I woke up to a familiar ceiling. It was the same ceiling I had last woken up to. The ceiling of Celine's room. It was sparsely devoid of any variation. Just the boring arrangement of grey stone over and over again, repeating itself from one end of the room to the other. I turned my head to see Celine’s face. She was sleeping peacefully. Her light snores were the only sounds in the room. I slowly sat up. I was on her bed. Taking care not to wake her up, I slipped down from the bed. I felt the cold wooden floor on my paws. The room was shrouded in darkness, the only light coming from the sole window.

The table was kept just under the window, probably to get enough sunlight during the day. I walked over to the chair kept beside it. Jumped up, grabbed its seat, and pulled myself up. I leapt again from the chair to get onto the table. The table was empty, nothing kept on top of it. I walked up to the window now.

It was a little dirty marked with rain stains on the other side of it. There also wasn’t a curtain to cover it which irked me, someone who likes sleeping in complete darkness and any glimmer of light keeps me awake. I looked out to see that it was night now. The window was directly above the tavern's entrance and hence overlooked the tavern square. It was as lively as the last night. Lamps which I now guessed were magical shone with a warm yellow glow. Armed men and women reveled in drinking and dancing. Looking at their numbers, I guessed it wasn’t too late yet. Examining them, a casual observer would suggest that this was a happy one. But from what I had seen so far, it wasn't exactly a peaceful world. And that's something I deduced in just the one day I had spent in this world so far. And surely there were a lot more things for me to learn and know about this place.

Sighing, I looked down at my body. The claw marks from the dog and the bite marks from the beast were completely gone. I also felt no pain from where the guard had kicked me on my ribs. Another thing of note was of how clean I looked. It was as if someone had scrubbed me until I was shining. I felt that I was in my best form ever since I came into this world. I called up the status.

Name: Unnamed

Species: Feline

Level: 1

XP: 0/20

Class: None

Job: None

Health 44/44 Stamina 54/54 Mana 0/20

Strength 2 Dexterity 7 Constitution 4 Wisdom 1 Charisma 5

Free Points: 0

Skills: [Claw Swipe]

My health and stamina were full. I clicked on the skill. My hand passed through the window but it did what I wanted it to. It was peculiar. The system window didn’t seem to exist only in my eyes or in my mind, it appeared to be material. Around a couple feet from my eyes. I could hide it if I put my hand between it and my eyes which seemed ridiculous. It was as if this was an apparition. But only visible to the person the status referred to.

I had still to see anyone else use the system though. It seemed as if it didn’t exist for anyone else which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good thing because it would mean I can make myself stronger. Bad thing because if I’m the only one with a system, if somehow someone else knew about it, I’d definitely be bisected in some magician’s lab. Given I wasn’t burnt at the stake first. Anyway, even if noone else had a system, surely there existed some form of progression. The existence of Level 1 Venomous Rats implied there were things which were above Level 1.

I sighed focusing on the window in front of me.

Claw Swipe

Type: Passive

Rank: 0

Progression: 1%

Description: Increases the sharpness and speed of your claw attacks. Deals minor additional damage.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

It was the same as before except the Progression column. It had a percentage written in front of it.

What does that mean? Is it my progress till the next rank? Guess there's some time to go since it reached rank 2.

Having inspected the skill I meowed to close the window. The skill had definitely helped. My claws had even torn some of that bastard’s flesh. But I still regretted that I had to make such a hasty decision.

I couldn’t even contemplate on the other skills. Forget contemplating, I couldn’t even read their descriptions. I don’t know if I’ll even get to see them again.

I wanna fuck those bastards up.

Calming down my anger, I got down from the table and walked back to the bed. I faced a dilemma now. I was certain that Celine was the one who saved me from the guard and also did whatever she did to heal me and get me back to full health. She had also washed me clean.

Hearing the way she snored meant that she was deeply asleep. I didn't want to wake her up but I was really hungry. I had last eaten in the morning and the ordeal I went through during the day had used up all my energy. My stamina was full but my stomach felt empty. After much deliberation, I decided to wake her up. It was kind of selfish of me but I was sure she wouldn't be too angry.

Also, I was a cat. And cats wake up their owners at 3 AM all the time.

I climbed back to the bed using the books as a support. Crawling up to her face, I meowed a little. She opened her grey eyes the next second and stared at me. She looked frightening to the say the least.

Guess she’s a light sleeper.

The very next second, her terrifying eyes turned pleasant and a genuine smile graced her face as she hugged me and said something. I pawed her face and meowed again. She turned me this way and that way checking if I was still hurt somewhere. I meowed again and patted my stomach with my paw as she lifted me in air.

"Ooh" she said.

She quickly got off the bed, wore her slippers, turned on the magical lights and went to the door. As she opened it to go outside, I hit her face, stopping her in her tracks. She looked at me inquiringly.

“What" she asked.

By now I had started to understand some words and phrases that I had picked up from here and there. I pointed at her eyes. She looked at me confused. I pointed again.

“Meow.”

"Oh!" She looked at me shocked. She slammed the door shut and went back into the room. She sat me on the table; opened the drawer; took out her lenses and wore them. Her eyes turned blue now. She was looking at me from the side of her eye during all this. She picked me up again and went downstairs.

She had a peculiar expression on her face. It was some parts confused some parts shocked and some parts...suspicious. She reached the barroom of the tavern. There were only a dozen people in the tavern. Most of the faces were the ones I had seen the last night. The room turned silent and most of the eyes turned to look at her. Mostly the men.

Surely, Celine was a beautiful woman and right now she was in her pajamas with messy hair, which made her look vulnerable I guess. But then she stared back at the people and shouted something. Everyone went back to doing whatever they were before. Even I felt a little scared by her shout. The bartender chuckled. She had murder in her eyes then. It looked as if she would cut down anyone who tried anything.

Celine entered the kitchen with me in her arms. She took me to front of the kitchen counter and gestured at it. I looked around at everything kept there. There was chicken, bread, fish, beans, eggs etc. I pointed at a fish, a plaise. The cook was just about to cook it before we came seeing how it was butchered. But seeing Celine's piercing stare he grunted and handed it to her in a plate. We went back to the room upstairs, my mouth drooling more every second. As soon as she placed down the plate after closing the door I attacked the fish and ate it with relish. I finished it within minutes. Chime.

[You have eaten a Plaise.]

Life’s good. Given I ignore how I almost died today.

I sat down on the cold wooden floor. It calmed me and I thought back to the events in the day. I had almost lost my life just because I was caught off guard. Seeing how I wasn’t harrased during my walk through the city in the beginning, I had forgotten that I was but a stray kitten. I was not a human anymore. It just didn’t mean that my instincts, reflexes and my grace were better than before. It also meant that I was now something that could be killed far more easily. I thought back to Luka Magnotta and shuddered, more from anger than from fear.

Peaceful or not, the lower classes and lower castes always suffered in any world. And right now I was among the lower rungs of the food chain. I needed to be wary at every second of species above me in the strata. This wasn’t the modern world anymore and so I couldn’t except the people to be as civilised as on Earth. And given there were fantasy species, who was to say there weren’t ones who had cats as their diet.

I mean if dwarves existed, probably goblins, kobolds and the like do too.

I flinched as Celine sat down next to me and slowly started rubbing my back. I would've been normally annoyed but it felt good so I let her be. Some time later, she stood up and went to the pile of books near her bed. She took out a book from it and it was only then I realized that this was the first time I was seeing this book.

Did she get it today?

She came back by my side and placed the book in front of me. It was a rainbow coloured hardcover with a glossy look. It had some children wearing colorful clothes, playing with a ball drawn on its cover. There were also some letters from this world's language written on the cover. Some of them were the ones I had learned the night before.

She opened to the first page. The pages were cardboard too. And on the top left of the first page was the letter A.

Ah, it's a primer.

"A for Art" she said while pointing at the picture of a kid slapping random colors on a canvas.

Abstract art? Sweet. Anyway, here we go again.

Our lesson lasted a couple hours. The noises outside had dimmed a lot by now. After teaching me about a dozen words, Celine looked happy & satisfied. There was a smile on her face completely opposite to the one she had shown back in the common room. She turned off the light and picked me up in her arms. Conversely, I was hugging the primer in my arms. She took me to the bed and lied down beside me. She patted me like you do with a baby when trying to make them fall asleep. But I had slept a lot by now, hence I wasn't sleepy. Celine on the other hand fell asleep soon with her hand resting on my belly.

I smiled flipping through the pages of the primer. Although the lights were out, my feline eyes could see everything better. As I flipped I came to a page. I didn’t know exactly but I could guess what was written.

G for Guide. And on its side was the drawing of a familiar blue screen.