please do." I laughed and said, "I've got a feeling I'll need all the help I can get."

Eina nodded. "It'll be public record... but it won't be thrown out there for the world to see. If you're planning on keeping it, I suggest doing what you did the first time to hide it."

"Mm." I nodded. "We'll work something out. Right little guy?"

"Cheep!" The bird let out a happy trill and then nodded its head.

Eina sighed. "Well... Since you've given me all this information, I've got a lot of work to do now, Bell." She frowned and said, "I might actually be busy for the next few days actually filing all that paperwork..."

"That's fine. Guess I'll just take another break from the Dungeon for a while."

Eina paused and then shook her head. "You don't have to wait on me. I'll admit that you've had a string of bad luck... but so long as you don't go too far, it should be fine to go into the dungeon. Just don't be stupid and try to rush to the eleventh floor or something."

"Yes, Mother."

Eina rolled her eyes and then walked to the door. "Take care Bell. And be careful."

"Always." I stood up and motioned for the little guy to head back into my inventory... or what was turning out to be more than just a simple inventory.

It did, turning into that weird hologram form and then hopped back on my shoulder.

She opened it for me and ushered me out.

xxx

Back on the streets in Orario, I walked around, lost in thought.

"You're a heck of a lot of trouble, aren't you, little guy?" I muttered under my breath.

'Cheep...'

"Nah, it's fine. Can't be helped being born so weak. But in that case, we'll probably need to put you through some training. Right now I'm scared that I'll accidentally hurt you or something... and it's probably better if you can get away from sticky situations by yourself too."

'Cheep!'

"Though I can't just keep calling you 'little guy' all the time... Are you even a guy?"

'Cheep?'

I leaned against the side of a building and glanced at the bird, mumbling under my breath to disguise my chatter. "Or are you a girl?"

'Cheep!'

I blinked. "So a girl?"

'Cheep cheep!' The bird nodded.

Hearing that, I laughed. "Well... Bell did want to pick up chicks in a Dungeon..."

Hell of a way to fulfill that dream. He probably wasn't expecting it to be literal...

"Alrighty. Then we need a name for you... You're too cute and beautiful to be called something as ugly as your species, so... How about Fina?"

The golden colors and royal mana color reminded me of that famous fire bird. A phoenix... And Fina was just short of that.

A happy trill echoed beside me and I saw the bird... Fina rapidly nodding its... Her head.

'Cheep! Cheep cheep!' She nudged her head against me, clearly happy.

I laughed. "Alright. With that settled... I guess I should give you a grand tour of the place, huh?" I pushed myself off the wall and started walking. "I need to scope this place out more anyway, so it's a good a time as any... Ah, and I need to get more groceries too."

'Cheep!'

I placed my hand on my chin to think, but then I heard a voice call out to me.

"Bell?"

"Hm?"

I turned to look and saw Hestia waving at me from behind a wooden stall with an array of potato snacks... No, 'Jagamarukuns.'

I waved and walked over. "Heya, Tia. Didn't expect to run into you." I glanced at the stall and said, "So this is where you work?"

"Mmhm!" She smiled and said, "I'm working hard!"

I glanced at the unopened lunchbox beside her and frowned. "Hard enough to forget to eat lunch, I see."

She blushed and said, "I was just about to eat! I-It's not like I forgot or anything..."

I laughed. "It's fine."

I noticed a few people were staring at us. No, at me. Their gazes flitted back and forth between me and Hestia and talked in whispers.

Hestia noticed and started to frown.

'Cheep?'

Fina looked confused.

I glanced at Fina and smiled before rummaging around in my bag for some coins. "Here." I placed a gold coin on the stall and said, "Since you've been eating my cooking for a while, it's only fair that I get some of yours, right? How about something fresh?"

Hestia's eyes widened and she looked uncertain. "I... But Bell, I'm not as good-"

"It's fine. I just want to enjoy my cute and adorable goddess's personal cooking."

Hestia blushed at that and fidgeted. "Bell..."

At the same time, I could see other people staring again. This time though, I got a lot of male attention. Jealous male attention.

I chuckled.

Hestia didn't seem to notice. After my words, she was fired up and quickly went to work.

Freshly peeled potato, cut into slices. Light breading, then into a vat of boiling oil. Carefully spreading on some sugar and cream...

"Here you go!" Hestia beamed and handed me the Jagamarukun in a paper wrapper. "A fresh Jagamarukun from your goddess!"

I made a dramatic flourish and took it from her. "Oh thank you, my dear goddess. Now my sunken energy stores will be restored!"

Hestia laughed and then stared at me with a bright smile on her face. "You silly guy..."

"Only for you." I took a bite of the potato snack.

It was... pretty good. Definitely unhealthy, but really tasty. Despite looking like a hashbrown, it actually tasted like funnel cake.

Hestia blushed again and then said, "What are you doing here anyway? I thought you wanted to go to the Dungeon today?"

"I did, but I felt my limit coming up so I decided to head back. Besides, I was starting to get hungry, and eating in the Dungeon is such a buzzkill."

Hestia shook her head. "Don't take it lightly. The Dungeon is dangerous."

"I know. Which is why I'm taking a few more days off to prepare before going deeper."

"Good." Hestia smiled. "And remember to take your time. I don't mind working longer if it means that you're safe."

A soft declaration with firm resolve in her eyes.

It was easy to brush off her words, but I didn't. Instead, I smiled and nodded. "Thank you."

"...It's the least I can do as your goddess..." Hestia lowered her gaze and mumbled.

My smile widened and I patted her head. "And you're doing more than enough by being there for me, Tia. Your love definitely gives me the courage to keep moving forward in this world."

It wasn't a lie. If I was just by myself in a random familia, I wouldn't be working as hard. But knowing that Tia was waiting for me and that she sincerely liked me...

"L-Love?!" Hestia turned a bright red. "W-W-What are you talking about!?"

I laughed and waved. "I'll see you at home, Tia!"

"Uu...!"

I took another bite of the Jagamarukun, feeling light-hearted.

Now... Back to preparations.

xxx

"Cheep?" Fina sat on the table, staring at me.

I was back in the church now, the trip back home being very uneventful.

I thought about heading out to go shopping, but there was a more important issue to settle first.

Which brought me to the current situation, Fina sitting on the table with me sitting at the chair in front of her.

"We need to make you stronger."

"...Cheep?" Fina tilted her head.

"Right now, you're fast and good at running away, but that's it. You saw it yourself, right? If not for me, you would have been monster food."

Fina shuddered and then nodded. "Cheep..."

"I'll let you know right now. There are tons of people out there much stronger than me. Faster too."

"Cheep?" Fina looked like she didn't believe me.

"It's a big world, you know? And while I have those trump cards, you never know just what they have in store."

My 'ace' was shooting projectiles at insane speeds through physics manipulation and munchkin logic, but it was still just pure physics.

When magic and skills came into the equation, crazy things could happen. Like maybe a shield that completely stopped kinetic energy.

I could see it... And knowing my luck, I'd probably run into something like that too.

Things might be different if I could be like the King of Heroes and create a vault of magical and legendary armaments or like the nameless Counter Guardian who could create copies of said magical and legendary armaments, but I wasn't there yet. Maybe in the future when I wracked up more funds and skills, but definitely not now.

But those were concerns for later. Right now, I had to help Fina out.

"Hm..."

She was technically a monster, so if she was to get stronger, it would probably have to be in the way monsters did. And from what I remembered from my reading... mostly from one of the gruesome deaths in the readings, a monster could grow stronger by eating magic stones. So...

"Hey." I pulled out a magic stone and held it out to her. "Can you eat this?"

"Cheep?" Fina looked at the magic stone and then shook her head. "Cheep! Cheep cheep!" She pecked on the magic stone and then waved a wing at herself.

...Oh right. The stone was basically the size of her head.

In that case...

"Here, open your mouth."

Fina gave me a skeptical look, glancing at the magic stone.

I rolled my eyes. "No, I'm not going to shove it in. But if we want to make you stronger, I do need to feed you some magic stones. I've got a way to do it though. I think."

Fina still looked unsure, but she nodded and then opened her beak, showing a cute pink tongue.

When she did, I focused.

Energy Manipulation. That was one of my developmental abilities. And from what I knew about those now, they were abilities that let you 'do' things. Like how a Blacksmith got better at blacksmithing with that developmental ability, Energy Manipulation should let me 'manipulate energy.'

I had a vague sense of it.

Even before getting my Falna, I could vaguely use energy manipulation, or something like it. After all, I could sense mana from adventurers and divinity before I became part of Hestia's Familia.

But now that ability had been amplified, refined.

I could see it. The way that Tia's divine essence in my body drew out my powers and refined it.

A guiding hand, nudging me towards the best way to act, while at the same time adding something 'more' to the action.

Was it the power of 'story' itself being added? Or 'experience'?

Either way, I let that guiding hand aid me and focused on the task at hand.

Fina was weak. Too weak. So I wanted to make her stronger.

Monsters increased their strength by devouring magic stones... But why?

Was it simply increasing the total amount of mana?

No. It was probably due to 'that.'

A magic stone was the core essence of a monster. Without it, the monster vanished. Like a heart, only more important. Similar to how dragons in some stories were said to have a 'heart of hearts' that stored their soul.

Thus, when a monster devoured another monster's core, it gained that monster's essence and power.

In that way... monsters could grow and upgrade based on the characteristics of the magic stone they devoured.

But it was no good for Fina to grow from devouring goblin and kobold monster stones. It might help, but my intuition told me those energies would inevitably hold her back in the future. An incompatibility that would lead to a distorted growth.

Then...

I grabbed a handful of magic stones and pulled them apart.

Energy Manipulation unraveled the monster cores and revealed to me the 'pattern' within.

Was it because they were weak monsters? It was simple, mostly just 'jumpy' for the goblin and 'smashy' for the kobold... if that made sense.

But that wasn't any good.

What Fina needed was strength, resilience, and pure energy. Characteristics that lined up with the phoenix she reminded me of. Unfortunately, I didn't have any magic stones that would have those properties.

So I used the next best thing.

Carefully examining the magic stone patterns and referencing my own mana and Falna, I carefully pulled out a piece and used it as the base. Then, drawing in ambient mana and the pure energy in the magic stone, I started to refine it.

My mana was weird in comparison to other things. Maybe due to my Quantum Magic, it had a shimmery feel around it, like an optical illusion. Something that changed form depending on how you looked at it. As a result, when it mixed with the ambient mana and the purified energy I drew out from the magic stone, it changed.

Tighter, brighter, more condensed... Like turning coal into diamonds, everything I gathered slowly came together and changed form. Not only that, but the faint traces of Tia's power mixed in with the ambient mana and lent it more 'weight.' 

In the end...

"There we go."

...I was left with a tiny glittering bead of pure energy.

It was a curious color. Pure white, with a flickering blue flame in the middle of it.

It was also more energy than I was comfortable holding, admittedly. But it should be safe for Fina to use, especially if I was here to help her process it.

With that, I carefully placed the bead into her beak.

Fina raised her head up and swallowed.

And then she froze.

"Fina?" My eyes widened and I focused, using Energy Manipulation to see what was going on.

"Ch-cheep... Cheep! CHEEP!" Fina started to chirp and then screech, running around.

It looked painful. Her cute little face was distorted in misery.

I placed my hand on her and said, "Hold on, Fina. It's painful, but it'll be worth it. Fight!"

"Ch-Cheeeeeep!" Fina screeched again, but this time she curled up into my hand, as if deriving comfort from that.

And when she did, I saw it.

Her magic stone was cracking.

My eyes widened.

Did I miscalculate?

I thought that giving her the most energy would be good and that she would be able to handle it... but it seemed like I overestimated her capacity.

No, I forgot. While I was perfectly capable of handling ridiculous feats to my body, others weren't.

"Dammit."

At this rate, her stone would shatter and she would die. Not only that, it'd be a painful and miserable death too.

But I wouldn't allow that.

I focused.

Magic stone. Mana. Energy...

Fina's issue was that her magic stone couldn't handle what I gave her. And she couldn't spit it out either.

The problem was a matter of purity.

Like how a hotter flame would subsume a smaller flame, her magic stone wasn't a match for the bead of energy I gave her. The pure energy was cracking it because the magic stone wasn't strong enough.

So I had to make it stronger.

I stared at the threads of energy and scanned through my mind.

I couldn't refine her magic stone. I didn't dare risk that. It was basically her soul, and anything wrong with that would be unforgiveable.

But we needed to deal with that energy somehow. Her soul wasn't strong enough.

My initial idea was correct though. I could see bits of her magic stone adapting, turning a brilliant pure white. But those were too far and few, and the stone was already cracked.

So I had to fix it. A means to offload the energy until her core adapted and evolved.

I wracked my mind and then I remembered it.

A bridge between the soul and the physical body to serve as a medium to magical power.

Magic circuits.

I quickly went to work on it.

A loop, directing the excess energy. Offloading the extraneous flow to other parts of her body... Creating new channels, pathways, cycles...

No, it wasn't enough. Her body lacked those features to use. It was too simple. After all, she was just a tiny bird. I couldn't even offload it into her bones, since they were hollow.

...Then I had to add things. Change her body. It was already trying to adapt. I could see the magic stone pulsing and letting out waves of energy to try and adjust.

Then...

A nervous system. A circulatory system. Respiratory system. Digestive system.

Blood, flesh, sinew.

Macro system, micro system. Individual cells, organs, organelles.

Flashes of half-remembered memories from college and high school biology filled my mind, mixed with the anatomy knowledge of various monsters that I read in the books Eina handed me.

After that, diagrams from electrical engineering course I had taken came to mind.

The flow of energy, adjusting for pressure and voltage...

This wasn't electricity, but the concepts were the same. So then...

Carefully, painstakingly, meticulously.

I constantly monitored the flow of energy. And finally...

It was over.

Fina placed her head against the table, unconscious from the fatigue.

Huh. Good idea. A nap sounds-