Chapter 197 - Egg
Lumi moved on to business. "I’m looking for a specific item. A rather old ribbon, quite beautiful and enticing. It would have belonged to one of your fancy pigs."
Eden’s eyebrows rose slightly. "A ribbon? From one of my pigs?"
"I know it sounds strange," Lumi said. "But I have reason to believe it’s a magical artifact. Something that’s been passed down through generations of pigs on this farm, accumulating power over time."
The boy thought about it for a moment. "There was something like that, I think. After one of the old pigs died a few months back, I kept its stuff in the barn. It was pretty beautiful, so I didn’t want to get rid of it. It felt... enticing, like you said."
Lumi’s heart rate picked up slightly. This was probably it! He wouldn’t need to wander about aimlessly. "Would you be willing to sell it to me?"
Eden looked at him for a while. He contemplated the situation. Lumi was a powerful magician, and he wasn’t exactly a strong warrior. "A magical artifact, you say? If you want it, you can have it. It’s just a ribbon from a dead pig. Not like I have any use for it."
Lumi was taken aback for a second, before realizing what Eden’s likely thought process was. "No need, I’d like to pay fairly." He reached into his inventory and pulled out a pouch of Ems. "One million."
Eden’s eyes went wide. "One million!?"
He choked lightly, and looked around. He wasn’t sure what he was even looking for. Any signs that this wasn’t real. There was no way someone would offer a million Ems, would there!? To someone like him, he’d see perhaps a hundred thousand in a year at best. So ten years of work for a mere ribbon... his voice cracked slightly. "Are you crazy? It’s just a ribbon!"
"It’s a magical artifact," Lumi corrected. "Even if you don’t recognize its value, I do. One million Ems is a fair price."
The boy looked at the pouch, then back at Lumi. He still seemed hesitant to take such a sum from someone. "Even if it was an artifact, it came from a dirty pig. Is it really that important?"
"Yes."
Eden hesitated, clearly torn between fear and the very real need for money. "I don’t... that’s too much."
"I’m not being scammed," Lumi said patiently. "I know exactly what I’m buying and what it’s worth. Please, accept the payment."
After several more minutes of back and forth, with Eden insisting it was too much and Lumi insisting it was fair, the boy was finally forced to agree.
"Alright, fine," Eden said, though he still looked uncomfortable. "If you’re that determined, I’ll take it. Stay here, I’ll go get the ribbon from the barn."
"Of course." Lumi said.
Eden disappeared into the barn, leaving Lumi standing in the yard. He waited patiently, his mind already moving forward to how he’d use the ribbon once he had it.
Several minutes passed.
When Eden finally came back, he seemed very nervous.
The boy’s hands were shaking slightly as he held out the ribbon. It was beautiful. Various decorative elements were woven into it, such as small gems and metallic threads.
Lumi took it carefully, examining it.
[Ribbon of Excess]
There was no further description. No effect labelled nor use case. It certainly wasn’t something the system could understand.
He put it into his inventory and prepared to hand over the payment.
But something was clearly eating at Eden. The boy kept glancing at Lumi, then looking away, then glancing back again. His nervousness had increased rather than decreased now that the transaction was nearly complete.
"What’s wrong?" Lumi asked.
Eden fidgeted with his hands. "I... it’s nothing. Forget it."
"It’s clearly not nothing."
The boy’s eyes fixed on Lumi’s robes. "You’re a magician, right? A powerful one?"
"I am." Lumi confirmed, wondering where this was going.
"Then maybe..." Eden trailed off, looking conflicted. "Maybe you could help with something?"
Eden took a deep breath, his nervousness clearly building. "There was something I found recently. Something I took in. I planned on handling it myself, but now I’m not sure I can."
He gestured for Lumi to follow him. "It’s in the barn. I’ll show you."
Lumi followed the boy across the yard toward the large wooden structure. As they approached, he noticed something odd. There was the smell of smoke hung in the air.
It wasn’t particularly strong, but it was definitely present. A distinct scent of fire. Just fire. Not burnt wood, just flames in open air.
Yet there was no visible fire anywhere. No smoke rising from the barn, no flames flickering through the gaps in the wood. Just the smell, lingering without an obvious source.
Eden pulled open the barn door and stepped inside. Lumi followed.
The interior was dimly lit. All around various tools and materials were laying. Everything looked normal at first glance.
Then Lumi saw it.
In the back corner of the barn, nestled in a makeshift nest of hay and old blankets, was a large egg.
No.
It was not just an egg. It was an open egg.
The shell had cracked apart from the top, pieces scattered around the nest. And inside, curled up inside the remaining shell, was a newborn creature wreathed in flames.
A phoenix.
Lumi stopped walking.
The creature was small, barely the size of a chicken. Its feathers were brilliant red and gold, shimmering with an inner light. Flames danced across its body constantly, flickering and shifting without consuming anything. The heat radiating from it was intense even from several meters away.
The phoenix chick noticed them and let out a small chirp. Fire puffed from its beak.
"That’s..." Lumi was confused. "That’s a phoenix."
"I know," Eden said miserably. "I found the egg a few weeks ago. Just sitting in the field one morning, like someone had left it there. I didn’t know what it was at first, but it was warm and I thought maybe it was valuable, so I brought it inside."
He gestured helplessly at the hatched creature. "Then this happened just now. It broke out of the shell and now it’s just... here."
Lumi’s eyes tracked the scorch marks on the hay around the nest. The phoenix had clearly been practicing its abilities.
"Why show it to me?" Lumi asked. "A Phoenix is incredibly dangerous. I could rob you."
Eden gave him a small smile. "You insisted on paying an absurd sum. You aren’t a bad person."
He then shifted to a sadder, more bitter expression. "Even if you tried to rob me of it now, I wouldn’t entirely hate that. Because from my perspective, keeping this thing means it’s going to kill me one day. Or it’ll burn down my life’s work and I’ll have nothing."
"Phoenix hatchlings are dangerous," Lumi admitted. "Especially Imperial Phoenix hatchlings."
"Imperial?" Eden’s voice cracked. "This is an Imperial Phoenix? Those are supposed to be extinct!"
"Apparently not." Lumi said, still trying to process what he was seeing.
He approached the nest slowly, examining the creature more closely. Yes, it was definitely an Imperial Phoenix. The coloration, the intensity of the flames, the way the magical energy radiated from it in perfect patterns.
This wasn’t just rare. This was essentially impossible.
Imperial Phoenix eggs didn’t just appear randomly in farm fields. The one Phoenix Master Henry had was already supposed to be the last of its kind. Even back then, it was essentially extinct. Now, it should be entirely extinct.
Yet here one was. Hatched. In a barn. Being watched over by a fourteen-year-old farmer who had no idea what he’d stumbled into.
Lumi’s mind raced through the implications.
Yes, Phoenix Master Henry had been connected via his descendents. But what did this have to do with Eden specifically?
It wasn’t as if Henry had left the egg for his distant descendant. The man had died centuries ago. He couldn’t have planned this far ahead.
Or could he?
The timeline didn’t add up. The mechanisms didn’t add up. Nothing about this situation followed logical cause and effect.
Yet Lumi could not say it was pure chance.
You didn’t just randomly find a phoenix egg. Much less an Imperial Phoenix egg, one of the rarest creatures in existence.
Whether through fate or deliberate orchestration, something or someone had influenced events to put this egg exactly where Eden would find it.
But why?
And more importantly, why had he not heard of this in his past life?
Lumi thought back through his memories carefully. He’d known this place was associated with Phoenix Master Henry. That information had been public knowledge among certain circles of players and NPCs.
So the first question was clear. He had to ask himself, why had that been public knowledge? Eden himself didn’t know his ancestry. What exactly could have connected Eden to Henry?
There were no other options. Obviously, it must have been these same events.