26 26 - Nundu, Ignis Vault and Manor.

I stood there frozen for what felt like forever until all of a sudden, it released a strong breath of air into my face.

It was then that my brain caught up to me and I realised just what had happened. A Nundu's breath is toxic and is potent enough to wipe out entire villages.

I immediately jumped backwards and cast a bubble-head charm on myself, casting various detection and cleaning spells to make sure I wasn't about to die, occlumency working at full force to stop me from panicking.

I kept making sure I hadn't breathed in any gas or caught any diseases when the last thing that I expected happened. I heard a booming laughing voice in my head that almost made me feel like my head would explode.

'I-I.. huh?'

'AHAHA, don't worry, kid, you're not going to die, I can control whether my breath is toxic or not.'

'Uh, you can speak?'

'Oh, right, I made a deal with one of your family members a few decades ago, anyone with Ignis blood has a connection with me and can speak with me tele-path-i-cally.. I think that's what you humans call it.'

'Right.. I see, so.. you're not gonna eat me?'

'Ahaha, of course not, I'm the one who guards the vault!'

'.I see, so can I go into the vault?'

'Hmm.. you need to be escorted by Lord Ignis..'

'I am lord Ignis.'

'Really? You seem very young for a human.'

'I'm the last Ignis.'

'Hmm.. a shame, well then, you need one of those gremlins or goblins or whatever to help open the door' the Nundu said before walking off, yawning and lying down.

I just stood there for a few moments, 'Weird'.

Turning around, I looked over to Riptooth who was still looking warily at the Nundu. Walking over to him, I prodded him on the shoulder causing his head to spin towards me.

"Can you open the vault for me, please?" I said, no longer speaking in the goblin language that I was still learning the finer details of.

"Hm? Right, very well, please follow me, Leo." He then walked over towards the vault with me following behind him.

Once we reached the vault, Riptooth once again traced his clawed finger into the intricately patterned door and after a few seconds, the door clinked, and started opening.

Once it had opened, Riptooth hastily walked backwards and stayed away at a fair distance. I just looked back at the vault, shrugged, and walked inside.

Once I had walked inside of the vault, I felt a foreign energy entering into me and I immediately tried to block it out, but no matter how hard I tried, it travelled through my body without any resistance..

After it had travelled through my entire body, I felt the energy leave my body and suddenly felt a lot more welcome inside the vault, I really didn't want to know what would've happened if the energy didn't accept my presence.

Looking around, I noticed that it was big, even bigger than the Merrygold vault. It felt like a warehouse, full of treasures from weapons to armor to wands, I saw a very high-quality looking penseive with the Ignis Family Crest engraved onto it.

The crest was a black sideways hour-glass that had a silver outline, in front of it was a vertical sword that had dark blue flames surrounding it, in front of the hilt was the word 'Ignis' written in Latin.

The entire vault was full of gold coins, trinkets and jewels and I briefly imagined myself swimming in mountains of gold before I was brought back into reality when I saw the library.

1000s. There were 1000s of books.

Oh great ancestors, thank you for your great act of kindness upon me, I shall graciously accept your huge amount of books into my trunk.. Now, let's start moving!

* 1 hour later *

Clapping away the imaginary dust from my hands, I looked at my handiwork.

My personal library was now easily above the level of the Hogwarts Library.

The Ignis Family Vault had everything. I mean everything. They had details on how they made and improved the bloodline.. aka, The System. They had a detailed book on martial arts that I'd never even heard of before. Spells, rituals, runes, languages. Many of the books were centuries or even over a millennia years old, all added into my personal collection, one was even written by Merlin as a gift to one of my ancestors.

My favourite book out of them all, that was stored separately from the rest before I had even gotten here, was the book on the Ignis Family Magic. The system ingrained many of the Ignis Family Spells into my mind, but not all of them, and the Ignis Family Magic extended to more than just spells.

It turns out, we experimented quite a bit with rituals and runes. Considering the Ignis Family had the potential to produce Natural Runemasters, the large amount of runic research wasn't too surprising, but the rituals were unexpected.

I found rituals to be used on babies, on each of your magical maturities, some used on certain days, or with certain materials. Quite a lot had side-effects that I wasn't willing to have, but there were some that I found interesting and even thought about using myself.

Apparently most Ignis family members underwent a ritual when they were recently born which helped them develop a natural understanding of magic and there was another that gave natural occlumency shields with the only side-effects being their bodies fell into a deep sleep for a week or two, unfortunately, I never had the chance to experience those considering my parents were dead once I was born, but there were still quite a few that were viable if I could find the right materials and/or fullfill certain conditions.

I made sure to keep the Ignis Family Magic book, that was over 50cm long, 30cm wide and 10cm thick, in my inventory so that it wasn't damaged through the passage of time.

Walking through the treasure filled vault, I spotted a sword. It was a simple yet exquisite sword that was completely black in color including the sheathe, hilt and handle, even the blade was a smooth and sharp black.

Picking it up, it felt comfortable and natural in my hand. Placing it into the sheathe, I decided to store it in my inventory, the sword felt like it was magical and you never know when it could come in handy.

Walking out of the vault, now wearing dragon-hide leather armor all over my body including a cloak, cape, boots and gloves, with my new black sword on my waist, I mentally made sure there was nothing that I was forgetting, I was met with a very unhappy looking Riptooth.. I then realised that I had been in there for over an hour and a half.

"Have fun?" He asked in a voice with the most sarcasm I had heard from a goblin so far.

"Definitely, like my new look?" I asked while gesturing to my new armoured and armed self.

Riptooth, meanwhile, looked unimpressed and just started walking back to the cart.

'I should come here more often, these vaults have so much cool stuff, I could stay there for hours.'

Putting my sword into my inventory, I looked at the sleek and high-quality armor on my body, deciding I liked the armor and that being protected from hostile spells is useful, I added multiple glamours and disguising spells to make it look like I was wearing normal clothes, and followed Riptooth back to the cart where we made our way back to the main Gringotts building.

Walking into Riptooths office, I thought about what to do next.

"I was wondering if I had any properties that I could go to?"

Riptooth, apparently prepared for my question, picked up a piece of parchment from his desk and handed it to me, which had a list of multiple different properties on it.

'Ignis Manor. Rome, Florence'

'Merrygold Manor. Scotland, Edinburgh'

'Aston's Abode. America, Iowa'

'Ignis Hotel. Greece, Athens'

'Charles' Castle, Wales...'

...

..

The list went on until there were over 20 different names listed.

I knew I should have expected it, but I didn't think there'd be so many properties, and looking at the photos of each property, every single one of them was large and expensive, the Manor's were huge. Ignis Manor was on top of a hill and overlooked a city in the distance, it was sealed off from the rest of the world and looked very peaceful. Merrygold Manor was much the same only there was a distant view of the ocean, they were both super extravagant and large.

"Riptooth, I'd like to visit Ignis Manor, do you know how I can get there?"

Riptooth went into a drawer and pulled out a small piece of parchment, handing it over to me he said, "Memorise this"

As soon as I saw it, I remembered it and handed it back to him. Riptooth raised an eyebrow at how fast I gave it back but then handed me a plain black metal coin.

"That coin is a portkey, to activate it you have to say 'Ignis Manor'. Once you are there, a house elf will detect your presence and meet you, they will explain how to work the wards and you can bond to them while you are there."

"Once you have reached the manor, you can re-activate the floo and choose where you want it to be active. Is that all?"

"Yes, thank you Riptooth. 'Ignis Manor' " and like that, I was portkeyed away.

I felt like I was flipped and tugged for hours before I finally reached my destination and only my years of reflex training along with my contact lenses slowing everything down allowed me to not land in a heap on the floor.

Getting my senses back under control, I realised I was stood in front of a large black gate that separated me from a huge garden that had 2 high-quality fountains and a large manor in the distance.

A 'pop' behind me cause me to spin around where I was met with a house elf looking at me with wide eyes.

"Master Ignis! I is Tiffy, are you's be living here now?" Tiffy said with excitement clearly heard in his voice.

"Yes, Tiffy, I will be living here from now on, I was wondering if you could tell me how to work the wards?" I asked with a smile.