“Here,” said Jack. Handing me a stack of books.

“Um...What’s this? What happened to your lunch?”

“Don’t worry about my lunch. I brought you something,” said Jack. Furrowing her brow at me a little, and looking slightly cross at my misplaced focus.

“What’s this for though?” I said. A little puzzled by the books.

“I know you like reading and junk...and that sometimes you go to the library on Saturdays,” said Jack.

“Yeah? And?” I said.

“Well, er...our clan has its own library, and it has more books...Better books, and well, if you want I can get you some... to borrow. But not to keep,” said Jack.

“Oh...Oh?! Wow, thanks! Are you really sure?” I said. My eyes went wide as I considered what that would mean for me.

“Yeah...Don’t mention it,” said Jack. Scratching the side of her pale cheek and kicking at some grass in embarrassment.

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A certain cynic once said that, “relationships based solely on the exchange of benefits are short-lived, but relationships without any exchange of benefits are non-existent”. I'm not that sure about the truth of that saying, but I’ve got to say getting a little help from a friend is nice on occasion.

So, it was the weekend, Jack and I were out in the forests again. Us going out there together had long since become an established thing. However, this time instead of hunting we were reading. Jack apparently still felt bad about the thing with her brother, so from now on she was going to help me get books from her library. This was kind of huge for me. I went to the public library frequently but it quickly became a thing I just did to kill boredom.

Outside of some texts used for teaching people about maths, language, and writing, there were basically no other useful books in that library. I did my best to read everything that the library had to offer in hopes of getting another “Story” for my Idle-Clicker System, but the public library’s offerings didn’t seem to be cutting it. Outside of their basic educational works, the library just had a large collection of public records, a fair amount of general fiction works, especially trashy romance, some religious texts, some poetry, a small collection of legends and myths, and some questionable historical works that apparently were too full of jingoism and political lies to be of value to the system.

Anything else was restricted and only certain special personages could get access to it. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised, all the sects, guilds, clans, and companies had a vested interest in keeping their unique knowledge under their control. I’d considered visiting a few of those groups so I could watch their people work and gain stories that way, but outside of the Marrow Estate, I was just another loose kid, and was quickly shooed away.

Jack had just brought me a catalogue of herbs; an imperfect, but mostly intact, copy of an old-world book on the sciences; and a book of poetry. I’m a fast reader. The [Tale of the Empty Archivist’s Heir] makes it so that I barely have to do more than open a book or scroll for its contents to just start flowing into my head, where it’d live in my continually perfected memories forever.

“No flipping way,” I muttered beneath my breath as I got several prompts from the Idle-Clicker System. I’d just been informed that I’d unlocked the [Tale of the Scholar]. Apparently, all those seemingly useless library books had some use after all. I’d also unlocked the [Tale of the Alchemist], I could see that being incredibly useful, especially if it operated the same way the other tales worked, filling my head with more and more of the experiences, skills, and memories of alchemists throughout the multiverse, the more I studied it, and invested in it.

“What?” said Jack. Looking up from her own reading.

“I just got two more stories….” I said. In an awed whisper.

“What?”

After a bit of hesitation, I decided to quickly explain a little about how my system worked. Explaining what the stories were and what their nature was. Jack’s jaw dropped. Then she pouted, her expression looking plaintive.

“Now that’s just unfair…”

I sheepishly chuckled and rubbed the back of my head.

“It...It’s not my fault. was born this way…Plus, um, you’re core-treasure’s pretty great two, I mean you got true-sight and a grimoire that can store and help you learn an infinite number of spells,” I said.

“Hmph!” said Jack. Huffing at me, indignantly. Then she stood up.

“Can you do the thing to keep these safe...I’m pretty sure my family will kill us both if I’m not able to put these books back safe and sound,” said Jack. Her tone started off stern and then quickly softened.

“Sure…” I said. Putting the books in my inventory because that was something I’d revealed to her shortly after we began hunting together.

“Alright, daylight’s a-wasting. It’ll be sundown soon. Let’s get hunting,” said Jack. Her pale gray eyes filled with determination.

“Yeah!” I said. Joining in on her enthusiasm, because I had two new reasons to rapidly build up my Potential.