The mother leopard snarled as she caught sight of them, and leapt forward between her cubs and the adventuring party.

"Stop!" Danika yelled, and launched herself between the leopard and the party. She even activated her dazzling, although she nervously eyed the little alchemist and hoped that she hadn't activated whatever explosive bottle she held. "Please stop."

Danika activated her cat language skill, even though the leopard had been speaking perfectly clearly in the common tongue a moment ago, and repeated, "Please stop."

The leopard snarled behind her back, and Danika almost instinctively turned to face her, but resisted somehow. She asked Heftybookboy nervously, "Can't we just go around them?"

"Why? Rare animals are really valuable. Even their blood is valuable. Besides, it's just a game, it'll just respawn," Heftybookboy argued.

Danika stared at him. "No it won't. Normal NPCs can't even reincarnate yet. This is a living world. The only time a race will be reseeded by the God of Balance is if it's hunted clear to extinction," she explained swiftly.

"Oh, I see. You are carrying the marks of two gods, no wonder you are even stranger than a tiny dragon would normally be," the leopard said behind her back.

Heftybookboy and his party members all visibly took a step back. Heftybookboy gave a little cough and said, "This is the first time I've ever heard anything like that. But sure, we can just go on to meet the wizard."

Kurohana spoke up suddenly, shocking everyone except the leopard, "Actually it says it's a living world with living populations in the official descriptions." She lapsed back into silence as though she'd used up her daily quota of words.

Heftybookboy's party hurried around the leopard with many backward glances. Danika also glanced backward and saw the were leopard was already ignoring them, and gathering the fallen blocks with brightly colored letters printed on their sides. She used up another Karma and flicked an assassin's mark at the cat, who narrowed her eyes and bared her teeth, but otherwise made no move.

Danika zipped after Heftybookboy's party and took the lead again. When they reached it, the wizard's stone tower looked just as she remembered it, it just wasn't in the same village as the one that had been in her beginner's vale. The wizard's familiar also looked the same, aside from being a bit larger and plumper.

The dark cat lazily got to its feet from where it lay warming itself in the sun. It's fur gleamed as it stretched and Danika glanced back and saw that Heftybookboy and his party were all gazing blankly at the cat. The cat gave a short meow, a shrug and an ear flick, but Danika's rudimentary cat language skill translated it as, "Welcome, but don't enter with those."

Danika blinked and then decided to trust the cat and said, "Um, we're finally here, but I really need a rest break. Is this far enough?"

Heftybookboy shook his head and then replied, "Yes, thanks, I recognize the tower and the cat! We'll recommend your guild in the future."

"Um, good luck in getting cursed again," Danika said swiftly, and logged out.

--

She actually sort of took a rest break, she attended to a couple chores, and checked her messages. Then she left her phone open on the messenger layer of the game, and watched an episode of the show that she enjoyed, but hadn't been keeping up on. She wondered idly if Aishin would like it.

After a moment she grinned and realized that there was no reason not to ask him. She texted him, and was unsurprised by the lack of immediate reply. He'd reply when he had time.

When her episode finished, she logged back in, and looked around warily. The wizard's tower looked normal, but the cat wasn't sitting on the step anymore. Night was falling though. She hovered in front of the doorway, and then shrugged and turned away.

Danika almost fell out of the air as the elven wizard winked at her with one of his ageless eyes and chuckled. He said cheerfully, "It's good to see you again ZipZing. I see that you have both continued in your determination to follow your own path, and learned and mastered all of the cantrips needed to learn illusion."

"I uh, also have an apple tree growing from the seed of the apple you gave me that turned me into a cat," Danika said nervously.

"Oh? That was from a tree my wife grew, I didn't actually expect it to really turn you into a cat, I just thought there might be a chance," he said thoughtfully.

He examined her with an intent expression for a moment and then said, "I see, how interesting. And you're working on learning to transform yourself at will now too. Are you sure you wouldn't like to become a wizard?"

"I'd still rather not," Danika replied unhappily. "But I was hoping that you might be able to teach me illusion now?"

He grinned at her. "I might," he agreed.

Danika waited hopefully. The wizard gazed up at the stars that were starting to appear overhead. After a bit she heaved a silent sigh and then asked, "What kind of task do I need to do?"

The wizard pointed upward and said clearly, "Catch a falling star."

Danika looked upward with blank incomprehension, until she saw a twinkle like the dragon's scale that had fallen. She pulled her menus up and swiped over to Aishin's skills faster than she'd thought possible, used his targeting skill and the mark and her own light cantrip and sent it zinging off to touch the sparkle.

Just as it faded she used his teleport to mark, and snatched at the falling glowing fragment of light as her cantrip expired, without bothering with a potion first. Her hands burned, and she gasped and clutched the hot round thing in one claw and scrabbled for a potion with the other. She spilled some of the potion over her hands but managed to drink the rest fast enough, and it boosted her recharge rate just enough that she didn't die.

A moment later she realized that she was dropping out of the sky like, well, a stone. She used her featherweight, but even at her fastest wing speed, it only slowed her descent. She used the whereabouts skill and aimed herself at the wizard, who seemed to still be far below in the darkness.

She tried to stuff the faintly glowing object into her inventory, but a system message popped up and informed her that she didn't have enough space. There wasn't time to try the embroidered pouch. She wondered how upset Aishin would be if she died now, after everything. She used the last of her energy on a random teleport at the last second, and dropped about a foot onto something soft and warm.

The warm soft landing cushion cursed her in cat. Thankfully most of the words didn't translate, but Danika was pretty sure that the wizard's unrestrained laughter wasn't helping her situation.