Chapter 39
Staring at the sleepy little bird, Michelle started getting worried, so she went to the section with Vermilion Bird's life stile. But there, she didn't find anything that said that Vermilion Birds were lazy or always sleepy. It was actually exactly opposite. Vermilion Birds were very active, maybe even hyperactive. Seeing that the little bird was acting nothing like described, Michelle went to the section with health issues, but there, no matter how she searched, she didn't find anything that should cause a Vermilion Bird to be constantly sleepy. It said that even while being seriously sick, Vermilion Birds would be highly lively.
Just as Michelle was losing hope, she was passing by a shelf with ways to contract Vermilion Birds. The shelf was the oldest and looked like it could fall down any moment. Deciding to let her thoughts rest in her mind for a bit, she started taking out books from the old bookshelf and placing them on the ground. When the shelf was empty, she took out her shifting weapon, shifted it into an ax and started destroying the shelf.
When she was done, she looked out the window, and seeing that no one was there, she threw the debris out of the window. "Mare..." she used the contract to contact Mare. "Tell my father that a shelf broke in the library, tenth floor."
"Yes, master!" Mare responded through the contract.
Michelle then went to sit back down next to the little bird and stared at the books she placed on the ground. After a while of just staring, she noticed a book with a strange title. "White Vermilion Bird..." she read out loud with a lifted brow. "That's basically saying white red bird... What nonsense... Like an iron branch made out of plastic..." She stood up and went to pick up the book. As she walked back to her seat, she started skimming through the pages and her eyes widened in shock. She glanced at the lazy bird next to her and frowned.
That one book, Michelle read carefully as she sat down, and it took her a good few hours to finish it even though it wasn't that thick. After finishing reading, she clasped the book close and stared at the little bird again. "So it seems, you aren't sick..." she smiled a bit.
In the book, she found out that once in a while a Vermilion Bird without affiliation with flames is born, and it's sleepy until its affiliated element is decided. There were three ways to affiliate a Vermilion Bird with an element. First being exposing the young Vermilion Bird to a huge amount of spiritual energy of the element for an extended period. The second was putting the young Vermilion Bird in life-threatening danger caused by the element, and the third was to make a contract with someone who was focused on one element.
If a Vermilion Bird didn't gain an affiliation with an element until adulthood, it would fall asleep and die in its sleep. But that rarely happened as Vermilion Birds quickly chose an element they liked and found a way to affiliate with it.
"But why is the book called White Vermilion Bird?" Michelle mumbled as she finished reading. From the book she understood that the Vermilion Bird's feathers would change according to the color of the element it chose, and blue was water, red for fire, green for wind, gray for ground, silver for metal, white for ice, purple for poison, golden for light and black for darkness.