Eyes tracked her in the dark, claws scraping against wood and earth as they followed her. Hunting her. All around her she heard liquid drips falling to the frozen ground, saliva falling from slavering jaws filled with sharp fangs that wanted nothing more than to rip into her flesh.

Jun ran through the night, struggling to stay ahead of her hunters, but no matter her speed, no matter the magic she wielded, they were always close behind. Waiting for the moment to strike.

A gnarled root leapt out to snag her ankle, throwing her into a tumble. Screaming, Jun rolled to a stop against a shadowy tree, her eyes straining as she struggled to see in the dark. She called to her magic only to feel nothing. Her mana froze, ignoring her call as she tried in vain to move it into a spell. It was like her magic abandoned her.

A shock of pain shot through her as something unbearably large stepped on her chest, its paw crushing her down with the weight of a mountain. Jun grabbed fistfuls of fur as she tried to push the paw off of her, but her struggles were meaningless against the immense pressure. New jolts of pain shot through her as the thing's weight shifted and a gust of hot moist breath blew against her skin, stinking of old meat and blood.

Jun screamed and struggled as she felt the creature get closer, felt tickles on her skin as coarse hairs brushed up against her skin, moments before sharp fangs—

It's time to wake up kitten.

The familiar ceiling of her dormitory room greeted her as she opened her eyes, faintly lit in the morning glow. A slight weight on her chest called her attention to Shiori quietly staring at her while lying on her chest. Slowly blinking, Shiori got up and stretched, her sheathed claws still lightly pricking at her skin through the enchanted layers of her uniform.

Good, you're up. Open your notifications, Shiori said.

Jun did as her adoptive mother instructed, willing the system's notifications open for the first time in what felt like ages, and was bombarded with notifications. Skimming through them, most seemed unimportant, minor updates about her mana or skill increases in skills that didn't seem too important. But what truly caught her attention were the kill notifications. There were a lot of them.

Besides the scout she had killed in desperation, a dozen more kill notifications told her of the goblins she killed. While they didn't give her details on how she killed them, she could remember her own actions. Using her snares to snag and drain the goblins before throwing them at their comrades had been effective, and she was sure helped save lives, but it hadn't been as gentle as she thought.

Some of the goblins she must have thrown were killed, their deaths attributed to her. Though she couldn't be sure, her fragmented memories of the skirmishes in the Forest and the battle at the river conjured images of goblins flying head first into their friends. With her snares draining them of mana, she shouldn't have been surprised that some probably died by landing badly.

Other notifications marked the deaths of "Warped Goblins." More than 3 dozen notifications about the mutated goblins ran past her sight, though the only memories she had of the creatures was running from them with the others, and the spell that she barely managed to wrest control away from the alien will.

Before, the death notifications would have pushed her into a spiral, but now her stomach only twisted uncomfortably for a moment as she read about each of the goblins she had killed, mutated and otherwise. Part of her appreciated that she wasn't already vomiting out whatever was in her stomach seeing the confirmation of her kills, but another part worried about what it meant about her.

As her stomach settled, Jun moved on to the skill notifications, and what she saw surprised her.

Your title has advanced.

Kitten (HIDDEN)

She didn't know that titles could advance. She rarely even thought about the titles she had. Other than some comments from Shiori, no one ever mentioned titles and they didn't seem to do anything, something she'd always been thankful for. Her [Adopted Kitten] title was especially embarrassing, though the hidden part of it set her at ease that it probably wasn't visible even if titles were a thing people just didn't talk about. [Kitten] seemed just as embarrassing, but it also left her feeling warm inside.

Jun's mind drifted back to her brief conversation with Shiori on that snowy field. "I'm your mother." A plain statement, one that the woman had made as if it was such a simple thing. But to her, it wasn't. Ever since her rebirth here, she'd felt lost, drifting around and only anchored to Shiori by a quirk of fate or on a whim by the powerful cat. But being claimed not only as family, but as Shiori's daughter, made her feel more secure. More anchored. Loved. For once in either of her lives she could remember, she understood what people meant by the saying "home is where the heart is." Her heart had never been on Earth, and it took dying and being reborn to see that.

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As Jun stared at the notification, her thoughts and emotions whirling in a chaotic and complex dance, she felt her eyes begin to itch and water. Still sitting on her chest, Shiori subtly quirked her head to the side as if asking a question, but didn't voice it, allowing Jun some semblance of privacy in her thoughts as she blinked the tears away.

Dismissing the notification and clearing her mind, Jun moved on, quickly skimming and dismissing several skill advancement notifications until she got to one that was different.

You have overcome a tribulation and broken through.

[Body Cleansing] (Apprentice 1)

[Body Cleansing], a skill that let her cleanse impurities from her body like when she first unlocked her mana. Under Shiori's direction she had practiced it every morning and evening, slowly expelling small bits of gunk as the skill slowly advanced, but then it stopped at the peak of Novice, pending a breakthrough. Her mother refused to explain what it was, only telling her that it would happen when it did, so she put the skill aside and hadn't thought about it much, too busy with other things.

But now, it advanced. It was a welcome thing, but it still confused her, so unlike the way her spells seemed to advance.

[Piercing Missile] (Apprentice 25) has evolved into [Purging Missile] (Initiate 1)

Coalesce arrows of mana to reject what would stand in your way.

[Piercing Missile] had been sitting at the peak of Apprentice for months, waiting to evolve, but Jun had held back. First, a lack of inspiration as she struggled with the idea of having such a tool of murder, even though it was the first spell she learned, gifted from Shiori and what fed her and kept her alive for weeks in the wild. She'd set it so far aside that her skills with it crumbled, nearly leading to disaster when the goblin scouts first discovered them on the ridge overlooking the horde's camp.

That same gift had nearly been used against her friends, and it was only with immense effort that she was able to regain control and turn the spell away, sending it into the mutated horde. While she hadn't intended for it to evolve, she wasn't that surprised that it did.

As Jun read the last notification clamoring for her attention, she finally moved, bolting upright and launching Shiori off of her, though the motherly cat caught herself in the air without a fuss. Reading the notification again and again, Jun grew more confused, and concerned. It wasn't just [Body Cleansing] and [Piercing Missile] that evolved.

[Sapping Snare] has evolved into [Ties That Bind] (Unique)

You have bound and been bound. Forged ties both temporary and permanent. Connections that have helped and healed. Connections that have hindered and harmed.

Those connections are yours to weave.

"...Unique…?"

Name:

Jun

Titles:

[COLLAPSED]

Level:

103 (Iron Rank)

Race:

Human (Balance)

Gender:

Female

Mana:

1030/1030

Core Status: (HIDDEN)

Stable (Tier 1)

Stats:

MIND - 130 (+12)

CON - 137 (+19)

STR - 115 (+7)

AGI - 147 (+20)

DEX - 146 (+23)

CHA - 140 (+14)

SPR - 206 (+65)

Traits:

(5/5) [COLLAPSED]

Skills:

[Karma Manipulation] (Novice 4) (+1)

[Body Cleansing] (Apprentice 1) (+1)

[Mental Resistance] (Apprentice 1) (+6)

[Soul Sealing] (Novice 1) (+1)

[Purge] (Initiate 1) (+1)

[Swarming Barrier] (Initiate 15) (+3)

[Multi Casting] (initiate 5) (+2)

[Stealth] (Novice 9) (+1)

[Pain Resistance] (Novice 13) (+5)

[Unarmed Combat] (Novice 10) (+2)

[Ties that Bind] (Unique)

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