The night had passed quickly. I was now sitting in a dense tree halfway up the mountains a few hours flight down from the ritual site. A quick hunt sated my hunger just as dawn made itself known. Now it was just resting and contemplating. Although I had done enough thinking last night. There was still the question of where to go from now on. What to do with my life. But I was sure something fun would come up. If I ever wanted to live with people, I would have to learn proper communication. Telepathy seemed like the obvious answer but maybe writing would be enough. Only, if I visited my goblin friends writing was as useful as my beak.

At least I knew what telepathy felt like. Maybe I could learn a Skill for it at some point. I only needed a partner to practice with. Other than that, there was the issue of not having opposable thumbs. I might want to look into some form of telekinesis as well. Or a human transformation? No. I would not deny any part of myself. That included my body. I was an owl, I would stay one. So telekinesis it was. And I even had an idea where to start. I remembered pulling on the crystal I had given to Roguk with my shadows. So maybe, once [Owl’s Shadow] had levelled up more, it would let me actually touch things? Sure, it was more tentacles than opposable thumbs right now, but those were perfectly fine appendages. At least if I could make a dozen of them. So I had a plan now. Levelling [Owl’s Shadow] and figuring out some form of telepathy or communication.

I took a look at my status. Maybe it would give me a better idea of how to go about this.

Species: Great Eagle Owl (fledgeling)

Age: 0

Name: Fio

Gender: female

Status: sapient, mana enriched (medium)

Level: 13

Class: [Assassin lvl 25], -

Strength: 15

Constitution: 12

Dexterity: 21

Perception: 22

Intelligence: 18

Wisdom: 15

AP: 1

Skills:

Racial:

Utility: [Owl Senses lvl 5], [Preening lvl 3], [Owl Stomach lvl 3], [Soundless Flight lvl 4]

Offensive: [Solid Grip lvl 3], [Intimidating Screech lvl 3], [Owl’s Shadow lvl 5], [Aerial Combat lvl 4],

General:

[Maths lvl 4], [Identify lvl 3],

Assassin:

[Sneak lvl 4], [Surprise Attack lvl 4], [Mingling lvl 2], [Eldritch Shift lvl 1]

I still had one Attribute point left from last night’s level up. Instead of dumping it straight into Intelligence, I decided to think a little deeper about what to do. My Skills looked decent. I had two of them past the first Breakpoint. Wait, [Owl Senses] had levelled! This had to be from the mental map the eye behind the portal had given me. Or from figuring out what the node aspects were? I was not entirely sure. At least I had a general idea now how to get past it. Something special had to happen, related to a lot of mana. Darkness mana, or rather tenebrae mana, had let me improve my [Owl’s Shadow] while some kind of magical sensory radar had levelled [Owl Senses]. Or maybe just seeing that portal in its entirety and close up had done the trick? Either way, magic shenanigans were involved.

That meant I had a decent idea of how to improve my other Skills. Just throw mana at them. Best something that made sense. Aer mana for flight. Maybe something like order or healing for [Preening]? Knowledge mana for [Maths], if that existed. Tenebrae might also work on [Sneak], maybe even on [Surprise Attack]. And so on. But first, I should bring my Skills up to level four, where I could easily do so. This would let me seize the opportunity if I ever ran into something like last night again. Maybe I had already wasted some when [Soundless Flight] and [Aerial Combat] had levelled from the aer mana.

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Next was Attributes. I was very interested in improving my shadows. They had become my go-to combat option, even though I only got the Skill because of my Class. That meant magic stats. But I was not sure how far I should go and what I should focus on. Wisdom or Intelligence?

Intelligence: The strength with which a being’s will can affect the world.

Wisdom: The precision with which a being’s will can affect the world.

The attributes were pretty straight forward but I was not sure which was more important for me right now. In the long term, I needed Wisdom to do fine control. Though maybe levelling Skills would improve my control naturally? It was just as likely it would improve my Skills’ strength though. This was a bit of a dilemma. Maybe I should really try to ask someone? But I did not want to go back to the village and I did not have anyone else to ask either. I could just invest in both? My race levels had given me only physical Attributes for now. This meant I might not have to invest as much into those. As long as I managed to keep levelling. This meant dumping everything into magic stats would get me to 20 each at level… 32? And 42 for 25 each. That seemed doable. I could also just push Intelligence to 25 and then have Wisdom catch up. That might give me a better idea of the Attributes’ effects.

Then I remembered last night. I had gained a new Skill and I had tested it. [Eldritch Shift] was weird, to say the least. When I used it for just a split second everything around me disappeared. Although it was still there in a different way, I could not discern any details with my normal senses. In that state, everything appeared as blobs and strings of colour. Colour that I quickly understood to represent aspects. And the next moment it was gone, back to normal. My senses, presumably my [Owl Senses], let me feel it for a little longer, but not enough to do anything with it. That was all very interesting, but I found one big problem with the Skill. I could not use its second part. ‘While shifted you may travel along paths unseen.’ I had not figured out how to move. The only ’paths’ I had found were empty spaces between the mana blobs. One problem was how short every use was, the second problem was how much it exhausted me. After only four activations, I felt I could barely use it one more time, but I would blackout right after. Going by the development of [Owl’s Shadow], that would be less of a problem once I got some levels into [Eldritch Shift], but right now I just had too little time to work it out.

This led me to confirm choosing Intelligence first. I hoped with more power also came more base energy, letting me use my new Skill more and level it faster. I would reconsider once I reached my current goals. First, was levels.

As night came around I took off again. There were three villages in the valley, the glowing spots I had spotted on my first night out with the scouts coming from their lights. All of them were ork villages. I saw a few goblins here and there but they looked less miserable than expected. From Roguk’s tale, I had assumed they were slaves and treated as such but they seemed to be healthy. Maybe these were the ones treated well and the test subjects for whatever magic experiments the orks worked on were hidden away somewhere else.

The ork huts looked somewhat primitive. Simple log structures with a stone base and leafed roofs. Different from the goblin village they had wooden doors and shuttered windows. Aside from the first village I came across they all had chimneys as well. The heat crystals seemed to be no omnipresent feature of this world. There was probably a fire node up the valley.

The valley itself sloped downwards. From the sun I understood the direction to be south. It looked a little weird from my height. The mountains got taller compared to the ground but looking over the peaks they went slightly downwards as well. This world was messing with my mind, I was certain.

I had thought about finding some strong orks to assassinate for levels but I decided to get some distance first. The ritual and now barren plot of land could set them on high alert. Roguk had said there were lots of tribes in these mountains, I would be able to find a target soon enough.

It took one night to reach a connection with another valley. Rivers flowed together and formed a wide stream going down even further south. Where they met, a veritable town stood. This place had a lot more buildings than anywhere I had been before in this new life. In the centre, there were even a few multi-storey buildings. From up high I saw a large house with an atrium in the middle. Someone had placed pedestals and candles in a symmetrical circle around a central structure. This was another pedestal surrounded by four inwardly bent pillars. Where the tips of the pillars almost met a cube of stone floated, its sides inscribed with runic symbols too detailed to make out from my height. This had to be some sort of ritual site. I decided to check it out in daylight, maybe I could see how the orks did magic.

Up the new valley, I spotted a few spots of light, more villages if I had to guess. Downstream there were even more. I decided to look for a spot nearby to rest. A crevice in the mountains would do. As long as I had a bit of space to stash some food I would be able to look for targets nearby.

A small distance below the treeline I found a suitable place. Only it was already occupied. The cave led a few metres into the wall and was two metres tall and one metre wide at its entrance. Within the darkness, a shape sat. Slow breathing sounds and rising and falling skin signalled it was asleep. The moonlight fell on feathers and the remains of animals scattered near the entrance but failed to properly reach into the lair. It seemed there was another bird of prey here calling this area its territory. It was diurnal apparently, but that would be a problem since I wanted to investigate the town’s activities during the daytime.

I decided to kill it. It would make life a lot easier for me. But I wanted to try something first. [Identify] it, trying not to wake it up. I snuck up on its position. [Owl’s Shadow] helped dampen the tiny muffles my feet made on the ground. I lifted a talon and held it right above my target’s neck. On the slightest twitch, I would kill it. I prepared mentally. [Sneak] overlaid on [Identify]. I also had darkness mana, which I willed to hide my Skill. Then I activated it.

[Identify]

Species: Sharp-Shinned Hawk (mature)

Name: -

Gender: male

As the information came up in my vision, the bird’s head twitched. Immediately I brought down my talon. A failure again?

~ding~ [Assassin] reached level 26. 1 Attribute Point awarded.

Or not. The hawk had clearly reacted to my Skill but I still gained experience for Assassin. It had to have helped at least a little. I invested my Attribute Point into Intelligence immediately and saw [Identify] had levelled up as well. Quite fruitful for a single kill. If everything continued to be this easy I would have to find a hobby very soon or I might just end up running out of targets.