“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” - Vergil, Roman Poet.

I had this idea. I wanted to create items that could heal people. In my last life, my mum died of cancer because she couldn’t afford treatment. I knew there were humans in this world because I had seen them from the cracked-tiled roof-hole that I called home.

I knew that I was in a poor part of town. I could just smell it. Poor was a very distinct, smelly smell. Especially when you had a hypersensitive cat nose. It had something to do with not being able to afford a toilet. I wasn’t looking down on these people. Well, I was, actually, literally looking down on these people from my roof-hole.

But I had always been poor, and I wanted to help these people live better lives. Because they were me, if not for the lottery of birth. So I was trying to find something on the Tech Tree that would allow me to make healing items. I didn’t want to be a healer. I knew I couldn’t be everywhere at once, and I didn’t feel like spending all my time in a hospital. That’s why I wanted to make items.

There were some incredible abilities that tempted me greatly. I could learn how to make permanent portal gates that could connect cities with instant travel through space-bending tunnels. The only problem was that it would cost all of my points. I had a few options like that. I could buy things like a ‘Seed of an Infinity Tree’, but I had no idea what that meant. I could even upgrade my body from cat to something called an ‘enhanced alpha feline’ if I spent most of my points on it. So I had to decide, should I spend all my points on one, potentially, really good ability or spread my points out a bit?

Ideally, I was looking for something that wasn’t too expensive to start with but could scale up long-term. I needed to figure out what was going on in this world before I spent my points. What if there was already a portal network in the cities? Or what if there were already healing items for everyone? So I decided to save most of my points and just get a couple of cheaper starter skills to help me while I figured out what I needed in this new world.

I gave myself 50 points to spend now out of the 1000 points I had to spend.

Based on my budget, I was torn between four options. They were:

Spell: Conjure Snack: pick one small snack to create at the cost of 10 mana. Cost to purchase: 5 reincarnation points.

Body upgrade: Mana battery: increases the amount of mana your body can hold by 50 points. Cost to purchase: 20 reincarnation points.

Spell: Minor telepathy: a short-range telepathy spell that allows you to speak directly into another’s mind at the cost of mana. Cost to purchase: 20 reincarnation points.

Purchase attribute points: Costs 10 reincarnation points to buy 5 attribute points.

The spell descriptions mentioned using mana a lot, so I assumed mana-powered spells. I didn’t have any mana. I think that’s why I was constipated every time I tried to bring up my Status or Tech Tree. So I bought one mana battery to solve my magical constipation issues.

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I also needed attribute points. My current stats were a joke. A Toughness of 1 meant that a cold night would kill me if I wasn’t sleeping in my kitten-sandwich situation. So I added that to my shopping cart. Just five attribute points for now. Hopefully levelling up my Crime Lord class will give me some attribute points to spend.

Did I really need the two spells? ‘Make snack’ was sooo tempting. When all you’ve eaten lately is dead rat and cat milk, magical snacks are a must. So even though I didn’t like spending my dosh, a cat’s got to eat.

That just leaves minor telepathy. Do I really need it? I wanted to talk to the humans. As much as I loved Mumma Cat, and I did, bless her, she couldn’t speak. She said she loved me with her actions. That was enough for me, but I’d go crazy long-term if I couldn’t talk to people. The only problem was, this would probably get me into trouble. Cats probably didn’t have telepathy in this world. Maybe I could pretend to be a god when speaking to the humans?

‘Feed the cat better food. Stop rubbing the cat’s belly. Don’t sit on the cat, you oaf.’ Hmm. They might catch on eventually. Especially if I tell them oddly specific stuff about how to treat one cat.

Risky. Maybe there is a class or another option in the Tech Tree that could help me. So I put off buying telepathy for now. After all, I hadn’t explored all the options on the Tech Tree yet, and something better might come up. Everything else in my cart was essential, I decided. So I confirmed my purchases.

Instantly, my magic constipation stopped. So that was nice. I spent 1 attribute on Strength. 2 attributes on Speed, and 2 attributes on Toughness. So my attributes now looked like this:

Attributes:

* Strength: 2

* Speed: 3

* Toughness: 3

* Intelligence: 11

Mana: 50

My body was still small and cute, but I felt a lot better. Mumma Cat had moved on to licking my brothers and sisters, so she didn’t notice when I snuck out of the roof-hole for a stroll. It was a nice sunny day, and I wanted to do some magic.

But when I got out on the roof, I felt strange walking on all fours after a lifetime of walking on two legs. All I wanted to do was get off my hands and walk tall again. So I tried to stand up on two legs. I think my body must’ve been different from other cats because I could walk standing up just fine. But I decided to get back down on all fours just in case someone saw me. Nothing to see here. I was just a cute little kitten. I would just have to suck it up until it was safe enough to stand tall again.

When I was safely on the other side of the roof, I cast my first spell. Conjure Snack. It didn’t work. It felt like someone had flicked me in the face really hard right between the eyes. Ow. But it came out as a meow.

Okay, doing magic required some training. I could figure this out. So I had this epic training montage on the roof where I unlocked all the secrets of magic. Not really. I got flicked between the eyes a bunch of times until Mumma Cat found me. She picked me up by the scruff of my neck and put me back with all the other kittens.

It was a start. And I was determined to make magical scooby snacks. Just not today. So I had some time out and looked over the Tech Tree for a bit. I waited until Mumma Cat let her guard down and went to go find us dinner. Bless her. Tonight, I was going to be bringing home food for the family.

Long story short. I was eating rat again that night. I needed to find someone to teach me how to cast spells. But after a good old cat nap, I realised I was going about this all wrong. I hadn’t even looked into what my Crime Lord class could do.