Over the next few weeks Dee worked hard to learn how to use the ring. A full transformation was difficult to do at first. She would almost fully change before losing her concentration and returning to human form. With practice, however, she soon had a basic transformation down. The form she managed to complete the easiest was a tiger. With the name of the triad, it was the main feline image that stuck in her mind.

The first time she managed to change, she noticed a few things immediately. Her senses all seemed heightened. Every scent was sharp and tickled her nose. The underlying smells in her room came at her suddenly and she sneezed, losing feline form as she lost concentration. A light dusty smell came from her bookshelf. The tang of peach oil she wore on occasion wafted from her bedding.

One of the changes that fascinated her was her sense of sight. While she had very good vision and noticed details some missed, it increased when she changed. The planes of an object looked odd with her new vision. Edges seemed sharper or softer, depending on the material. Her greatest joy was the fact that her night vision also enhanced as a cat's did. It served her well on her night watches.

At meals or when she had a snack, she would change form to compare taste. The vast difference in what she tasted as a human compared to a feline shocked her. Every aspect of taste surprised her. It was as if she tasted her food for the first time in her life. The sweetness of red bean in a bun became almost overpowering. The saltiness, hinged with a slight sour or bitterness, of a pickled vegetable made her change back to human form and rush for water.

Her hearing had also become extremely acute when she changed. With the ability to rotate her ears, her range had increased. She jumped when she heard a knock, only to realize that it had come from far down the hall. Learning to tell when something was near or far would come with practice.

Finally came her sense of touch. Her whiskers felt like little wires stuck into her cheeks. They jittered and felt out of place when they would brush up against something. Under her paws, the slickness of the wooden and tiled floors came through. The carpet felt like some odd grass under her pads. She did, however, find out just how wonderful it was to lie in a patch of sun-warmed carpet. The fibers took on a whole other feeling when warmed.

But the easiest transformation for her to make was into half feline form. Thinking of herself as a humanoid feline just seemed a bit more natural to her. Her reflection amused her and she spent a long time making faces at herself in the mirror. Of course, her favorite thing was to play pranks on Manchu when he was on guard duty. Her favorite time to spook him was on dark, almost moonless nights, or coming out of the fog that would sometimes blanket the city.

Sneaking around the corner of the building, Dee would come up from behind Manchu, the fur she was cloaked in a dark or grey color. The first couple of times she scared him she ended up hauling buckets of water back and forth across the courtyard in front of her guard master. It hadn't mattered because Manchu and her had a good laugh about it the next night. All in all, she took her punishments for her actions with good humor. After her third punishment, Jiaoshu decided to ask the Explosive Master, Kên Huo, to give her some extra work to keep her busy.

{That shouldn't be a problem, Jiaoshu. The girl is skilled enough now that I could use her help preparing more items that are needed,} he had said. He stopped her one day, noticing she wasn't doing exactly what he had set her to. {Where did you learn to piece things together like this?} he asked as he lifted an explosive she had managed to scale down fifty percent.

She didn't want to say anything, but she knew she couldn't just keep quiet to her Master. {I like putting things together. It's like a puzzle, only you remove the parts that you don't need. You just have to see where the pieces fit and where they don't,} she said, waving to the little bits and pieces she had scattered on her work surface.

To prove her point, she took one of the old teaching devices made out of large, cumbersome parts. In seconds she had stripped it down to the individual pieces. Picking around through what she had on her counter, she pulled out pieces which were similar, yet a fraction of the size. As Kên Huo watched, the girl put together an exact replica of the larger model, only a fourth of the size.

{But this will have less power, Xiaohu. You will have to use more explosive to get it to do the same job.}

Dee shook her head and carefully sliced off a piece of plastic explosive, tucking it with precise care into the empty spot on the device. Picking it up, she took it to the testing area and hooked it up. To the shock of Kên Huo, the device exploded with such force that it ruptured some of the protective sandbags piled around.

{The device uses the same amount of explosive. It's the mechanics that are scaled down, sir. Carrying around all that heavy equipment for a job, as well as your devices, is hard to do. I haven't had the chance to actually put it into practice, but they have been training me on what I will carry when I am finally allowed to go on a job.} Dee bowed respectfully to the man who had been so patiently training her. She feared to insult him, but was greeted with a mirthful belly laugh.

{All these years I have not changed a thing in the making of my apparatus. And why? Because I did not think about it.} He shook his head, the long graying queue at the back of his head swaying like a snake. {Xiaohu, I was never a foot soldier, did you know that?}

{No, sir. You never told me.}

{When I was young, I sustained an injury that prevented me from finishing training. Do not misunderstand. I can protect myself. But it is here that my skills lie. I never considered the amount that a soldier would have to carry with them to get through a job. I knew there was the rope, the odd weapon or two.} Here he shrugged. {Everything else was empty space and I saw no need to scale anything down. You have a point, however. Everything is getting smaller these days, is it not? Computers, telephones...} He paused once more, and grinned at her, ruffling her hair. {Our soldiers. From now on, we will work on making things smaller and keeping the power, yes?}

Beaming up at him, she nodded her head. {I'm certain everyone will be happy to hear about this when you tell them.}
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