Chapter 38: 38

As the bird in the cage fell asleep, Michelle’s eyes flashed with a hint of red, but she quickly calmed down to retract it. She didn’t want anyone to see it. “Can I buy the bird?” she asked, staring at the bird. She was certain that she had seen it somewhere, but she couldn’t remember where.

The young boy was clearly surprised. “This one…?” he raised a brow with clear disdain in his gaze as he glanced at the bird.

“What? I can’t?” Michelle asked coldly when she saw the disdain. The more she looked at the boy and the state the shop was in, the more she didn’t like Beast Tamers.

Hearing the coldness in Michelle’s voice, the young boy got instantly scared. Michelle, dressed as Michael Grayson, might have looked like a handsome and harmless young lad, but the coldness in her voice was so chilly and terrifying, it would make anyone want to obey her so as not to anger her. “Of course you can buy it, but this one is quite untamable. It was tamed a few times already, but it would always somehow get back its aggressiveness. No one was able to tame it in a way that it would remain meek.”

Hearing that, Michelle raised a brow and reached into her sleeve, taking out a pouch of money. “How much for the bird?” she asked impatiently.

The young boy saw that Michelle clearly didn’t want to talk to him, so he just stated the price. “Three golden ingots…” he said, afraid that the price would anger her.

“Here!” Michelle handed him three golden ingots and looked at the cage with the bird. “Open the cage!” she ordered coldly.

“Ah- But that’s danger…” the boy wanted to say “That’s dangerous,” but Michelle’s cold gaze silenced him, and he quickly took out his keys and unlocked the cage.

Michelle reached into the cage and took the bird into her arms, gently petting its head. The bird slowly opened its eyes, but didn’t even move, so the young boy didn’t even notice that it was awake as Michelle walked out of the Beast Tamer Shop.

Walking out of the shop, Michelle led Mare and Snow deeper into the dark alley, into a place where no one was. There she leaned against a wall and looked at the bird. “Master,” Snow spoke up. “How come it’s so calm now when back in the shop it was screeching?” she asked in confusion.

Michelle didn’t answer, so Mare explained: “It’s either because of the strange spirit stone the boy used on the bird, or because the bird recognized master’s blood.”

Snow looked at the small bird and frowned. “You think this weakling could recognize master’s blood when master isn’t even wounded?” she asked skeptically.

This time, Michelle spoke with a frown on her face: “I’ve seen it somewhere… But where…?” She stared at the bird, still petting its head. “I feel like it was important…” she added.

“How important?” Mare asked when she saw Michelle’s frown.

Michelle’s frown deepened as she stared at the bird. It was clearly awake, but it didn’t move and just let her pet its head. It was like the bird was waiting for something. “Very important…” Michelle suddenly used her Shadow Spirit Steps without a warning and rushed towards the Archduchy. Mare and Snow quickly reacted and followed her. It seemed that Michelle remembered something.

Not even letting the servants greet her, Michelle rushed into the library behind the mansion and went to the tenth floor. Once when she was passing by the floor, she saw a picture of the bird hanging on a wall there. No other floors had any pictures, so it was strange that the tenth floor had a picture of a bird on the wall.

Stopping in front of the picture, Michelle placed the bird on a table and went to check the picture. She took it off the wall and turned it over to check if something was written there. But she found nothing. She rolled up the picture, took the bird with her and went to the Archduke’s office. “Father…” she knocked on the door. When he called her in, she placed the picture on his desk. “Father, what kind of bird is this?” she asked curiously.

The Archduke glanced at the picture briefly and was about to say that he didn’t know when he froze and looked at the picture again. “You took this from the library?” he asked.

“Yes.” Michelle nodded. “I found a bird looking just like the picture.” She glanced at the bird in her arms.

Noticing the bird in Michelle’s arms, the Archduke nearly fell off his chair. “Where did you get this?” he asked hurriedly, his hands trembling as he had them placed on the table.

Michelle raised a brow at the Archduke’s reaction before telling him about the shop. She even told him how she bought books there a few months prior when the shop was completely different. Listening to her, the Archduke frowned deeply before talking again, his voice dire: “The bird is a young Vermilion Bird. When born, Vermilion Birds look like ordinary peacocks. As they grow, their feathers turn scarlet, and when they reach adulthood, they turn into a huge phoenix with flaming feathers. If you want to know more, go to the tenth floor of the library. It’s dedicated to the Vermilion Bird.”

“Yes, father! I’ll get going now!” Michelle smiled and turned to leave, quickly going back to the library. Mare and Snow had already returned to their rooms to cultivate as they knew that Michelle would stay in the library for a long time.

Placing the young Vermilion Bird back on the table, Michelle started going through books, one by one, only skimming through them. She didn’t care how much time it would take her, she just wanted to find out more. She wanted to satisfy her thirst for knowledge. After about a week of only reading, she had read through a few shelves of books and sat down next to the young Vermilion Bird. Every day, she made sure to feed it five meals, and it was growing rapidly, already being double the size it was when she bought it.

But as it grew, Michelle had to keep her distance from it, because as she had contracted with Snow, her body was cold, and the Vermilion Bird was a fire based beast, so she had to be careful. And as it grew, its body got hotter, making it impossible for Michelle to pet it. Without even needing to read about contracts with Vermilion Bird, she knew that it was impossible for her to form a contract with one as her body wouldn’t be able to accommodate both Snow’s cold powers and The Vermilion Bird’s fire powers.

Though, Michelle didn’t mind it as she wasn’t the only person who could contract the Vermilion Bird. The Archduke could too. And there was also the possibility of no one contracting the Vermilion Bird as it was clear that it liked Michelle, maybe because of her Spirit Soul Blood, so it always followed her around. If it stayed that way, Michelle could just keep it around. But if the Vermilion Bird grew up, it would probably be impossible as its feathers would turn into flames and the hot temperature would be unbearable for Michelle with her cold body.

During the week of skimming through books about the Vermilion Bird, Michelle found out that the Vermilion Bird was the ruler of all birds, both beasts and monsters, and they all had to obey it. There is always only one living Vermilion Bird, and it’s born out of the blood of the Vermilion Bird that just died. Michelle found that quite sad because while all species had others of their kind, Vermilion Bird was fated to be alone.

When a Vermilion Bird was born, it inherited all the memories of its ancestors, giving it enough knowledge to rule the whole bird empire. So basically, the bird lying next to her on the table had memories of millennia and millennia into the past, but it followed her around like a cute little birdie. Michelle couldn’t help but smile at the thought. She felt the urge to pet the bird, but it was already too hot for her to touch it. “Little bird, don’t burn me when you grow up…” she said with a chuckle.

Michelle saw that the Vermilion Bird didn’t react, so she went back to thinking about what she read about the bird. She also found out about its habitat and food. The Vermilion Bird lived alone, usually in a cave with a huge nest made out of dried grass, dirt and small soft sticks. It changed the caves where it lived every ten years. A Vermilion bird had a lifetime long over thousands of years, so changing the caves where it lived every ten years was like if a human moved houses every day.

What was quite useless for Michelle, she found the Vermilion Bird’s cultivation method and spirit energy condensation method, since the Vermilion Bird did everything differently compared to other beasts, monsters and humans. “Your life is quite lonely, isn’t it…?” Michelle muttered as she glanced at the bird half-asleep next to her. It was a bit worrying that the bird only ate, slept or followed her around when she went somewhere.

At first, she thought it was because of the spirit stone the young boy in the shop used on it, and she thought that it would wake up properly after a while, but after some time, she realized that the bird was always lazy and motionless. “Are you just lazy or is something wrong with you?” Michelle stared at the bird worriedly.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep