I was perched on a tree branch, waiting for the white-furred creature to exit its den. I had managed to find a stream not long ago; the water was crystal clear, but it had no fish. So, after quenching my thirst, I went to hunt. I immediately spotted my prey, entering a small slit in the ground. Its den was too small for me to enter, so I had decided to wait on the elevated branch; it gave me a better view and was more defensible.

  Climbing the tree was easy, although a squirrel—recognised it from Kamos’s memories— had thrown a rock at me, which bounced against my bone helmet. It scurried off after that. I tried to keep low, not wanting to be seen by prey or predators.

  A while later, the furred creature didn’t exit its den. I scrambled through the cat’s memories, searching for what I could be doing wrong.

  …I think the cat used to hunt mostly at night.

  I was a bit bothered by the discovery, but I still kept to my perch. I decided to spend the remaining time levelling a skill, [Forced Mana Regeneration].

  I hadn’t experimented much with this skill, being busy since I got it. Now, I had time to spare, and a Mana film that was almost exhausted from creating the bone helmet. From the instincts I got after acquiring the skill, I knew how to use it, but not what would happen.

  I made my spherical vision through [Manima Senses] focus on my insides. I gazed at as many cells as my mind would allow, and zoomed in on their metacondria. The small, unattributed bubbles were floating aimlessly. I observed them for a moment and noticed that I could take control of an attributed one—the body was mine now.

  I took hold of as many bubbles as I could—attributed and not. My [Soul Mind] felt like it’s about to tear from the stress, sending weird, elongating and painful sensations at me. I ignored the pain, noticing how my skill compensated for the extra load by blinding my cat vision and leaving my spherical vision only working inside my body.

  I still pushed, shoving as many bubbles as I could towards my Mana film. The film absorbed them like I had drunk the water, ravenously. After what felt like a while, all the bubbles I had sent were absorbed, allowing my film to recover by what looked like 1/10 of its original capacity.

  That’s too little…

  I observed my surroundings, noticing no changes before I used my skill again—I wanted to fill my film.

  It took me until sunset to achieve my goal. By the end, my mind felt on the verge of collapse, but at least I had a full film and a few level-ups to show for it.

  Soul Mind has reached Lv. 4

  Manima Senses has reached Lv. 3

  Forced Mana Regeneration has reached Lv. 2

  …Good.

  Some animals—a family of boars, and another feline—passed below me, but for most of the day, nothing bothered me. The sun slowly dipped beyond the horizon. I spent the remainder of my time looking at the fiery ball in the sky, or as they called it, the Sun.

  The Sun… I wonder what it is?

  From Kamos’s memories, I couldn’t find anything about the sun, and the cat… it was more bothered by food, coupling, and lazing around.

  The sky shed its blue and golden robes for its darker ones. The cat’s vision worked better than my spherical vision at night, showing me more details, although the colours were less vibrant than during the day.

  The birds’ constant chirps had reached a crescendo before sunset, but now they were no more than distant whispers—replaced by critters’ cries.

  I was still fascinated by the jungle. Although I had lots of memories of it from Kamos’s farm being near one and the cat’s memories too, I found myself enjoying seeing them for myself.

  Crk.

  The creature is out…

  It had white fur, a small horn on its forehead, and was a quarter of my size. I used [Identify] on it.

  Small-Horned Rabbit, Lv.?

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Identify has reached Lv. 2

  As it exited its den, it explored its surroundings carefully, stopping every few jumps.

  I slowly and carefully lowered myself from the tree. Reaching the ground, I peeked around the tree’s trunk… the rabbit was looking directly at me with its red eyes.

  I didn’t move at all, hoping it wouldn’t notice me. It turned its head, its horn facing me, and before I could react, a white beam of faint light hit my shoulder… searing pain followed, and I smelled cooked flesh.

  It has skills?!

  The rabbit’s beam flickered out after a heartbeat, and it started frantically jumping back towards its den.

  I hesitated for a second before deciding to follow. My shoulder impeded my movement as I ran, allowing the rabbit to escape. I peeked inside its den using my spherical vision; it was a deep, going beyond my field of vision.

  I was pissed, hungry, tired, in pain, and injured.

  I’m going to end this rabbit!

  I tried something I had never done before. Taking hold of my spherical vision, I didn’t expand it from all directions. Instead, I focused on one spot and elongated it. It worked, although the sphere’s diameter shortened.

  I directed the elongated part to enter the rabbit’s den. After a few turns, I couldn’t elongate my vision any further; it now looked more like a tree trunk with twists. But I didn’t give up. I made the tree trunk's diameter shrink, giving me more length, and finally, I found the rabbit.

  I’m not going home without your flesh joining mine.

  I activated my [Biomancy] skill. Mana strings flowed out. They entered the den and reached the rabbit, who didn’t seem to notice. The strings formed a circle around the rabbit. The circle was attached to a cable.

  The circle turned into a bone necklace, and the cable skin tissue—it was resilient to stretching. This drained almost all my Mana film.

  Biomancy has reached Lv. 9

  The rabbit started jerking around, trying to free itself from the necklace, but I had made it too tight.

  I pulled on the skin cable, using my mouth. Through my vision, I could see the rabbit try to resist being dragged out, but my strength was way superior. Just before reaching the surface, the rabbit seemed to notice the cable dragging it. It turned its horn to the skin and activated its beam. The heat cut the skin cable.

  But I had foreseen that. I extended my arm into the hole, taking hold of the rabbit with my claws.

  I quickly drew it out, and before it could hit me with its beams, I ran its neck with the bone horn on my helmet.

  It screeched and thrashed around, but I pinned it down, preventing it from using its beam against me.

  It took longer than I had expected, and by the end, I was exhausted, but the rabbit had stopped moving, bleeding out.

  You have killed Small Horned Rabbit, Lv. 2

  Since the user does not own a class, the experience will be stored until one is acquired.

  My first hunt. I felt proud.

  Proud… good.

  ***

  I dragged the rabbit back to my den, then started eating it. Even though I was very hungry, I wasn’t that excited about eating it, but after the first taste of flesh, I ravaged the rest in a short while.

  Looking at myself through my spherical vision, I found out that blood covered me from top to bottom.

  Out of nowhere, an instinct took over me, and I started licking myself clean. Then, deep slumber took me.

  My consciousness returned to my cell, while the cat's body rested. There was this feeling in the back of my brain, and when I acknowledged it, I awoke as the cat.

  I knew that the cat’s body needed rest, so I let it go back to sleep.

  I decided to spend the time waiting training my skills, but first…

  I entered my Mana film by shrinking my soul to its limits, then I took a string of mana and tried to divide it and… failed miserably.

  I had wanted to create more fine Mana strings to use them if another soul battle were to happen, but it seemed that wasn’t going to be easy.

  I still worked on it, dedicating a portion of my training to it. After that, I went on to condense my Mana strings in my film as I trained in my different skills.

  The first skill I started with was [Mana Manipulation]. Holding a string, I made twists and turns; I even tried to draw some shapes, like a circle, a square, and many others. I had deduced this training regimen for the skill when I saw how it had levelled every time the strings created complex formations.

  [Soul Manipulation] was the next. This was my lowest-level skill, and I didn’t have a clear way to upgrade it, so I tried to be a bit creative.

  I braced, tearing a piece of my soul, then the pain came. It wasn’t that bad, with my soul mending itself immediately, but I still loathed it. Pain was the second most hated thing for me after ending, but from experience, it was necessary to prevent said ending.

  I took hold of the torn part, then started to shape it. I tried simple shapes, but found it way more difficult to manipulate than Mana. Still, I succeeded in creating some shapes, like circles, partially.

  [Biomancy] was the third skill.

  My wound from the hunt was closed, so I didn’t fear blood escaping and dying like Kamos, but it still hurt, and I could see weird yellow and different stuff forming on it. While thinking of a training regimen I could do to improve [Biomancy], I theorised that fixing the wound might be feasible; It was made of flesh, and [Biomancy] created flesh.

  I focused on the wound, then activated the skill and imagined it being filled with flesh, and atop that skin.

  Mana strings flew at the wound, filling only its bottom before my film was depleted; I hadn’t regenerated enough Mana. The wound shone with a faint green light that became red before turning into flesh—uncovered red flesh. A piece of my soul headed into the flesh and was absorbed by it.

  I awoke and poked at the new flesh. It… fell, revealing the burnt and blistering skin under it.

  Hmm… it seems I can’t regenerate tissue using my skill, or I might be using it wrong.

  Maybe…

  I thought of trying to peel the surface blistering tissue and then retry creating the flesh, but I put the idea off—my film was still depleted, and I didn’t think it would work.

  Could it be that the created flesh doesn’t function properly, like, what had the system called me… tumour? Or it may need to be connected with the blood or the brain cells’ legs. Maybe my imagination is lacking. I need to understand how flesh works more.

  I made healing my shoulder a priority. Although the pain was way easier to endure than soul pain, it still hurt and was impeding my movement. Hence, I decided that half of my training would be on improving it. I spent the remainder of the night observing how the fine shoulder tissues functioned… it was complex.

  This… I’ll need a long time of observation before I could hope to imagine and replicate it.

  I awoke at sunrise, but my body still felt groggy and tired.

  Unlike the human, the feline spends its days asleep and nights awake.

  I decided to head back to sleep and observe the fine shoulder more; I didn’t want to change the cat’s old regime.

  After that, I trained my remaining skills. My [Soul Mind] had recovered from the strain I had put it through during the hunt, so I started with [Forced Mana Regeneration]—my film was still only half full.

  It seems my film needs a day to recover.

  Using the skill [Forced Mana Regeneration], I quickly regenerated my film and gained a level in [Soul Mind].

  Soul Mind has reached Lv. 5

  Only three skills were left: [Identify], [Manima Senses], [Soul Mind]

  I trained [Manima Senses] by changing the shape of my sphere of vision, zooming in, and zooming out on stuff. That seemed to stretch the skills capacity as I started to feel a new kind of fatigue. Also, my [Soul Mind] suffered a bit from all the zooming in.

  [Soul Mind] didn’t need a training regimen of its own, as it was already stretched thin by the other skills.

  That left me with [Identify].

  I tried to focus on a random object lying around, then activated the skill.

  Rock

  It really is useless, isn't it?

  I kept spamming the skill, aiming at different objects, and then…

  Vipurus Python, Lv.??

  What?!

  Then, out of nowhere, a long green thing lunged at me…