Hard Work

*wakes up with sleepy eyes*

There were no visions of hyenas or black tentacles this time around, but I woke up with a massive headache.

'Huh?!'

But I miraculously found two sleeping rabbits right in front of me - as if they knew that I would be hungry after waking up.

'Bon appetite!'

My eyes lit up with greed and hunger. I wanted to infuse my claws with Shadow Strike just to be sure that they don't escape in my weakened state. However, I quickly noticed that I was almost completely drained of any magic and unable to use my ability at all. Most of my little mana was concentrated around the wound I got from mage's arrow.

'The healing-process must have sucked my mana dry' – I noted in realization.

Nevertheless, I was a LvL 3 magical beast, and two pitiful rabbits shouldn't be able to escape my small, but dreadfully sharp claws anyway.

*slash* *slash*

I swiped my claws across their backs before I let my claws sink deep into their skin so that they couldn't run away. The rabbits woke up in an instant and started kicking me with their hint-legs what was just as annoying as it was painful given my miserable condition. I gave one of them a vicious bite and ripped a piece of dark-red flesh off its back that I gulped down along with the brown fur. My body was starving, and I can't be picky in such a severe situation.

My cat-magic started to regenerate a lot faster the more I ate, and I was soon feeling a wave of relief flood my body. The nourishing meal allowed my magic to heal my wounds a lot faster, and I just laid there and relaxed on the warm earth after I gnawed off all the nourishing meat from the rabbits.

'I guess I have learned my lesson' – I thought inwardly as I recalled the fight with the last group of humans.

The chances looked good for a moment, and I thought that the troll was about to win, but I totally misjudged the situation in the end like the damn greedy fool I was. In every fantasy story, each of them, it was a norm that mages would always carry potions and whatnot whit them when fighting magical beasts like trolls. My knowledge was based on fiction, yes, but I realized that the ridiculous stuff was actually true for this world. Heck, I wouldn't even be impressed anymore if I were to meet a real dragon right now.

That didn't mean that I was omniscient, no, just a bit better informed than the average – in the best case. I didn't see much of this world, but I assumed that if there were trolls, goblins, mages, and so on, that meant that there were also necromancers, evil wizards, and demons existing here. It was only reasonable to assume that there should be a great evil in a world with a power that can defy reality and all logic.

This world was a perfect breeding ground for crazy megalomaniacs that are dreaming about immortality and infinite power. They were already numerous on Earth, but here… with magic and all that? I wouldn't wonder if there was an evil empire or shit like that…

Well, back to the main topic again. The last fight where the troll died was the moment I realized that I had to be careful as fuck when fighting magical humans. That or I need to grow a lot stronger, and that meant more magic tricks that would increase my power and my flexibility in a fight. Maybe something that can help me escape if shit hits the fan.

'But how do I do that?' – I pondered deep in thought.

Learning magic wasn't as easy as it was displayed in fantasy books, of course not, because I had to learn how to fly without having wings. I had to understand something that was as cryptic as the hardest riddles, and the only inspiration I have was the visions I had with my inborn ability or the actual ones that I already have. But that didnt mean anything, it was difficult to grasp the theory behind the stuff. I could control the magic in my body, but not in a literal way. I could only 'suggest' something and hope that my magic would react. My magical abilities, on the other hand, were like a pre-programmed command; they made the magic to something – forcefully.

And that's what I needed to master - I needed to be able to command my magic!

I needed to beat my magic into submission by using the force of my will and mind, to make it do as I wish or smack it senseless until it stopped being such a stubborn bitch. That was the profound truth that every magician had to learn – the harder the beating, the better your results with magical abilities!

Well, there was more stuff that needed to be taken into consideration, but it was way easier to learn spells if I could actually control my mana as I wished. Great wisdom, a sharp mind, abundant experience, and countless hours of hard practice are the weapons mages use to beat up their magic into submission.

"Guess I go try experience another vision again," I miaowed to myself and decided to leave the rabbit burrow.

I didn't see it from here, but I could hear the chirping of crickets down here what made me assume that it was already night outside. Good for me because I didn't want to meet any humans right now. They sure had better things to do than wandering around at late hours.

"Well, let's see if I have to whip a bunch of hyenas again," I miaowed to myself with a yawn.

The moon was glowing bright, and I activated my inborn ability what made me feel a bit dizzy for a couple of seconds. A minute or so later, and I suddenly saw nothing but the pure blackness of the sky and countless sparkling stars, not a hallucination or vision but the real sky. It was a strange feeling, and I almost lost my concentration when I suddenly felt my mana regenerate like crazy. My mind was enveloped with incredibly intense clarity as if I could solve all problems if I wanted to.

"The shadow… is not real but an illusion…" I miaowed in a deep trance as the endless vastness of the starry sky filled my view.

"…the illusion is not real but lives in the mind…"

"…the mind feels pain… pain is not real… but yet real in the mind…"

"…the shadow brings pain… not in the real… but in the mind…"

"...the eyes are the door to the mind… they let the shadow in… the shadow becomes real in the mind… real in the world… and fills the mind with pain… and the real in darkness… the shadow!"

My mind was in chaos and disorientation, and yet, I felt like I suddenly understood something fundamental about my magic. It was like a divine revelation, and I sensed my body flying upwards before I started to roam the vast starry sky. I jumped happily from star to star and scratched the surface of the moon before I dropped in the form of a dazzling shooting star back on a planet that looked similar to earth, but way bigger.

"Holy-shit-this-moonlight-magic-is-serious-stuff!" I miaowed in on breath, my eyes wide with shock and awe.

I was surrounded by a whitish veil of freezing-cold light that didn't cause me any discomfort, on the contrary, it entered my body and I felt a strong wave of euphoria erupt in me. I lifted my upper body to stand on my hind legs with my paws lifted to the sky as if I was praising the moon. And I greedily absorbed all the light into me until I almost passed out from the overwhelming sensation that took grasp of my body and mind. I dropped back into the rabbit hole behind me and laid there like a dead drunk until I calmed again.

"No wonder that everyone wants to be a mage…" I miaowed with insightful realization. "Free drugs that don't make your teeth rot but actually help you become even stronger than before!"

There was too much bullshit in my head at the moment for me to think straight, but I felt like I just obtained a piece for the puzzle that I needed to solve in order to understand magic better.

'Hehehe… the night is still young!'

I purred mischievously and moved out to absorb more of this wondrous moonlight until I got so high that I dropped back into the rabbit hole again – only to repeat everything, over and over again.

Morning came quickly, and I let a frustrated sigh escape my mouth when I was forced to interrupt my magical training. It was sure pleasing, and the feeling of the moonlight that entered my body was intoxicating, but I also helped me understand the shadow element of my magic and how I could use it. Well, I didn't actually understand it yet. It was better to say that I was aware of its existence.

It was hard to put it in words since it was my first time I was actually taking magic serious, like an actual field of science.

The best way to explain it in easy words is that my affinity to the shadow element made my mana into what I would call 'shadow-mana.' It influenced my attacks, my body, and maybe even more aspects that I wasn't aware of yet. Anyway, my magic was like a pitch-black ink or black smoke, and it was cold and volatile, real, and unreal at the same time.

My ability Shadow Strike was a good example. It influenced the mind by poisoning the victim, not with actual genuine poison, but by making, or sometimes forcing, the mind and magic of the victim to believe that it was real, what made the effects become real as a result.

And that was the core essence of the shadow element. It would fake something and turn real after tricking or overpowering the opposing mind and magic. The mind wasn't as important as the magic since the former would succumb under waves of pain after the latter was defeated.

"This magic stuff is sure mind-boggling," I miaowed while shaking my head with a slight daze.

I have no idea if stuff like my inborn ability Codex of the Darkest Night is common, but I wasn't able to imagine how other individuals are trying to understand magic if not like I do. It was simply too obscure, and the shadow element itself was like a big lie, totally confusing, it was real but also not real and whatnot. It was like trying to tell a person that was born blind how colors look like. No, it was ridiculously impossible to understand anything connected to magic in a mundane way.

"Ok, stop Nero! Go and hunt some goblins now!" I miaowed to myself, exhausted from all the strenuous heavy thinking.

I left the cozy rabbit cave and rushed into the close-by forest before I climbed on a tree. It was too dangerous to examine the little battlefield from yesterday in persona. I feared that the mages might have left traps for me so that they could get some revenge for my actions.

"Crap, they really took the troll with them!" I miaowed with an upset tone.

The troll and I weren't exactly friends, but combat-buddies. He surely wished for me to obtain his corpse so I could strengthen myself with his blood in order to revenge his death. It was unfortunate that the humans took it with them, but it was logical since it was most likely a treasure by itself and a compensation for the losses and injuries they suffered during the fight.

The rest of the blood-covered battlefield was uninteresting crap from the merchant caravan. It would be fun to see the expression of the next travelers that would take this road, but I had better things to do. It was vexing that I didn't benefit a single bit from that fight, but well… you win some, you lose some.

"Fuck, I shouldn't enter this forest," I miaowed to myself in realization and jumped from the tree to quickly cross the road into the other forest on the opposite side.

The rabbit hole was close to the forest that would eventually lead me close to the place from where all the human adventurers seemed to come from. I didn't want to meet too many of these magical humans until I was at least strong enough to flee after a failed confrontation safely. So I started to travel towards to mountain where I assumed to encounter fewer humans since nobody found the legacy-ground inside it yet.