"Never change, Kyubey." She had reached the bottom of the pile, but every single cube had been used. Had her despair been that strong? That could not be possible.

Kyubey hopped onto the bureau. The alien mouth on his back opened up and began vacuuming up the spent cubes in a process neither mechanical nor biological and which Sloan did not care to watch.

By the way! You'll notice your Soul Gem is in remarkable condition. You could consider it in a supercharged state, if you will. You used far more grief cubes than were necessary, but fortunately, cubes do not simply go to waste if they have no more despair to consume.

Sloan examined her gem. "So you're saying it, like, gave me anti-despair?"

Kinda! Despair and its counteragent, hope, are simply sources of energy for which your Soul Gem is a conduit. Slurp suck shlupp went Kyubey's mouth as he rolled across the rest of the gems. He used his tail to sweep them in for greater efficiency. Once the cubes had no more despair to take, they began to charge your gem with hope. This is an extremely rare state, because it's not often Magical Girls acquire so many grief cubes at once!

"I don't feel particularly joyful or whatever," said Sloan.

Joy and hope aren't the same thing. You can live a miserable existence but still have tons of hope for the future! Or you can be happy but not hopeful at all—that's generally called complacency. Really, it's difficult even for humans to convert so much hope into raw emotion. I advise burning it off as magical energy.

He sucked up the last few cubes on the bureau and hopped onto the carpet for the stragglers. Sloan regarded the vibrant aura of her gem. "So you mean like, fire my gun a lot? That kind of magical energy?"

Mhmm. With so much power at your disposal, you may even be able to do things you would be incapable of doing normally. When Miss Delaney reaped the spoils of the archon in Saskatoon three years ago, she developed many of the abilities she employs now. She was actually only a Magical Girl of middling promise before that! Then there was a Magical Girl in Japan who gained so much magical energy—

He droned on, but Sloan stopped listening. Extreme magical energy... The exact ace she needed for the upper hand on Clair.

(Chapter 13)