After hearing an ear full from Prenelle who scolded him for a few minutes, Loki was finally allowed to leave with Nicolas who took him straight to his experimental room.
But Loki stopped outside the door when he saw that Prenelle also had an experimental room of her own.
"Mrs. Flamel is a Savant too?" Loki asked since he hadn't gotten that impression from her. She felt scholarly, but she wasn't like Nicolas, she felt more like a detective than anything else because of how piercing her eyes looked.
Nicolas shook his head, "She's an angel in the Reader pathway."
Loki's eyes widened since he found it rather ridiculous that people from two different pathways could even marry each other, let alone become angels, but he didn't say anything directly assuming it to be rude. Yet Nicolas seemed to have understood him since he stifled a short laugh before explaining-
"We were able to come together only because a True God helped reason with the others for us."
"Oh?" Loki's brows shot up, "Who was it?"
"Hmm…you aren't privy to such information. But I can say that he's better than me at alchemy and creating runic circuits too."
Loki frowned as he tried thinking of anyone that fit those requirements and couldn't imagine any god as such except someone from the Hermit pathway.
'But…I thought Rowena was most likely from the Hermit pathway…perhaps she was from the Paragon pathway instead?'
With no clear direct answer to his question, Loki looked into the room that Nicolas had just opened the door to.
"Welcome to my humble abode.", Nicolas said dramatically while stepping aside to give Loki the full view.
And Loki was mind-blown.
There were several trinkets around the room that *ticked* away at different paces as if keeping time for different things, while several potions swirled around in containers that were hung around them, acting as weights to their differently sized pendulums.
There were also several creatures that Loki recognised to be alchemical puppets after seeing how they were steampunked with fittings like an exhaust or wheels for legs. The movement of each puppet however was a lot more fluid than the ones he'd seen Fawley make in his workshop.
But what caught Loki's attention the most was a simple door frame that stood silently at the centre of the room.
Loki slowly walked up to it and began to examine it before he spoke softly, "This door's like the one the Minotaur was inside of. How did you make these anyway? Why aren't they used instead of Floo Powder?" Loki asked, wondering if Nicolas would let anything slip about the Door pathway.
Nicolas laughed and walked up to the door before silently waving his hand as he caused a portion of the runes to adjust themselves on the surface of the door frame to reveal a single Beyodner Characteristic that was hidden deep within it.
It was a "diamond" the size of an eye.
External light was constantly refracted by the "diamond," forming a scene as beautiful as the radiance of the stars.
Loki recognised it almost instantly since it Belonged to the Sequence 7 Astrologer of the Door pathway.
But Nicolas's answer to it was slightly different from what he'd expected.
"It's the Beyodner Characteristic of a pathway that doesn't belong to the nineteen standard pathways on Earth. I can't tell you yet about what it actually belongs to, but you should remember that only the Demons and Devils use this pathway because they are wrought with corruption."
Loki frowned almost as soon as he heard those words.
'If it was just corruption that was the issue anyone from the Sun Pathway could've purified them.'
'So it isn't simple corruption…an outer god?…'Her'?'
'Was my guess earlier that 'She' ruled over all the three other pathways right?'
Loki nodded anyway to Nicolas's explanation and then asked, "If it is a corrupted pathway, then how are you able to use the Beyodner Characteristics?"
Nicolas *sighed* audibly.
"This is one of the rare and only Beyonder Characteristics that isn't corrupted. It was given to me by someone in the past as a gift. But the pathway that this Beyonder Characteristic belongs to is still corrupted and hence no Beyonders of this pathway are ever created."
There was a slight pause, but Nicolas continued.
"Any found are immediately killed."
Loki nodded thinking that was all Nicolas would say but he continued.
"...but the reason I am warning you about this is because you need to know that all the Beyonder Characteristics that belong to this pathway are used to seal away the corrupted Demons of the Abyss pathway. They are extremely important. So if you find one, make sure to bring it to someone you trust."
"Sacrificing it preferably to a true god would be the best and you'd gain a strong favour from them too. So always remember not to mess with this pathway."
Loki nodded but asked, "Why are you telling me about this anyway?"
Nicolas just shook his head and explained, "Several great alchemists have been tempted by this pathway before…"
Loki felt that Nicolas was hiding something from him, but he didn't say anything else to pry out his secrets after all if an Angel felt that it wasn't safe to talk about, he wasn't someone who wanted to stick his neck out.
From the next day, Loki woke up early each day spending nearly three hours working with Nicholas Flamel on various projects, learning an immense amount of things each day.
Nicolas then began to teach Loki all he knew about Alchemy. Loki found it a little hard to pick up in the beginning when Nicolas was practically rushing through with his speed, but Loki soon got used to the pace once he paid attention to the best of his abilities.
Together, they worked on things like wards to add to wands so that they become impossible to use for anyone but their owners and wards that would alert Loki of any people nearby with bad intentions.
But what interested Loki the most was something new that Nicholas promised to teach him-
"If you are able to complete the test and make the item I asked you to make, I will teach you how to make an Alchemical Puppet."
Loki's eyes shone at this trade since he found it incredibly helpful for the plan he'd gotten in his mind from the moment he'd met the Flamels.
Loki looked at the ring that was in his hands and then examined the ring on the table. The ring in his hand was what he was working on, while the one on the table was what Nicolas had made in his childhood.
The rings had a simple but practical use, they were made to teleport anything that was contaminated by your spirituality directly to you.
Although the alchemical puppet was important to Loki, he was also interested in these rings because he wanted to see if he could make a device that would allow him to teleport objects inside the Sefirah Castle to himself whenever he wanted.
Originally this was an ability that Klien had gotten only after he became a Sequence 1 Attendant of Mysteries, but Loki hoped using an item like this would give him a similar power since he was the ruler of the Sefirah Castle.
But there was also another reason that Loki had been wanting to finish Nicolas's test soon.
It was because, over the days, Nicolas had started to get more and more worried about Loki for some reason. So Loki wanted to learn everything from Nicolas just in case the old man suddenly decided not to teach him anything anymore.
'Perhaps he's just worried about Fleur?' Loki thought to himself since over the last few weeks Fleur had stopped eating well. She was still in the Flamel's house and she tried to stay active by helping Prenelle with her tasks. But her stability was clearly deteriorating.
Loki would often catch her crying herself to sleep during the night after she spoke to her little sister.
Loki had learnt by spying on her that Gabrielle was dying. She'd been afflicted by a curse due to one of Fleur's own experiments and hence currently needed to be cured.
She'd already tried contacting Cheek using rituals for help, but for 'some' reason Cheek had stopped responding to any rituals related to her altogether from the last few weeks.
So, Loki was feeling guilty himself.
But what interested him the most was the ring on Fleur's fingers.
'Is she a candidate?'
________________________________________________________________________________________________
A/N : Join my Patreon (p@treon.com/hooin_kyoma_au) to read 20 chapters ahead for just $3.