I have Nine Lives

Chapter 6: I don't know

Sahee gave a small smile as she started talking with Felix by asking:

"Do you know your name?"

Felix took a pondering expression on his face, the woman from before always used to call him Felix or Felix-kun so that might have been his name?

Felix opens his mouth and responded to her:

"I think my name is Felix."

This was a good beginning since Felix knew the language they both understood each other so Sahee introduced herself again:

"My name is Sahee."

Felix nodded at her, Sahee continued to ask him things so she could try to help him recover his memories:

"Do you know where you are from? Any hints about the tribe, also could you try to transform into your humanoid form?"

Felix looked at her strangely, he didn't remember anything about any tribe or humanoid form, he wasn't sure if it was normal for beings like themselves to transform into humans as he never saw the woman from before transforming into a cat, maybe she could do it but she didn't do it in front of him?

Seeing Felix's lost expression Sahee didn't know what to ask, here the leader intervened by coughing and said:

"My name is Lucian, leader of the eastern cat tribe that resides in the plains, I think I can help you a little bit with your situation, after all, we are kin and we should stick together."

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Felix nodded and Lucian started to explain about the cat tribe and its ancestral ways:

"Our cat tribe isn't anything special, we all follow the methods left behind by our ancestral shamans, we of the cat tribe are experts into stealth, scouting, and other miscellaneous things that the other tribes do not really use anymore these days."

From what Lucian was talking about the cat tribe was a breed of killers, but their settlement looked quite pathetic, would cold-blooded killers live like this if they could help it?

Seeing the strange expression on Felix's face Lucian could understand what he was thinking about, most of the children of the tribe would also think like this after they learned how to talk and developed enough to think freely, but after they experienced the ways of the world they would understand why the cat tribe had a lowly standing.

Lucian shook his head as he explained the circumstances of most of the cat tribes scattered around the Tarot continent, he wasn't sure if the other continents cat tribe's lived with the same situations as the communication between continents was cut off long ago.

Felix was interested in the tidbits and legends that Lucian was telling him, he found them to be quite interesting, suddenly his stomach rumbled loudly, Lucian gave out a small smile seeing that Felix was hungry and he told Sahee:

"Go and get some food for our guest while I keep talking with him, Ok?"

Sahee nodded and left to get some food, she saw how much Felix ate so she went to their storage room to get enough meat, even though the cat tribe was weak, that didn't mean they were starving, they had enough food to keep everyone filled as they lived near the forest which was full of food, even though some of their hunters might be bullied to death if they were found by the bear tribe, they could use their stealth techniques to hunt and return quite easily if they were careful enough. A cat tribesman dying to a bear tribesman happened extremely rarely.

Lucian sat down in a chair as he talked with Felix, while Felix sat on the nearby desk that the tribe leader would occasionally rest on.

Lucian sighed as he couldn't get any responses from Felix besides I don't know, and he didn't feel that he was lying, were his memories this fragmented? Lucian wondered what happened to him.

Felix decided to tell him what he knew, about the woman that took care of him and the giant red ball of death, also about the portal, when Lucian heard all of this he was disbelieving for a few minutes but then he understood that Felix might not even be from the same continent, maybe he was from a different one that got destroyed by a calamity and the traveling to the Tarot continent damaged his head? Some of the ancestral stories had been talking about a calamity that reshaped the world and separated the continents, however, it was very descriptive, at least their tribe couldn't get their paws on the whole story.

Felix didn't describe how the woman looked so Lucian thought that she was the same as them, considering that Felix didn't go through his adulthood ceremony so he must have a harder time to transform from his primal form, once one went through their adulthood ceremony they would gain the ability to transform into their humanoid form along with an ability that could evolve along with them. However, people that we're blessed with wisdom and talent could gain the ability to transform into the humanoid form earlier, some even could do it once they were born, but Lucian never saw such a thing happening and only heard rumors about it.

Since Felix didn't go through his adulthood ceremony on his former continent, Lucian wanted to help him go through it, his explanation was truthful so he couldn't get any information out of him, it was the cat tribe that needed to give him information, however, Lucian was a believer of helping those in need, especially those of the same race.

Lucian rummaged through his desk drawers as he took out a brown painted pipe made out of hard black wood, the pipe was inscribed with words in the Tarot runic language that meant 'Ceremony' 'Adulthood' 'Ability' 'Bloodline' 'Ancestral memories'.

Before one would go through the ancestral adulthood ceremony, one would need to successfully hunt at least a horned rabbit and eat it's meat to assimilate its Hex energy.

Most living beings could house energy in their bodies called Hex, this energy would run through the bodies of individuals just like blood, in actuality it flowed in the same vessels as the blood and with time fused with blood strengthening the constitution of the person.

Depending on the constitution of the individual, people could handle more or less hex in their bodies and there was an upper limit in which their bodies would get strengthened, the cat tribe had one of the weakest upper caps of Hex strengthening, but that didn't mean they were necessarily very weak, there were beings that had yet to evolve to the point that Hex would strengthen their bodies and the Hex energy would just flow into their bodies aimlessly, the horned rabbits were a prime example of these type of animals, they were intelligent but not very, they were seen as cattle to most other intelligent beings.

Lucian knew that Felix ate more than a horned rabbit, however, it was strange that there was no Hex energy currently in his body, seemingly as he didn't eat anything, but Sahee told him seeing him eating a whole grey wolf.

Speaking of Sahee she came back with a bountiful amount of meat, most of it came from a horned rabbit with very few coming from poisonous snakes, just a few slabs of meat came from the poisonous snakes while the majority was from the horned rabbits. Felix started salivating unconsciously as he started being quite hungry.

Sahee gave him a smile as she told him to dig in and her eyes wandered to the pipe, she thought that Lucian would try to make him go through the adulthood ceremony but it was quite soon considering how much it would weaken him, she also had to go through her adulthood ceremony as well!

Lucian gave her a small smile as he told her:

"You both can go through the adulthood ceremony at the same time, even though I will be exhausted for a few days, I should be able to recover quite fast, the doctor found a recovering Shu mushroom, it should be able to fix me right up."

Sahee became less agitated after she heard about the Shu mushroom, she cared deeply about the leader of the tribe because of two reasons, he was strong enough to protect the whole tribe and he was wise and gentle with all of the tribesmen, when she was younger, the leader even helped her around with chores that she couldn't do due to her weak body, she saw him as a big brother and she cared about his wellbeing quite a bit.

Lucian reassured her he would be ok, then his eyes widened as he saw no more meat left, Felix ate all of it while they conversed, and their conversation was quite short not even exceeding 4 minutes!

Felix patted his fat belly a bit, he wasn't quite full but it would suffice for the time being, later he would go and hunt in the forest again, he decided to live in the settlement with the other cats as he felt more comfortable here.

Lucian took the pipe and put it in his mouth as he started to blow into it with closed eyes, he was concentrating while muttering a mantra that both Sahee and Felix couldn't understand.

After a short while, the mantra finished and Lucian became quite pale, the smoke that came out of the pipe engulfed both Sahee and Felix as strange patterns appeared on their bodies, Sahee was quite talented as she became able to transform earlier, with closed eyes, her form altered between her cat one and humanoid one as she was gaining her ability.

However nothing was happening to Felix, the patterns around his body wavered and faded after a short while, the energy that Lucian used to summon the smoke returned to him as the smoke surrounding Felix disappeared, Felix stood there with a puzzled look on his face as he asked:

"I didn't feel anything, what was this thing supposed to do?"

Lucian didn't know what to answer as he had a troubled look on his face, maybe people from the other continents couldn't go through the same adulthood ceremony as those from the Tarot continent, this was the only logical explanation that Lucian could think about, would Felix be stuck into his primal form?

Felix didn't mind staying in his cat form at all, Lucian thought that he would be disappointed when he heard the explanation from him, he started to clean himself using his tongue.

Lucian sweatdropped seeing his casual reaction, most clansmen would find it dreading to remain in their normal form because of the deadly situations they could find themselves in the outside world, after all, the humanoid form had a higher battle power compared to the primal form, the primal form was used more for traveling and running away.

Lucian sighed as he looked at Felix, he knew that he was an anomaly due to his superior bodily strength, he didn't understand how he was able to kill a grey wolf, even with the help of Sahee, it would have taken at least 3 or 4 adults from the cat tribe to take down a grey wolf, and at least half of them would die in the attempt with a 50% chance of the wolf escaping.

Lucian didn't know if Felix coming to their tribe was a calamity or a blessing considering he was quite talented, would he get the attention of the upper tribes?

Sahee opened her eyes as they turned into a deep yellow color from their normal green, Lucian eyes widened as he saw her eyes and asked:

"Is that the?"

Sahee smiled as he looked into his eyes and said:

"It should be the advanced stealth combined with the nocturnal vision enchantment."

Lucian gave out a burst of hearty laughter as he looked at her, finally, someone from their tribe got a good ability that branched into aspects of stealth, most of them would gain one ability and the unlucky and untalented ones would maybe even get half of an ability that they would have to develop into a full one.

Sahee looked at Felix and she wondered what kind of ability did he get but Lucian responded before Felix, telling her the special circumstances that surrounded Felix, Sahee was quite disappointed as she wanted to spar with him, the cat tribe was also quite competitive, at least the younger generation sparred with each other quite often, while the elder generation had to get food and protect the young ones so they could grow strong enough to replace them, the elders would enjoy their remaining life span by lazing around their porches while sunbathing waiting for the moment they wouldn't be able to open their eyes anymore.

Sahee knew that Felix was still considered quite strong even though he didn't have an ability she wanted to test hers on someone, the other young people were still outside training and hunting while she and Felix were the only ones left in the settlement.

Sahee gathered her courage and asked Felix for a spar even though her shoulder was broken she was a little bit too excited because of the awakening of her new talent so she kind of forgot about it, Felix stretched his body but he didn't get up from the desk as he said:

"Maybe later, I need to sleep after that meal, actually maybe even later, I want to eat later and maybe sleep some more."

Even though Felix had killer instincts, he was still a cat so he wanted to do what a cat wanted to do, since he found a place that could give him food he regressed to his old ways, however, if they refused to give him any more food he would go to the forest to hunt.

Sahee didn't know what to say at Felix's attitude, the cat tribe lost this lazy personality of theirs in such a cruel environment and only their sneaky and hunter personality remained instead, however since Felix came from Earth his lazy personality remained, even though he gained intelligence, it was in his blood to wait for others to serve him and sleep a lot.

Sahee decided to let him sleep since he saved her life, but after he ate the next meal she wanted to fight it out with him if no one came back from their hunting or training. Even though she gained a pretty good talent she didn't think she had enough experience to fight with the older hunters that remained in the village to protect it. But if Felix refused her again she could only ask the older ones for a spar.

Felix's tail moved left and right as he slept, he didn't know why but he was seeing some images that he never saw before after he closed his eyes, this was something that he didn't understand but he didn't want to wake up either so he decided to watch them unfold in front of him.