At first, nothing happened.

Claire and Ron watched on with expressions of varying shades of anticipation as Clover carefully chewed a bite of the fruit, mulling it over in his mouth.

Like its appearance would have suggested, The Fruit of Twice Blooming Enlightenment tasted like an apple with a hint of vanilla. Though, unlike an apple, it had a texture similar to cloth – biting into it took a surprising amount of force. If it wasn’t for its odd texture, it probably could have been a popular item in supermarkets.

Finally gathering his courage, Clover swallowed the fruit. Once again, it did nothing, or at least to his senses, it changed nothing. He shrugged and then wolfed down the rest of the fruit.

“Have you reached enlightenment yet?” Ron asked.

“No, but I think I’m getting closer. I feel something building,” Clover said as a warm sensation, similar to the pleasant feel of a campfire from marshmallow toasting distance, welled up in his stomach.

“Something good?” Claire asked.

From that heat came power. Mana or perhaps some other more advanced variant of it sprung forth, constructing a well of energy within him. For a moment, it was still, then as if drawn by magnets, an uncountable number of tiny streams split off in every direction, leaving trails of warmth behind.

Clover lost himself in the sensation, forgetting to respond to Claire’s question.

Most of the streams of energy faded in the span of seconds, pruned away as they led to nowhere, progressing in endless circles. However, others, a rare few, anchored themselves in parts of his body and soul that contained blurry but distinct pools of power.

Most were too small and insignificant to note, hovering just barely at the edges of his perception, almost invisible. However, two in particular stood out to him. One pathway connected to the bones of his damaged right hand. There, the fruit’s energy, or rather the System’s, mingled with his Affinity.

He had a sense that if he wanted to, he could divert the entirety of The Fruit of Twice Blooming Enlightenment’s power through the pathway in an attempt to upgrade his Bone Affinity.

However, he knew that if he did that, there wouldn’t be any power left over to awaken a new Affinity.

The hastily constructed pathways vibrated for a moment. While he didn’t have to make a decision right that second, he didn't have all day - eventually, if he didn’t make a decision, the energy would collapse in on itself. If that happened, he wasn’t sure what would happen, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t be good.

The other pathway of note led to the center of his chest. In terms of power, what rested there was weaker, a dormant and vibrant yet insidious force that somehow brought a bright leaf-green color to mind whenever he focused upon it.

At first, he thought the force was his cancer given physical form, but the more he thought about it, the less that possibility made sense. Maybe it wasn’t entirely unconnected; however, when he took into account the fruit’s description, he thought that it’d be much more likely that the vibrant well of energy in his chest was rather a latent Affinity.

Before the System had acknowledged his Bone Affinity, he suspected that he held a hint of that spark within him already. Of course, there was no way to confirm that theory, but as he filtered his awareness over the other barely perceptible pools of energy, he felt more confident in his assertion.

That left him with two choices: He could either upgrade his Bone Affinity or unlock an entirely new one. Of course, his success wasn’t guaranteed, but the choice remained the same.

Like most things with the System, the choice wasn’t clear - there simply wasn’t enough information to make a fully informed decision. He simply didn't know what a higher-tier affinity would do or if it would be worth more than gaining a new one.

He tapped his fingers against the side of his wheelchair.

The clock was ticking; he didn’t have long to think.

Clover turned his attention back to his chest, inspecting the power more closely, trying to tease out what sort of Affinity it would blossom into. He didn’t have much to go off of, but if he had to guess, he’d say it had to do with nature.

Animals, Plants, Trees, he listed of possibilities. None immediately jumped out at him as correct.

In the end, he decided to go with his Bone Affinity simply for the reason that he felt the odds of success would be higher. After all, in his mind, building upon something wasn’t nearly as difficult as unearthing something entirely new.

Following his inner declaration, the ball of energy within him rippled, and all the pathways, with the exception of the one that connected to the bones in his hand, wilted away. Then, as if it had been shot out of a fire hydrant, a blast of energy ran through his skeleton, making him shiver.

The world turned to a dull monochrome. Clover glanced about, his heart rate spiking upward on the edge of panic. With no trace that they ever had been there, Claire and Ron had disappeared - Clover was all alone.

In the center of the cavern, the burning tree slowly turned to solid white bone, the material spreading as if it were a supercharged patch of mold. Somehow, more shockingly to Clover, even the fire had been reduced to black and white.

He took a deep breath, forcing a veneer of calm over his thoughts.

He didn’t know what to do, but the System had implied there was a way to fail the upgrade process, so he figured there was something he ought to be doing.

That thought died as he turned his attention back inward. It seemed that with each breath, he subconsciously absorbed a sliver of the mystique that clung to this strange monochrome version of reality. From mere exposure, his Affinity slowly grew, its structure shifting to a more robust form. It was just a matter of time till his Bone Affinity evolved to a higher Tier.

Clover flinched as a hand of bone burst through the stone floor in front of him. Inadvertently, he couldn’t help but be reminded of the hand sticking out from beneath the tree he had seen at the hospital. He shook his head, then wheeled away from the disturbance.

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It was possible that the hand of bone could be harmless, but he figured it’d be better to be safe than sorry. Another hand, then a whole arm, broke through the floor. In a matter of seconds, a skeleton with hairline fractures running up and down its length pulled itself free of the ground.

Wasting no time, it shambled toward him - from the looks of it, it wasn’t friendly.

He didn’t know what would happen if he died in this strange realm, but he had no desire to find out. He raised his hand and blasted out a bolt of mana - here, the System felt oddly distant; it took more effort to invoke its aid in casting the spell.

The attack landed, easily shattering the already damaged skull of the skeleton. Headlessly, it collapsed to the ground, unmoving. However, in its place, two more rose up from the ground.

Clover continued to fire off bolts of mana as, all around him, more skeletons arose. Individually, they were weak, but their numbers posed a significant issue. Only through using his wheelchair's superior speed to weave around them was he able to avoid damage.

He continued to fight as his exhaustion mounted, each kill granting his Affinity a slight boost. Soon, the floor became littered with scattered bones - speed bumps that would cause his chair to wobble precariously as he raced over them.

Finally, the tide of skeletons stopped. There was only one enemy left to vanquish. Standing next to the burning tree of bone, the last skeleton, more decrepit than any of the others, stood with its back to him. Using ash, it drew a symbol on the tree with its finger.

The design was comprised of two circles with overlapping edges, in the center of which there were two squares stacked on their tips joined by a looping line similar to a question mark.

Done, the skeleton lifted its finger from the tree, and then, it shattered into small pieces, dead once again like all the others. Taken aback by the sheer strangeness of the situation, Clover stared at the symbol, committing it to memory.

The world went black for a second, and then Clover found himself blinking, opening his eyes.

“Oh shit, what happened?” Ron asked Claire.

“I don’t know, maybe we should try to wake him up,” she responded.

“How long was I out for,” Clover said.

The two flinched, looking back at him startled. “Ten seconds,” Ron said. “We didn’t know what happened. One second, you were fine, and then the next, your head rolled back, and you were still asleep.”

“I’m still fine. Better than fine, actually,” Clover said, reading through a blue screen that had popped up - a feat that was possible with his high Intelligence Stat if he pushed himself.

Congratulations, your Affinity has evolved. To progress to the next stage, please select a Stat to anchor it to… Unique Affinity - Dual Root Detected… Recalculating… Because of the unique circumstances behind your Affinity, please select two Stats to anchor your Bone Affinity to.

A flash of enlightenment struck Clover as knowledge flowed into his skull. Suddenly, he knew that Affinities of the first Tier came in three stages: Low, Middle, and High, or rather, Awakening, Anchoring, and Conceptualization, respectively.

Beyond that, the information became foggy, though he gained the vague notion that as someone climbed the Stages, their Affinity became more personalized to them. After all, dictionaries may hold an objective definition for each word in existence; however, every person has their own unique conception of them, colored by their unique history and circumstances. The High Stage of an Affinity worked to leverage that fact.

In the blink of an eye, the wave of enlightenment faded, and he was back to being his normal, oblivious self. Which was unfortunate because he had an important decision ahead of him - he had to choose what Stats to anchor his Affinity to.

“It worked; my Affinity went up,” Clover said as he mulled over what Stats to anchor his Affinity to.

“What did you get?” Ron asked, physically restraining himself from taking a bite of the fruit.

“I’m still trying to decide.” Clover scratched his head. “I think…” He trailed off as he came to a realization: choosing what Stats to attach to the Affinity was an easy decision. If he wanted the biggest boost in power, he should anchor his Bone Affinity to his two highest Stats.

Of course, that wasn’t taking into account the possibility that a Stat could be only used once - if he used Magic on his Bone Affinity, it was possible that he wouldn’t be able to use it on another Affinity in the future. There were other complicating factors as well.

Clover stopped himself from spiraling too deeply into meaningless theorization and selected his Magic and Vitality Stat to act as anchors.

Congratulations, while still retaining its original boost in durability, Tier 1 Bone (Middle) has unlocked two new abilities.

Magic Bones: Magic has seeped into your bones, turning them into lesser alchemical ingredients and crafting components. As such, they are able to conduct your mana with greater efficiency and shrug off some of the lesser rules that usually govern a skeleton.

Wolfe’s Law: Each time your bones are damaged, they will recover to be slightly more resilient and dense. Additionally, once repaired, your bones will hold marginally more Affinity.

As he locked in his choices, a rush of power flowed through him, rebuilding his bones to be better and stronger. He smiled widely. Magic Bones, while slightly weird would allow him to bend the rules that a skeleton normally followed. He wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but it sounded like the type of thing that could be immensely useful, especially when paired with his other new ability, Wolfe’s Law.

The part about the second ability that interested him the most was the fact that it claimed to be able to increase the amount of Affinity he held. That fact, when taken at face value, seemed to imply that the Quantity of a specific Affinity that he held was something entirely different than the Quality that was displayed on his [Status Screen].

He didn’t bother diving too deep into the topic at the moment because he did not yet know a way to actively utilize his Bone Affinity, so there wasn’t much point in focusing on increasing it.

By the time Clover had finished closing out the blue screens that had appeared, Ron had already begun excitedly digging into the fruit, not even waiting to ask for any specifics about the process.

It was weird and a bit funny watching from an outside perspective - four seconds after he took his last bite, he slumped over asleep, slowly tilting toward faceplanting on the ground.

With a flicker of intent, Clover ordered Bob the Elephant to catch him with its trunk.

“So, uhh, nice bracelet,” Clover said.

“It’s to die for,” she chuckled a fake laugh - the type that rolled off the tongue when someone said something cliche and semi-clever. “I like how it looks, but I don’t think I can use it. I’d probably set it on fire by accident within the hour.”

Ron’s eyes blinked open. He couldn’t have been asleep for more than ten seconds - when using the fruit, time had an odd way of compressing. “I was joking when I first said it, but I really do have an Affinity for Paper,” Ron said.

Clover copied Claire’s earlier fake laugh. Then, his expression reversed. “Wait, really? You’re not joking.”

“Nope, I hallucinated that I was walking through an abandoned night market, and when I stopped to flip through a book, I woke up.”

“That’s all it took? That’s messed up. I had to fight practically an entire skeleton army.”

“Skill issue,” Ron said with a grin.

"It's safe, right?" Claire asked, cutting in.

Ron's experience had been so different from his that, for a moment, he did not know how to respond. Eventually, Clover nodded. "It should be, but if it comes down to it, don't hesitate to destroy whatever that appears in there - there's no guarantee that they'll be friendly. Other than that, you should be fine unless you're like allergic to the fruit or something."

"Thanks, wish me luck." Silently, Claire laid down on her back and began to eat her fruit. Behind her, the flaming tree had mostly extinguished itself, but that did nothing to quell the slight haze of smoke that had filled the cavern. Clover wasn’t a fan of the smell.

In short order, she stood back up. Even without using [Mana Sense], he could feel that her aura had strengthened.

“Well, what are we waiting for; we have squirrels to blow up,” Claire said.