After assigning his stats and dismissing his status, Fang spent a full day pretending the blue box didn't exist. He escaped it and its strange nothing-numbers by finding refuge in the simple joy of hunting. Finding prey in his clearing had actually become quite a difficult proposition, as any prey that remained knew what he looked like, and they all stayed near their burrows, ready to dart back in at the first rustle of grass or fleeting shadow. Fang could still catch them, but it took extra effort, either in the form of a blink or in staking out the hole his prey fled to and pouncing once they re-emerged.

Fang decided to do neither of these. After finishing his busy schedule of napping in the sun, he pranced off into the forest, chasing a passing butterfly. He hadn't been outside of the clearing in the evening since his first night, and some part of his mind was telling him he should avoid the unknown by staying inside the circle of trees. Fang ignored that voice and carried on. There were defenseless animals to kill.

Fang had a good evening. And a good night. And a good morning. He hunted clear through the dawn and into the day, taking a significant chunk out of the local fauna in the process. By the time his night was over, he had killed five sunlight birds, twenty-three normal birds, twelve squirrels, three rats, seventeen mice, eight bats, two biting bats, and one small fox. His hunting had gone smoothly right up until the end. Now that he knew what the biting bats looked like, he was more cautious hunting them. He made sure to jump away immediately after his initial pounce, then he herded them around until it was safe to close for the kill.

The fox was not an issue to kill either. The miniature predator had decided to steal Fang's prey, pouncing on a small vole from the bushes while Fang was stalking it from the branches. It was certainly an interesting way to commit suicide, but its audacity was nowhere near enough to save it from Fang's vengeance. This one was smaller than the fox he had seen at the river, about the same size as Fang, with only one tail. Fang fell upon the creature from above, paws landing on its head and shoulders, while his jaws bit into the back of its neck. One of his teeth found a gap between two vertebrae, jabbing into its spine. With a quick jerk, the brief struggle was over, and his prey stilled. Fang sat back and began to clean himself, smug at making such a large kill.

He had barely licked the blood from his lips when a shrill, barking scream cut through the forest. He turned and saw a much larger fox running through the trees at him. The beast was at least twice his size, and it had five tails streaming behind it, each lit at the tip with a different color of flame. Fang blinked up into the nearby branches to assess the situation. He quickly decided on the best course of action and bravely charged forward. Forward, in this case, was a direction empty of fox, but that was simply a tactical decision. It wouldn't be fair to the fox to simply take it head-on, after all, it was only proper to be subtle.

Then the tree he had just been in exploded in a large ball of fire, and Fang was fleeing for real. It was one thing to flee from prey, but fire was certainly not prey. It was not fear, just good common sense, like not jumping from too high. Then Fang leapt again, and the tree he was about to land in exploded in another blaze of flame and splinters. He blinked backwards, landing on the branch he came from at the cost of a significant chunk of mana. There was a growl of frustration from below, followed by a harsh bark of anger. He leapt between the tree's branches before jumping in a different direction, aiming for a less exploded tree.

The less exploded tree promptly became a more exploded tree, and Fang had to blink away again. He didn't blink back to the previous tree this time though. His incredible feline genius told him that if first and second trees he'd tried to jump to exploded, then it was almost certain the… more-than-second tree would explode as well. Instead, he blinked down and to the side, landing beside a small bush and blinking behind it. The tiny distance cost him barely a mote of sunlight, but it avoided him having to shoulder through the bush. From the other side, Fang took off at an angle, taking cover in the underbrush and blinking between trees as cover. Explosions blossomed behind him, but he managed to stay one step ahead of the fox's aim. Moving this way was draining though, and he was quickly running out of both breath and sunshine. He could hear the fox crashing through the brush behind him as well, and it was getting closer rather than farther away. If this kept up, one of those fireballs was going to land on him. Fang was a great many things, but he was not fireproof, and he did not like the idea of one of those hitting him one bit.

He needed to go faster, but he also needed to spend less sunlight and conserve his energy. He could go faster by blinking more, but that would use more energy. He could save energy by blinking shorter distances, but that would make him move slower. He was already blinking twice for every jump he made, but seeing the numbers on that status screen had put an idea in his head. An idea that percolated through into his consciousness as he desperately fled the fireball-spewing mother fox. Blinking twice was good, but there were numbers bigger than two. What if blinking more than two times was better?

As that thought finally formed in the handful of Fang's neurons devoted to abstract thought, he blinked twice twice, and moved more smoothly through the bushes, with less spent. Then he blinked twice twice twice, and twice twice twice twice, high on his own discovery. Then his wild exploration of higher numbers was interrupted by a pair of blue boxes standing in his path.

Congratulations! Skill evolution unlocked!

Dimensional Dexterity

Uncommon ★

As one who has traveled between realms, you are less firmly bound to the fabric of space and existence. You can skip across space as a rock skips across a lake.

Allows teleportation across short distances at the cost of mana and stamina, the cost increasing exponentially with the distance.

Cost is reduced when both the starting position and destination are unobserved by sapient creatures.

DEX +3

Dimensionless Stride

Uncommon ★★

Like the mythic stallions of the gods, you have two sets of legs. One set treads the physical realm, while the other propels you across the place between. By using both in tandem you can race through the realm like a spirit, interacting with the world only as you desire.

While active, significantly increases movement speed, and greatly reduces both damage dealt and damage received. While active, you can freely pass through objects smaller than yourself which are not wielded by a sapient creature. Continuously drains a small amount of mana while active.

Allows propulsion in the air or void.

DEX +6, STR +3

Fang didn't bother reading the box, this was no time for a headache. He swatted them both away and continued running. After a few more moments of fleeing, Fang noticed a change. He was moving much faster in between his blinks than before. In fact, even the focus it took to aim his blinks one after another was now slowing him down compared to just running full speed.

Fang stopped blinking and took off at a proper sprint. The forest blurred by, and the shrubs and brambles in his path seemed to melt and reform behind him. He was finally gaining ground on the fox, and before long, its fireballs were lagging behind him, straying off into the brush on the sides as it guessed where he was. After a bit longer, Fang dared to leap and blink up into the canopy, and began stealthily making his way home.

By the time he returned to the clearing it was midday, and he was thoroughly exhausted and sore. All the running had not been good for his leg, and the spot where the bat had bitten was hurting again. He had also been pelted by splinters and wood chips from all the exploding vegetation tonight, but he was far too tired to lick his wounds. In fact, Fang could barely keep his eyes open, and as soon as he reached his stone dais he flopped down with his marble and passed out.

He slept clear through the rest of the day and into the evening, and when he woke up, he spent the night relaxing in his clearing. He played with his marble, squashed some nasty glow bugs, and when dawn came, he ascended his favorite pillar to greet the sun in style.

However, just as the sun was rising high enough to properly warm his whiskers, something happened. The stone beneath him started getting warmer, the trickle of sunshine he usually got from it turning into a steady flow. Lines of light danced through the tiny etchings in the rock, and down below, large streamers of deep purple light twisted through the air, forming an intricate spider web between the pillars. Eventually, something seemed to snap into place. The flowing streamers of light stood still in their positions, and the runes covering the stones all flashed at once.

Fang flinched away from the light, his pupils narrowing to the barest slits. When he looked back, there were humans in the circle. One looked like he would be very comfortable to lie on, but the others looked pretty nondescript apart from their colors. Fang wasn't a speciesist, but humans all looked alike to him. Somewhat like hairless, stretched, deformed kittens. They were quite hideous all told, but they made for very useful pets. The humans seemed to be having trouble standing, and it looked as though the comfy red one was attempting to cough up a hairball. After a pulse of white light, they all seemed to remember how to stand, though the red one hadn't coughed up his hairball and continued to look unwell. Fang was outside the radius of the pulse, but the residual energy that washed over him set his whiskers tingling pleasantly.

As the humans huddled off to a side, Fang got up from his napping pose and prepared to leap down. That was when he noticed the other creatures on his rock. There was a colorful butterfly that looked fun to chase, a white dove that looked positively delicious, and some sort of large snake THAT WAS EATING HIS MARBLE!

Fang immediately leapt off the pillar, blinking at a diagonal to bring him over to the thieving snake, and came down on it in a ball of claws and fury. The scaly offender quickly relinquished his property once it was shown the might of his claws, but then his marble attempted to make a run for it! This betrayal could not stand. Fang smacked the marble, and started chasing it, confident the prey behind him wouldn't dare assault him after the lesson he'd given.

There was a bustle of activity and noise from the humans, but that often happened when he did something. Probably snapping pictures of his immense predatory prowess, or telling off that snake for attempting to steal from him. Fang ignored it, chasing after his marble for a while before managing to stop it. He sat down atop it and began to recover the sunlight he'd spent jumping down. The humans were all staring at him and jabbering back and forth in their nonsense tongue, no doubt commending his impeccable performance. He yawned, showing off his teeth, and dozed a bit. The night of the fox had been harrowing, and even after a full day's rest, he wasn't caught up on his busy schedule of napping. He would induct these humans as his pets… After a short nap.

Fang didn't sleep long before he was awoken by a piece of something being shoved in his face. It smelled spicy and artificial. There were hints of actual meat in the smell, but not enough for him to waste his time eating it. Not with so many delicious and sunny creatures romping around nearby, just begging to be hunted when he needed a meal.

Ignoring the soft meat-man, Fang looked at the other humans. One was drawing some sort of circle, and the other two were having some sort of conversation. Fang decided to stare at the fat one. He half-lidded his eyes for maximal unblinking condescension, and stared him down, asserting his dominance by ignoring everything the human said or did.

The red one was eventually rescued by the horribly un-stealthy pink one, who started waving around a different piece of meat as he was subjected to Fang's stare of doom. This mockery of food hardly even deserved to be called meat though. He watched on in horror as the man held and waved around the disgusting slab of filth. He was amazed this human could bear even holding something like that.

Then the human shoved it in Fang's face.

There was only one possible response to such an act. Immediate and terrible violence.

Fang clawed the human's hand, shredding his tanned skin. The idiot human dropped the disgusting meat right in front of Fang, but then must have realized his mistake, as he immediately grabbed the horrid offense to the very concept of food and chucked it away. The disgusting idiot then ran off, as it should be, and talked to the other humans. Probably relaying how fierce and deadly Fang was. Then, Fang saw the white human do something with a ball of light, and the annoying man's injury disappeared. His eyes widened.

Fang's injury from the bat was mostly healed, but it was still sore, and it got worse when he moved too much. He decided he would tame this white, healing human first. Besides, that pulse she had sent out earlier felt almost as good as sunlight. He rose, leaving his marble behind, and proudly strutted over to the human. Thankfully the nasty meat had landed on the other side of the circle from her, so he didn't have to get too close to it. He walked up and placed the leg the bat had bitten on her ankle. "Human. Heal me," he meowed. Of course, he was completely misunderstood. He continued prodding the human, as they would usually get the idea after enough attempts. However, this one was ignoring him completely, apart from a slightly fearful glance now and then. This could not stand. Fang was just about to start sharpening his claws on her pant leg when he noticed the air glowing. He felt the pleasant white mana all around him, trickling into his wounds and making them itch, but somehow pleasantly. The unusual sensation stalled him long enough for the circle to suck all that mana out of the air. Before he could return to his needling of his new pet, the circle blinded him with another flash, similar to that of the teleporter that had brought the humans here. When he could see again, he was confronted with a new blue box.

Would you like to make Lillian Souris your familiar?

This process is permanent, and attempting to reverse it will have serious consequences.

Yes

No

He didn't really get most of the concepts, but it was basically asking if he wanted to make this human his pet. That was what he was trying to do from the start. And why would he want to make her a not-pet? This box was strange, but the answer was easy. He selected yes without hesitation, and a deluge of new senses overwhelmed him. He could see through the human's eyes, which he immediately blocked out due to an impending headache. He could sense where the white human was, how healthy she was, how much mana she had, and even some vague undercurrents of thoughts. This human's thoughts were far too deep though, and needlessly complex, so he ignored them. At least, until she spoke.

"Lexi. What in the nine hecks did you do?"

He understood that! Not the words, but when she spoke, her thoughts unjumbled into something coherent. She was upset at the disgusting idiot for something he did. She was clearly telling him off for offending his senses with that vile piece of meat. Fang turned and hissed at the pink one in agreement with her. Then he turned around and returned to what he was doing before. He poked her with his injured leg and demanded, "Human, heal me."

His human looked down at him in shock, then glared over at the soft one, who had come up behind her and had been staring at the blue box in front of her. "Charlie. You said intelligent beasts couldn't get inside the barrier, didn't you? Can you explain why it's sending me conscious fricking thoughts?!" A hint of hysteria had entered her voice, and by the time she whirled on Angela she was just barely holding back tears. "And you! You said everything would be fine, and I shouldn't worry, and now look what happened! I'm bonded with a sapient magical predator, and it's not even my familiar! I said I didn't want to but you… This is all your fault! All of you!"

Lillian screamed wordlessly, then sat down on the ground, hugging her knees and tucking her head down, trying not to cry.

Fang didn't understand a lot of that. He understood that she was upset at all the other humans, and he understood that she was upset at him too. He also understood she was too upset to do what he wanted right now. He hissed at the other humans in solidarity, then walked a circle around Lillian's back, rubbing his side against her. He pushed his way up under her arm and crawled up into her lap, rubbing his head on her chin. His whiskers tickled her neck just enough to elicit a tiny giggle. He meowed at her, "Hey. Don't be upset." Lillian reached down to pat Fang, about to reply, before he finished, "Heal me."

Lillian started crying.