“Hey, hey, hey...Come check something out with me! We’re going to the forest,” said Jack. Sounding super-excited.

I looked up from the weeding that I was doing, and saw a familiar face looking down at me from a nearby tree. Her Cheshire-cat grin all but splitting that pretty head of hers in half. It had been some time since I’d seen Jack. After that bullcrap where she got framed for breaking a dumb old vase, we hadn’t really hung out for a while. She’d been gloomy and withdrawn and spent most of her time in her room. I could feel her fuming and I could see her angry and hurting, so when she pulled away I let her because I was just a dumb twelve-year-old boy. A kid. My personal life experience and my Idle-Clicker system had unfortunately not given me any hints of what I was supposed to do to help my friend. So I figured if she said she needed space, I'd give her space, because who was I to say otherwise.

“Now? But it's still just Thursday?” I said. Puzzled but happy to see Jack.

“So? It’s not like anyone’s paying attention, they’ve got my dumbass brother Yulien’s send-off party to prepare for. Come on,” said Jack.

I was glad to see her out again and smiling, so I didn’t mind risking getting in trouble for leaving the estate grounds on a workday, to keep her smiling.

“Okay, just give me a second,” I said.

“Hurry, hurry, I swear this is totally going to be worth it!” said Jack. Positively seeming to vibrate with excitement.

“I heard you….but I’ll need to put all ‘this’ away, and get a pest-culling spear, just in case,” I said.

“Fair enough, fair enough...but still hurry,” said Jack.

*************************************************************************************************************

A little while later we were out in the forest. Jack knew how to get us out of the city without being seen. Which was basically the only reason our little adventures hadn’t been nixed by her crappy family.

“Okay, what was the thing that you wanted to show me?” I said. Satisfied that we were deep enough that we couldn’t be seen from the city walls, but not so deep that we were in imminent danger of being attacked by something.

“Tada!” said Jack. Smiling broadly after retrieving her core-treasure from within her.

“....Huh?” I said. Furrowing my brow and tilting my head to the side in bewilderment.

Seeing that I was confused, Jack repeated herself. Shouting now, that brassy little voice of hers echoing through the wood, like someone from a foreign land who’d run into a native person and figured that a language barrier could be dealt with by speaking louder and slower.

“TA-DA!”

“....” I just stared at her. Like a dog that has no clue what its owner is saying but at the very least would like to share in their apparent enthusiasm.

“ My book...My core-treasure...It evolved?! Isn’t it amazing?!” said Jack.

I looked at Jack’s grimoire and all that I could see was that it seemed to have become a slightly darker shade of black. I decided to use my data-sampling to see if that would help. I’d recently learned that stories could have a synergistic effect. For instance, my [Tale of the Scholar] thus far had no functions, or abilities of its own, instead seeming to extend and enhance the functions of my other stories. With one chief example being that my Data-sampling now told me more about the targets I used it on.

My eyes went wide as I used my data-sampling on Jack’s core-treasure. I realized that the core-treasure had indeed changed.

[Ancient Demoness’ Grimoire]

“You’re...you’re right. It did change…” I said. Not sure what face to make as I read the rest of the data-sampling’s report.

[Ancient Demoness’ Grimoire- Fledgling Stage. With a heart blackened by hatred and despair...A legendary witch has opened a path that leads to ultimate power, and ultimate darkness, becoming a fledgling-devil. Should she avoid being consumed by the darkness she’s opened the entire multiverse may one day tremble at her name. ]

It seemed my friend had taken what her family had done to her, even worse than I’d thought. Or maybe that incident was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Based on what I’d overheard, and stuff that she occasionally let slip, this wasn’t the first time something like that had happened to her. It was just the first time that crap father of hers made it public. Or maybe...hopefully, the camel was still ambulatory, and this was just a very grave warning of things to come. After all, it wasn’t unheard of for core-treasures to change after their owners experienced certain things. Usually, it was a positive change, but just as often it was not. Only time would tell what the change to Jack’s core-treasure would bode.

“Oh, and before I forget...Check this out,” said Jack.

The shadows around us shifted and deepened dancing around her. Some of them seemed to become almost three-dimensional and rise up from the ground. She lifted the skirts of her dress and she revealed a slender black tail with a sharp spade that poked its way out from under her dress.

“Isn’t it ah-mazing? I’ve got kick-ass shadow powers now. Also, I’m pretty sure the tail is prehensible, but like my stupid family won’t let me wear pants so I can’t really show you…”

“Uh, yeah...amazing,” I said. Quickly deciding not to rain on my friend’s parade.

“Oh...While we’re out here want to do a little hunting? Thus far, all the powers I’ve gained by feeding monster-cores to my grimoire have gotten all spookified and gained shadow-element aspects, and I kind of want to see what my new shadow powers can do,” said Jack.

“Er...Yeah, why not,” I said. Feigning a smile.