Thalion had traveled all night until he arrived at the mountain. The thing made the biggest mountains of Earth look like a child in comparison.

The first was easily over ten kilometers high, and he already had spotted a griffin enterering his den with its prey between its claws. The beast was powerful at early level 40. It had the beak and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. The tail ended in one big spike. All of its feathers were brown, and its eyes glowed with a dark red.

Thalion was contemplating if he would be strong enough to fight the beast. Anyway, he needed to act fast. Nobody knew how long Kael and the others could hold on.

There were also a number of birds living on the mountain, but clearly under the griffin. They came in different sizes and colors. Some birds looked like they were made of fire, others sparked electricity coursing through their feathers.

All the birds were around level 35 and looked strong in their own right, so Thalion would go for them, but he needed to observe them for a bit longer. He wondered where they flew off to hunt.

The griffin was mostly seen hunting on the grassland that surrounded the rivers, but the other birds were very rarely seen, most of the species he had never seen before.

After watching for a bit, he noticed that most birds were just flying straight into the air. It seemed they were only resting here.

Thalion couldn't see the peak of the mountain because the dense clouds were obscuring his vision, but all the birds that were flying up were making a wide arc around the griffin's cave and the peak of the mountain.

He contemplated following them in his mist form but decided against it. They were a higher level than him and also often hunted in groups. This situation could turn very quickly. The speed of the birds was also inspiring. They shot into the sky with the speed of a rocket and disappeared into the clouds.

As most birds had disappeared into the sky, he made his move. Still in the form of the umbral predator, he sneaked up the mountain to the first birds who were still resting on the trees. They were normal eagles without any special attributes at level 33.

Thalion could sneak up on the eagle until he was in striking distance, and with a quick jump and a slice of his claws, the eagle died. The eagle didn't even have a chance.

All the other birds flew into the air in panic after seeing him kill the bird and disappeared soon after into the clouds above.

This had gone better than expected. He thought that they might attack him. Instead, they all ran away.

Thalion quickly took the form of the eagle, and it was nothing special.

Status:

Name: Thalion Walker

Age 30

Wingspan 2.10 Meters

Level 33

Race: Uncommon Wind Eagle (F)

Health Points: 450/450

Mana Points: 210/210

Stamina: 1763/1800

Expience points 7.602/9.090

Stats:

Strength: 60

Agility: 210

Endurance: 180

Intelligence: 18

Wisdom: 13

Dexterity: 8

Perception: 150

Toughness: 6

Vitality: 45

Fate: 6

Skills:

Acquire form (Exalted), Shapeshift (Exalted), Identify (Common), Echoes of Worlds (Common), Gust Beak (Common), Feather Glide (Uncommon), Whirlwind (Common)

Titles:

none

Form:

Umbral Predator (Mythic) Level 33

Human (Exalted) Level 33

Bloodline:

none

This form was not strong at all. Thalion was even afraid that he could die with a single surprise attack. It would be ironic if he died in the form of the eagle by one sneak attack after he had just slain it the same way. But he had no choice now. All the birds on this mountain had risen into the air, and he didn't want to spend hours traveling to the other mountains and searching there for a better species.

The skills the eagle had, however, were not promising. gust beak didn’t do much damage, and whirlwind was just for slowing others down, not dealing any damage at all. Feather glide was the only good spell, which sped the eagle up significantly.

There was nothing he could do about it, and with a beat of his wings, he was shooting into the air.

The speed at which the eagle could travel was impressive, and it was even faster than the umbral predator, but it was to be expected that a beast fully built on speed would be fast.

Thalion thought about how easy it was to fly. Before reaching the layer of clouds, he spun around and tried some maneuvers; flying was just so much fun.

He must have inherited some of the eagle’s memories for this to be possible, or it was pure instinct. Anyway, Thalion loved it. This might be even better than surfing.

When he approached the cloud, he transformed into his human form and used Mist Form to dive into the cloud. He didn’t want to get killed by a beast that was lurking in the clouds.

He passed through the clouds and witnessed an awe-inspiring sight. This high in the sky, there were white crystals floating above the mountains, and there were all kinds of birds, even some kind of flying snake.

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Those crystals attracted a lot of attention, as white swirls of wind, which Thalion identified as air elementals, were seemingly munching on those crystals. The other beasts were trying to protect them by killing the air elementals or straight up gulping them down. This must be the reason many birds had white feathers. It must come from those crystals, which were first consumed by the air elementals, who were in turn eaten by the flying beasts.

It was kind of weird that those crystals only existed above the mountains and that underneath them were often thick layers of clouds. No wonder that he didn’t spot most flying creatures. They were all up here.

With a quick look around, he transformed into the wind eagle and flew in the direction of a tiny crystal one of the elementals was feeding on.

Air Elemental Level 29

Thalion flew at the elemental and used Gust Beak, killing the air elemental instantly when he flew right through it. That was easy, he thought, but the experience gain was very little. No wonder, the elemental was weak after all.

He watched the other birds while he was circling around the crystal. He wondered if he could eat the crystal as the umbral predator. He tried to put the crystal in his spatial ring, but it didn’t work.

He spotted one of the bigger crystals a kilometer up in the sky that had no birds near it but some elementals, and he flew up to it.

Thalion didn’t want to attack the birds yet when he didn’t know much about aerial combat and didn’t want to risk anything since the speed of the birds was very high. He didn’t have any skills that were good at hitting those birds. Maybe the Blood Thorn in his human form could work.

The elementals around the crystal were stronger, all above level 35, and it took over eight flybys to kill one. The experience was still bad, but in the end, those elementals didn’t even fight back or have any way of attacking; at least Thalion hadn’t seen any so far.

It seemed that the biggest crystals were far up in the sky while the tiny ones were down at his level.

Thalion continued watching the other birds. Normally, they were friendly and didn’t attack each other, only feeding on the air elementals. As he watched the birds, he saw how the crystals were absorbing the dead air elementals and started to glow a bit brighter.

This was very interesting. Then he noticed that a group of four thunder owls was attacking two ironfeather pigeons, all at level 35.

The fight was very short and lopsided. The pigeons tried to escape in panic, shooting out their feathers to distract their attackers, but the owls were persistent. It also seemed that the ironfeathers were not good at blocking the lightning; on the contrary, after a pigeon got hit by a spell, its whole body spasmed violently. After a short time, the two pigeons were hunted down, killed, and eaten.

The owls even ate the steel feathers. Then, after a quick pause, they made their way up to challenge a different group of birds.

The former friendly feeding had stopped and turned into a battle of life and death; many groups of birds were diving down from time to time, killing weaker birds.

Thalion saw up in the sky the apex hunters circling big crystals almost the size of cities. Those beasts must be over level 40. Luckily for all the others, they only cared for their crystals and rarely interacted with other beasts.

There was one giant skysnake. The scales were pure white, and she must be over fifteen meters long, slowly circling its crystal while every movement unleashed small gusts of wind. Thalion guessed that the snake was a race around mythical.

A bit to the right of the snake was a giant manta; it even owned two crystals, and lightning was unleashed across its wide wings with every slow beat.

There were also a few more giant eagles, all with different affinities, but at the absolute top, even above the snake and the manta, was a giant crystal on which sat a snow-white wyvern. But it was not the normal wyvern you knew from stories. It was very elegant, long, with a slender form. It also had no feet or arms, just two massive wings. It almost looked like a winged serpent.

Cloud Wyvern Level Unknown

This was also the first time he couldn't identify something, but it didn’t matter much. This creature was so far above him. Even if it was on the brink of death, Thalion didn’t see a way to defeat it.

At that moment, two twilight falcons, level 34, were attacking him. Thalion kept circling the crystal while they dove for him.

The first falcon's claws started to glow in light orange, ready to rip his head clean off. The other was flapping its wings, firing some feathers at him. Attacking him was probably not the right decision, he thought with amusement as the attackers came closer.

Before the falcon could impact his body, he transformed into the umbral predator, and with incredible speed, he grabbed both wings of the falcon, stopping its attack right there, and bit its head off.

The feathers hit him in the right shoulder and arm, but they didn’t penetrate deep. Those minor injuries would be healed in seconds. This had worked very well and Thalion was now out for blood.

While he was dropping from the sky, he took the form of the falcon and devoured it fully. He saw how the falcons comrade screamed in panic and was already flying away, so Thalion transformed into the form of the eagle.

He looked at the status screen of the falcon, and it was even worse than the eagle’s, so he discarded the form. The only thing he transferred was the thalon strike, which empowered his claws and could be useful since he didn’t have a skill in that area.

Time for some experimenting. He turned to the umbral predator and landed on the crystal, which slowly started sinking. He activated abyssal devourer, and dark tendrils were digging into the crystal, transforming into darkness that was absorbed very quickly.

He absorbed a lot of power. He almost felt full from that single crystal. He transformed back into an eagle as he was currently falling fast.

Time to take a risk, he thought. He couldn’t just wait all day, flying around and watching birds hunting. It was time to become the hunter.

He dove toward another bigger crystal where two birds were circling it.

Stormreaven Level 34

Stormreaven Level 37

Their wings were lightly crackling with lightning, but it was at a level Thalion was confident in handling. He also wanted to fight in his eagle form this time, at least as long as it was possible without dying.

The two ravens spotted him and attacked him. Their expressions looked almost bored. They probably thought they had just encountered the biggest idiot in their lives.

One opened its beak and spat lightning at him. It was fast and probably very efficient against birds. Thalion activated Feather Glide and flew to the side in a wide arc, evading the lightning of the first raven.

The bad thing about fighting against two foes in the sky was that when you were chasing one, the other would place itself behind you, and there was just nothing you could do against that. Since Thalion couldn’t keep an eye on both, he stopped the chase and turned around, but then the raven he was just chasing saw its chance and turned around, chasing him again. And so the deadly game continued.

Thalion was annoyed and swore in his mind at the birds. Without a ranged attack, it was very hard to fight those ravens, who both had a ranged attack. The lightning they spat really made life difficult for him.

The ravens, in turn, were having the fun of their lives, chirping at him and sometimes flapping their wings like they were drunk.

Thalion tried to get close to one, but he had no chance of even landing a hit, so the next time after he switched targets and the raven was turning around behind him, he transformed into his human form and launched a blood thorn at the raven, which hit the surprised crow in the chest, killing it instantly.

The other raven screeched in surprise, then in anger, as it started attacking Thalion, who stood on a mana barrier with one vine extending out of his upper arm, grabbing the dead raven.

The surviving raven flew around him, spitting lightning at him, but after a short while, it died from a blood thorn hitting its wing and another one striking its head.

Thalion took the form of the stronger bird, then he moved his mana barrier to the crystal, and moments later, the umbral predator had devoured the crystal and the two birds.

Thalion transformed into the eagle and slowly flew up, checking out the ravens form, but the eagle still had better stats while only being of uncommon rarity and the raven being rare.

So Thalion transferred the skill lightning bolt, a rare skill, to his eagle form and discarded the form of the raven. He had kind of grown attached to the eagle form and now wanted to see how much he could upgrade it. Yeah, he would make the featherball to true greatness. Was it the best option? Of course not. But he liked it and it was also a bit for science, as he wanted to see how far his abilities would allow him to change the bird.