The butterfly came out of his feeding trance only to discover that he had consumed almost everything and settled himself on a tree branch after doing so.

His trance must have bled into torpor.

Aside from flecks of dried blood that he had to kick off his feet, little visual sign remained that he had killed and eaten the eagle-owl and consumed its prey, the pine marten. The animals were reduced to bits of feathers and fur respectively, held together by a thin layer of mostly-intact skin.

It looked like another crime scene.

It’s a little weird that I don’t remember moving from the ground to the tree. He dimly recalled the taste of the liquefied pine marten—a gamey flavor that reminded him of eating venison back when he was a dragon—and that of the eagle-owl, which was a mixture of a turkey-like taste and that same sort of gamey, wild flavor that Adon had experienced with the pine marten.

Now the local ants were crawling over the hollowed out husks of the pine marten and eagle-owl, trying to salvage whatever meager portions of flesh Adon had not already eaten.

His Simple Eyes detected the sunlight that was beginning to peek over the mountaintop without Adon needing to look up. In his mind, it seemed like only minutes ago that he had killed the eagle-owl.

But his body showed the truth of the hours that had passed.

He had begun to tire by the time he finally found the way to cut the eagle-owl down to size. Now he felt physically refreshed.

Psychologically, it was more complicated. Once again, Adon found himself near what felt like a crime scene. He had committed another brutal murder—though thanks to everything the eagle-owl had done to the pine marten, it looked like two murders—and he hadn’t properly cleaned up the bodies.

At least I didn’t waste much meat, he thought grimly. The eagle-owl had been reduced to a pile of feathers and feet, while there was nothing left of the pine marten but a fine pelt. He considered whether he might take the fur back for Rosslyn, but then shook his head at the idea. It was a heavy burden that would make his trip back either impossible or interminably long, and the interior was probably still covered in the acid that had dissolved the pine marten’s insides. Kind of a gross present.

Adon turned to look more carefully at the rays of light the rising sun emanated from behind the mountain. It was hard for him to judge what precise time of morning it was. He had certainly rested longer than he had intended to, though. He had hoped to catch the eagle at first light.

The early bird got the worm, after all. Or vice versa.

I have to hope the eagle isn’t an early riser, he thought. Otherwise I might not see it come back to the nest until the end of the day again. I would have a whole wasted day behind me. And at some point, Goldie, Rosslyn, and Samson will start wondering what happened to me and where I am.

If he took too long out here, trying to kill the Golden Eagle, Adon would feel obliged to go back home, just so that people would not have to worry about him.

That’s funny. In my last life, I never had any amazingly strong attachments or friendships. Even my relationships with my family were resentful. His mind jumped to Samson. Maybe more so than was reasonable. But after a month of living in this world, I already feel like I have a home. I’m basically a tourist, with my level of knowledge about Claustria, but it feels like the place where I belong.

He wondered if he was being silly. But in his hundreds of past lives, he had never experienced the sensation of feeling that it was wrong to want or to feel attached to a home. So maybe this wasn’t silly. Maybe it was just natural. Whether human or animal nature did not seem to matter. Adon contained both.

Well, whatever. Let’s go find the eagle before it dies of old age.

Adon flapped his wings once, twice, three times. He got lucky and found a breeze, then floated up into the sky.

Up in the air, he received the sunlight more directly, and his body positively crackled with the extra energy that it brought him. Every muscle felt stronger, every joint more supple, through contact with direct sunlight.

Adon allowed himself to float higher, above the altitude that he knew the Golden Eagle nested at, to soak up more of the delicious warmth. He slowly glided over to where the Golden Eagle’s rocky home stood. In the daylight, it was easier to see the crag in the mountainside where the great bird had roosted the previous evening.

The place was still somewhat camouflaged by the fact that it was a rocky opening disguised behind other jutting rocks. But it was less hidden than it had been in the near darkness—and no amount of camouflage could have fooled Adon’s Impeccable Memory about where he had seen the eagle rest for the evening.

Adon turned his body invisible and allowed himself to waft in the air, almost one with the wind, shifting from one air current to another to remain in a stasis-like position relative to the eyrie, as he waited hopefully for the eagle to emerge.

He had only been floating on the breeze for around a quarter of an hour when he felt, rather than saw, as the eagle drew near. No shadow fell over him, and no sound rang through the air to announce its presence. It took him a moment to realize what it was that had set him on alert, and in that moment, the massive bird whizzed by him like a rocket.

The Golden Eagle slowed as it reached the rocky entrance to its nest, and Adon was able to see that it clutched a dead and bloodied hare in its claws. Then the bird tucked its head and dipped into what must have been a fairly tight entrance, with immaculate grace. Only a single light brown feather, dislodged as it entered, floated up on the breeze as if meant to serve as a reminder that the eagle had been there.

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What was that feeling? Adon wondered. How did I know it was there? How in the world is it so fast, even when it’s throwing itself into such a tight space? How does it have such control of its momentum?

The Golden Eagle made the Brown Eagle-Owl look like a slow and clumsy flier by comparison. Its movements seemed impossibly swift and precise, and it had slowed down with hardly any perceptible motion to do so as it seemed almost certain to crash into the mountain.

Adon did not know how he would catch something like this mighty bird of prey.

Think back to the eagle-owl, then, he told himself. It had some kind of supernatural seeming ability, too. It was definitely something to do with the wind. The eagle-owl could dodge whenever I got near the wind that touched its body. Maybe the eagle itself can control the wind or something. At least the currents that touch its body.

That sort of ability seemed to promise that Adon would never be able to reach the eagle’s body. But hopefully it was a more active power than the eagle-owl’s extrasensory perception via the wind. If the eagle had to consciously use that power, then a sneak attack might succeed—assuming that Adon could catch up to the speedy bird.

How do I do this?

It seemed he might have some time to think, as the Golden Eagle remained in its nest and had entered with freshly caught food.

First thing, if I know I might have a hard time getting close to it, I need to see about getting that Telekinesis I Adaptation. I ate the eagle-owl and the pine marten yesterday. Maybe I can afford it now… It seems like an ideal power for a long range fight. With that and my spines, I should be able to land some kind of attack on the eagle even if it’s too fast for me to tag with my natural flight speed. I hope.

Adon had not reviewed his options in the Evolution Store since waking up; he had been too excited about hunting the Golden Eagle. So he was glad to open up the store and look through the Adaptations again.

He was pleasantly surprised to find that a number of options that had been unavailable last time he checked were now within reach—including Telekinesis I, which would cost 1000 Evolution Points.

Adon now possessed 1628 Evolution Points, though it was impossible for him to know how much he had obtained from the bee-eaters, pine marten, and eagle-owl he had eaten respectively. All he was certain of was that by his rough math, he had just obtained a month’s worth of the Evolution Points he could secure from living in the palace, in just a couple of days.

All that without actually securing the main prey I’ve been chasing, he thought. Most of it is probably from the eagle-owl. That was a big challenge.

He looked through a number of other options—Size Enhancement I was now available for 200 Evolution Points, Sleep Spores I was available for 500 Evolution Points, Paralytic Venom Spores I was available for 900 Evolution Points, and Amnesic Venom Spores I was available for 1000 Evolution Points. Interestingly, Transformation II remained out of reach.

Implying that the Transformation I Adaptation that my Evolution gave me was somewhere over 800 Evolution Points in value, Adon noted.

He wondered how many points he would need if he wanted to upgrade to Transformation II. But it was a question for another time.

Although the Evolution Store was as fun to explore as it always was when he actually had Evolution Points to spend, Adon knew he wanted what he had already wanted.

And he needed to get it before the eagle came out and escaped him again.

He spent 1000 Evolution Points to acquire Telekinesis I, and then he wafted on the wind as he waited to endure the pain of the new Adaptation.

He waited, keeping his eye on the sole apparent entrance—and hopefully only exit—to the eyrie.

And waited.

Waited a bit longer.

Just at the moment when he wondered if the Adaptation was going to take effect or if he had somehow forgotten to check out from the Evolution Store, he felt a sharp pain inside his head—which vanished almost as suddenly as it had made itself known.

Wait, was that it?

Perhaps his butterfly brain was more malleable than his caterpillar brain had been. His body did have strange transformative properties. Or it was simply easier for him to acquire Telekinesis I, because he had already had significant modifications made to his brain when he acquired the Telepathy ladder of Adaptations.

It was hard to trust that it was really that easy.

Aren’t I supposed to be in excruciating pain right now? he questioned skeptically.

There was only one way to know.

Adon reached out with his mind, going off sheer instinct and nothing more. He imagined himself reaching out with a non-physical hand and plucking up one of the rocks that stood at the entrance to the eyrie.

As his mental grip on the rock tightened, he felt a strain.

He pulled with all his mental might.

And nothing.

The rock didn’t budge.

Maybe I’m doing this wrong…

He imagined himself exerting a lot of force to move the rock.

No motion resulted.

Nope.

He realized he might have moved himself slightly, rather than the object he was trying to lift.

But it was impossible to be sure, since as he used this power, he was wafting in the wind.

Adon opened the Evolution Store again and confirmed that he was now down to 628 Evolution Points and that Telekinesis II was the new, grayed out option. He had indeed purchased Telekinesis I.

As if there was ever any doubt, he thought. Maybe it was just too weak to do much. He thought of the fact that Rosslyn had mentioned that her own Telekinesis was not particularly strong.

He looked down and tried to check if the rock he had been trying to move was actually just a rock, or if it was fixed in place, a part of the mountain.

Just then, a flicker of brown distracted his eye.

That feather. It was still floating in the air, blown up and down and back and forth on the wild winds that whipped around the mountainside.

Adon had hardly noticed it was still there before, as caught up as he was in his plans and trying to feel out his new power.

He reached out with his mind and tried to grab the feather.

He imagined the invisible hand forming a tight grip on it.

And the long brown sliver stopped dead in midair.