Ryan pushed open the front door, putting down the helmet and hanging up his jacket. He let out a loud groan as he pushed off his shoes and walked into the livingroom.

  "There he is!" Modak almost yelled out, grinning broadly. "How'd it go?"

  "Uh, pretty well. I'll have to call Kim and let him know that there's a ton of new people we should go and talk to. He understands the Aglecards' inner workings a lot better than me, so it might be easier to figure out what's useful and what isn't." He dropped down onto the couch and let out a slight groan. He felt himself up through his shirt, as Silvia let out a loud sigh.

  "You know exactly that we're not talking about that!"

  Ryan glanced over at her and shrugged. "I know." He pulled up his shirt and looked at the large bruises that came from that one single punch Torben got in on him.

  "Holy shit, I know you're not the most experienced with dates, but that looks like at least a fifth or sixth date bruise," Silvia said, leaning in a little to take a closer look.

  "Ha. Ha. No, I got into a fight with a guy that's super anti-Aglecards."

  "A fight? Wait, is Jade okay?"

  "Of course, she's fine." Ryan covered the bruise up again, and then started to explain to them exactly what happened. The things that Jade told him at her flat, what it was like in the Rapids, the bar fight, and of course what he was told by Joe. He showed them the phone number that Joe gave to him. "He said that I should call this person. That he belongs to a group they used to get help from. Though it sounded like it was a 'Hayden and Joe' connection rather than an 'Aglecards' connection."

  He stared at the number on the piece of paper. It was already burnt into his eyes by now. Slowly, Ryan pulled out his phone and typed it in. It rang a couple times, before a voice sounded out. 'This number is no longer in service'.

  "Shit, it's no good..." Ryan groaned loudly, dropping the note next to him. "I guess Joe didn't stay in contact with them."

  "That looks like a landline number..." Modak pointed out as he pulled up his laptop. He promptly did a simple number lookup online. "Okay yeah, it is. Here, it's a number registered in Orianda." Modak showed Ryan the screen, and he quickly looked over.

  "Okay, but does it say who it is? If it's a landline there's info like that for sure. Like in a phone book or something."

  "No, I don't think so. They might have registered it anonymously."

  "That's a thing?"

  "Yup," Modak nodded. "Well, the information is still there, it's just not publicly accessible. Do you think you can get it through the Aglecards?"

  Ryan thought about it for a moment. "Maybe I could, but they've definitely got an eye on me so they would ask questions. And I don't want to draw attention to this person if it's someone that's not well-regarded by the family."

  "Then what else can you do?" Silvia asked, and Ryan scratched the back of his head.

  "... I can get licensed as a Hero. There's different grades of it, but I should be able to get access to a database with info on like, phone numbers and license plates at least. Investigative work is a huge part of heroics, so..." Ryan pointed out. "I'll need to finish studying for the written test, then."

  "Is it a lot?"

  "Well, it's intense, I guess. There's whole schools for this kind of thing. I need to pass a written test, a physical test, a skill test, and lastly an interview if I want to have the heroics license," Ryan got back up from the couch. "But for the time being, I think I'll go to sleep. I didn't get to rest as much as I wanted to last night, and today was pretty intense too."

  Of course, before heading upstairs, Ryan made a stop in the kitchen to grab himself some leftovers. For a moment, he contemplated whether or not to heat it up first, but in the end decided he was too tired and just grabbed the bowl like that and shovelled the food into his mouth cold.

  "Goodnight," he said with a full mouth, waving slightly. Modak and Silvia waved back as he walked up the stairs, and then looked at each other.

  "So... we're not telling him about your new project yet?" Silvia asked, and Modak quickly shook his head.

  "No, not yet. I mean, we don't even know if this will really work. It's worth a try, but it's going to take a lot of testing to go from measuring a single point to being able to tell what's happening inside the door."

  "Hm, that makes sense. He already seems like he's got a ton on his plate anyway."

  "Yeah... But also..." Modak slowly looked over at Silvia. "You saw it too, right?"

  "That his lips were definitely a couple shades more red than normal? You're talking to an artist right now, so yes. I also noticed that it was definitely the same colour of lipstick that Jade was wearing at our party the other day," Silvia grinned. "I'm happy for him."

  "Same. He deserves something good. What's she like, by the way? I didn't really get to talk to her on saturday, but you knew her before, right?"

  Silvia nodded immediately. "Oh yeah, she's great! I mean, we didn't really get to hang out a ton, and now I know it's because she's a vampire. My friends and I used to hang out at the beach a lot, and go to dinner and stuff, but, uh... yeah, obviously she couldn't do that..." Silvia's smile slowly disappeared. "In retrospect... I wonder if she would have told me if I had been a better friend."

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "No, no, it's not like that. These things are more complicated than friendship," Modak shook his head immediately. "The best we can do is make sure we help as much as we can now that we do know about it."

  Silvia let out a slight sigh and sunk into the couch.

  Meanwhile, upstairs, Ryan dropped into his bed, scrolling on his phone while finishing his food. He was actually wolfing it down pretty fast right now, because there was something he wanted to do. The spirits had told him about something just now, and it was the main reason why they hadn't come out yet. It was something that had needed a little bit of preparation, but it was likely that there was enough by now. Ryan swallowed the last gulp, put the bowl on his nightstand, and then laid down.

  With his eyes closed, he quickly stepped into the space between the domains. Above him, between the leaves of the Tree of Blessing, numerous coins were glistening.

  This is what the spirits had been preparing. After the tree grew to this point, a small root had come out at the edge of each of the domains. It was a sort of 'access point' for them. And so, whenever they could, they poured their mana or aura into that root. Whenever they did, a coin would grow on the tree.

  These coins were the currency to buy things through the 'shop', as far as Ryan understood. He hadn't taken an extensive look at it yet, since there weren't that many opportunities for it, but now it was the perfect time to do just that.

  Ryan stepped over the rocks onto the small island surrounding the tree, quickly feeling some coins below his feet. Some of them had seemingly already fallen down. And now just onto the ground, as he looked into the water, there were some there, too.

  Would he have to collect all of these? Ryan sighed and approached the tree. There was a small hole there, nothing big, just enough to maybe house a small critter. Within that hole was a small stone. Not a gemstone, but a simple rock. This was, apparently, the main way to interact with the shop.

  Ryan had linked up with Morgana earlier today to let her out of her domain, so that she could take a look and figure out what he actually had to do, and apparently it was all centred around this rock.

  Pouring his mana inside didn't do anything, though the tree seemed to 'shake' for a moment. A ton of coins fell from the branches, hitting Ryan in the head.

  He was able to catch one of them, though. One of Violette's coins. On the front, it had her face, and on the back, it was her rapier over a symbol that he didn't recognise.

  Ryan's guts told him to do something with this, so he slowly placed the coin inside the hole and onto the rock. The coin fell apart into Violette's mana, which was pulled into the rock.

  A moment later, the tree started to creak. A branch came down from the top of the tree, like an arm was reaching toward him, and then stopped a little bit in front of Ryan. But these leaves weren't like the other normal ones. The edge and the leaf's veins were all a deep, royal purple. The colour of Violette's mana.

  Each leaf had a drawing on it rather than words, as well as a number. The drawings were of different swords and pieces of armour. As for the number, it was clear what that was supposed to be; the price. Ryan had no idea how many he actually had, until he saw something new within the hole, next to the rock. One of Violette's coins was embedded in the wood, and right over her face, there was a number. 74.

  It wasn't that many, and the prices of almost all of the weapons and armour went far above that. Most of them were extremely expensive, though a handful were in the lower 100's. And there was just a single one that they could afford to buy right now.

  This particular leaf had a drawing of what could only be a stick. That was all; a stick. Ryan turned around to Violette's domain.

  "Do you mind if I buy this one? Just to try it out. I want to get all of you guys as many pieces as possible, anyway," Ryan explained. He linked up with Violette to let her out of her domain, and she quickly came hopping over. She seemed excited looking at all of the different leaves, and then spotted the one that Ryan was talking about.

  She immediately nodded her head, giving her approval to Ryan's suggestion.

  And so, he smiled and plucked the leaf. Nothing happened right away, so he followed the clues and placed the leaf onto the rock again.

  The moment he did, a few things happened at once. First, the leaf fell apart, and the number on the coin now read 24. Then, a number of the coins laying on the ground and hanging off the branches started to fall apart into Violette's mana, being pulled into the wood. The purple energy visibly flowed through the tree, coming together in its centre, before once again rising up to the branches.

  Ryan could see it come together into a single point, and a flower soon bloomed from it. And a few moments later, the flower grew into a fruit, roughly the size of an apple, that dropped down from the branch when it grew too large. Ryan caught it, and soon spotted the same stick drawing on it as was on the leaf.

  "Hm, so this is the... item?" Ryan asked with a slightly confused expression, and Violette leaned forward with curiosity. But in the end, Ryan figured there was another step to this. "I'll be right back."

  He pulled back out of his mind and sat up in his bed again. Focusing on the fruit, now laying on the ground under the tree, Ryan pulled it out of the domain, like he did with the items that popped up as a reward once the spirits reached level 10.

  And instead of a fruit, Ryan was looking at a small cardboard box with a properly illustrated image of a stick. He opened the box and pulled out the single wooden sprue. He got up and walked over to his workbench, while Violette jumped out onto the table. The other spirits quickly followed, also curious to see if this was a proper item just like the rest.

  The sprue held just five pieces. Though, of course, they were all just small sections of the same stick. First, Ryan made the grip, which was a slightly thicker part of the stick with a small protrusion where it ended, like another stick was supposed to branch off there. And the other parts all made up the 'blade'.

  Ryan clicked them all together, which just took a few seconds, and then handed Violette her new sword. And the moment she held it, she clutched it tightly.

  She swung it around happily, and then smiled broadly at Ryan. She was thanking him. This was a surprise. When she reached level 10, Violette got another sword too, a rapier that seemed to help her pierce through things but was incapable of cutting. She had been using it in her practice a lot, and seemed happy when she held it for the first time, but she wasn't even close to as excited as she was about this... stick.

  "Does it have some special ability?" Ryan asked, and Violette immediately shook her head, continuing to swing the 'sword' around.

  "Is it the branch of some special magical tree?"

  Violette laughed, though she of course didn't make any sound, and shook her head again.

  "Then what is it? Why are you so happy about this... stick?"

  The spirit looked up at Ryan, staring into his eyes. A thought popped into the back of his head. A question. What exactly were these items in general? Some of them seemed familiar to the spirits, but others were completely off, like that technology-based armour set for Maximus. Seriously, he had no idea what these were supposed to be. And frankly, he didn't think about it too much.

  But now, he wanted to know. Violette didn't seem like the type to just like sticks more than real swords. That didn't feel right.

  So, another question popped into Ryan's mind, though it wasn't one for himself to think about. It was a question for Violette.

  "Was this... your first 'sword'?" He asked, and Violette smiled broadly. Like the memories about this sword had returned to her, she quickly nodded her head.