Training concentration.

'I must train my concentration because it is required to use mana and most people here are gifted in it, sigh* that means I have to train to a level beyond that which will take a long time. Or I can torture myself for a shorter while.'

3rd person pov

20 minutes later...

A cat seemingly made of red branches and thorns is walking very stiffly like a robot and stumbling from time to time. Half an hour later it is able to walk a lot more naturally, but still a far cry from smoothly.

Then the branches simultaneously slowly separate and float away a meter before flopping to to the ground, in the same fashion the cat flops to the ground.

POV change

'Mmm, my heeaadd.' I close my eyes and imagine I am hugging Grey tightly, which lessens the throbbing pain from my mind.

With heavy and firm steps I begin marching towards my burrow. Fortunately being the genius I am I trained only a minute away.

Reaching the entrance I dive head first down, then curl my body and fall asleep almost immediately. Just as a muscle heals then strengthens when sleeping so does the mind

I wake up and fortunately my headache is gone, I move myself to face the entrance and see it's night outside. 'Grey would have liked this scenery, watching the clear stars and bright moon. I miss her, so much.

Oh well, it is no good thinking about it instead of walking towards my goal. Before I train I should go hunt so I can rest after.' I walk out and begin like before looking for trails.

I find a pair of foot prints that smell of rats near a tall bush, next to it there is a berry on the ground. I follow the tracks to a small hole under a tree like mine, I lean forward and put my head infront of the hole, I sigh internally as I can hear that there are many rats inside.

Altough I don't have very effective taste buds I do not enjoy eating rats, but I feel less hesitant than I was yesterday so that is fortunate if not a bit strange I'll think about it later.

'I wonder how will I kill them?' My body is to big to get inside. 'Ah the answer is to just use my thorns, I should cover the walls and then drag them all out, that will also make them last longer.'

I begin slowly and quietly forming my thorns on the walls until I hit a rat, it squeaks in surprise. I immediately then form the rest of the thorns waking every rat up, the rats gnaw and nibble at the branches so I grow a lot of sharp and long thorns which scares them more.

I then begin to drag the sack out of the burrow and also will the branches to twist closing it off from the outside. The squaks and wails from the rats become more audible the closer they get to me.

'Fucking rats now I am in a hurry.' The rats are making a lot of noises and if a predator hears it then I might need to defend myself. I sprint home with my arms and legs covered in a small amount of mana saving a lot of time.

I reach my burrow and stuff the rats inside and promptly close of the entrance with a lot of thorns which insulates it a bit. 'Now since that is temporarily fixed I need to watch and observe my surroundings incase a predator comes, actually that would be desirable, for now I will hide in a tree.'

Easily clmibing the tree I make myself comfortable on a thick branch close to the tree crown, I have full view of my burrow, so I sit there like a loaf of bread. 'I wonder how Grey will react when I tell her I am her father, she must surely have kept her memories, I hope. Wait how am I going to communicate with her? Sigh* I will need to steal a book and force someone to read it, actually I do not need to do that I can just go to a school or church if it is the middle ages.'

step* step* crack*

My heart skips a beat and I intensly observe the underbrush and see a large racoon that is a bit taller than me but we have the same mass. 'Racoons have a great sense of smell so he likely has not have noticed me because my scent is blended with the rats.' It creeps towards my burrow excitedly, I prepare to leap off of the branch I am on. It notices the unatural growth of the vines but it is too late as I have already covered my body in mana and taken to the air.

I bite down on its flesh and pin it to the ground, It is ferocious and resists me but I am able to grow vines full of thorns to cover its body. The vines hug it tight, making the racoon with all its strength pull me off of it and attack the vines.

I don't give it another moment and instead bite down on its neck and pump mana into my vines to repair them and strenghten them. I then grow the thorns on them a lot longer impaling the racoons organs.

It stops resisting and dies infront of me. 'This was pretty awesome.' My new body makes me feel proud of how effective I was at murdering the racoon and that I only received a small bruise and cuts from its nails.

'This body it makes me feel proud of murder, It is a bit messed up but with this new me I will not hesitate to murder someone, I remember how I struggled with life and death in my past life. Anyway it is time to eat, or try to.'

I will the vines out of the body and remove all my mana from the vines which makes them shrivel up and die. I observe the bloody racoon corpse, I turn it so it lays on its back and most of its intestines are on the ground.

I cut off its skin over its stomach with my claws and it reveals

drum roll ...

A soup of blood and organs, its lungs look the worst but the rest look slightly more whole and its heart is almost uninjured. 'The organs are healthy and remeber you are a predator a animal that eats raw meat.'

I take out the heart with my claws and hold it like a skewer unfortunately I can't swallow it hole so I take a large bite multiple times because my teeth are very small, I swallow the chunk of heart.

It does not have a lot of flavour just very metallic and sour, I continue eating it and the rest of the organs that look palatable. 'I should train now but should I train my muscles or magic? My mana control is alright but what happens if I do not have any mana and need to protect Grey? I must increase my training intensity then.'

Using my branches I make thornless handles for my front paws and begin doing pull ups, I do 5 sets of pull ups and then begin doing situps. After completing a lot of exercises to train my whole body I go down my burrow to rest and sleep.

'I should look for civilisation tomorrow it will take some time for me to learn their language, and the also have cooked food there so that is positive.' And then my eyes close and I drift off into sleep...