Darkness was all around me. I could not move.

This was the second time I had experienced something like this. However, the first time I still felt my body. I was confined in my egg and barely able to make out a bit of light sometimes.

This time, there was no body. I felt nothing. Even in the void, I had a shape. When I reincarnated it was just like I was an owl. When I went into my soul I did not have a defined form, but I was still connected to my physical self. This was the first time I was truly just a soul. No information came in from anywhere in the real world, no sensory input, no feeling. Every attempt at shifting, moving, waving, crawling, flapping, cawing, anything. It failed. Nothing reacted to my will. And that scared me.

For only a few moments or maybe several days I was there, alone with my thoughts. Then, finally, something. I felt. The entrance to my soul opened up behind me, mana flowing into where I was and filled my new ‘body’. It was not a normal form, I was still caged with little to do, but I was myself again. And the mana rushed out around me. Quickly I realized I was now a sphere. I did not want to be a sphere and my mana reacted. It spread out into new things, new parts of myself. Soon, I felt tendons holding me in place. Then, muscles. They reacted to my will, contracted or expanded at my command. Another slice deeper and I hit a vein. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Blood flowed through it. The sound of my heart beating reassured me.

More and more my awareness expanded. Mana suffused my bones and organs. Lungs, liver, kidney, heart, intestines, oesophagus, and bones, muscles, tendons and veins all between them. One by one I became aware of them. And every time my mana invaded them and stretched them out. Changed them. I was growing larger, which slowed down the regaining of my body. But not by much. I was just considering pushing along my consciousness with my willpower and accelerate the process as I felt the first feathers on my skin. I calmed down as the wood warmed by my own body poked into me. I was alive. I was fine. I was myself.

I almost expected the mana from my soul to change more than just make me grow. It looked to be going into every part of me. Eldritch, darkness, metal, air, and all the other aspects I had collected. They had to do more than just add a few centimetres here and there, right? But as much as I felt for any major changes, there was nothing sticking out to me. I was still an owl, all the biology was functioning just fine.

Slowly, my awareness approached my head. My wings would still take a while longer but soon I would be able to see and hear again. It felt exceedingly strange to connect my thoughts to a brain that did almost nothing. There was a small reaction at first, muscles spasming as my control was reestablished but soon it deactivated again, surrendering control to my new Core. The choice I had made, trusting in my eldritch friend. Maybe acquaintance was more fitting. My body had grown and felt much stronger. And I no longer needed my brain, or so it seemed.

Then, my senses reconnected. First hearing, then sight. And at once, my brain activated. Different from before, it did not stop sending signals, but now my soul picked them directly from there and sent the information to my Core. And I did not like what I saw.

I was lying on my side in my hollow tree, my face pointed towards the opening I used to get in and out. And there on the ledge rested a cat. One I was familiar with. The ocelot from a few days earlier was at my home as I was defenceless and looked at me. It flicked an ear. Then it blinked. I needed just a few more moments and my wings and legs would be fully restored. And then the cat turned its eyes away and looked out into the forest.

My heart was racing. What was it doing? Was I already dying and just did not feel it yet? No, my body was fine.

‘Come on legs, move!’

Nothing. I had severely underestimated the time it had taken to get control of this much of my body. For a moment I had wondered if it had slowed down but I soon realized it was late afternoon. I had started my evolution early in the night so I had to have taken at least most of a night and day. I was able to move my head at least, though laying on the ground hindered my movement. I eyed the ocelot once more. It was perfectly still and seemed to be watching the surroundings. I could not understand why. The whole situation was very bizarre. At least the confusion served to throw off my panic before long. I had another hour or two before my body would be fully under my control once more.

I tried one more thing. My Skills. The familiar feeling of [Owl’s Shadow] should help me calm down and let me escape or even fight back. But it did not work. Not as I knew it at least. A few tiny wisps of energy floated through my body, quickly losing direction. A system message popped up in reaction.

This action is deactivated during evolution. Please wait for the process to finish.

What? Why could you not have told me, stupid system! I could have found a more secure location if I had known growing a Core would knock me out like this!

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Before I had too much time to work up my anger, I noticed movement from my unwelcome company. The ocelot slowly raised to its feet and focused its eyes on something beyond my vision. Then it slid away. Soon I heard steps make their way closer. Something large made its way towards me and soon knocked on the dead wood of my tree. It pushed against it and got even closer, climbing up the side. I was still helpless and unable to move. Panic quickly came back. What was I supposed to do? Something chased the magical cat away that was the only barrier between me and the outside. And I had no way to fight it off.

Ears, followed by a head, rose above the edge of the tree. A snout, dirty yellow fur, almost brown in patches, and predatory eyes with slit pupils. A mountain lion. Maybe even the very same I had spotted a few times these last few days. It sniffed the air and eyed me for a moment, before pulling itself up in a swift motion. Just as the animal moved its front feet to step into the trunk, something jumped onto it from behind and bit its neck. I only barely made out the ocelot from earlier as the lion swiped while turning its body. The attack missed spectacularly and the aggressor disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. The lion lost its balance and fell. Great. Now I had not just a lion but an angry and injured lion inside my home while defenceless. But just before it landed on top of me, it stopped. In the middle of the air, as if held by an invisible wall, the lion lay and shook itself angrily. Something was protecting me?

The large cat had lost interest in me and turned around angrily. I saw the blood seeping out of its wound turn a filthy green. Was that poison? What else could it be? Since when did ocelots have a poisonous bite?

The animal struggled outside and I heard it lumber away between growls and huffs. Soon, another roar of anger sounded out. Then the forest turned quiet a few steps later. The tension was still palpable in the air as I strained my hearing to get any information on what was going on. Nothing. Then, the forest returned to its usual sounds. Rodents and insects skittering along the ground and birds flying and tittering all around. As if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, the ocelot stepped up to its place again and settled down after giving me a quick look over. I made sure to glare back as angrily as I could. This cat had some nerves. Yes, it had saved me, but that did not mean I wanted it in my home, especially when I was out of order. At least the system had not just knocked me out and took away my access to Skills but was also providing me with protection. Though I expected that to go away as soon as I could move again. I had to be ready.

The next few hours were some of the most difficult to endure in my life. I was tense and wanted to regain my ability to move as soon as possible but at the same time feared that as soon as I did, the system’s protection would deactivate and the murder kitty would jump me. It clearly knew about the shield and protected me from outside attacks but that was probably just so it could kill me itself when I was weakened right after emerging.

I tried accessing my status a few times always with the same result:

This action is deactivated during evolution. Please wait for the process to finish.

It was futile. I could only sit here and wait. And hopefully, the shield would give me a moment after my evolution finished to let me get back onto my legs. Thus the seconds ticked away and turned into minutes, minutes into hours and at some point, I realized I only had moments left. My body was almost fully within my senses again. The sun had just about set and only a light afterglow still lit up the sky. I was still unable to use Skills but at least I had managed to righten myself. The last few bits of my body were all I had not assimilated. The tips of my most outward wing feathers and the points of my talons. I should not need to fully connect them, but what did I know about evolution and how souls interacted with bodies? The system probably knew what it was doing.

As I had stood up the ocelot had reacted by looking at me, instead of the surroundings. And it stepped away from my entrance onto a higher ledge, still mustering me with unsettling intelligence. Then, it fell away. The shield disappeared at the same moment I felt my Skills and status reactivate. Notifications popped up but I ignored them in favour of focusing on my enemy. My shadows stretched out, tendrils moving up to let me reposition the instance it attacked but instead I felt something familiar. A soft pressure, quickly increasing and then pulling away something from the core of my soul. [Identify]. Before I could come to my senses, the cat had disappeared and I was alone in my roost. As I wondered why a sapient cat was here in the forest and why it would have protected me, my belly rumbled. I really needed some food.