I was getting some exercise. I stood in the clearing that lay in front of our cave. I gathered my aura and drew on the power that flowed from my core to my system. Circulating it through my body to the limits that the idle-clicker system would allow. As the tension within me reached its peak, and I became a bow with its string drawn to its extreme, I began to move.

My arms and shoulders turned and twisted in spiralling, circular, motions. Some of those motions were large and round, others were sharp and angular. My hands and fingers alternated between being claw-like, and being blade-like. My feet and legs moved firmly. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast, always, always stable. My hips, knees, and feet, carrying me through various permutations of the horse stance.

Then I began to move in earnest. I wasn’t just moving my body. I was fighting an invisible foe. The [Tale of the Soldier] and the [Tale of the Cultivator] had made me adept at image training. The blows I gave were fully committed. The blows I “received” almost seemed to have an actual impact. I tore, and pummeled, my imaginary foe’s arms and legs. I broke his ribs and struck at all the vital points in his abdomen and torso. I ripped out his throat with claw-like fingers, I snapped his scapula with hammer-like blows. I gouged out his eyes, and tore free his jaw.

I did this multiple times. Using multiple fighting styles. As embarrassing, and slightly unbelievable, as it might be to hear, until I’d unlocked the [Tale of the Cultivator] it hadn’t really been impressed upon me, why I should take time to personally train like this. After all, my physique automatically conditioned itself, and the stories assured that I inherited all their contents with the near-perfect acuity of a lifetime practitioner. Also, to be fair, it’s not like I could have done them on the Marrow estate. There would have been too many eyes, and too many questions on how I knew the things I knew.

Yet, now I could see that there was a purpose. There was a benefit to taking the time to work my way through the movements to help that knowledge properly gel with my current memory. Since she’d become a member of my Archive, Jack also tended to join me in my exercises when she was awake. As well as doing her own exercises. Apparently, the simplified version of my system that becoming an archive member granted you, wasn’t as “high-fidelity” as my own system.

My stories would break all but the most robust of minds, i.e. anything that wasn’t already immortal. Thus the stories that “visitors” to my archive got were always a fair bit more watered down, and limited, unless I purposely suppressed the safety features. This meant that Archive members would have a greater need to practice the skills that had been passed down to them via the stories.

After I was done with my morning workout, I headed to the nearby river for a quick bath. We’d warded the part of the river that we used for our purposes to A) ensure the water we got from there was clean, and B) keep predators and parasites away. After my bath, I left the warded part of the river and caught a couple of the tiger-swallower catfish that called the river their home.

As I returned to the cave, I was surprised to see that Jack was up and about uncharacteristically early. Sitting in a tree. Swinging her legs beneath her.

“Uh, morning?...” I said.

“Morning…” said Jack.

“I got us some fish for breakfast. I figured I’d use those greens we found the other day, and some of our leftover cheese and cream, to make some kind fish quiche thing,” I said.

“Oh, yum…” said Jack. Still sounding sleepy.

I nodded and then headed into the cave. Then she said,

“Um, hold up a sec.”

“Yeah?” I said.

“Here,” said Jack.

I looked down and saw what she was proffering to me. The blood drained out of my face. It was Jack’s “Immortal Gluttony’s Grimoire”. I sort of just stared blankly at it. Not comprehending what was happening, which to the day I die, I will still say, is probably one of the few appropriate responses to someone randomly proffering one of their vital organs to you.

“I, uh...I remembered what you said about how you gain new ‘stories’...and since you were already nice enough to give me access to your system...Well, I figured since reading my grimoire might be of help to you,” said Jack. Blushing lightly. While looking anywhere but at me.

I blinked again and was still left without words. Then after a moment of hesitation, I took the book from her. I opened the cover and saw that the inside of the grimoire was filled with the kind of crawling text that made one feel like there were insects crawling over one’s eyes. I heard whispers as I read the book. Fortunately, my data-sampling allowed me to read the grimoire within only a few seconds, and I quickly gave Jack back her grimoire. I was only mildly surprised when sure enough, the Idle-Clicker System informed me that I’d unlocked the “[Tale of the Arcanist]”. A story about mage, caster, and student of the occult paths, in the entire multiverse.

I found my heart filling with heat as I did so. What she’d just done was somewhere between letting someone read your diary and giving someone your actual heart. A person’s core-treasure was a part of their soul, and it was a critical part of the soul at that. Terrible things have been done to people after their core-treasures fell into the hands of their enemies. Even worse could happen if one’s core-treasure was somehow destroyed.

This was a big enough of a deal that the heavens had granted all of us an automatic-recall ability that only the most powerful beings, and magics, could interrupt. For the most part, normally speaking, unless you purposely and willingly handed it over, your core-treasure didn’t exist for anyone else but you, outside of its usage context.

The point is, that there was a very small group of people that you would ever allow to lay hands on your core-treasure. Parents. Loved ones. Very, very, “I trust this person with my life and the lives of all my loved ones, pets, and possessions”-close, friends. Then finally, a few rare craftsmen and specialists that one needed to trust, if you weren’t lucky enough to have a core-treasure that readily improved itself, or worse, you were unlucky enough to somehow damage your core treasure.

Jack giving me her grimoire was a frighteningly intimate act that showed an almost absurd level of trust and I had no clue what to do with that information, or how to feel about it. I instantly swore to myself, promising to be worthy of this trust. Something must have heard me, because I heard a thunderous rumble overheard and my gut said it wasn’t just the weather. I didn’t mind it though. Even if I could already tell I was in over my head here, I had no intention of going back on my words. This wasn’t a promise that I intended to ever break.

“Um...I’d...I’d do it too,” I said. Unable to just walk away without saying something about what just happened.

“Huh?” said Jack. Sounding distracted and a little confused.

“If there was ever a reason...and it was possible to actually take out my system...I trust you enough to let you hold my core-treasure,” I said. Not sure why I felt I needed to say this, but feeling oddly dead set on saying it.

Jack blinked, her expression unreadable. Then she made a sour face, her cheeks redding as she looked down at the ground and kicked at some dirt.

“I know, dummy...Look around. Look at where we are. Look at what you left behind. If I can’t trust you...then who can I trust?”

“Er...Okay, then...Um. Thanks, again,” I said. Feeling incredibly awkward and all but fleeing into the cave. Feeling like my entire body was about to burst into flame.