Finding some suitable sand at the edge of the creek, I did my business and buried it.

You have hidden evidence of your existence. Knowing how to counter a tracker’s efforts is also part of the tracking skill. Tracking skill (novice) awarded.

Huh, that’s, what’s the word... strange, I thought to myself. From time to time, the system would update me with new words, if I needed one. I could feel my vocabulary being supplemented by magic, almost as if it was whispering in my head. It was a strange feeling. But it was more strange that I’d gained a skill just for doing what came naturally. It was also a bit… awkward to know that I was being watched all the time. I had never felt a need for privacy before, but I could now feel a bit uncomfortable to know that some ghostly presence was watching everything I did.

I resolved to put this odd discomfort out of my head. What use does a cat have for privacy? It was unnatural that I’d even been concerned about it. I felt as if I had no way of knowing what was really me, or what was some artificial external change being forced on me by the system’s intrusive magic, and I didn’t like it.

Testing my increased strength, I hopped over the creek, easily clearing the distance with a spectacular long jump. I could clearly jump much further than normal for a cat, and cats were normally very good jumpers.

You have jumped many times your own body length. Very few creatures can match your skill. Jumping skill (grandmaster) awarded.

Does the skill actually do anything? I wondered. Testing it, I jumped back across the creek and found that yes, the skill had dramatically improved my jumping ability. I had actually jumped about twice as far, and despite being airborne for a few seconds, I managed a perfect landing on the other side. This was amazing. I bunched up and jumped back to the other side, this time aiming for a huge mushroom about as tall as a human on the other side.

Success! I had jumped in a perfect arc that had put me about five human lengths horizontally and one human length vertically, and still managed to land perfectly. I am the greatest leaper ever, I thought to myself proudly. What else could I do with my new stregnth?

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted movement. My sight wasn’t great at detecting fine details, especially not up close, but movement I could detect with far greater precision than the otherwise superior human vision. Although, I say superior, I only mean in the light of day. Here in the Underrealm, it was never brighter than about what you'd see under full moon at night, so my cat eyes were actually better than poor night blind humans.

Well, at the time I had no way of knowing how my vision compared to humans of course, I am describing what I know now, not what I knew then, sorry for that aside. Back then I did not question how good my vision was; the changes brought by the system had left my sight unchanged. Until the next message popped up, that is.

You have used your vision to detect the smallest of movements. Perception skill (journeyman) awarded.

My sight sharpened and cleared, and I saw that I was looking at a black beetle about the size of my paw, scurrying across the mossy dirt. Without pausing to think about it, I leapt forward, clearing the intervening distance in a flash, a powerful and accurate pounce landing my front paws directly on the beetle, squishing it flat in an explosion of gross green goop.

You have used jumping skill to perform a devastating attack. Pounce skill (Master) awarded.

I paused, and examined the message in the blue box. How was pounce different from jump? I wondered. I tapped the floating notification with one goop covered paw. It was sometimes faster to just tap the right word on a screen than to focus real hard. The system seemed a bit slow to respond when it was reading my mind, almost as if it wasn't an easy task to read the mind of a cat.

Pounce Skill passively increases pouncing damage and accuracy. Can also be activated to use mana to increase the power of your attack, covering your paws with a kinetic barrier that both enhances the impact on your target and nullifies the impact on your paws. At the (master) level, damage is increased by 200% + (20% x amplitude) and mana use is 10 per attack.

Huh, well how much mana did I have? After some effort, I found that I could actually make a pair of bars showing my health and mana appear in the corner of my sight. It would stay visible if I wanted it there.

Health: 90/90 - Mana: 40/40

How quickly could my mana recover? I knew what the words of my stats meant, but not their effects. Was my “ attunement” what decided my mana? I pulled up my stats again by focusing my thoughts on the topic, then touched the word "attunement".

Magic attunement determines how easy it is to store and accumulate mana. It determines both maximum capacity and regeneration rate. Each point of attunement gives 10 max mana and 1 mana per minute regen, plus 1 mana and 0.1 mana per minute per level past 1st.

So with 4 attunement, I had 40 max mana and 4 mana per minute regen. Next level I would have 44 max mana and 4.4 mana per minute regen. I was briefly proud of myself for doing the math required to work that out in my head. Though it did take me several minutes of concentrated effort, and many wrong guesses. I knew I’d gotten it right when I received the system notification.

You have successfully worked out a basic algebra problem with no assistance. Math (novice) awarded.

Ah, that made it easier to do the calculations in my head for the next question. How did my hp work? Turns out constitution worked much the same way as attunement, but the regeneration rate was listed in hours instead of minutes, so I could currently heal 9 hp per hour.

Thinking about it, this meant that it would always take me 10 minutes to refill my mana from 0 to full, no matter what level I was, or how much attunement I had. It would always take me 10 hours or less to fully heal any damage, assuming I didn’t die, though I wasn’t sure if I could regenerate missing limbs.

All this furious thinking made me idly lick my paws to groom myself. Gross! The bug juice tasted awful!

You have received minor poison debuff. Hp is lost at 1 per 7 minutes, duration 35 minutes.

Hmmm… I watched my hp bar carefully for a while as I walked back to the creak to wash my paws in water, swallowing my distaste for getting wet. It didn’t go down. I waited what felt like ten minutes for my paws to dry before moving, but my hp still did not go down. Oh right, 1 hp per 7 minutes was slightly lower my hp regen rate, since 60 minutes divided by 9 hp was 6 and 2/3rds minutes per hp. If I was gaining hp faster than I was losing it, of course nothing would change.

Your math skill (novice) has evolved to (apprentice)

That was easy. Maybe I’d already been right at the cusp between the two levels? I had more pressing concerns though. If a lick of bug juice was that poisonous, and gross, I wouldn’t be eating them for dinner, and despite my slightly upset stomach, I was starting to get a bit hungry.

Better be on the lookout for mice, I thought to myself. My eyes caught a small burst of movement, and before I could think about it, I pounced again. This time I activated my pounce skill, so that a faint white glow surrounded my paws as I attacked.

*Splat!*

Damn, another gross bug. At least the kinetic barrier had also kept my paws clean. The magic enhanced attack had been vigorous enough to create a small crater of dirt upon impact. I stared down at the scattered remains of a slightly larger beetle and yawned briefly. That was my equivalent of a sigh. Did cats normally sigh? I doubted it. This damn system had infected me with human mannerisms? The indignity of my superior cat-ness being tainted by human-ness.

I needed to focus on my cat thoughts. It had been a lot of fun jumping on the stupid beetle, I decided, even if it was so gross. Too bad I couldn’t just keep pouncing on the same beetle like a well designed cat toy. It was boring to pouce things that didn’t move. Idly I pushed the goopy chitin around wishing it would continue to struggle.

Do you wish to reanimate the beetle? Yes/no

What an odd question the status screen was asking. Could I reanimate it? Curious, I tapped yes.

Job Insect Necromancer selected. You may select new jobs at level 10, 30, 60 and 100. Reanimate Insect ability (novice) awarded.

Very interesting. I focused on the crumpled bug remains and thought real hard about using my skill. Immediately a ghostly green glow surrounded the dead bug and it reassembled itself. Within a few short moments, my toy was back in working order and staring at me waiting for instructions.

I told it, instinctively understanding how to communicate with it.

The beetle shot off at full speed. Eagerly, I jumped after it, catching up and then batting it to the side with one paw.

You have used a claw based attack. Swipe skill (novice) awarded.

I ignored the message and continued to chase the fleeing undead beetle for several minutes before getting bored. So far, despite my growing hunger, I was at least keeping myself entertained, but I had wandered far from the hillside I’d first emerged into this world. I was now in a strange mushroom forest, and I could feel the ominous sensation of being watched by some predator. I froze up in fear, arching my back to try to intimidate whatever was nearby.

Could I hear movement? My ears swiveled to both sides, straining to hear any noise. Was I being paranoid? I had never not trusted my instincts before, but, with all the strange thoughts the system put in my head, was I really detecting some hostile intent or was I imagining it?

Just as I started to relax, something rushed out from behind a clump of mushrooms and charged at me.

Skill List Tracking (Novice) Allows for the detection of trails and spoor to determine the presence of nearby animals. Jumping (Grandmaster) Passively doubles the distance and accuracy of jumping. Allows for powered jump using mana for even greater distance, also negates fall damage when jumping great distances. Perception (Journeyman) Passively increases the effectiveness of all senses. Can be activated with mana for additional bonus. Pounce (Master) Passively increases pouncing speed and accuracy. Also provides an active skill that consumes 10 mana to provide +200%+(20%xm.amplitude) bonus kinetic damage. Math (Apprentice) Assists with mental math that involves simple algebra. Activate with mana to use system calculator. Swipe (Novice) Passively increased damage from swiping targets with a clawed paw. Increase skill to unlock magically boosted attacks. Abilities List Reanimate Insect (Novice) Reconstruct any dead insect and bring it to unnatural life as your servant. Size of target and number of followers limited by skill, level, and m. amplitude, mana cost varies by size. Duration indefinate.

Dimensional Storage (Novice)

Dimensional Storage ability (novice) - Allows for upto 10+(1 x amplitude) pounds and/or 10+(1 x amplitude) individual items to be stored. Increased skill provides additional storage. Objects in storage are frozen in time and do not age or decay.