Deciding to leave the gigantic tree and find a base location, I started turning away to the forest but before I could fully turn around, in the far, far distance, I spotted a few snowy peaks which I assumed were the mountains from where this river was getting its water from.

Quickly noting them down, I turned around and started sweeping my gaze across the treeline, making sure that there were no predators sizing me up.

And after I was sure that the area was safe, I quickly bolted to the forest and started traversing it while occasionally turning around me to memorize the forest’s layout and leaving small markings on the bottom of the trees.

And today, I had 2 goals.

First one is to make a quick survey of the surrounding area and hopefully find a good base location that is neither too far away from the lake nor too close to it.

And my second goal is to find other groups of animals other than wolves and deer. Because if this place only has those as big animals, I just won’t have access to enough corpses to keep me alive and I’ll have to migrate to another area and lose valuable time that I could use to research the magical tree on charting new areas and finding new groups of animals.

Though, I’ll probably have to migrate eventually anyways… there just isn’t enough animals in a single part of the forest that can satisfy me for even a year! And if I am not careful, I might kill off too many animals, or steal the prey of too many predators, accidently fucking up the ecosystem. So, I’ll have to leave the areas I find early, every few weeks or maybe a month, and then go far enough to find new groups.

Silently lamenting my future which won’t be kind to my legs, I continued exploring the surrounding forest, but there was a tiny miny issue that I had not thought of before.

Forests are fucking huge.

And everything looks the fucking same!

For gods’ sake man! How am I supposed to memorize where is what if everywhere has the same generic ass looking trees?!

I mean, yeah, they are probably all not the same species, but I am not a nerd that can tell them apart now, am I?

*sigh*

“I wish I could just wave a magical wand and all my wishes would come true…” but sadly for me, I probably wasn’t rich enough to buy a wand like that, and neither did I have the knowledge to make a wand like that so… back to the drawing board!

Looking behind me, I approached the tree I had just marked and checked the mark I placed on it for visibility. It was weird and fresh enough for me to quickly see it, and I am sure Xs are not common in nature, so they are quite noticeable too!

But there is a slight problem with them, they are too low on the ground, so if I ever become bigger, I’ll have to re-mark these trees, but that can be left for later, now I need to find a way to memorize the forest’s layout.

Which is easier said than done.

I don’t have any magical skills I can call upon to improve my memory, nor do I have anything to make a map out of, but even if I could make a map, I’d run into the problem I talked about before, everything is the fucking same due to this place being, shockingly, a fucking forest.

“Argh! Should I just give up and return to the tree for now to think of some better plan?

… No, I can’t do that, I am pretty sure somethings resting on its shadow by now, only if I could get one of those wolf’s bodies or the vine deer’s, than I’d be confident in my ability to protect myself or scare away any predators…” then I started circling to focus better, why did I decide to do that you ask? I mean… to focus better?

But as I was circling, I noticed clear signs of wear and tear on my body and limbs, this body was still usable, yes, but I needed to get one tomorrow by the latest or I’d have some problems with my mana capacity.

I can only afford to lose so much mana per hour after all, after some point, travelling without a body would be just more economical.

But as I was circling and thinking about a better way to memorize or map the forest, and the need to get a new body soon, I noticed something weird to my left, away from the marked tree I was standing in front of, and as I focused on the weird tree, I realized that it wasn’t a tree at all!

It was just a gigantic bird that was giving me the side eye that seemed to be a mix of a terror bird and ostrich with long legs and coloured feathers, but it didn’t have any weird bald spots, and it resembled a tree with its mainly brown and green colouring scheme, but there was also a dash of other colours on its neck, tail, and other random spots on its body like red and purple, only weird part of its body was the yellowish-green beak it had.

It had a long beak that was notably not for nectar or nuts but for flesh instead, and wings that ended a bit after its main body and a tail that resembled that of a peacock… actually it’s a bit more… well its larger than a peacocks, but its still quite small for a bird of this size, lets say it had a medium sized tail that ended with a vast array of colours like red, purple, pink, yellow, etc. , and it was around a meter or so, so pretty gigantic for a bird.

And as I and the bird continued our staring contest, I thought to myself “It can’t be possibly stupid enough to consider me as food, right?! I mean, I must be fucking stinking of rot by now, anything that has any sense of smell would realize I am not something to be eaten.”

But the bird, being the dumb ass it is, started puffing up and turning its whole body to me, for some reason trying to appear even more threatening than it already was.

And as the bird showed clear signs of aggression towards me, I started thinking.

“Should I let it eat me and wait for it to die from an infection?” I mean, that was a plan but maybe not the best option as being left bodiless isn’t the most pleasant of experiences but what can I even do? I am not killing a meter long bird as a rabbit sized bug, I may be able to open a few wounds and make it bleed though…

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Then I quickly willed my mana counter to appear before me, just to determine what should I do.

Mana Points: 30/43

“Exactly 30 huh? I can work with that…” quickly starting to think while making threatening moves at the pocket-sized terror bird, I decided on a plan that was, admittedly, not much of a plan at all!

I was sure I couldn’t beat this demon, so I was going to make it bleed… and infect it because god knows that I am basically a Category A biological weapon at this point and I really wanted to be a terror bird, I mean how fucking cool is that?!

Though maybe this bird actually has a plan for killing me and surviving the diseases it acquires… then I just need to make it bleed as much as I can and make sure it dies from external infections before I get completely destroyed!

Deciding on a plan of action, that was to get the stupid bird so infected with diseases that it could start a global epidemic by its own, I decided to take the initiative and charged at the bug with as much strength as I could muster!

But the bird decided to not fight honourably and use its long feet with large talons to squish me, which was a bad idea as my goal was to make it bleed!

Moving some mana to my legs, I gave myself a small boost of speed which I used to penetrate the leg of the stupid bird and making it bleed!

…But to my dismay, even though I attacked one of its ‘weak’ spots with a penetrating attack, the only thing to happen was it letting out a short cry of surprise and retreat, without any visible damage on its leg!

I couldn’t even draw a bit of blood from it!

And as the bird now looked at me with a more dangerous gaze, I also looked at it and then at my mana counter.

Mana Points: 26/43

That small boost cost me around 4 mana, and I couldn’t even do anything to it…

Thinking more deeply about the situation I had found myself in, and after a bit more contemplation I decided to… leg it!

Quickly turning around and starting to run, I heard the surprized squeak of the bird and the sounds of its quickly approaching steps, but unluckily for it, I wasn’t running in a straight line and instead was zigzagging through the forest, dogging its attacks and also making sure I wasn’t hitting any trees or stumbling on any roots.

But the thing the stupid bird didn’t know was, I wasn’t stupid!

…Well, maybe to a degree… but that-that’s not the point!

The point is, I had a plan, and that plan would surely result in—maybe result in me getting some new drip in the shape of an oversized bird by the end of the day!

Putting my memory to overdrive, I started looking for the marked trees around the forest, and soon enough, I started seeing them even though it had been a hot few minutes since I had left them!

And thanks to the optimization of my soul, I could run for an hour without worrying about kneeling over and dying! So, I had ample time to plot my plan, and succeed it!

If I couldn’t damage the bird’s legs… I’d make it bring rest of its body to the ground!

And it wasn’t fair that it was protecting its legs with some magical feather bullshit anyways, I’ll make it understand the ways of an honourable warrior by putting it straight into its head!

Quickly dogging and weaving out of the way of its attacks, I started running in a straight line while putting a few mana points into my legs, which wasn’t a good way to conserve mana but was a necessary sacrifice!

And as the bird squeak in anger and started getting more furious, I suddenly took a turn to the right, letting the bird crash into a tree it hadn’t realized was there.

While I watched the bird that was dazzled, I enjoyed its confusion for a moment and then started making sounds with my mandibles, quickly catching its attention.

And after focusing on me on again, the bird made another sound that sounded more like a cry of war instead of its normal bird noises and started dashing at me and not being an idiot I, of course, started running for my life trying a few more times to make it hit into trees but to no avail.

I could even hear the bird making sounds of delight, probably enjoying thinking that I was out of tricks, and I would be his soon, the poor bird… it must’ve gotten a worse concussion than I initially thought… but no need to worry my friend, your pain will end in approximately… 10 minutes or so.

Then I did another sharp turn, but this time instead of barely avoiding a collision with a tree, I ran under a large root, and the bird being more careful this time, jumped over it, successfully managing not to stumble on a root and fall to the ground.

But sadly, for it, that was not the last time I did that. I took many sharp turns sometimes going under roots or through small shrubs or avoiding collision with trees and if I ever thought the bird was about to lose interest, I’d slow myself down at let it catch up to me, making it regain its interest.

But after a few minutes of this chase, I suddenly made another sharp turn and went under a root and the bird, thinking it was just one of my tricks, quickly made a sharp turn of its own and jumped over the root, staying in the air for a few moments, landing and then starting to sprint again, but this time its talons struck something, and it stumbled onto a weird bush, and before it hit its head into the shrub, it saw me stopping after a charge with a nearly destroyed horn, making eye contact with it.

After landing on the weird shrub, it tried to get up, but to no avail. The thorns of the bush were sticking to its feathers and limbs, the more it tried to move, the more they stuck and become harder to escape from.

If it was a bit calmer, it may have been able to escape the thorny bush, but alas, due to its immense rage at the bug that was taunting it and caused it to run face first into a tree, the bird was absolutely brimming with hatred.

“Hoooh… that was closer than I thought… and my memory was greater than I thought too!” with a sigh of relief at being able to best the magical bird somehow, I stared at it and took in the sight of my handy work.

I had seen this large patch of thorny bushes while exploring the forest, but had not thought much about it, and neither did I know if it was poisonous or not, I had just hoped that the stupid bird would get stuck in it, which it did!

But you might be asking ‘William, why did you do this stupid hail mary instead of focusing on escaping? What would’ve happened if you failed, and you died? Weren’t you trying to not go to the shadow realm once more? What happened to your conviction?’ and to that I would say was… I was just planning on dying originally.

While I am sure I wouldn’t have been able to kill this bird normal, I am sure I would’ve killed it after it ate me, the only thing I’d need to do would be to stop bind, and just stick around the bird until it died of food poisoning, or just act like dead and let it come near me and attack its eyes or something.

So, even if I died, me actually dying, as in my soul going kaboom, just wasn’t a possibility, and to prove that I’ll show you my mana counter.

Mana Points: 14/43

A perfect 14! Probably more like a 14.90 or something like that, but there is no need to think about it because I really need to go in and kill it now, it already fucked up my horn, so I need to take revenge now, don’t I?

Then I started creeping up at the face of the bird and saw the hatred and anger in its eyes and for some reason, it hadn’t given up.

“…The will to live in even the wildest beast is something to behold huh?” deciding to quickly end its life with horn charge into one of its eyes, like a respectful warrior, I got to work.

There was a moment of contemplation when I realized I actually needed that eye but then I thought about the other options and… let’s just say I am not going to go around saying I penetrated a bird’s ass, okay?

Quickly ending the bird’s suffering, I started cutting the thorns that were holding it down, and then came to a realization after I was done.

“Wait a second… why didn’t I get a system window saying that I killed it?” after looking at the bird once more and making sure it was dead, I started to think why, but before long I heard the reason.

*Awoooooo*

“A… fuck, I forgot about the wolves….”