Cat vs Goblin!

[Illusionary Glamour: Your fur has the ability to bends the light around you, what makes it harder to notice your presence – Passive Ability]

[Shadow Strike: Infuse your claws with poisonous shadow-magic that numbs the senses of your victim – Active Ability]

[Darkvision: You have a good vision in dark and a superior vision in dim conditions – Passive Ability]

Magic? *meow?*

I woke up to see three new lines of text floating in my field of sight.

[Catnip: Congratulations youngling, you are now a LvL 1 magical beast!]

Ha!

My sleepiness vanished in a split second when I heard Catnips voice echo in my head.

"Hahaha!" I miaowed happily before a fierce smile spread across my furry face. "Fuck all these arrogant stags! I will teach them proper manners soon!"

My body felt stronger than before. Though, my size remained the same, which made me a bit worried. Nevertheless, I was able to sense magic running through my veins now; it filled me to the brim and made me feel amazing.

"Hey, Catnip," I miaowed with a curious tone. "What kind of magic beast am I anyway? Don't tell me that I am still a normal housecat..."

[Catnip: You are a unique existence that isn't recorded anywhere in the history of this world]

"Does that mean that I am the progenitor or a new race of housecats?" I asked jokingly but was still impressed by the fact that I was a unique existence.

[Catnip: You should start to seek our your next prey so you can level up again. The humans you encountered before will now be able to use their magic to sense your presence if you aren't careful, not to mention other magical beasts with sharp senses]

"Oh, yes… crap!" I nodded, remembering the cruel reality of my new life.

My new magic wasn't much, but I felt that it was a good start. The Illusionary Glamour ability sounded nice enough, and I could see that my coal-black fur was now gleaming with a purple-blue hue. It was a real ninja ability, and I just knew somehow that every animal that would look at me right now, without actively searching for me, would only be able to see a something that looked like a pile of mud in the form of a small cat.

My offensive ability Shadow Strike was somewhat lame since it forced me to get close to my prey, and that could become quickly very dangerous – well, depending on what I was fighting of course. Anyway, I was satisfied with its special effect even if it wouldn't do much damage given the fact that I had shamefully small claws – they were very sharp, though.

"I could try to find a human settlement to kill some defenseless chicken," I miaowed thoughtfully.

The last ability I got was self-explanatory, and I confident that I could kill a chicken with my current power-level. But why not something stronger? Well, I was a coward, and it was better to be safe than sorry. I would at least wait until I had a good grasp of the situation in this world.

The fact that the humans in this world seemed to be living in a medieval era also made things easier. It was just a crude assumption, but I believed that most were rather uneducated and blah blah blah. My point is that I hoped that they had no special technology or whatever that they could use to safeguard their property. Just ordinary farmers that were trying to survive in this world – at least I hoped that they had farming practices.

It would be quite horrifying if every human turns out to be as strong as the two gorillas I encountered before. Not only because it would make things harder for me, but because I knew that humans have no scruples exploiting nature, squeezing it to the last drop if it benefitted them in some way – I was once a human myself after all.

'Time to start a new expedition!' – I thought inwardly and left the safety of my bush.

The first thing I did was to check if there were any magical nuts left for me. I even climbed the tree to make sure that I didn't miss anything.

Well, it wasn't surprising when I wasn't able to find a single nut – these greedy humans took them all!

Fuck them and their rat-infested brothel! I hope they get the most vicious hemorrhoids ever! – I cursed in the back of my head when I remembered how they planned to use their profit.

Sitting on a branch above the place where the villainous stag died, I could see now that there were the footprints of a dog-sized animal with large claws covering the bloody earth below me.

'Maybe a wolf?' – I thought in the back of my head.

Well, fuck the wolf, not that I was afraid now that I had magic. My physical strength increased a bit too, and as far as I know, dogs couldn't climb well.

'Well, time to get going…'

I climbed down the tree and started moving from bush to bush towards the direction where the two humans disappeared. Following them way risky, yes, but I hoped that I would encounter a village or something I could terrorize so long until I was strong enough to live in the forest.

My biggest worry was that I would get hungry again, and killing a chicken was way easier than trying my luck here in the vast wilderness where I was forced to enjoy the company of crazy goblins and arrogant stags.

…

The forest stayed the same for a couple of hours, full of trees, bushes, and other uninteresting plants. I also started to encounter more and more goblins now, which annoyed me to no end.

I came to the conclusion that killing them should be possible, now that I had my magic. Still, I didn't found a single good opportunity so far. They were always constantly moving around like panicked crack-addicts that were looking for their misplaced syringes. It made it unnecessarily difficult to kill them because I couldn't properly ambush my prey this way.

Speaking of the devil, it didn't take long before another goblin appeared from behind a tree.

[Forest Goblin – LvL 0]

'Goddammit, I am weaker than a LvL 0 creature!' – I shook my head in frustration.

The green bastard didn't notice me yet since I was laying low in a patch of high-growing grass, observing its crazy behavior. It was crawling around like a bug while sniffing the ground with its long, pointy nose, which made it look like it was searching for truffles – or maybe magic mushrooms, what would explain its weird behavior.

"Ok, Nero, you can do it!" I miaowed silently in the attempt to encourage myself, and I used the name Nero which I gave myself since I thought that it was more fitting. New life, new identity, and stuff like that.

"Kill that bastard and prove the world that you are more than just a housecat!" I growled as I was getting closer to the sniffling goblin.

'Shadow Strike!'

I infused my claws with my cat-magic and pounced at the back of the unsuspecting goblin, slashing its skin open with my blackish claws. My eyes lit up in murderous glee when its greenish blood was tainted by a dark substance that made it turn grey.

"SKEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" the goblin screeched with fury and turned around to scratch me with its pitifully dull claws.

I jumped up back and dodged its vicious attack before I pounced at it again to scratch its face into a bloody mess, cutting one of its eyes in the process. The goblins started to stagger like a drunk when my shadow-magic poison started to affect its senses.

"Go and die!" I hissed ferociously and began to slash and tear the green fucker who was almost thrice as big as myself.

'Fuck!' *meow!*

I got careless and was thrown back by a random hit when the goblin entered something that I would call a 'panicked rampage mode.' It screeched madly and started to wildly swirl its long bony arms in all directions what made it difficult for me to keep attacking it.

"Stop playing dumb and die!" I growled angrily.

The goblin grew tired eventually, and I pounced at it again, slashing its throat this time. My claws were small and weren't able to cut that deep, but the little fucker started choking after I struck it. I continued to swipe its face and its long, pointy nose, and it didn't take long before it dropped on its back – dead.

"Finally!" I miaowed with an angry huff as I looked at the first victim of my claws.

[Catnip: You did well, youngling. Keep up the good work]

I lifted my head and puffed up my chest before I purred in a proud tone, "I am Nero – The Black Cat, after all!"

[Catnip: Yes, but make sure that you don't forget to absorb the mana the goblin's corpse. You can either just try to eat it or put a paw on its head and use your inborn ability to do it]

"That's possible?" I miaowed in surprise and followed Catnip's instructions.

Using my inborn ability, Codex of the Darkest Night was as natural as breathing and I sensed a warm coziness entering my body after I started absorbing the goblin's mana. It was a pleasant surprise that I was able to use my ability like this. Especially since I didn't want to defile my body with the green blood of the ugly-looking goblin, not to mention that it was gross.

The blood of the stag was fairly tasty and I would drink it again if I had the chance, but I would avoid consuming stuff from creatures like goblins or worse. Who knows what kind of diseases they carry? Ebola? Syphilis?

It took me about one or two minutes to harvest all the mana I could get from the goblin and I quickly left the crime scene before another predator would show up.

"What now?" I pondered deep in thought while hiding in the shadow of a large bush. "Should I hunt more goblins or try to locate a human village?"

"Or I just do both!" I miaowed in a confident tone and started to sneak around the forest again.

Killing a goblin felt unrewarding, but everyone had to start small. I estimated that I could learn to adapt to my new body this way and maybe even learn special techniques at a later point. Like developing my own cat-kung-fu since there was a technique for humans called 'tiger-claw' after all – why not try to create my own stuff?

Jokes aside, I really felt that I could improve my agility and so on just by fighting more goblins, or maybe even a rabbit. Everything was training now, and I had to do my best because only the best cats could survive under these harsh and unforgiving conditions of my new life.

Survival of the fittest, the law of the jungle, and natural selection… stuff like that was the new mantra I had to live after.