This was big. This was really big. I could get stronger by making friends! Granted, that ‘only’ worked for my race levels and from the notification, it looked like I had to make friends with new species to get more experience but it was a completely new way of growing stronger. This was definitely a boon from my evolution. What else changed? What else would give me levels? I could not wait to find out.

Well, I could wait. I had a friend! And not just me calling her a friend, we both felt this way. That was the only reason for the experience to be granted with this timing. I was looking forward to when we could finally talk freely to each other. Before that, I pushed the ocelot off me and checked on my status. A vague image of levelling up made her sit down and look at me expectantly.

Species: Sgiathan Dorcha Owl (adult)

Age: 0

Name: Fio

Gender: female

Status: sapient, healthy, Beast Core (unique)

Level: 21

Class: [Assassin lvl 51], -

Strength: 19

Constitution: 16

Dexterity: 25

Perception: 24

Intelligence: 32

Wisdom: 32

AP: 1

Skills:

Racial:

Utility: [Owl Senses lvl 5], [Preening lvl 4], [Owl Stomach lvl 5], [Soundless Flight lvl 4]

Offensive: [Solid Grip lvl 4], [Intimidating Screech lvl 4], [Owl’s Shadow lvl 6], [Aerial Combat lvl 4]

General:

[Maths lvl 4], [Identify lvl 5]

Assassin:

[Sneak lvl 5], [Surprise Attack lvl 4], [Mingling lvl 3], [Eldritch Shift lvl 5], [Winged Death lvl 3]

Well, there it was. I had gained a point in Strength and a free Attribute Point. This was another big improvement. I actually doubled the gains from levelling my race. Sort of. Half of the points were still allocated automatically but levelling my race was still making me stronger than levelling my Class. That was before considering Milestones and the Skills coming with them. I was curious when the next one came but I had time. No need to rush. I already knew a target nearby.

For now, I needed to make a plan for my Attributes. Maybe, just possibly, it would be smart to ask my new friend about it. She was much older than me and had experience living in the wilderness. I also expected her to have a higher level class. Her advice might be useful.

I decided to properly ask the question while sending along the corresponding feelings. I had to keep teaching her English after all!

“Where should I put my Attribute Points?”

The ocelot tilted her head and sent me an exasperated feeling. I felt [Identify] draw on my soul before she asked me a question in return.

“Crrass?”

Oh. She could not see my Class? How high did you need [Identify] to see it? Of course, I answered her.

“[Assassin]”

Her eyes widened slightly before she could catch herself. Instead of the fear I expected, I felt curiosity across our connection. Then she stepped a little closer. It felt like she wanted to ask something but was unable to express herself. I received the plan of a question but it was difficult to parse what she wanted to know. After a few minutes of floundering emotions back and forth through the supersensory matrix, she sat down once again in front of the Thaumonomicon.

“Shpeeg! Wearn!”

It was clear what she wanted. And so we returned to our practice.

It took another five days before she could almost clearly speak through the connection. At least for the introduction of the Thaumonomicon. The language itself was still difficult for her to parse. Her sentences outside of reading were simple like child speech. We had started to talk in between reading as well. Or rather, I had. I was describing everything I did, narrating my life to her. This helped teach how to form new sentences. When we were out hunting, I took along the matrix and sent an image of my actions along with the words. We learned the item had a pretty good range as long as the connection was not cut. We had to be within a few metres, about ten at most to form it, but after that, we could separate by almost a kilometre or maybe even more. It was difficult to evaluate with both of us moving and no measuring tools.

At least I had taught her well enough to finally have a sapient conversation. And I asked the important question as our first discussion.

“What is your name?”

I felt confusion for a bit. She was her. There was no name. Before she could fall back to animal behaviour, I continued the conversation.

“People have names. Sapient means you can give a name. It makes it easier to know who you are talking about when you know more people.”

“I know you” she answered.

“Yes. And one day you will know others. I am Fio. Other people gave me this name. I want to call you by your name. It makes you an individual.”

I was convinced most of the details escaped her conversation. I still tried to explain it to her. And she seemed to warm up to the idea. As a final push, I carved Name into the ground. The row in the menu. I knew she would know as she had carved my status on her backroom wall. And it worked.

“I want name” she sent. Her eyes looked at me with expectation. Yeah, now came the difficult part. What to call her. Maybe…

“What name?” I asked.

She tilted her head and sent back, “You decide”

Great. The easiest would be just to call her Ocy or something. Cat, short for Catherine? No, she was not a stray. And I was more creative than that. Hmm, what to do?

“What’s your Class?” I asked.

“[Hunter]” came the answer.

Ohh, good to know. So, a [Hunter], ocelot and water mana. Feli for feline? Oh, there was this fishing cat, right? I remembered reading about it in some online article. Memory, help me out here. I found it really fun to watch animal videos and read more about them. I think it was called something like prionailurus viverrinus? Prionailurus was one of the smaller cat families but I was not sure about the second part. It did not matter too much though. I had a name.

“Vivi”, I sent, “Your name is Vivi!”

“Vi..vi”

She seemed to taste the letters with her thoughts. Her focus shifted for a moment before she nodded.

“Vivi! I am Vivi!”

Good. I was glad I had found something she liked. I had no idea how or if you could change your name. Or someone else’s name for that matter. As I activated [Identify], I remembered something I had practised before we met. Hiding my usage of the Skill. I was not sure it could work with her being able to see me anyway but I still tried for it once more.

[Identify]

Species: Ocelot (Adult)

Age: 12

Name: Vivi

Gender: female

Level: 44

Well, there it was. The name had taken.

“Hello Vivi, I am Fio” I spoke to her.

“Hello Fio, I am Vivi” came the answer. She felt very happy through the connection which in turn made me happy as well. Then she asked me something.

“You have [Camouflage]?”

“What? Why?” That sounded decidedly like a Skill. I could hear the brackets and the capital C.

“You try hide [Identify]!” she sent.

What did those two Skills have to do with each other? Well, I could guess.

“No” I answered, “I have [Sneak].”

Vivi sunk into her thoughts. She was surely coming up with something.

“Practice!” she sent and all of a sudden I felt [Identify] on me once again. This time, it was far less invasive but still very obviously coming from her. This was a good idea. I sent my own [Identify] back getting the same result as moments ago. Who would have thought?

We went on and on using the Skill on each other. At some point, I decided to make our training more productive.

“Let’s read. Practice your language. Use [Identify] when you think I’m distracted. If I notice, you have to read. I will try as well and if you notice, I have to read in Ordugh.”

She nodded in answer and we settled down once more in front of the Thaumonomicon. Our practice had started once again. Though we were using new entries to make it more difficult. Both of us had a lot to improve on. Vivi needed more experience with forming sentences and I had not gotten nearly enough practice in to articulate Ordugh in any reasonable way. I sounded like a baby trying for their first words.

We shot [Identify] back and forth while trying to read as fast as possible. The distraction made it much easier for us to avoid detection but we still took a long time before succeeding for the first time. In fact, it took her two days and me three to get there. Another four days later and I could almost always avoid her detection while Vivi was reading. The same happened the other way around. Though, when we were not distracted, it was much more difficult. A whole nine days after we started working on our stealthy [Identify], I finally succeeded for the first time. And promptly got a notification.

~ding~ Congratulations! You have successfully altered your Skill [Identify]. The use of [Sneak] and your will Attributes have changed it into [Hidden Identify]. Additional experience is rewarded.

~ding~ [Assassin] reached level 52. 1 Attribute Point awarded.

~ding~ You have reached level 22. Attribute Point allocated. 1 Attribute Point awarded.

Well huh. So that was what levelling a general Skill did. Wait, did it even level?

Species: Sgiathan Dorcha Owl (adult)

Age: 0

Name: Fio

Gender: female

Status: sapient, healthy, Beast Core (unique)

Level: 22

Class: [Assassin lvl 52], -

Strength: 19

Constitution: 16

Dexterity: 25

Perception: 25

Intelligence: 32

Wisdom: 32

AP: 3

Skills:

Racial:

Utility: [Owl Senses lvl 5], [Preening lvl 4], [Owl Stomach lvl 5], [Soundless Flight lvl 4]

Offensive: [Solid Grip lvl 4], [Intimidating Screech lvl 4], [Owl’s Shadow lvl 6], [Aerial Combat lvl 4]

General:

[Maths lvl 4], [Hidden Identify lvl 5]

Assassin:

[Sneak lvl 5], [Surprise Attack lvl 4], [Mingling lvl 3], [Eldritch Shift lvl 5], [Winged Death lvl 3]

It did not. But the Skill was altered. I checked it out.

[Hidden Identify]: Gain information about your surroundings. This ability alerts living beings it is used on unless your combined will Attributes are higher than your target’s. Detail increases with skill level.

Okay. That was good to know. So I could not just randomly use it on anything. Especially more powerful beings would still notice my use of the Skill. But it meant I had more combined Intelligence and Wisdom than Vivi. It was honestly not too surprising. She was almost as fast running through the forest as I was flying over it. She had to have spent a lot of Attributes in Dexterity and Perception. She was also much stronger than me as I had learned in a few play-fights. The only way to escape her pinning me down was [Eldritch Shift]. If I tried to use force there was nothing I could do.

That reminded me, I still had Attribute points to spend. The automatic point had gone into Perception. With how many Skills I had profiting from magic stats, I was convinced that was the right place to put them. A short discussion with Vivi led to no new insights. She had spent her points in Strength, Dexterity and Perception since those were the most useful for her [Hunter] Class. I was the resident expert on magic and playing to my strengths should be the way to go. My Skills already shored up my weak durability and hopefully [Owl’s Shadow] would at some point work as actual limbs to counteract my low Strength. So I went one in Wisdom and two Intelligence, for now. With my evolution, my race was aligned to my personality so I expected much faster levelling than before and with [Assassin] getting free points as well I could invest in both Attributes evenly. Now I only had to grind some more and soon I would be very powerful.