I was not really conducting research here, I was aware of that. There was at best a hypothesis and a simple experiment. I was not writing down anything. I did not need to, however, not for my own body. My own magic and my Skills were much more intuitive than the more detailed workings of reality and magic as a whole. I could get a working result much quicker thanks to that. Now, before testing, if water would still hinder me while shifted, I wanted to try something else. I had changed the influence ordo vis had on my body earlier when taking off so could I do the same with my other aspects?

I returned to my hideout. It was probably better to be in a safe space for this. Currently, there was ordo, metallum and vitreus mana in my body. The three had formed a construct with some sort of natural balance. A metal body with crystal feathers and fine wireframes holding them in place. Everything was set into an orderly pattern, even my feathers looked like polished gems made by a master artisan. Maybe I should try posing as an expensive statue one day? A thought for another time…

Before, my displeasure with the sounds my wings made had driven the order mana to reshape the structure of my feathers to make them more pleasing. Now, I had another idea. I wanted to reverse the metal and glass parts of my body. I imagined feathers of steel and brass connected to a crystalline body. The mana reacted to my will. It was very slow, most of the changes immediately returning to how they were before. The order mana wanted to keep my body as it was. So I isolated it and formed a new image of my body to impress it as a new order of my form. All of a sudden my body had changed. Now, I had metal feathers, just as I wanted. I took a look at my chest. My down feathers were thin enough to be nearly transparent and below I found a body fully made of glass. I could see refractions where my organs should be, the light not going straight through because of the empty space. It was constantly moving as I was breathing creating a sparkly play of moonlight.

Once more, I took off. My theory was confirmed, I could change how the aspects formed my body. Presumably using ordo let me make a stable shape of two other aspects. I still remembered vividly my eldritch form, constantly flaking off dark fluffs of energy. I wondered what would happen if I used the aspect of time to make a body? I had used it for my storage space successfully already. As soon as I felt for it, I found there to be nothing within my soul. It was only part of my Skill. Closer than an aspect I had no connection to, like water, but still not easily usable. Hopefully increasing my magic Attributes would help with that.

As I soared through the skies, my body started to feel weird. There was a pull from my wings shifting my form. Slowly at first, a crumbling sound reached my ears. A cricking and cracking from glass breaking. The pull got stronger and with a quick series of cracks, I felt myself fall apart. One wing dropped off to the right, one to the left, both having about half of my body attached. For a moment my vision was split then it shifted back to where I was before, my wings normal feathers again. I looked down. The two halves of my body fell below me. A shudder went up my spine. That was an entirely strange sensation. It looked like my adjustments had destabilized my form. Glass could not hold the weight of metal. Checking on my mana, I saw I had lost the amount It would normally take to go back to my real form manually. Restoring myself using this method was not feasible, it seemed. I wondered what would happen if I had not enough mana to return? I should just keep enough. I did not want to test my luck.

After returning to my nest I shifted once more. Again, into my metal form. The stabilized one, not the new one. It was time to test what water would do to me like this. After shifting, I had about a quarter of my mana left. It was time to restore some. Luckily, I was prepared. I devoured the rocks and plants with my dimensional stomach, turning them directly into mana. It was not too efficient, probably because the objects I was eating held primarily aspects I did not use myself. I still managed to fill my reserves to about fifty percent.

That done, I took off once more. The rivulet nearby was perfect. It was maybe a dozen centimetres deep at most and even though the flow was somewhat quick, it was not a large amount of water. There was no chance of it unbalancing me. I landed right in the middle, wings spread. This was my territory now, a bit of water would not stop me anymore! After hesitating for a moment, I dipped the tips of my wings into the water. It flowed around my crystal feathers giving back a soft sensation of movement. There was not cold or wet feeling, no additional weight. Dropping them further, it did not change. The water simply flowed around my feather. The was a soft clinking, dampened from being submerged, but that was it. I let my whole body drop. The stream split around me, some water going through my plumage, most moving around. Flapping my wings, I sprayed droplets of water everywhere. Finally, I could take a bath! Only, washing my shifted form did nothing for my real body's hygiene. That did not stop me from enjoying myself.

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I splashed and floundered about happily. Metallic hoots and clangs sounded out through the nightly forest. If someone had walked up on me right there, I might have merged into the ground in embarrassment. But I was all alone in the wilderness. I did not care what the wild animals were thinking about me. They were not sapient.

A while later I stepped onto the shore. My wings clinked as I shook off the worst of the water before I took off once more. There were no issues! I could just fly, even though I had taken a bath and my wings were still dripping. I let out a melody of enjoyment. My metal throat moved easily to accommodate my notes, shifting along with my will. It was only a short motif I had heard once in a video game somewhere. I vaguely remembered it had something to do with a metal bird as well, though it was not an owl.

After my amusement had calmed down, I realized there would probably be no interesting prey nearby after I made so much noise. I spent the rest of the night scouting out the nearby area, looking for tracks and hiding places. There were some spots where I should be able to catch a quick snack but nothing near my roost seemed to house a possible challenge, which I counted as a positive. I did not want to wake up to something trying to eat me. Although roosting let me pay a lot more attention to my surroundings compared to actual sleep which I had only experienced after overcharging on mana or getting knocked out. All in all, I felt reasonably safe.

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I spent the next two nights flying wider circles to get a better feel for the ecosystem. There seemed to be a few larger predators out and about, judging from tracks and especially the occasional skeleton chewed off cleanly. Though at night I only spotted a few larger movements here and there. It seemed some cat-like animal or monster was hunting along the river. It got scarily close to my roost, but it was nocturnal, just like me, so I was not bothered by it. It also looked to be rather small compared to my memories of big cats. Even a panther or a jaguar should be larger. I could definitely take it on, especially with all my magic tricks.

What I was really looking for though, were the larger predators. I was expecting wolves or maybe a bear. Possibly foxes or something less temperate like lions or tigers. I had not seen anything the likes during the night so they probably had a hideout somewhere. I decided to try my tracking skills once I found a fresh corpse.

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It was the third night and I had just located a body of mostly gnawed off bones. There were however still a few pieces of meat and the blood was not fully dried. Flies and maggots were indulging in this feast and I snacked on a few while looking for the hunter’s tracks. It did not take long to find a trace of something being dragged through the underbrush. It looked like a small but heavy body had trailed along the plants, taking steps here and there while dragging something long after itself. I was a little bit confused since the trail was too small to belong to the body behind me. Nevertheless, I decided to follow it. There was nothing else that looked to possibly belong to a carnivore able to hunt something this large.

Since there was only the one trail, I deduced the hunter had taken the same path to its prey as it had when leaving. That was quickly confirmed when I found ferns and grass pushed in two directions along the tracks and footsteps pointing both ways. Whatever I was chasing definitely had clawed feet, similar to my own but with more meat on them. I also spotted whatever it was dragging along went with both ways. It split off into a double trail quite often in an irregular pattern.

I carefully made my way along the tracks. After about half an hour of walking, I found them splitting. One of them came up from the river and went straight to where I had come from while the other went up into the hills. The way up was clearly the more recent. The grass was bent in very obvious ways, letting me know where to go. I was still careful, making sure to use [Sneak] to hide my steps and any sounds coming from the plants I disturbed with my passing.

Soon, I came upon my goal. There was a hole in the hillside just a little bit higher than I was tall. I picked up earth, poison and water mana from deep within and more importantly, soft breathing. I had found the resting spot of this predator. Now it was time to find out what it was.