Mash hadn’t really slept last night, but a short session of meditation made him feel good as if he had slept soundly. Today was going to be mundane, as Mash didn’t have any fights planned. He would train some more with his dragon form, but that was nothing special. His friends all had fights in the Colosseum today, and he would go to watch. Even with that, he had most of the morning for himself.

With only a moment’s consideration, Mash knew what he wanted to do with the morning. He had gained a permanent benefit from eating the cat monster from the Colosseum and still hadn’t tested it with weaker monsters. He was going to rectify that now and could hopefully find some monsters wandering outside the city. He considered telling his friends, but they probably wouldn’t go with him, as two of their fights were fairly early.

He debated it for a second but decided to tell them. Honestly, he felt like there was a pretty high chance for something annoying to happen and wanted to let someone know that he was going out of the city. So, he found his friends and told them, as expected Red and Luke didn’t want to come, but Jill did. Mash didn’t really mind but was surprised by her insistence. She was confident that going with him would be lucrative, and probably more beneficial than a fight in the Colosseum if they did miss it.

Missing a fight with their contracts was costly, but they still had money to spare. All three of them had enough to end their contracts early if they wanted, but none of them even considered it. Red and Jill wanted to catch up, and Luke needed to test his new abilities. Luke would probably get a bit ahead of the rest, though it didn’t really matter. Mash had been learning pretty quickly that each advancement made it significantly harder to level. They probably wouldn’t gain any significant levels until they entered a dungeon.

He wasn’t planning on flying very far and should be able to carry one person easily, and it shouldn’t affect his energy use much. The two of them made their way into the yard. Mash considered trying one of his imitations, but he was more curious about how his winged-cat transformation flew. It might end up being slower, but they weren’t in much of a rush. Plus, the transformation consumed a very small amount of energy compared to his imitation and creation skills.

Once they were outside, he took a deep breath. The morning fog that had built up during the night, felt cool against his skin. Ever since he had started running, he always loved the feeling of training in the morning.

“Come on, you can breathe in as many clouds as you want once we're flying.”

Jill didn’t sound annoyed, instead, he could feel her eagerness for the flight. It seemed like she was expecting something crazy to happen, but he hoped that it didn’t. Normally, he might want some exciting adventure, but for now he really just wanted to test his skill.

“Fine, let's get going, but I don’t know why you’re so excited. We’re barely going to leave the city.”

Following his words, Mash began his transformation. His hair looked like it thickened, as he grew fur across his body. Furthermore, wings sprouted from his back, each as big a door. Jill stood next to him, and only then did he realize that without the wooden creation he would be carrying her in his arms. He was considering just grabbing her hands and having her hang beneath him, but her words dashed that idea.

“I’m expecting you to carry me like a human being, and not a sack of potatoes.”

Jill sounded amused, and Mash only grunted in response. Even with his brother’s words in mind, he should get better at hiding his thoughts. More awkwardly than he would’ve liked, he picked Jill up as she requested. He almost threw her into the air. Her body was light, unnaturally so, and stammered out his words.

“What? How are you so light?”

“Wow, I didn’t expect a compliment from you.”

She responded quickly, obviously expecting his reaction despite her words. Mash only looked at her, and she finally responded.

“If you must know, my last transformation made me lighter. Trust me, it was a weird adjustment. I didn’t get any weaker, just got lighter. Don’t really know why either. Well, that should only make this easier.”

That was a good enough reason for Mash, but he held her a bit more carefully. Even if she claimed that she didn’t get any weaker, she sure felt a lot more fragile now. His wings beat as he leaped off the ground, and he flew for the first time.

It was probably his skills, but he instinctively knew how to use them. They didn’t operate like normal wings, instead, the wind seemed to naturally lift them while he used them. he felt like he could stall at any height just by leaving his wings open. That would be incredibly convenient.

“This is pretty strange. The wind feels like it’s barely hitting us.”

Mash flinched when he heard Jill. He forgot about her as he tried to figure out what was happening with his wings. He realized that he could hear her clearly and that she was right about the wind. It’s like it was automatically moving in the most convenient way for them.

“Yeah, it’s like the wind is being really convenient.”

He didn’t bother acting like he knew what was happening and spoke with obvious confusion. Jill looked at him, she was similarly shocked by the clarity of his voice. Her eyes widened a little before she spoke.

“It must be like my loved by space skill. Except for wind instead. Wait, you steal skills too?”

Her question didn’t hide her frustration. Mash wondered if that was true, and he guessed that it was in a weird way. He didn’t gain any skills but had gained some things that were along those lines. It wasn’t the same as Luke’s as she thought, but he could see the similarities. He gained lightning magic through Priscilla, and it looked like he was gaining something wind-related from the cat. The cat used a lot of mental magic too, did he gain something related to that as well? Another thing he needed to experiment with, though he had no idea how to get started with that.

“I don’t steal them like Luke. I think I just get a small portion of it and must work on it to use it like a real skill. Though it doesn’t get added to my skills like Luke. I think mine has more to do with how it affects my body than my skills.”

He paused his words, thinking about it a bit more.

“I think it's like what happened with Priscilla’s lightning. I get an affinity for the element of magic and have to work on it to actually be able to use it.”

His words didn’t seem to do anything to appease her. She glared at him; sarcasm thickly mixed with her voice.

“Oh no! You have to put in a little work to get entirely new forms of magic. I feel so bad for you. If only you just gained the skills automatically, then it would be much fairer. Wait, act-”

“I get your point, and you do realize that I am carrying you.”

Mash interrupted her tirade. It didn’t have anything to do with fairness. It was obvious that classes weren’t equal, and most people would probably never get classes as good as his or Luke’s. Both of them had the ability to get new power outside of class advancements, and that was something everyone would be jealous of.

“Fine, but the next piece of dragon flesh we find, I’m eating it.”

Mash only rolled his eyes at that. If they found another piece of dragon flesh, it would probably mean that they were somewhere dangerous. Honestly, that didn’t sound as unlikely when he thought about it like that. With their luck, they would just find a piece lying around.

“Sure, but start looking for monsters, we’re outside now.”

Their discussion had been enough time for them to get out of the city, and Mash let Jill know. Now, he just needed to find some monsters. He flew a good distance away from the walls, before hovering in place and scanning the grounds around him.

He went opposite to where the teleportation field was, looking for some places where monsters might be. Jill pointed to a forest, saying that they had seen some monsters there when they went to the dungeon. Mash hesitated for a second, considering whether he could see through the treetops or not.

Well, it was the only idea they had, so he flew there. Even if he couldn’t see clearly, he only needed to find a single monster. He decided to fly a bit lower to the ground and saw oddly wide leaves that seemed to billow awkwardly. The leaves of the tree were circular, and it looked like they were bouncing against one another. He stopped after a while and took advantage of the wings to hover in place. He looked around but didn’t see anything. He thought that he heard something, and Jill was also looking in that direction.

He counted that as confirmation and flew further east. After a few seconds, he could make out the sounds and realized that it was a person screaming. He picked up his pace and was pleased to find that he was able to fly extremely quickly. It felt like he was faster than he was before, though that might be due to the stat increase rather than the form. The energy drain was minimal though, and he knew that it was more efficient.

Then the surroundings changed, and he was flying through the forest, right against the ground. In front of him, he saw a group of people fighting what looked like large birds. Jill had teleported them without warning. His wings hit a tree, and he was sent crashing through the woods. Jill teleported again, this time only saving herself.

Mash quickly pushed himself to his feet, seeing Jill appear next to the group and helping them deal with the monsters. He decided that he would drop her on their way back. One time at the very least.

The crash didn’t really hurt, as his body was significantly more durable. Honestly, crashing, in general, would be a minor annoyance at best. His wings pressed against his side and wrapped around his body until they fit comfortably around him. It was strange to feel his wings fold to less than half their full size. Running towards them, he analyzed the battlefield.

Jill was dealing with the monster easily, her new javelin stabbing and killing the birds with a single strike. For his part, he arrived more bluntly crashing into a pack of five or six birds. He had formed wooden mouths around his hands, easily crushing two of the birds beneath their teeth. He got a good look at the birds as he bit into another with his mouth.

They were covered in black feathers and were about the size of his forearms. They were small compared to other monsters, but plentiful. Killing them was easy, and he bit into as many as he could with his wooden creations. He even took some more bites with his mouth.

The raw meat didn’t taste bad like it normally did, and Mash guessed it had to do with his transformation. He hadn’t tried eating things in his transformations and was curious to see how else it would affect his tastes. Within a minute, all the birds had either been killed or had fled. Mash didn’t hesitate to check his status while he made his way back to the others. He had gotten separated as he chased some of the birds, deeper into the woods.

Disappointingly, he had gained nothing from the creatures. Well, it seemed like his suspicions were correct. Mimic’s avarice would only give him permanent benefits if the monster he ate was strong. There was probably a threshold, and it might be a good idea to look for it. however, the prospect of going around and eating progressively stronger monsters didn’t sound very viable. First, where would he even find such a convenient arrangement of monsters? No, he would probably need to settle for just using the skill when he had the opportunity, and hope that he got a permanent benefit.

When he got close to the others, he began to hear Jill speaking. Mash needed to come up with a way to get back at her. The sudden teleportation had been confusing, and the crash had been embarrassing. Furthermore, she had essentially used him to make a dramatic entrance, while leaving him to look like a buffoon. The birds were weak, but Jill had killed a lot of them. He wondered if it might be enough to get her to her next advancement.