Exotica grinned as he got up, patting himself up and down and looking around his room. It was small, a room made up of little more than a bed and a desk, with a window that let in pale afternoon light. He threw up his hands in joy. “I chatted, I knew it!” He said, spinning around and catching his tail with his paws. “I’m in mage college, I’ve gotta be!”
“Shut up!” Someone yelled from the room next door, and the cat heard a bang on the wall that sounded suspiciously like thunder rather than an actual thud of something thrown at it.
“Well, Chat, let's get going.” Exotica said, unconsciously kneading his paws into his tail. His claws were sticking out, which was an extremely odd feeling, kind of like being uncut. “We don’t wanna start this off on the wrong f-paw.” He grinned, stepping out of his room and looking around.
The hallway was simple, there wasn’t much identifying it but the numbers on the doors, each of which was written in completely different fonts. Honestly, the numbers didn’t even look sequential, and he couldn’t make heads or tails of what the order meant. “Weird…” He said, yawning as he looked around. Even though he’d just hopped on he already felt tired.
A part of him was sure it was because of his digital body, another part felt like it was his exhaustion from the real world bleeding in. Either way, hje started to walk down the hall until he reached the end. It felt like storage units, where there were bunches of halls identical right next to his own. However, there was an easy door, it had an exit sign hung over it. It was slightly incongruities, a sign that was lit like an electric one, but in this fantasy world. On closer inspection Exotica realized it was because the sign was lit by crystals instead, a magical equivalent, despite looking like the iconic exit signs he’d grown up with.
Walking into the hallway, There was a line on the floor. It started at the door and led somewhere down the hall. There were other people in the hall, but everyone ignored his confused looks. Walking forward he realized the line started to disappear behind him. “This is like some kind of guide?”
Following the line he was lead to an office. There behind the desk was another cat person. It was funny, there were the richer looking people who were all humans, elves, and dwarves. But there were a lot of animal-kin here as well, similar to his friend’s character and his own. This region was meant to be dismissive of animal folk, right? But Exotica hadn’t seen it so far.
“Ah, Exotica, right?” The cat lady smiled. She was much taller than him, the normal height for a person, and wearing a tight cut robe. There was something about the way her hat hung that captivated her.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Yup, that’s me, professor.” He said with a grin. “I don’t have an apple to give you or anything, but if you need a favor you can always ask.”
“That’s real kind of ya.” She said, a soft foreign sound in her voice. It was lilting, something that wasn’t English but wasn’t quite Irish or Scottish. “But this is less about the kind of favor you can give me, and much more about the favor I’m gonna give you.”
“What favor is that?” He asked, leaning forward. She matched him, and he used all his focus to not let his eyes wander down. It didn’t help that chat was in the corner of his vision blowing up with messages about how pretty she was. He was only glad that they couldn’t throw things at him, because he’d be bombarded for all this.
“It’s simple, I’m taking you under my wing. You will start as my disciple, then my apprentice, and finally I will name you in your final ceremony.” She grinned and walked around her desk, walking behind him. “All mages need a master to get granted the title of master themselves. Most take them as Journeymen, but as an apprentice you would be held to a higher standard. But, I guarantee you this, your power will exceed your peers.”
The word power made Exotica’s eyes glimmer, as if he could see the future or what he really needed to do at least. “Okay, when do we start?” He paused for a second. “And what is your name?”
“I am Camphor, my master was my aunt Cinnamon, the greatest destructive mage of all time. I will teach you the first spell she ever taught me, the spell she said she wished she’d learned first.” Placing a paw on Exotica’s shoulder his eyes opened wide, but he couldn’t say anything as a burning sensation seared through his fur and into him and the image of a complex diagram burned itself into his brain.
You have been tought Cinnamon’s Tiny Fireball
Cinnamon’s Tiny Fireball: Cast a weakened fireball at low level for minimal damage.
“This spell is simple, it’s thrown with your paw because the automatic targeting present in the original spell and this spell’s equivalents are expensive mana-wise.” She smiled. “Go down to the targeting range. Trust me, you should be able to hit the target, so I want you to train until you can land it close enough that no ‘self sacrifice’ can get in the way of your flame.”
“Yes ma’am.”
---
The next few weeks felt like months, and they were hellish. Exotica learned a wide variety of spells, but for the most part they were just variations on that first spell. It seems Cinnamon, and by extension her niece, had been extremely obsessed with focus.
Still though, Exotica got used to his new routine. The streams were… mildly boring, but he still kept them on for the few viewers, plus then he could easily get a half a dozen or more videos whenever he did something that they felt was worth a clip. Of course, that wasn’t always what he believed, but what did he care. It made for easy content, which was good, because he was being drawn into the game more and more as time went on. It took his time, which was… both good and bad.