“It's not what it looks like,” Colby said, stuffing the scrapbook inside his shirt.

  “Hello.” Cheese Bowl waved.

  Paper limbs poked out from under his clothes as the scrapbook waved back.

  “New friend!” Cheese-lander cheered.

  They all rushed forward, pulling the scrapbook out from under Colby’s shirt and introducing themselves.

  “Hello,” the scrapbook signed once more.

  “He didn’t use puns!” Temp-tation cheered.

  The mobile Core Constructs gave the scrapbook their biggest hug yet, surrounding him in a circle of non-punny joy.

  “Don’t crush him,” Colby said.

  This time, without the need for threats, his Core Constructs listened to him. They released the scrapbook from their loving embrace, giving him ample breathing space.

  “Thanks,” the scrapbook signed.

  “What’s your name?” Cheese Bowl asked.

  “It’s…” The scrapbook paused before looking up at Colby. All of the mobile Core Constructs glanced upwards as well, eagerly awaiting the answer.

  “It’s…” Colby trailed off.

  Curds!

  He never thought about a name for the Core Construct, mostly because he thought it wouldn’t need one. It was supposed to just be a trial run of the aging Core Construct, but now that the rest had met him, there was no way they’d allow him to be deconstructed.

  Okay, so he had made a scrapbook that helped with aging cheese. The only name he could think of was the worst one yet.

  “Everyone, meet The Aging Book.”

  “No cheese?” Cheese Bowl asked.

  “Aging is about cheese,” Colby said.

  “Good enough.”

  They began to ask questions about the scrapbook and what he could do. The Aging Book opened up his pages, revealing the two photographs of the Gouda sitting on the rack. When they flipped him some more, all they encountered were blank pages.

  “But why’s there only two pictures?” Cheese-lander asked.

  Once again, they all looked up at Colby.

  “Everyone, The Aging Book is the new aging Core Construct. Instead of going down memory lane, like a regular scrapbook, we go up. But turns out he uses a lot of Mana.”

  The mobile Core Constructs glanced at each other. Without any hesitation, they surrounded the scrapbook, forming a ring of noodle-like arms and shielding him.

  “You can’t get rid of him, just because you don’t like him,” Cheese Bowl said.

  Colby folded his arms and glared.

  “You are the last person I want to hear that from. All of you tried to drown Fan because of his puns.”

  The scrapbook shuddered. He looked at them, pages wilting with worry. They slowly reassured him that as long as no bad puns escaped his pages, he’d be safe from the depths of Cheesecuzzi.

  Colby sighed, “Just help him adjust. And don’t try to kill Fan again. I’m going to let my Mana refill and get some answers from my parents.”

  Exiting his Core, he approached his parents, who were manning the shop together.

  “How’s the aging coming along, Colby?” his father asked.

  “It’s… aging. I’ve just set up some Core Constructs to speed up brining and drying.”

  “Smart. You’d be surprised how many novice cheesemakers neglect them. They’d rather save their Core Capacity towards Core Constructs that directly help with aging. They forget that brining and drying is another lengthy process that can be cut down.”

  “Good thing I have such great teachers.”

  “Buttering us up. You take after me,” his mother said.

  “And what about the aging Core Construct? Have you decided how you want to speed up the process?”

  “Is it torture?” his mother asked.

  Colby scrunched his eyebrows. “No… Wait, why are you even using torture?”

  “I had bad parents. It was either I take it out on the cheese or you and your sister.”

  Colby just blinked at her, mouth wide open.

  “I’m kidding, son.”

  His father leaned in close and whispered, “She’s not.”

  That earned him a smack on the shoulder. “I’m not deaf!”

  “I know, hon.”

  “You’re sleeping in the toilet tonight.” She crossed her arms.

  “Right…” Colby said, hoping to defuse the situation. “About the aging Core Construct, I was actually wondering, what kind of issues did you face when making what was essentially a time machine?”

  “And why do you want to know this, Colby?”

  He gasped and brought a hand to his chest. “Why, Father. Is it wrong for a child to be curious? Is knowledge such a precious secret that not even your firstborn child is worthy enough to be bestowed it?”

  “You are terrible at lying, Colby,” his mother said.

  “It’s okay. It’s better to try and fail than not try at all.”

  “So you’ll tell me the problems you faced?”

  “Yes. There’s a reason why your mother and I abandoned such an idea. There are two main issues that we were never able to overcome. First of all, it’s incredibly mana-intensive. We’re talking about manipulating time here. Second, it’s extremely complicated; we’re talking about manipulating time here. The number of Core Constructs we went through was in the hundreds before we finally moved on to our current method.”

  “So if I were to go into the thousands, I’d succeed?”

  “I know I said that aging takes patience, Colby. But don’t you think that’s a bit too much?”

  “Mayhaps.”

  “Look, son. It’s okay if you want to experiment, and we’ll support you as much as we can, but we also have to remind you not to go too far.”

  “That’s fair.”

  “So, do you have any tips?”

  “I wish I did, Colby,” his father said. “I wish I did.”

  “Wait, you don’t have any tips? But you always have tips.”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “Not for this, I’m afraid. It’s beyond me.”

  “Mom?”

  “Torture,” she said, giving him a thumbs up.

  “Right… I’m gonna go.”

  Asking his parents had been a bust. His all-knowing father was apparently just mostly-knowing. But it’s not like he could get rid of The Aging Book, at least not without causing a revolt. He’d give it a couple more tries before accepting that The Aging Book was a failure. It’s not like he was just procrastinating, coming up with a way to deconstruct him in a manner where he wouldn’t feel guilty or that the Core Constructs wouldn’t rebel against him.

  Nope, definitely not that.

  Colby honed in on his Core once more. Now that his Mana had been refilled, he was going to try out The Aging Book again. There must be something about the Core Construct that he could exploit.

  Like how Temp-tation could sweet-talk ginger into making them sweeter. Or Curd-Cutter could ‘cut the fluff out’ of a cheese, separating it into super soft and super hard pieces.

  But before that, Colby had to check on a certain Core Construct.

  There, on the floor next to Stove, was Fan. Miraculously, he was still alive. And for some reason, he was covered in cheese. Sticky bits of mozzarella coated Fan’s metal blades and plastic body.

  They had gagged him.

  Even worse.

  This was an unauthorized usage of cheese. The Core Constructs had hell to pay.

  He found them in the cave-cellar mix, talking to The Aging Book.

  Marching up to them, he bellowed, “Who attacked Fan?”

  All of the Core Constructs looked at him and shrugged.

  “I’m not mad about you attacking Fan—okay, I am a little bit. I’m mad because you used cheese without my permission.”

  All of them nodded, understanding the confusion. Noodle limbs shot up as everyone accused each other of the crime of using cheese without his permission.

  “I’ll deal with all of you later. First, The Aging Book.”

  The scrapbook walked up to him, presenting his upside-down body. Colby sat down on the rocky ground and flipped open his pages. Despite the inevitable punishment they were going to face, rather than running away and hiding, the Core Constructs moved in closer. They leaned over his lap, looking at the two photographs on The Aging Book’s page.

  “Aww, he looks so cute,” signed Pottingham.

  “Isn’t he adorable?” signed Temp-tation.

  Ignoring the distraction, Colby flipped to the next page. As expected, they were void of any images. Words began to materialize on the third page, detailing the Gouda as three days old. Next, an image began to take shape.

  A huge torrent of Mana was absorbed by The Aging Book as an image of the wheel of Gouda at three days old appeared. But something was off.

  Colby looked up, inspecting the Gouda resting on the wooden shelf. It was definitely a three-day-aged Gouda, so why was less Mana used? It was still a metric ton, but enough for even him to notice the difference.

  Curious, Colby waited until his Mana had replenished before focusing on the fourth page. The image of a four-day-old Gouda materialized as Mana was consumed. Looking up, the wheel of Gouda had indeed been aged by four days.

  The same amount of Mana had been used as on the third page, but less than the very first time he had tried this out.

  The Aging Book was still at Level 1, so that couldn’t be the reason.

  And the only difference was that he was surrounded by Core Constructs.

  Of course, that made so much sense!

  Looking at scrapbooks alone was fun, but sharing them with people? That was where the true joy was. The more people there were, the less Mana was used as they looked back into the past—or future, in the scrapbooks case.

  The Aging Book:

  Level 1

  An oddly formed Core Construct that uses a scrapbook as its base. Rather than taking glimpses of moments in the past, it looks at moments of the future. As a result, the object referenced within its pages will take on the state of the latest image, at the cost of a large amount of Mana.

  But scrapbooks are all about sharing. The more individuals looking through memory lane, the less Mana is consumed.

  (Each level slightly reduces the amount of Mana required to generate the latest snapshot in time.)

  Colby continued to use this method, patiently waiting for his Mana to refuel before aging the cheese by a day.

  And after one week of patiently repeating the process, he had a four-week-old Gouda.

  Congratulations! The Aging Book has reached Level 2!

  Bringing it out of his Core, he offered a piece to Brie and his parents. His little sister, of course, loved it. And this time, he had the foresight of not leaving the Gouda alone with her.

  “Decent,” both of his parents said.

  “So you managed to speed up the aging process. What method did you use?” his father asked.

  “I bet it was torture.”

  “No, Mom. I was trying out that time machine thing.”

  “Oh.”

  “Care to explain how?” his father asked.

  Colby nodded, explaining how The Aging Book functioned.

  “That’s definitely an unconventional way to do it.”

  “What can I say? Unconventional is my middle name.”

  “You don’t have a middle name, Colby,” his mother said.

  “For now.”

  “Let’s get back on topic, shall we?” his father said. “Now that you’ve had a taste of this aging Core Construct, do you understand why we chose not to pursue it further?”

  “Yes. It uses up so much Mana. But I did find a way to reduce the requirements.”

  “While impressive, I need to know. Are you going to continue down this path?”

  “I mean… It works. So of course!”

  “The thing is, son. We didn’t abandon it because it was impossible; we abandoned it because it was unfeasible. You managed to scale down the aging by a factor of four, but that was only for a single wheel of Gouda. And based on what you’ve mentioned, it sounds like it requires all of your Core Constructs to be present to reliably age your cheese.”

  “I mean…I guess?”

  “Don’t you see how inefficient that is?”

  “Maybe.” Colby pouted.

  “I’m not criticizing you, son. I’m informing you of the shortcomings that even I don’t know how to overcome.”

  “I know,” Colby sighed.

  “As long as you know. And remember, we’re always here if you need help.”

  “Torture,” his mother said.

  Colby walked away from them, thinking about what his father had said—not his mother. Everything his father had said had been correct. And it’s not like he could throw in the towel. At least not yet. It was definitely not him procrastinating a way to deconstruct a Core Construct without having all of his other Core Constructs flip out at him.

  There must be a way to increase The Aging Book’s efficiency, beyond just levelling him. But what?

  When his Core Constructs were gathered around, The Aging Book used less Mana because he was leaning into the aspects of a scrapbook.

  So, what if he made the scrapbook a bit more scrapbooky? Rather than just how the cheese looked at day one, two, or even five, he captured special moments.

  Colby went back down to the cave-cellar mix and picked a random wheel of Gouda sitting on the wooden rack. It had been aging naturally in his Core for the past week, unlike the special treatment given to the first wheel of Gouda.

  Gathering all of the mobile Core Construct, Colby flipped openThe Aging Book.

  Materializing on the first two pages were images of the Gouda with the captions, ‘one day old’ and ‘one week old’.

  When he turned to the next page, instead of letting The Aging Book do all of the work, he nudged it in a more fun direction.

  “And here’s the Gouda having his first bath.”

  As the photograph of the Gouda soaking in the materialized on the page, Mana was sucked into The Aging Book at a rapid pace. Though a massive amount of Mana was consumed, it was noticeably less than his earlier attempts.

  When Colby looked up, he found the Gouda slightly wet as if it had recently taken a dip in the bath.

  Good, this was working.

  Another flip and the Gouda was sucking on milk.

  More and more flips through the scrapbook showcased the Gouda’s development throughout the first few days of life. The Gouda pouting, the Gouda smiling, the Gouda reaching up for his arm.

  Each and every flip of the scrapbook caused the Gouda in front of him to jump to that specific moment in time. And each one got an adorable little “aww” from his mobile Core Constructs.

  Finally, Colby reached the last page of The Aging Book.

  Congratulations! The Aging Book has reached Level 3!

  Congratulations! [Cheesemaking] has reached Level 21!

  Just like that, he had turned a 1-week-old Gouda into a 4-week-old Gouda. And all it took was the entire day.

  Take that, parents.

  Tired and beyond exhausted, Colby exited his Core and went to sleep.

  The next day, he brought down the young Gouda to let his parents and sister try it.

  It had garnered the same reaction as before, though they were impressed by how fast he had been able to progress.

  “That’s definitely more involved than our method. And it’s much slower and uses a lot more Mana. But honestly? If it works for you, then I'll be here to support you. We’re not going to dictate what methods you use.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “I still think torture would suit you better.”

  “Thanks, Mom?”

  Honestly, he had no idea how to react to that statement.

  Thankfully, the door to the shop swung open just at that moment, saving him from trying to figure out why his mother was so obsessed with torture.

  He turned towards the entrance, ready to serve customers as an excuse to get out of this conversation.

  Except that a customer didn’t enter the shop. It was something much better.

  It was Elaine and Porter!