The pub was just as he last recalled. The walls were scorched with burn marks and the floor flooded but the room was still intact and standing and that’s all Rick cared for. It wasn’t the safest of choices to rush out of the Harow Trainyard in the middle of the night, but with the Blessed Exchange opening, time was of the essence. The first time it had opened up, he was lucky to be in the Library. There was no way anyone could ambush him there, but this time he needed to prepare for the worse. If he didn’t have some precautions in place things could get ugly for him.

“Pip, are you still asleep?” Rick asked while looking around the place. He tossed a few earth golems and air golems and instructed them to quickly clear out the debris. The upturned tables and splintered wood and nail the damp and dingy room didn’t give a comfortable feel.

“Peep,” she chirped back lazily.

“You can sleep outside if you want, we are alone here,” he suggested. He was a little concerned that he had to keep Pip hidden all the while may it be in the Harow camp or during his visit to the Celestial City.

“Why did we not go home?” Pip asked him as she poked her head out through the top of his shirt. Pip looked around the place rotating her furry yellow head around in confusion. There was a disappointment in her voice, “I thought we are going back home, mommy. Why did we come back here?”

“Sorry, Pip. I needed to do something first,” he replied as he gazed around the charred and damp Cock and Haunch Pub. He had to cut through tightly woven vines to even make his way into the pub. Rick still couldn’t believe what he had seen outside. It had taken him over an hour to hack through the thicket growing across the entire street, the forest was truly expanding relentlessly, weaving through electric poles and covering entire buildings in lush green foliage.

But Rick was in peace with his choice. Although troublesome, the former dungeon was a much safer choice. Anyone who knew about the place being a dungeon would naturally avoid it and since the pub was already within the forest, no stragglers would just stumble in. Besides, even if there was someone that followed him with ill intentions, Rick decided to leave a pleasant surprise for them.

“Voco,” he incanted as a faint glow materialized and Grant appeared before him

The giant fiery-ant stood in front of Rick and as his head darted looking around the room, “Master, you forgot to tell me where to attack. Where do I do?”

“Calm down. No one is attacking. I have some work and while I am away, I want you to keep a guard. Can you do it?” Rick said patting the giant ant’s abdomen. Grant’s anxious look of the warmed his heart. He was glad he hadn’t killed the Ant away, it was a good decision.

“Of course, Master. I will stand guard,” Grant replied in a hurry.

Yes, little Ant, we will be away,” Pip suddenly crawled out of from his shirt and clawed up his face and stood atop his head. She snarled at the Ant as she chirped aloud, “Do a good job, or else…”

“Ye-yes your Divinity, I will do my best,” the Ant stuttered. Grant’s legs were tight in fear and looked at the ground, afraid to look up at Pip.

“Divinity?” he picked Pip up off head. This was too much for him to watch on silently. He was worried Pip could end up in trouble if she kept up with the attitude. Maybe she didn’t know of her powers. But she was still a hatchling, if he didn’t teach her now, she could get into trouble later.

He sent Grant away from earshot and crouched down on the floor. Rick whispered, “Pip, it’s not nice to treat Grant like that. You are a good girl right?”

Pip looked confused for a second before her head sprung up. “I am just a little chick mommy. Grant is dumb scared of me.”

Rick knew the look on Pip’s face. It was the same one she made every time she had to act cute to get food or out of trouble.

“You know you can trust me, right?”

She looked up at him with the small beady black eyes and said, “Yes mommy.”

“I know you are a firebird; you don’t have to lie to me about it,” he asked. “But you have to use your powers carefully okay. What if someday they come after you. You have to be strong first.”

“Mommy knew?” she replied listlessly looking away from him.

“Yes, and you know you can tell me if you have any problem, right?” he said. Rick wanted Pip to know she did not need to hide her true self from him. From what he could see in the pictures in the Lemegeton, Firebirds were large magnificent creatures without bodies made of flames – not an overgrown chick.

“I have to do it, Mommy! These lower fire beasts are a Firebird’s subject if -” she stopped midsentence. He could feel her get overwhelmed with sorrow and pain as she said, “I can’t tell you more now Mommy. The brood Queen asked did magic on us to not reveal anything about us.”

“It’s okay baby, you don’t need to tell me anything you can’t. But if you get into any trouble, you know you can come to me, right? We will get through it together,” he consoled her. She was still down as he scratched her head and asked, “Do you want to sleep inside my jacket?”

Wordlessly Pip clawed her way back inside his jacket.

“Sorry, mommy. I didn’t know if you will like me if you knew the truth,” she chirped from under his jacket.

“You thought I will stop loving you because you are a Firebird? Why would I do that silly? You will always be my Pip forever,” he said with a smile on his face. Rick could feel there was a lot she couldn’t tell him, but it was a start. All he wanted was that Pip knew he was there for her. Rick pat her head and added, “One last thing Pip. Stop calling me mommy, okay? Call me dada or dad.”

“Okay mommy,” she replied before the mental link snapped. She was asleep again.

At least she could still sleep happily, it was good enough. He could do nothing and Rick decided to put it off his mind for now. There would be time later to have a long talk with Pip later. He glanced at the timer – he had six hours left to finish all his work before entering the Blessed Exchange.

“Grant, don’t let anyone enter this place. I am counting on you,” he called out and summoned a few other golems to guard the place while he was away.

With his security out of the way, Rick walked towards the back of the bar where his golems had dried the place and cleared out the debris.

“It’s good,” he remarked as he inspected the place. The place was large enough for him to draw the teleportation circle. But he didn’t head to the Blessed Exchange right away. Instead, Rick sat down on the floor and pulled out a bunch of things from his backpack and storage ring. From the things he had bought at the Celestial City to those that were gifted to him at the Harow Camp, everything was listed out before him in a clean pile.

“Scan all of them and separate each of the runes on them and show me all the information you collected from the Celestial City,” he instructed the Lemegeton. When he received the rune inscription book from Gaap, he learnt more than a thousand Base runes. Now he could just let the Lemegeton appraise new artefacts and if they were made of the Base runes and if they were made up of already recorded runes, the grimoire would break the artefact to their constituent individual runes. After that, all he needed to do was put the runes back together and plagiarizing the artefacts was a piece of cake. He couldn’t help but glee at the Lemegeton’s high-efficiency reverse engineering.

“Sorry, but there is no copyright in this world,” Rick murmured as he started reading. He did feel a little bad copying others’ hard work but was certain others would do the same with anything he made as well, it was only a matter of time.

The grimoire presented a description of everything that was placed before him in lists and the Lemegeton’s findings were surprising. Every artefact only used a few common runes but even so the ingenuity with which they were used still managed to astonish him.

Even the card that Azer had given him had a sensory-rune similar to the one used by Hannigan for his detection artefact. Although the runes used were practically identical, their effects were much different. If the Celestial Devotee’s card was destroyed, a magical signal would be sent to someone on the other end who could detect the location where the card was destroyed. It was truly ingenious.

Rick realized that the Celestial Devotees couldn’t be underestimated. With the cards, even if he could defeat Eira alone, if he broke the card and called for reinforcements, there was no way he could escape unscathed.

“But there is always a silver lining,” he commented as he looked at the card. It was a great emergency beacon. All they had to do was break the card and their partners would be able to come to the rescue at once. If he could market them well, it was sure to sell for quite a sum.

But that wasn’t the biggest surprise. Rick was truly shocked when the Lemegeton scanned Julia’s Shirt-Armour. Although it was an impressive trick, he had not put much thought into Julia’s work. But after the Lemegeton’s he understood immediately that he had rushed to judgement. The only question he had was if she knew of her potential. After all, she was a mage too, specifically a Refinement Mage.

[Refinement Mage]

Instead of focusing on a sudden burst of power to enhance physical capabilities like Elemental Warriors, a Refinement Mage focuses on refining the quality of mana within objects to change its composition.

In its initial stages, Refinement Mages can enhance the quality of a product however the annals of history have even seen Refinement Mages that could transform one to object to another. There are even records of unbreachable forts and inextinguishable flames refined by mages, but these reports are unverified.

The discovery about the nature of Julia’s powers left him completely flabbergasted and disappointed at his abilities. Eira as an Ice Mage was able to create icicles, Dale – an Elemental Warrior was able to conjure a shield out of midair and now Julia - a Refinement Mage was already able to create shirt armours and even toughen her own body. All this while he as an Elemental Mage was stuck at creating wisps of light and fire-bombs that were no better than a Molotov cocktail.

All he was left with now was to check on the Grade-II golem cores, but Rick decided to check on it later. There was only a little over an hour left for the window to enter the Blessed Exchange he decided to enter now rather than hurry at the last second.

Rick checked the Lesser God’s system. A hologram of a large and complicated rune appeared in front of him and all he had to do was say his name out loud and shout transfer. But he hesitated. Now that he knew a little about summoning himself, he felt tempted to learn whatever he could by studying the circle. But just as he tried to perceive the runes on it, he felt his vision blur.

“Lemegeton, can you copy this teleportation-circle?” he asked but the response he received was disheartening. Even the grimoire couldn’t copy it because it was someone else’s world domain. It was akin to a language of the creator of the Blessed Exchange himself, impossible to be understood by foreigners.

One he realized the futility of the exercise; he gave up on it. Instead, he walked to the middle of the circle and followed the instruction to be summoned. Suddenly Rick felt his stomach jolt as the pub he was in suddenly disappeared. Instead, he found himself rapidly falling into a black abyss with no end in sight. Then in the blink of an eye, his foot found the ground again.

“This is awful,” he murmured as he felt the jitters in his stomach settle. He was standing with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Travelling to and from the Blessed Exchange was as uncomfortable as the previous time. His stomach felt upset and he felt feverish, but it only lasted for a second before it settled back down.

Only then dare stand back straight and look around. But unlike the few hundred people the last time, he felt as if he had just entered a music festival. The auction house was gone and was replaced by a large raised stage with what he figured was at least a thousand people standing around. But there was something else that caught his eye – people by the dozens were hanging upside down above the stage with a banner above them reading, ‘No Violence Will Be Tolerated Here.’