In terms of appearance, Jack and I didn’t look much different than we’d looked before. I was still me. Big, tall, dark with a mop of shaggy, dark, hair. Jack was still her. Tall, curvy, and pale, with wavy, snow-white, hair. I will admit that we were looking a little bit better than we’d looked before.

Raising one’s level of existence often comes with an overall increase in one’s stats. If you weren’t purposefully trying to turn into a complete monster that meant an increase in one’s charisma stat as well. (Remember kids, there’s no such thing as a dump stat.) Immortal beings were always either mind-breakingly terrifying to behold, and/or comely to the point of triggering insanity and ego-death of the observer.

Jack was now the kind of beauty that might conquer the world with literally just a smile and asking nicely enough. I suppose I wasn’t looking that bad myself. It always feels weird to say that about myself, but objectively speaking I probably ‘was’ better looking than I’d been before. I couldn’t even point to a single specific thing that had been changed. It was as if everything that made us what we were, had been run through a sociological and species-based photo filter, pushing us closer to some platonic ideal for what people "should" look like.

In terms of more concrete differences, Jack’s hair had become an even paler shade of white. As if each strand of hair was a beam of light that had been made tangible. Her skin had gained this deep, cold, glow to it. She’d reached this point where all the shadows and darkness in a space would gather to her, in such a way, that she ironically made the space brighter as a result.

Her horns had grown darker and larger, and she now had always had at least nine tails. All of the tails were highly dextrous...I've experienced that first hand. The length and form shifted with her mood and need. Also, she now had three seats of voluminous wings, that looked white at first glance, but were actually a shade of black so dark, that the eye couldn’t comprehend what it was looking at. A radiant darkness that dazzled the eye.

In my case, I hadn’t changed much. Like I said before, I still basically looked like myself, albeit greatly refined. I was a little taller but not by much. Jack and I had gone through this period where we were both over 10 feet tall, but we eventually fixed that as the rebuild progressed.

My eyes were gone. I mean, they were still there. I still had eyes, but instead of actual eyes, I had two voids, I had two miniature singularities that sat in my face, sucking up visual information and who knows what else. It was a bit freaky, and at first, I’d kind of panicked. However, eventually, I adjusted to the change and found that I could see even better now with the blackholes, than I could see with the original eyes that I’d had, so I guess it was fine.

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“Fuck, stop. Stop it!…” said Jack. Kicking at the dark tendrils that had been on the verge of emerging from her shadow.

“What?” I said. Looking up from what I was doing at the worktable in my workshop.

“I keep accidentally casting spells...It’s kind of annoying,” said Jack.

“Yeah...I can imagine,” I said. Recalling my own issues. I wasn’t randomly casting spells, or creating living shadows, but spontaneously turning things intangible, suddenly having my appearance and stats jump to a level that I was unused to, or randomly falling into fugue states triggered by the constant influx of data into my archive, wasn’t fun either.

Jack and I were still working the kinks out of being...whatever we’d become. Being forced to merge with our core-treasures at a much faster rate, and at a much more complete level, than we normally would have, naturally came with complications. For all intents and purposes, I “was” my Idle-Clicker System, just as Jack had become her Immortal Gluttony’s Grimoire. What’s more, after the rebuild the vestiges of our core-treasures had become greatly magnified in terms of power and capability.

Put another way, people refer to the concept of wielding a specific instrument or tool like it was a part of their body, a lot. However, in reality having a piece of one’s body replaced by swords, shovels, or scissors would likely become a great inconvenience. Sure, with enough skill, one could make do, but in the meantime, one would constantly be at risk of damaging oneself and one’s environment. And in Jack and I’s case, we were dealing with a set of tools that were much larger, and much more unwieldy than the set we were used to.

It seemed like for the foreseeable future we were going to have to suffer from power incontinence. Randomly stumbling on the innate traits of our new state of being, and randomly warping reality around us. To make matters worse, we were still growing. Rebuilding ourselves as we had, seemed to have triggered some kind of third puberty, and the extreme peril that surrounded us on all sides, meant that we didn’t dare cease our resource accumulation and cultivation.

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[Trefor][ Hey, guess, what...they made you guys Ancestors. LOL]

[Jill][Really?! Why? We haven’t even been in the sect that long.]

[Trefor][Something...Something services rendered. You might not have been with us for that long but you’ve certainly contributed more than a couple of centuries' worth of effort.]

[Jill][*Sigh* Well, let’s hope this doesn’t turn into something troublesome]

[Trefor][*Laughing Dog Gif* You should relax. It’s not like this promotion is a bad thing. They just wanted to make sure you know you have somewhere to return to if, and when, you eventually get around to coming back.]

Trefor and I said our goodbyes, then I closed the window for the communication app that was currently parcelled with my empty-network. After contacting Sigi and Alina, and asking them to contact the folks we were friendly with, at the sect, for us, Jack and I eventually decided to offer access-rights to some of our friends at the Tree of Passionate Verdance, so they could keep in touch with us, directly. Jack and I were pretty sure we were still going to take our time exploring the chaotic sea and we liked the idea of still being able to stay in contact with the folks back home.

Then just for the heck of it, I proceeded to update the network, bolstering the security, and making a couple of quality of life changes that would make the network easier for new entrants to use. Unsurprisingly, modifying and expanding system-type applications and devices like the Empty-Network had become much easier, now that I was essentially a living-system myself. I created a kind of spirit-adhering spell-construct. It was essentially a mini-system that would allow holders of the network’s access-rights to access the empty-network even without the use of communication devices.