This damn kitty was invisible! I could not find any clues about its den. Nor could I spot its movements as I was scanning the forest from the night sky. It was almost as if it disappeared. Was its [Sneak] an even higher level than mine? Or was my perception just too low?

I had observed the forest both day and night looking for movements of the small predator. Whenever leaves rustled I took a closer look but never found what I was looking for. By now I could almost say for certain the spots where the forest was disturbed would be where I would not find the cat. It was simply too stealthy. That meant I basically had to hope it made a mistake. The area to search was simply too large and with both of us on the move, I had to have insane luck to just run into it. That said, its den should be one location. So I decided to look for that instead.

I had started to follow some of the other predators and even the herbivores to look for their resting spots. That could give me a map and finding empty spots on there had a good chance of running into the ocelot’s den. This was what I currently attempted. But it was difficult. With the monitor lizard, I knew where its den was so at least one empty spot was already covered. The mountain lion though, I had no idea. It had to have a resting spot somewhere, and it was likely to be not close to the ocelot but I did not know where.

Additionally, the power vacuum of two major predators missing from the area had thrown the interactions into chaos. Animals were moving into new places as their noses no longer picked up the scents of their hunters. If only my nose was capable of something like that. I could have found the ocelot’s scent and gone to where it was strongest. But such was not my luck. Or rather, my skill. At least I was able to scan larger areas from the air.

There had to be a better way to go about it. One taking advantage of my strengths. My flight, my vision and my hearing were the best tools for searching. There had to be a way to find the cat with those. My ability to sense mana was also useful but much smaller range. Then I realized, I had to just look for when it was hunting. The cat was a predator, it had to eat. When it hunted at least a little struggle would be unavoidable. I could hear or see that struggle from the air and then get close to feel for the ocelot’s magic. It was using water and poison mana. Those were distinct enough.

It took another few nights for me to learn the sounds of struggle the nightly forest made. Soon I could deduce if a snake had caught a rodent or a bird was trying to eat a slightly too large beetle just from the sounds reaching me up in the sky. However, not once had I ran into the ocelot during its hunt. There had to be something more to it.

On the third night, I finally spotted something off. Something that had no place in natural wildlife. Something that required sapience. A trap. Someone had deliberately placed a rock with a sharpened edge on top of a few sticks right in front of some earth dwelling rodent’s den. Said rodent, a marten as [Identify] told me, had shoved the sticks aside to leave its home and was cut by the sharpened edge of the rock. And now it was bleeding green blood and squealing in pain.

[Identify]

Species: Burrow Marten (mature)

Age: 4

Name: -

Gender: male

Level: 22

Interestingly, the animal was four years old and only two levels higher than me. I had been wondering why my race level was so low but was it actually high for my age? The most probable cause were my Skill Breakthroughs. Those had given me a lot of experience and were only really possible due to my mana enrichment.

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As I watched the animal slowly wind down and soon breathe its last breath, I was confident this was the ocelot’s doing. It was the only one living nearby with enough intelligence to set traps and using poison. That was maybe a wrong assumption but even without seeing another sapient in the forest, I was pretty sure the two of us were the only ones. The dwarves for all their weapons and craftiness never stepped off their roads and only a few dared to explore the edges of the forest. That much I had seen in the last few days of exploration.

This meant the ocelot would come to check on its trap soon and I could hopefully follow it to its den. That would be wonderful.

I decided to hide as best I could. The night was still young. The cat should check on this place at some point and I had all the patience in the world. I picked a branch high in the trees just barely letting me see the dead prey. From there I activated [Sneak] and positioned myself to be as difficult to spot as possible. I decided not to use [Owl’s Shadow] too much since a too dark spot would give my position away instantly. I still filled a few places with dark clouds, not fully black but enough to hide my form and seem just like flitting shadows in the moonlight.

Then I waited. For hours I sat still and unmoving, the textbook example of an ambush predator only lacking the will to kill my target. Animals moved through the night around me and along the ground, not one spotting my presence. They sniffed the marten’s body from time to time but quickly took their distance. The poison seemed to be turning them away. What a smart trap. It did not even risk the prey being taken by an opportunist.

Finally, my patience was rewarded. A familiar feline stepped out of the underbrush after the corpse had been undisturbed for a while and carefully smelled the area. Its ears swivelled left and right as its eyes searched for threats within the foliage. I eluded its senses as if I had never been here. Or so I thought when the ocelot perked up and smelled the air more carefully. Its eyes narrowed and it searched the branches above once more. I had forgotten to hide my smell when I approached the body and that was enough for the cat to know I had been there and pay extra attention to hiding spots above its head.

It searched around carefully, circling the dead marten three times until it stared almost directly at my hiding spot. But I held still. I knew the cat’s nose was able to spot the direction I had gone but I was convinced my camouflage was perfect. I was near invisible. And it paid off. The ocelot went back to its prey after a minute of staring into the leaves and dragged it into a more secured spot beneath a fern. Now, the difficult part started. I had to keep hidden but also keep up. It would be very easy to lose the ocelot in the wild greenery and make me restart my search once more.

I made sure [Sneak] was still active and poured some more focus into it. I really wanted to be as stealthy as I could. The biggest issue would be anything I moved past making sounds as soon as I no longer touched it. So I took it slow. Single steps brought me into position to drop down between a gnarled root and a few hanging vines. I landed silently. The branch I left made no sound either. So far so good. The place I chose to drop down was out of sight of the ocelot’s hiding place so I had to move onwards. More careful steps brought me in sight a few moments later. I made sure to sneak a few silent shadow tendrils along the ground to change my position quickly.

As I eyed the cat’s hiding place, I once more had to wait. I hoped it did not leave the opposite direction of my position. That would make it much harder to keep up. As luck had it, that was exactly where it went. The ocelot slid away with quick steps and I quickly lifted my tendril, shifting forward in a flying motion to quickly take to the air. Silently, I accelerated and set to chase the feline. I had to dodge trees and vines as well as the occasional low hanging branch to keep up with the speedy cat. Most surprising about that was its seeming calmness. The ocelot was not hurrying and I still had trouble sticking close while flying.

That led to me finally making a mistake. I barely failed to dodge a branch and got caught in the leaves. Still, I was silent and my chase, hopefully, unnoticed. That said it was also over. I had lost my target at that same moment. I sighed deeply and took to the air. When I reached above the treetops, I scanned the surroundings once more. More specifically the place we had come from and the path we had taken. While waving back and forth, the ocelot had gone in one general direction. Extending the line, I spotted a place possibly its goal. The river flowing through the hills, or more specifically the little pond with a node above it I had found when arriving in the area.

I decided to take a closer look and circle above it. The node had primarily the aspects of water and destruction with a little bit of trap as a side. That was no poison but if I remembered correctly poison was the combination of water and destruction. This convinced me I had at least found the cat’s node. It should be using this place to draw mana and enrich its body. Which meant a den might be nearby. Now I only had to find it.