The next month was brutal.

  There was no ceremony to it. No dramatic announcement that her training had begun. One moment Miri was sitting on the couch with bacon-stuffed cheeks and sleep in her eyes, and the next Fluffkins was handing her a wooden sword and telling her to try not to die.

  “Again,” he said mildly, as she lay flat on her back staring at the ceiling. “And this time, do not lead with your face.”

  Miri groaned and rolled to her feet.

  Her days fell into a rhythm so quickly it felt like she’d always been living this way.

  Mornings began with meditation. Not the quiet, soothing kind she’d half-expected, but intense, focused work. Fluffkins taught her how to feel mana before she ever tried to use it. How to identify the channels in her body where it pooled and flowed. How to breathe in ways that encouraged circulation instead of stagnation.

  “Power,” Fluffkins told her, pacing as she sat cross-legged on the floor, “is not something you simply possess. It is something your body must learn to tolerate.”

  Mana wasn’t fuel, exactly. It was pressure.

  Too little, and nothing happened. Too much, and you shattered.

  Most beings adapted over years. Decades. Lifetimes.

  Miri adapted in weeks.

  She felt it first as warmth under her skin. Then as a faint buzzing in her bones. Then—after one alarming afternoon where she fainted mid-exercise—as something like a second heartbeat, steady and patient, pulsing just beneath her own.

  She could feel the mana circulating inside her like blood but so much more.

  Fluffkins pretended not to notice how fast it was happening.

  After meditation came physical training. Endurance runs through conjured terrain. Climbing sheer rock faces until her arms trembled. Acrobatics drills that left her bruised and swearing until Fluffkins cleared his throat meaningfully and she bit her tongue.

  She learned to fight with swords, knives, staves, and her own body. Fluffkins was a merciless instructor, darting in with surprising speed to knock her off balance or sweep her legs out from under her.

  “You fight like someone who expects backup,” he told her once, tail flicking as she scrambled upright. “You must learn to finish what you start.”

  That one stung.

  Magic lessons filled the afternoons.

  She read until her eyes ached: histories of empires built on spellcraft, treatises on elemental theory, arguments that had lasted centuries over whether mana was external energy or an extension of the soul. She learned the difference between skills and spells—skills engraved themselves into the body through repetition and strain, while spells were patterns imposed on mana through study and will.

  “Skills change you,” Fluffkins explained, tapping her chest. “Spells change the world. Both exact a price.”

  Experience, she learned, wasn’t about killing monsters or ticking boxes.

  Experience was stress.

  Physical stress. Mental strain. Magical saturation. Risk taken and survived.

  The System measured growth by transformation, not intent.

  And Miri transformed constantly.

  Her body grew leaner, stronger, frighteningly resilient. Her mind sharpened, faster at pattern recognition, quicker to adapt when plans went sideways. Her spirit—whatever that actually meant—felt deeper, wider, like it had more room to stretch without tearing.

  Fluffkins watched all of this with narrowed eyes and said very little.

  Evenings were quieter. She learned to cook simple meals, pulling ingredients from Fluffkins’ inventory with growing envy. When she first saw that magic, she threw herself into meditation with renewed determination.

  “I want one,” she said flatly.

  “You are not ready,” Fluffkins had replied.

  She learned about classes and specializations, about how early choices constrained later growth. She learned that power without direction often destroyed its wielder. She learned that survivability mattered more than raw damage, and that the dead learned nothing.

  She didn’t rush her decisions.

  She couldn’t afford to.

  By the end of the month, she realized something unsettling.

  She wasn’t just catching up.

  She was accelerating.

  Fluffkins finally addressed it one night as he closed a book and regarded her over the rim of his glasses.

  “You are progressing,” he said carefully, “at a rate that is perhaps irregular.”

  Miri wiped sweat from her brow. “Is that bad?”

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  “No,” he said. “It is dangerous.”

  She waited.

  “You were not merely resurrected,” Fluffkins continued. “You were reconstructed. Your body, mind, and spirit were rewritten to survive mana exposure from the moment of your rebirth.”

  Miri’s stomach flipped. “So I’m… what. Enhanced?”

  “Stabilized,” he corrected. “Your limits are farther apart than most. Your growth curve is steeper. You will plateau later.”

  She absorbed that in silence.

  “And?” she prompted.

  Fluffkins sighed. “And if you are careless, you will burn brighter than anyone else—and burn out just as fast.”

  That night, as she lay staring at the cave ceiling that had become her home, Miri thought about Mason. About how he’d always told her to slow down. To breathe. To think three steps ahead instead of leaping on instinct alone.

  She clenched her fists.

  “I won’t waste this,” she murmured to the dark.

  * * *

  By the end of a few weeks, Miri was certain she could run a marathon and kick somebody’s ass at the finish line.

  She lay on her back on the stone floor, arms and legs spread, chest rising and falling as she cooled down from the last set of endurance drills. Sweat clung to her skin, muscles humming with that deep, satisfying ache that meant she’d pushed just hard enough.

  Fluffkins closed his book with a soft thump and padded over. Without ceremony, he cast a cleansing spell and followed it up with a healing spell.

  Warmth washed over her in careful layers, lifting sweat and grime away with surgical precision. Soreness and fatigue disappeared. Her skin tingled as if she’d just stepped out of the best shower of her life.

  She sighed. “I miss showers,” she said. “But that… that’s cheating.”

  “Magic,” Fluffkins replied mildly, “is structured cheating.”

  She pushed herself up onto her elbows as he came to stand beside her, paws clasped neatly in front of him.

  “My child,” he said, voice gentle but certain, “I believe you are ready.”

  Miri froze.

  “You have learned more than the basics of magic,” he continued. “You possess an encyclopedic understanding of the creatures you are most likely to encounter, and a firm grasp on every combat discipline I am capable of teaching.”

  She sat up slowly, already opening her mouth to argue. She’d rehearsed this. She could stay another week. Another few days. Another anything. There were still books she hadn’t reread. Movements she could sharpen. Questions she hadn’t asked yet.

  But the argument stalled in her throat.

  If she was honest—truly honest—she hadn’t learned much new in the last few days. Not because Fluffkins had failed her, but because she’d reached the edge of what this place could give.

  Her shoulders sagged as the truth settled in.

  “Well… shit.”

  Fluffkins cleared his throat pointedly.

  She wilted another inch. “Right. Sorry.”

  They had, at length, debated the merits of profanity. Miri used curse words the way some people used salt—liberally and on everything. Fluffkins was of the firm opinion that she sounded like a barmaid at a particularly disreputable brothel.

  After losing a card game she swore was rigged, she’d agreed to curb her language. No cursing in polite company. No cursing during instruction. Cursing permitted only when alone or actively fighting for her life.

  She was trying. She was not succeeding.

  She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck.

  “You’ve been really good to me,” she said quietly. “Better than you had to be. Thank you, Fluffkins.”

  He waved a paw dismissively, but his tail betrayed him, curling and uncurling.

  “You were a delightful student,” he said. “Terrifyingly adaptable. Mildly alarming.”

  She snorted, then hesitated.

  “You’re sure,” she asked, softer now, “you won’t come with me?”

  He grinned at her—sharp, fond, and teethy—and shook his head. His tail flicked back and forth, faster now, a clear warning she was testing the boundary.

  She nodded, accepting it.

  “It is time for you to move on,” Fluffkins said. “After hearing your stories from Earth, I realized that sending you out with nothing but confidence would be… unkind.”

  She huffed. “Wow. You really know how to hype a girl up.”

  He smiled faintly.

  “You are well trained,” he said. “You are capable, observant, and far more adaptable than most. But preparation and survival are not the same thing. Skill does not replace food. Nor does talent prevent infection.”

  “Still inspirational,” Miri said.

  Fluffkins turned and lifted a leather satchel from the back of a chair—his inventory bag. He held it out to her.

  She shook her head even as her hand twitched toward it. “I couldn’t—”

  He laughed and tossed it anyway.

  She caught it on reflex.

  “An inventory bag is valuable,” he said, already pouring himself a drink from the bar cart, “but not so valuable that I cannot replace it. It, and what it contains, are infinitely more useful to you than they are to me.”

  He took a slow sip, tail curling around his leg as he savored the bite of the liquor.

  “The beginning of a journey is always the most dangerous part,” he continued. “Not because the foes are strongest, but because one has not yet learned what dangers to expect. Hunger, thirst, exposure, poor decisions made while exhausted—these kill more adventurers than monsters ever will.”

  Miri swallowed and opened the bag.

  She stared.

  Food and water enough to last months. Dense, preserved rations alongside packets of dried fruit and grains she recognized. A compact cooking kit. A small steel pot with a nested lid. A water filter charm etched with simple runes.

  Miri’s throat tightened.

  “This is… a lot,” she said quietly.

  Magic books—some beginner, some more advanced than she expected. A bolt of treated leather. Ingots of common metal suitable for trade. A coil of silk rope lighter than it had any right to be. Bedroll. Tarp. Fire-starting stones that sparked even when wet.

  A modest but respectable pile of credits.

  And—

  “Fluffkins,” she said carefully, focusing on the final item. “Are you sure about this?”

  She pulled up the description.

  [ Collar of the Jack of Hearts ]

  (Wearable, Epic)

  Magically crafted for His Highness Prince of Heartstone, son of God Emperor Harold IV, after a dread witch cursed him to a feline life.

  Grants the wearer nine lives.

  Remaining lives: 5

  Her breath caught and she looked up.

  He was gone.

  Miri stared at the space where he’d been standing, then let out a shaky laugh that sounded suspiciously close to a sniffle.

  “That little shit.”