For the little robin, everything it saw about Alice was an incredible miracle.
It opened its eyes in bewilderment, reborn through the casual enlightenment she bestowed upon it.
The sky was still the same sky, the flowers and grass still the same flowers and grass, but for the first time, it recognized its "self," breaking free from the instincts of survival and gaining its own independent thought.
Despite its immaturity and lack of understanding of the world, the little robin believed that by staying by her side, it would surely see landscapes completely different from anything else—
it perched on the girl's shoulder, its gaze blankly scanning its surroundings, and then began to chirp like a song.
"Alice, Alice, if I'm not mistaken, this is the sewer, the place where the dirtiest and smelliest things gather, and yet you say you're bringing me a transformation…"
Alice, dressed in a white shirt and a black knee-length skirt, glanced at it only once before continuing her steps into the dark passage ahead. Her leather ankle boots with small heels clicked on the damp, dirty stone pavement, producing a hollow, not-so-crisp echo.
"Of course, we can't hold a ceremony in a place like this. We need to go to the outskirts, to a place far from human habitation, to avoid trouble… Hmm, we should be about here."
She stopped, placed the kerosene lamp she was carrying on the ground, and poured out a mixture of powder she had prepared earlier from her material bag, outlining a simple oval pattern on the ground.
Then, with the spell and hand gestures, a thunderous, deafening roar suddenly erupted from the damp, dark sewer.
At the same time, a dark, deep gaping hole was torn open in front of them, which had been empty, like an irregularly shaped door, accompanied by a low humming sound.
"Let's go. Hmm... This is a teleportation spell. Apart from being too noisy and taking too long to cast, it has no other obvious drawbacks. That's why we came here, to the depths of the sewers that even homeless people don't want to go near." Seeing the little creature perched on her shoulder with its beak open and its beady little eyes darting around, Alice raised a finger and rubbed its soft, plush head, giving a simple explanation to reassure it.
Of course, she herself didn't want to stay in this stinking place any longer. She turned around, picked up the kerosene lamp she had placed on the ground, and stepped into the entrance of the teleportation portal in front of her. With the little robin clinging tightly to the fabric of her shirt, she instantly traversed tens of thousands of meters.
The teleportation portal, like a spatial rift, slowly closed behind her, and Alice's figure appeared in front of a two-story residential house.
It was almost pitch black all around, the crimson moon's glow shrouded in dark clouds. There were no lights, no human voices, only the loud chirping of insects in the bushes.
The girl walked straight towards the mansion's main gate, while the little robin perched on her shoulder, having forgotten its fear, turned its head to cautiously observe its surroundings.
It flapped its wings and took flight, circling the iron-fenced courtyard once before landing beside the girl who had unlocked the gate with a spell, and began to sing a noisy song.
"Alice, Alice, Alice who lives in the wilderness with no neighbors, has to open the door herself when she comes home, and a cold living room greets her. How pitiful, how pitiful!"
"...Alright, stop nagging." She took a breath, too lazy to explain anything to the childlike creature. The moment she opened the door, bright lights shone, illuminating the exquisite and ornate furniture and decorations inside.
"It's a pity that all the spell effects related to creating magical servants have been nullified…" Alice sighed softly. After the little robin followed her into the house, she closed the door, activating the magic mansion's invisibility effect, causing it to disappear like a phantom in the empty countryside.
Accompanied by the little robin's fabricated lyrics, she randomly chose an empty room and placed a crystal-clear core crystal in the center.
She then took out a mixture of gemstone powder and Starflower extract and began drawing the ritual circle. "Perfect, I'll set up the ritual area first, and then explain some things about familiars to you."
Holding a specially made ritual pen, Alice drew a perfect circle on the central floor, using simple and easy-to-understand words and descriptions to explain to the little robin who was watching her movements.
Becoming a familiar means changing the original form of life, transforming it into a concept forged by mystery.
After the familiar contract ritual was completed, this ordinary bird would fuse with the special crystal she provided, ushering in a new beginning.
It will randomly gain one or two of Alice's innate abilities, as well as knowledge of listening, speaking, reading, and writing in two or three designated languages. Its intelligence will be greatly enhanced to the level of a normal adult, enabling it to communicate with Alice through a contract, telepathy, and so on.
Simultaneously, it will lose the concept of lifespan; as long as Alice, as its master, provides it with magical power, and as long as the crystal core is not completely destroyed, it will not die from fatal injuries.
Normally, it should also receive the gift of spellcasting ability, but the ritual Alice intends to perform this time clearly cannot be categorized as "normal."
"To ensure you take the extraordinary potion and successfully master its power, our familiar contract will begin after you take the potion. Because life in its familiar state already belongs to the mysterious and transcendent realm, it is completely unable to absorb the extraordinary elements contained in the potion..."
As she spoke, Alice had already completed the drawing of the ritual array. Silver-white patterns, shimmering with starlight, converged and gathered at just the right positions, each stroke seemingly containing wisdom and mystery that defied description.
"Well, there are many benefits to performing the ritual after you take the potion. First, I can spare some of my mental energy to help you guide the mysticism within the potion. Second, your physical and mental structure may be affected by the potion, causing certain changes. Based on these changes, your familiarization will also have a tendency to take on the properties of the potion, and further changes will likely occur when you take subsequent potions in the sequence. Third, it allows us to explore the issues behind the 'role-playing method'. Fourth…"
She rarely abandoned her usual calm demeanor, which rarely fluctuated dramatically, and became excited about her brilliant idea. Her speech gradually quickened, and her vocabulary became increasingly incomprehensible as she spoke of theories and conjectures that no one could understand.
The little robin, completely bewildered, stared intently at a rune on the floor with its tiny green eyes. Finally, it interrupted her with a crisp question:
"So, Alice, what am I supposed to do?"
"...Hmm, wait a minute." The girl snapped out of her reverie, coughed lightly, and walked back to the center of the magic circle. She retrieved several card-sized objects from her prepared storage space and arranged them one by one around the eight card positions of the central circle, perfectly aligning with the magic circle pattern she had drawn on the floor.
"First, choose the sequence potion you wish to take."
Driven by a personal aesthetic obsession with ritual, Alice had specially created several potion cards representing different sequence starting points for today. She then introduced them according to the order of the magic circle positions:
"Hunter," "Assassin," "Diviner," "Sleepless," "Secret Seeker," "Generalist," "Apprentice," and "Thief."
This is the potion recipe that Alice has collected through various means so far, starting with the sequence. The contributions of the three major orthodox churches are the most touching, providing information on a total of seven sequences. Unfortunately, roles like "sailor" and "corpse collector" are obviously not suitable for a bird to play, so she can only regretfully remove them from the options.
After briefly explaining the abilities that could be gained from taking various potions, Alice reiterated her considerations for playing the role appropriately—to ensure that the little robin in front of her could understand what she was saying, she even temporarily gave it a magic scroll to enhance its intelligence.
The little fellow, seemingly a bit smarter, quickly made his choice:
"Which potion did Alice drink? I want to be like Alice, knowing everything and doing everything. I want to choose the same potion as Alice!"
"--Hmm, if someone asks you what path I'm from, you can answer 'assassin' or 'witch.' But I don't recommend you choose this potion, for the reasons I just mentioned… the role of 'assassin' inevitably involves assassination, killing more than one or two people." Alice patiently guided him. "From a role-playing perspective, I think 'the sleepless' as the initial sequence is relatively easy to play. Just reducing sleep time should be enough… Hmm, seems a bit too easy, doesn't it? Perhaps there are other hidden conditions?"
The little robin hopped back and forth a few times on the silver-patterned floor, then finally let out a slightly listless chirp:
"Murder… I'm just a robin, I certainly can't kill anyone… This sleep-preventing potion sounds cruel, preventing birds from sleeping, it's too cruel…"
Of the other options, the hunter sounded terrifying and frightening; the soothsayer seemed alright, but it only had two claws and couldn't perform actions that were simple for humans; the spies, the knowers, and the apprentices were all in the same boat as the soothsayer…
The little robin's gaze drifted to the last option:
the card representing "the thief." "Alright, the thinking ability assessment is over. You did alright." Alice said expressionlessly, putting away all the other cards with hunter and assassin images, leaving only the thief image of someone reaching into another's pocket. "If you're too stupid to make this simple choice, then I'll just have to find a smarter, more clever familiar as an alternative."
" Alice, Alice, mischievous Alice!" She pretended not to hear the robin's chirping, lightly tapping the thief card with her index finger, causing it to transform back into the shape of a box. Then she opened the box, revealing the spiritual materials stored inside. Then, she walked to the center of the magic circle, squatted down, and touched the translucent crystal core. She silently chanted a spell, twisting its shape into a cauldron-like vessel, and then instructed her future familiar: "Put the ingredients in here, I'll watch." After using all her strength to push and throw all the ingredients into the vessel transformed by the crystal core, the little robin, barely twenty centimeters long, looked down at the pot of viscous, pitted liquid and suddenly fell silent. This potion looked like it could completely burst its stomach… "Okay, don't move it." Alice knew that the next step was hers to take over. She changed the crystal core's transformation effect to a hollow sphere encasing the potion, then reached out and touched the little robin's body, casting a giantification spell to make it eight times its original size. Then she knocked open its giant beak and threw the crystal core containing the potion straight in. However, the hollow sphere, about the size of a fist, was easily swallowed by the robin, now over a meter and a half long and resembling a large raptor. "Get ready, I'm going to deactivate the crystal core's transformation effect..." The small robin, merely enlarged, was waiting for her to count down three, two, one when it suddenly felt a dark, chilling coldness creeping from its abdomen, spreading almost instantly like a reptile throughout its entire body and feathers. Its vision blurred, its thoughts began to drift, as if it had returned to a state of ignorant chaos before its consciousness was awakened. Gradually, it seemed to realize something, breaking free from its confusion and rediscovering its own existence. Its spirit body suddenly became heavier and sank, merging with its physical body once more, returning to a complete whole. But something had changed. It heard a voice repeatedly murmuring something in its mind. Although it didn't understand its meaning, this voice, seemingly resounding within its spirit, made it incredibly agitated and uneasy, and a sharp pain began to throb in its head. In its distorted and blurry vision, it saw a warm, crystalline silver-white light emanating from within itself, from the magnificent magic circle surrounding it. A vast and boundless power descended upon it, almost instantly restraining the uncontrolled effects of the overflowing potion within its body. Just as it was about to relax, it forgot that another baptism awaited it. ... After an unknown amount of time, the robin regained consciousness and, judging from its height, realized that its size had returned to its previous petite form. It shook its feathers and noticed that the beautiful olive-green of its wingtips had faded slightly, displaying a near-bright gold sheen, while the downy feathers on its chest and abdomen had become even whiter and more lustrous. "Ah!" the robin exclaimed, then, a beat later, realized it seemed to have uttered a human-like cry, and exclaimed again.Alice! Alice! I think I can speak!" The little creature couldn't help but be surprised; before, it could only make chirping sounds indistinguishable from its kind, but Alice was special, able to understand the meaning behind the calls. But now, it seemed to be using complex pronunciation, just like the humans living in those brick and wooden houses! "I heard it..." The girl slowly walked through the dimmed magic circle patterns, squatted down to let the little robin hop onto her palm, then stood up and carefully explained, "As a familiar, you have gained mastery of Rune, Intis, and Fursac languages from me, and inherited the talents of 'underwater breathing' and 'darksight,' which is neither good nor bad... At the same time, it is worth celebrating that you have become a Sequence 9 'Thief,' possessing corresponding extraordinary abilities." "Chirp chirp, seems very powerful! I seem very powerful!" The little robin instinctively controlled its mental power to vibrate the air, making a lively and cheerful child's voice. So-so... Alice thought to herself, just about to shift the topic to meditation techniques and the attempt at "role-playing," when she heard the little familiar in her palm chirp happily again. "Alice, Alice! I'm your familiar now! I want a name too! Like you, a name!" The girl's smile stiffened, and she paused for a moment before replying: "…Hmm, what do you want to be called? How about Silver White?" "No good! Alice wants to just pick any color to get by!" The little creature shook its neck and head in dissatisfaction. "Then…Jasmine?" "I don't want to share a name with that horrible brown-furred beast!" Alice offered a few more ideas, which were all rejected by the picky little robin. "Good heavens, Alice, how could you name me Bird or Tom! I'm clearly an elegant and beautiful female who can sing well, and you just give me such a casual name…"
"Female…" The girl lowered her eyes and pondered for a moment, then sighed in a defiant manner, "Then I'll call you Eve, pronounced 'iv,' spelled 'eve'… Is that alright?"
The lively and innocent little robin was about to flap its wings, its eyes darting around, trying to find fault, when it saw Alice's smile suddenly deepen, and her tone become kinder than ever before.
"You're very happy with this name, aren't you?"
Being the clever little thing it was, it naturally nodded in agreement immediately.
From now on, it… no, it should be said, she was Eve.