Ryan leaned his head onto the desk, watching Violette happily swing her new 'sword' around. It was just a stick, really. Then again, it was a great stick. If Ryan had found one of these as a kid, albeit one that actually matched his size, he would have treated it as a great treasure, too. Ah, hell, even if Ryan found one like that now, it would be great to play around with for a bit.

  Even so, there was a lot that Ryan had to catch up on, mentally. Violette had just confirmed something for him. That sword was her 'first' sword. She had reacted in such a childlike way that it was basically the only conclusion he could come to. Plus, well, he just had a feeling that this was the case when he saw it.

  "Okay, so..." Ryan got up from his seat and ran his hands over his face. This was all so weird, "... this is essentially throwing a light wrench into everything I thought I knew about you guys. Or, I mean, I kind of already figured there was more to you guys than I thought, but seriously? Did you guys really have a life before you became spirits?"

  Five of them stared up at Ryan from his desk, with Gaia standing beside it, watching as he started pacing around his bedroom.

  "I mean, that's the only possible thing it could be, right? The administrator's message called you 'heroic spirits'. In other words, 'spirits of heroes'. I mean, at first I thought that this meant you guys were basically the most heroic concept of your class, but, I mean..." Ryan looked at Jester, the maniacal clown and Gregor, the alcoholic robot, and the words 'heroic' didn't even dare make an appearance in his mind.

  "What if you were actually just... people? Like, real, actual people? Then, I don't know, someday you turned into spirits?"

  The six clearly didn't quite know what to say. It was like the thought never even crossed their mind. "But if that were the case, you would have told other Spirit Keepers. I get that you couldn't say it now, because you all lost your memories, but..."

  The moment he said this, a twinge of weirdness crossed Ryan's mind.

  "But wait... why did you all lose your memories? We thought it was just because of what my dad did, but what if that's not all?" Ryan began to whisper. A word came to his mind. 'Exploit'. There was a mistake in the Amusement Park Dungeon's system that allowed Modak to create a glitch. What if this was the result of some kind of bug or glitch in the system? Sure, it was ridiculous to think that something like that could be a thing, but it felt like the only explanation. How else would someone get rid of their class in the first place?

  "Okay. Morgana, you're the most knowledgeable, so I feel like you might have the best grasp on whether or not I'm right. Just... stop me if I say something really stupid, okay?" Ryan asked, sitting back down at his desk. The witch slowly nodded her head, smiling excitedly as she floated closer to Ryan. "Someone interfered with you guys. We know that, because of my skill called 'Spirit Seal Recovery'. A seal has to be placed, so... I feel that's right. What if they didn't just seal your strength, but also your memories?"

  Morgana listened intensely, as did the others. Even Violette had stopped playing with her stick for a few moments. None of them seemed to be able to confirm or deny it. They just seemed interested in the idea. "Clearly, whatever sealed you guys wanted to hide things, so getting rid if your memories seems reasonable. Now, that same person, or thing, messed with my class itself. Changed some skills, their effects, and their names. And then, let's say what my dad did caused a 'factory reset' in the skill. But what if my class wasn't the only thing that was reset?"

  Interested, Morgana slowly nodded her head. She turned her head away for a few moments, like she was lost in thought, and then looked back. Her excited smile was gone. In general, the spirits just seemed more and more... tired. Not like they were about to sleep, but they had that same kind of lethargy that someone had when they were awake for too long, trying their best not to fall asleep. Lethargic and unable to fully pay attention. The spirits themselves didn't seem to notice.

  "... What if you guys were 'reset' as well? I mean, you guys are more complex than just the rules of my class, so you still have some of your memories. Like the fact that you guys know each other, and the emotions that you had toward others." Ryan thought back to that intense need that Maximus felt when he somehow realised that Gaia was in danger, without remembering her in the first place.

  The spirits, although they were paying such close attention earlier, had now completely trailed off. Figuring that something was wrong, Ryan unsealed Morgana. If this was related to the seal, then this would have to help with that. And just as Ryan thought, the moment Morgana grew three times bigger than she was just a moment earlier, she snapped out of it.

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  She looked around confused, and then back at Ryan.

  "Do you remember what I just said?"

  She slowly shook her head, so Ryan repeated himself. He also let the others back into their domains so that they could relax. Ryan didn't know what would happen if he left them in that state for too long.

  "So, what do you think? Is this possible?" he asked the witch, who slowly nodded. She seemed hesitant to confirm it, though. Not in that same weird, lethargic way, as if something was stopping her from thinking about it. But rather, because the idea that she had a life before she became a spirit that she couldn't remember was something she didn't really want to be true. Especially Morgana, someone who was trying to seek knowledge about anything she could, was ultimately extremely frustrated.

  And from that reaction her and the others just had, you couldn't deny that something Ryan said had weight to it. That weird lethargy must have something to do with the seals.

  "Don't worry, we'll figure something out," Ryan reassured Morgana, even though he was the one freaking out just a few minutes ago. The spirit looked up at him. "Worst case, I'll just have to make the Spirit Seal Recovery skill reach max level. By then, something will have to have happened, right?"

  Morgana chuckled slightly, nodding. She floated over to Ryan and gave him a hug. Well, she really just wrapped her arms as much around his head as she could, and Ryan patted her back.

  "Should I go back inside and keep looking around? I want to see what I could buy for everyone else."

  Morgana excitedly pulled back and nodded, pointing at herself. "Alright, I'll start with you, then."

  Ryan leaned back in his chair, making sure he was safely sitting here. Whenever he did this, it was like he was asleep and could sometimes fall over if he wasn't careful enough.

  But even so, he quickly returned back to the Tree of Blessing, standing right where he did earlier. He quickly looked around on the ground, picking up a coin for each of the spirits so that he could have a look at what they each had to offer.

  First, as he had promised, he picked out Morgana's coin and placed it onto the stone in the hollow of the tree. A branch came down, and the leaves on this one had a golden rim. The drawings on them were a bit more varied than Violette's, though. Ryan already knew one thing that Morgana could get from this; grimoires. Just like the frost grimoire that she had gotten upon reaching level 10. Those leaves just showed a book with each a different symbol on it, representing different types of magics. Frankly, he had absolutely no idea what most of these meant.

  There was a pretty cheap one here too, though Morgana also didn't have enough coins to buy a grimoire yet. However, there was something amongst the other items. Every leaf that wasn't a grimoire seemed to show something completely different. There was one with a cauldron, one with different bottles, and another with a broom. That last one was the cheap item. Just 100 coins compared to the rest. There really was a large range, just as there was with Violette. Some of the items cost a few thousand coins... Maybe it was worth saving up for those.

  Morgana had a few more coins saved up than Violette, but still not enough to buy the broom. If Morgana kept at it, though, they would be able to buy it soon enough. Essentially, the gist that Ryan got was that Morgana's two categories were 'grimoire' and 'magic tools', even if the latter was pretty broad.

  Either way, it was a pretty good hint already. Maybe he would figure out a more specific category as he started buying them, though.

  Ryan went through all the others as well, making sure that their items were the same as they were in the dungeon's shop. For that, he picked Maximus. Since his armour was split up into his separate limbs, Ryan could look for the pieces that he was missing from his current sets, and quickly found them. A few were missing, sure, but he found some that could only be the 'Cybernetic' and 'Dullahan' sets respectively.

  The other spirits also seemed to have their same sort of items in this version of the shop. So, there was just one last thing to try out. What the hell those 'blank' coins did that came out when Ryan poured enough mana into the tree.

  For the spirits, it was one coin for every five MP or AP, but for Ryan, it was one coin for every one MP. If he could use them somehow, that might be a pretty big benefit.

  For now, he poured some more mana into the tree, making it grow some of the coins. He caught one that fell from the branches and quickly placed it onto the flat stone.

  The coin fell apart into colourless mana, and something new appeared inside the hollow. Whenever Ryan put a coin inside, one of them would appear on the inside, merged into the wood, showing how many coins each of the spirits actually still had. But that blank coin, on top of appearing itself merged into the wood, created a small ring around each of the coins, like a dial.

  He twisted one of them, and watched as the number rose up higher, stopping at an increase of around 15, which is how many blank coins there seemed to be. And with the twist of the dial, the blank coins decreased. Twisting it in the other direction, Ryan could only get back as many coins as he put in, too.

  So that meant that Ryan could use his own mana to help buy things for the spirits? Considering how much he could save up himself with his mana, that seemed amazing. Hell, he could just pour the rest of his mana into the tree and buy that broom for Morgana, to see what that actually did.

  But then, he looked back out of the hollow, and noticed that a branch had come down for him as well. It was a smaller branch than the others, and the leaves were thin and almost translucent. There were just five leaves on there. Four of them had drawings of different spirit cores on them, with a question-mark over each of them. They each cost 2500 coins. The last one, though, showed a small wooden box that looked eerily similar to the one that all of his dad's tools, as well as Maximus' core, had been in.