Throughout the myriad connections I had created, I sent a single message.

  I’m the new all, submit and continue existing under me, or face your end!

  The message wasn’t the best, but for some reason, I liked it. Thankfully, it still worked, and many cells joined me; others didn’t, but those were the minority.

  I grew like never before. Memories flooded me with instincts and senses. My vision started to flicker, warping from a sphere into a cone.

  Suddenly, I met something I hadn’t seen before. My consciousness was in an endless green plain. A white—almost translucent—being, the same shape as the cat, was turning and twisting, thrashing wildly. Then… it stopped. Its head snapped at me before it pounced, attacking my spherical soul with white claws.

  Pain flared through my existence. I only managed to keep control of myself and evade the second swipe due to having endured greater pain before.

  The cat's soul was restless. It advanced again, but I was much faster. I controlled my soul sphere and made it fly high. The cat jumped and shrieked at me, but to no avail; I was way above it.

  Where am I?

  I flew around, unbothered by the soundless shrieks and harmless threats of the cat down below.

  The place was huge, and as I flew, I noticed the green plain had an upward curve. The cat was now outside my spherical vision, so I hovered just above ground, wanting to inspect it.

  It looked like an endless swath of faintly pulsing green. I used my [Manima Senses] skill to zoom in, only to find out it was already at its greatest magnification. I pushed it beyond its limits, wanting to confirm my doubts, and as I struggled through the strain, the faint outline of an unimaginable number of dazingly ordered green balls began to show.

  This is…

  I was forcibly zoomed out, having gone way beyond the skill’s limit, but I didn’t mind, as that was what I intended to do. I continued to zoom out, and zoom out, until I saw it—a green string.

  This green place is the inside of my Mana film!

  The green balls had been the Mana balls I discovered, or as the system had called them, Attributed Mana. The strings were the same as the ones that formed my Mana film.

  So this is… my insides?

  I expanded my sphere of vision until it covered all my insides. I wasn’t expecting to find anything, so I was surprised when I saw a golden star in the middle.

  I thought stars were only in the sky, and why is my soul sphere this small?

  I pondered this weird situation as I flew towards the star. The cat passed below me, still thrashing, but with less vigour. I ignored it.

  Did the cat’s soul sense that I was taking its body and decide to attack?

  I didn’t know the answer to that question. I also didn’t know how my soul had gotten this small. Although I was certain that when the film had dissolved, my sphere was way bigger.

  Could it be able to contract and expand?

  I took hold of my soul through [Soul manipulation], then ordered it to expand. It grew, covering the entirety of the space inside the film, but I noticed something—my colour had dimmed a bit, and the star had disappeared.

  The cat was now stuck between me and the Mana film. It was trying to move, but failed miserably, having no space to even close its eyelids. I carved a hollow in the side of my soul so it wouldn’t be crushed, but then it started to attack me again, sending waves of pain through me.

  I willed a string of Mana to move from the film and constrict the cat’s soul, but the string was way larger than the cat. It would crush it, instead of tying a limb as I had intended.

  I tried to control the cat’s soul directly and stop its movements, but that, too, didn’t work. For some reason, I had no authority over its soul.

  The cat’s attacks continued, and I noticed that my colour had dimmed a bit again—probably from the attacks. I decided to shrink to escape the small being’s wrath.

  I got back to the same size I had been before, hovering just above the cat. I tried to shrink more, but pain started flaring through me at that, making me stop.

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  What should I do with the cat’s soul?

  I expanded my spherical vision outside my Mana film. The cat still had cells under its control, but the number was less than what I controlled. Its side was still working fine, as I hadn’t impeded it; I was afraid that might end the cat.

  I expanded and zoomed out my vision, reaching for the world outside the cat’s confines. It was slumbering inside a small dirt burrow, a light beam piercing the hideout through a slit above the cat.

  I think I have two options.

  I could either end the cat’s soul—through a way I hadn’t figured out yet—and by that, maybe get control of its body.

  But is that possible?

  From the first days of my existence, I had always been obsessed with controlling Kamos, and now the cat. I had failed in Kamos, barely escaping alive, but was that my fault?

  Maybe if Kamos hadn’t died, I could’ve controlled him.

  The other option was to leave the soul alone and continue trying to gain every brain cell, maybe even other cells, until I had them all, and hopefully that would allow me to control the cat. But I quickly found holes in this idea. The cat’s body needed nourishment, and if I were to take too long to control it, it could die from hunger.

  But first, I want to get a closer look at this star.

  When I had shrunk, I made it so that I ended next to the star. Although I could zoom in anywhere inside my spherical vision—for some reason I couldn’t figure out—I wanted to get a closer look at the star while being next to it.

  It had the same size as my smallest soul form. I zoomed in on it, wanting to see its parts. Beyond the golden glow was a cube with intricate carvings that moved across its surface. I tried to zoom in more, but I was already pushing my skill to its limit. I ended up not figuring out what the cube was, but then…

  Skill granted, [Identify]

  [Identify]: There are endless ways to identify our surroundings, but the ‘identify’ skill is the most common, allowing the user to gain a glimpse into what they are sensing.

  Would you like to acquire the skill [Identify]?

  Yes.

  Almost at the same time as I said yes, a new star popped out of nowhere next to the older one.

  Hmm… Are these stars my general skills?

  I zoomed into the new star, finding a cube with lots of swirling ingravings.

  …Probably.

  I tried the new skill on the stars, hoping to understand them more.

  ???

  Hmm… Does the voice not know what they are, or is it refraining from telling me for some reason? Maybe the skill is too low?

  I decided to leave the stars alone for now, as I had noticed that the cat’s colour was dimming. It had stopped thrashing, lying peacefully on the ground.

  What’s up with it?

  I used my identity skill on it.

  Silva Stria Feline, Lv.?

  I was really underwhelmed, having expected much more from the skill.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to acquire it.

  From my status, I knew I could only have ten general skills, and with this new skill, the number had gone down to eight.

  I must be more careful in the future when acquiring new skills. I don’t even know if I could replace them.

  The cat’s soul looked to be a moment away from perishing; I could see its insides from how translucent it had gone.

  I was still undecided about what to do with it, as I didn’t have much information on what would happen next. In the end, I left it to its fate.

  You have killed Silva Stria Feline, Lv. 4

  Level 4? I thought only skills and classes had levels.

  Since the user does not own a class, the experience will be stored until one is acquired.

  Hmm, so tha—

  I didn’t manage to complete the thought. My vision swam, then…

  My eyelids opened on instinct. I… I saw the same way Kamos had seen in his memories—a cone that made a big blind spot at my back. Thankfully, it was covered by my skill [Manima Senses], although the sphere was way smaller than usual.

  The cat’s vision had another difference; its colours were way more vibrant.

  This… this is beautiful.

  I tried to stand, my legs wobbled a bit for some reason before stabilising. Walking wasn’t difficult—the creature’s instincts were fully imbued into me.

  Climbing was a bit harder, but still not that difficult. After a jump, I escaped the burrow. I wasn’t thinking much, happy to just follow the light, and that was why I almost stumbled and fell when I…

  All my senses were assaulted—senses I didn’t have in my spherical vision, which shocked me even more. The jungle was alive with sounds, from birds chirping to beasts howling in the distance. A dizzying amount of smells entered my nostrils; some enticed my saliva glands to constrict heavily, others made me wince.

  Soul Mind has reached Lv. 3

  Wha—

  Crack.

  I jumped back at the sudden sound, but it was only a twig that had broken under my paw.

  My paw? So… this is my body, huh?

  I felt at my paws, running them through the wet, dark dirt. The sense was unfamiliar, but was—in a weird way—familiar too.

  A cold breeze swept by, ruffling my fur.

  This is beautiful.

  I was surprised at the rawness of my happiness; it was so intense, unlike my usual emotions. My eyes watered, and a drop of liquid fell from them—tears.

  This is the body’s influence. There is also this feeling… thirst?

  I haven’t fully digested the cat’s memories, so I didn’t know where to find water to quench my thirst, but through my advanced senses, I heard the sound of flowing water.

  But, before doing anything, I headed back inside the burrow. I had survived up until now through deception and being careful, not that much. Still, I wanted to think stuff through before adventuring.

  After escaping the liveliness of the jungle, I relaxed a bit. My heartbeat went down as I sat upright.

  First of all, I’ll look inside.

  I focused on zooming in through my spherical vision on my brain. All brain cells seemed to have joined me, no exception, then I scanned the entirety of the cat’s body, and was happy to discover that all the body cells had joined too.

  So, if I find a new host in the future, all I need to do is defeat it in a soul battle, and I can take its body. Although the cat looked a bit translucent from the start… Maybe that was because of me owning half its brain cells?

  I still had lots of questions about what had happened with the cat, like how it had entered my Mana film and attacked me, but I was satisfied with how things had turned out. If I could replicate it, securing a host would become much easier.

  The second thing I wanted to figure out was how my skills worked now after gaining control of the cat.

  For some reason, my [Manima Senses] skill radius is way smaller than before.

  I tried to think of any reason why that could have happened and came up with…

  Is it because my [Soul Mind] is being overwhelmed?

  I reasoned that [Soul Mind] had levelled up earlier because I had experienced too much stuff, overwhelming it.

  The cat’s body has its own senses, and that’s why it became smaller.

  My mind was trying to handle a bigger load, and so it decided to shrink my spherical vision so it could not get overwhelmed.

  I moved on to trying my other skills. [Soul Manipulation] worked fine; I was still able to control my soul, but nothing else. I held a string from my mana core and drew it. It flowed through the cat’s insides unimpeded before reaching the outside world.

  Comparing the mana string to the cat made me realise how small it was, being way thinner than even the cat’s fur. I couldn’t even see it through the cat’s vision.

  The final skill was [Biomancy]. I decided to be a bit bolder with this skill’s test. Activating the skill, I imagined what I wanted it to do.

  Swaths of strings flew out of my film. They twisted and interwined, forming hair-thick braids, but that wasn’t enough. More and more strings flew, eating at my film’s thickness with visible speed. I felt the skill reaching its limits, but I didn’t change my intentions.

  The braids interwined on my scalp, face, and parts of my neck, making my head glow with a faint green colour, then red. The red became fainter until it settled to white. A part of my soul left me—a big part that caused me some discomfort. The part connected with my creation, making it glow a final red before returning to normal. It was done.

  I looked at myself through my spherical vision. A bone mask and helmet now covered my head and parts of my neck, leaving small slits for my eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. A pointed horn jutted from my forehead, making me look more intimidating.

  Now, it’s time to get water and maybe hunt something to eat…