I got up early and dragged myself to the training room. My father had been right. The paperwork truly was soul sucking. I couldn’t tell if the paperwork was worse or small boats. I knew for sure that paperwork on small boats was a hell created for cats and vowed to never experience such a fate.

My father didn’t allow me to just fill the paperwork in and be done with it. I had to understand what each piece was for and how it was used, where it was kept, and who had access. If it wasn’t for how tired the training sessions left me, I might have tried to quit and run away with how mind numbing it was.

At least it should be mostly over by now except for the mission reports. All the onboarding paperwork was complete at the very least. Even though I was early, my father was already waiting in the training room. “Good morning father,” I said to Tom Cat. I immediately started my warm up stretches. I could do full splits easily now.

“Good morning, Mittens. Do you want to know what happened to the rest of the creatures in your training cohort?” I paused from doing my warmup stretches. My father was looking at me carefully.

“What happened?” I hesitantly asked.

“As you already know Grizzle died. Sharpfang will be moved to a support role. Probably as a clean up lead after assassins have gone through. Shiversnout and Mary both were killed. Knaves managed to get two pendants and will be accepted as a Neophyte.” What happened to Blackfur? I knew my father was saving him for last on purpose.

“Blackfur also died.” Oh. I didn’t know what to feel. Sad, regret for not working with him, lots of thoughts went through my mind. “Do you want to speak to Doctor Sharpeyes?” he asked me.

“Um, maybe, later.”

“Your mentality determines your reality. This job, you will see many creatures die. You will lose friends. I might even die. Learning to handle this is important. I am glad you are willing to speak to Sharpeyes,” my father said. I just nodded at that. Still a bit numb from hearing about all the deaths. More than half the creatures from my cohort had died.

“Once Knaves is onboarded you will have classes together.”

“Who is his master?” I asked.

“That is still being worked out. There isn’t a very high opinion of his mentality. But he passed the tests. A strict master would break him, but a loose one would allow him to invite trouble. It will be figured out, don’t worry about it.” I nodded at this.

“What about the other creatures?” I asked.

“They will be evaluated in a separate intake process. With creatures willing to kill, it is a test of their restraint. Your cohort had creatures who were tested for patience due to your age and willingness to train and kill.” I nodded at this. That made sense. I was glad my father was explaining all this to me, rather than making me guess. My father began his stretching and soon we were both finished.

He then put rubber tips onto each of his claws. I did the same. They felt weird and threw my paws off a bit, but it was a necessary safety precaution. Once he was done, I attacked. Swiping out. My father casually deflected my blows and then counter attacked. I twisted out of the way and kicked out my hind paws.

He leapt backwards out of the way. Tom Cat only attacked when I left an obvious opening. He had explained it was to force me to be aware of them and learn to exploit opening I purposely created. I pushed him back towards a wall, and he leapt backwards, did a flip off the wall, then the ceiling.

I tried to spin and block, but I wasn’t ready. My danger sense spiked, and I felt the rubber tips scrape down my back and went slamming to the floor. “Dead. Up! Again.” I quickly got to my feet and attacked again. My father didn’t talk during out bouts now, which I considered an improvement and that I was actually pressuring him.

His larger size made it hard to compete with him in strength, so I had to keep moving and twist, trying to land blows on him. A couple of times my rubber ripped claws barely touched the ends of his fur, but I wasn’t able to land a solid blow.

The next time I forced him to the wall, I rolled to the side as he flipped over me. Gaining distance to reassess the situation in the face of a new attack. That was when he rushed me, I struggled to block and dodge more than three blows, before he struck me in the face. My head snapped back, and everything went blurry.

“Dead. You are getting better.” I let out a groan from the floor and slowly pulled myself back up, barely able to stand. “Well you almost lasted an hour, that is a big improvement. Cool down.” I kind of nodded at this and began to do cool down stretches.

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My father brought over a water bottle for me which I happily took. Once I was finished, he put them away, and I got up again. It was time for a second round. Everything hurt, but my father just told me pain was weakness leaving the body and that I needed to learn to move past it. If I got injured on a mission, I couldn’t just lay down and die.

That was why he was relentless, and I didn’t complain. I knew he was right. After seeing so many creatures die and killing creatures, I couldn’t treat this job with anything less than my entire commitment. I planned to live for a long time.

After our second long bout of fighting, I only lasted 40 minutes this time. I had another question that was bothering me. “Why did you want Mousethief to hide my identity and not tell me you were the Warrior’s Shadow?” I asked.

“It would have created a large fuss. Gary and Southpaw both found out. That is why they trained with your cohort. Normally you would have had a couple more sessions with that blood crazed wolf Fenrir. If word spread, then every master assassin would have insisted to check you out with a training session. As for not telling you about myself, well you weren’t part of the organization yet. My title is kept secret. Also, to stop you from getting a big head,” he told me.

I was too tired to pout, and my father continued speaking. “I don’t take on Neophytes anymore. The three I have trained in the past are all dead. The last one quit from the sheer intensity of the training I required of them. It was also to be sure that you wanted to pursue this life without me looming over you.”

I didn’t know what to think about any of that. “What, did you think it would be some big secret that would get revealed later on?” my father asked me. I looked away in embarrassment and he chuckled. “Assassins are the worst gossips more than an old fishermouse’s wife. You being here is the hottest topic of the year.”

“When will I meet other assassins?” I asked.

“The day after tomorrow once Knaves is onboarded and things sorted out. There is a small welcoming party, or the pre-funeral as creatures like to call it. Be mindful of your surroundings.”

“Yes father,” I said, exhausted and tired. I slowly got up for our next round of sparring.

Once sparring was over, I got cleaned up, had lunch, and then made my way outside. The training area for applicants was out back, but there was a relaxation area for the working creatures on another side of the building. My father had shown it to me, and I wanted to get outside in the sun. The warm light felt nice on my fur. I was in a secluded spot of the outside area and while there were some other creatures eating in patio portion, I was a ways out past several trees.

‘Avatar,’ I thought. Mes appeared.

‘Hello Mittens.’ Mes replied while looking through a pair of binoculars. ‘All clear on my end. Those clerics are definitely using energy. That Maximilian guy is very dangerous.’

That was good to know and a bit scary. But it made sense, that the leader of an assassin organization was no pushover. ‘Interface,’ I thought since I couldn’t resist any longer. The screen came up.

Experience: -17,400 EXP

Features: Interface, Avatar, Skill Attunement

T1 Skills: Movement (76/100) +5, Balance (52/100) +8, Listening (52/100) +2

T2 Skills: Danger Sense (35/100) +3

T3 Skills: Claw Combat (45/100) +12

‘Lots of progress. The high intensity training is really helping you integrate your skills, especially Claw Combat.’ I could see that. Even with only a couple of days, I had made huge improvements.

‘I was wondering if I could get anything else on credit. Since I am training now, it would make sense to improve skills before I go out there?’ I asked Mes hopefully. There was a long stretch of silence as Mes through away the glowing blue binoculars which disappeared and adopted a thinking posture, their paw under their chin.

‘Basic skills, hmmm. Well, I suppose you did complete a tutorial area with decent results. Alright, go to the store, there will be a list of five skills, I will let you pick two. But they are going on your debt,’ Mes said. I quickly went to the store and looked at the options they had provided.

Smell (T1) – 500 EXP

Sight (T1) – 500 EXP

Breathing (T1) – 1,000 EXP

Proprioception (T1) – 1,000 EXP

Dancing (T1) – 500 EXP

‘What is pro-pri-o-cept-ion?’ I asked, sounding out the word, since I didn’t recognize it.

‘Proprioception is sense of your body placement in terms of spatial movement. Like how you know where your paws are without having to look at them. The sense of your body.’

‘Wouldn’t Breathing and Proprioception be the best with their higher EXP amounts?’ I asked.

‘That just means they dabble a bit more into energy. The cost doesn’t necessarily mean a skill is better. Tier implies a greater depth to the skill.’

‘Dancing really?’ I asked.

‘It is a movement based skill and would synergize well with Balance and Claw Combat. It would allow you a greater range of options than Claw Combat allows for. Another combat style would be best, but that would be tier three and I can’t give something like that out,’ Mes explained. I honestly liked all the options.

I wanted to say yes to them all. Skills were incredibly powerful and allowed for rapid improvement. ‘What would you suggest?’ I asked Mes.

‘All of them are valid options. It is up to you decide. I curated the list from hundreds down to these five as the optimal choices at this point in time.’

‘Breathing and smell,’ I finally decided. Breathing since it would help in combat and with stealth. Smell to help track down other creatures. It had proved quite useful already with my base sense of smell. So, picking the skill seemed like a good choice. Claw Combat had a lot of room for improvement, so I didn’t want to focus on more combat skills.

I could also practice the skills constantly. Already, I could feel the ways I needed to adjust the muscles controlling my nose and how to control my breathing. I needed to go see Doctor Sharpeyes, I let out a groan and got up. While it was nice to lay around, I couldn’t do it all afternoon.