I took a deep breath and focused on erasing my presence, I refrained from touching my cosmic mana as the whole point was for me to train my new earth affinity. Glancing at the obsidian monster feasting on the corpse of what looked like an oversized deer, I slowly made my way around it closing the distance between us.
My range of attacks using earth mana was decent though the farther away from my target the lower my fire point, hence why it was best to close the distance before attacking especially now with my current low affinity.
I reached out to the Earth elements as they slowly encompassed me, helping me further hide my presence. The mountainous terrain was to my advantage, as the Earth mana was abundant, hence why it was relatively easy to fool the monster's senses.
One step, two steps, three steps, I silently crept behind the monster using the various rocks along the way to hide my massive form. The tainted dark monster was relatively large as well, with a figure similar to that of a tiger.
Where its eyes should have been, were two fiery blue orbs crackling madly as it devoured its prey. I did not feel any sense of reason from the monster as it continued to enjoy its meal. The repulsive sensation its body gave off was the same as that of the countless tainted monsters in this mountain range.
Thinking about that, my mind fell into deep thought as I recalled the memory I saw back in the destroyed ancient city. The descent of the Shades, the army of Dragons, and the dark mist that corrupted the mortals and animals that used to live there.
'Perhaps this monster was one of the victims of that time,' I inwardly mumbled as my mind moved into such useless thoughts.
Shaking my head, I took a silent deep breath to calm my emotions and get myself to focus back on the hunt, I slowly moved away from my hiding spot behind a giant rock and moved towards another, my vision of the monster was now hindered, still, I was calm.
'Good, just like that,' I silently encouraged myself before I readied my body to move out from behind my cover.
The second I did, however, my eyes widened, and my body froze. Two fiery blue orbs were staring at me with madness hidden behind them, I panicked and subconsciously reached out to my cosmic mana.
The mutated tiger instantly lost its head and plopped to the ground with a loud thud. My heart was still racing in my chest from that sudden jumpscare as I begrudgingly kicked the monster's corpse with my tail sending it flying a distance away.
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"Fuck," I cursed before taking another deep breath to calm myself. Another failure, training my Earth mana was more complicated than I had anticipated. The reason for it was simple, my low affinity towards it makes my body's first reaction when encountering danger is to use my strongest or easiest to access affinity, which means I end up using Cosmic or Water mana and neglecting Earth mana.
This throws me in a vicious cycle where I hardly ever make any progress in training my Earth affinity. I grumbled as I threw the decapitated corpse one final look before I took to the skies to search for my next practice target.
I still did not go back to the floating mountain even after I decided on my plan. It still wasn't time to go through with it. Firstly, I was still too young and still lacked experience, one of the reasons my first hit on the humans went so smoothly was the fact that it was a surprise attack they didn't anticipate and I also didn't give them any time to react.
Now, however, the entire continent was on guard against me, so It wasn't very smart to show my face there at the moment. Who knows what sort of hidden trump cards the humans may have, I already learned my lesson to not underestimate an opponent so I wasn't going to act stupid and dive in headfirst.
This brought me back to my current dilemma, the entire reason for me to train my Earth mana was to have another card to play at hand. Though I had to admit, things were not going as planned, Earth mana was also more stubborn and harder to control for me.
As I circled the mountain range, I subconsciously glanced at the sun that began to set. A sigh escaped my mouth as I turned back towards our floating mountain. I was no fool to think I could fight the tainted monster that lurks here after dark.
The scene of my mother taking us home for the first time, as the countless monsters crawled out of the mountain crevices still brings a chill down my spine. Mother may have handled them easily, but that did not mean I could do the same, who knew what sort of monsters hid there.
Hence why I did not want to push my luck and decided to head back. "Now that I think about it, I can ask Ynos to teach me how to control the Earth element, I'm sure he wouldn't mind," I mumbled as a smile made its way across my face.
By the time I reached home, the sun was hiding on the horizon dyeing the sky orange. Essie was nowhere to be seen, so I guessed she must have already gone back to the cave, Immy wasn't by the entrance either It was surprisingly Sidus who was standing there staring at the horizon with a lost look.
I landed next to him, as he turned around to glance at me. "Brother," He called out to me with a nod, I nodded back and replied. "Where's Ynos?", hearing my question, Sidus motioned towards the edge of the mountain as spoke.
"He should be coming back any time soon,"
"He went out for a hunt?" I asked.
A weird expression made its way to Sidus' face as replied, "No-" He couldn't finish speaking as Ynos's figure appeared flying towards us like an arrow.
Boom
He landed with a loud boom causing debris to rise as a small crater formed, glancing at his palm I instantly understood what Sidus' expression meant. There clasped in his hand was two dead fairies.
'Ah, I almost forgot about his habit,' I inwardly noted with a shake of my head.