Three arrows were fired continuously as the Jungle Cat dodged using its skill which was reminiscent to the Warrior’s [Dash] skill. Every time the Jungle Cat dodged an arrow, it would be met with another arrow, the continuous use of its skill led to more energy consumption.
Thud! Grar!
An arrow pierced the Jungle Cat’s thigh, it was stopped in place by the hit as another arrow pierced its body.
Twang! Thud
The Jungle Cat tried to struggle but another arrow pierced its head, the Jungle Cat slumped down as Aeron felt the flow of mana towards him. Aeron glanced at Arthur in question.
“There is no beast around, master.”
Arthur suddenly uttered when he saw Aeron look at him. Aeron approached the Jungle Cat corpse to retrieve his arrows.
‘Agila would’ve liked to eat this Jungle Cat’
Aeron thought as he remembered Agila, he could still not allow Agila to go with them as she was unsuited towards the terrain, maybe in the future when Arthur has proclaimed his territory towards the neighboring beasts. Otherwise, Agila might just become prey for other High-Grade Beasts.
“Let’s go to the nearest beast.”
Aeron said as he took a final look at the Jungle Cat, it wasn’t that big, but one of its kin almost killed him in a flash. He had really been too overconfident facing such a fast beast with his just his spear, even descending on a tree not that far from it.
“Yes master.”
Arthur answered as he led Aeron towards another beast, he also sent Richie and the remaining Black Monkeys towards the nearest beast to secure the area before they came.
“What beast is the next target Arthur?”
Aeron asked as he jumped one branch to another.
“It’s a brown bear master.”
Arthur answered, in truth, Aeron could roughly guess their whereabouts according to the distance they have traveled and the image of the mapping stone. But he was not as certain as Arthur was, beasts, in general had excellent navigational abilities.
Even on Aeron’s past world, the ability of animals and even insects to navigate vast areas were outstanding, sea turtles and salmons were one of the many examples of animals that could remember the route towards their birthplace even after years of traveling around the ocean. Migratory Birds could migrate from country to country, even insects such as Monarch Butterflies could do so. Land Animals such as Elephants could travel through memory, this was one of the reasons why Elephant herds were usually led by the oldest female as it would have more experience. Other animals like lion, dogs, rats, and more, would mark their territories with urine.
“We’re here master.”
Arthur said, Aeron started to climbed down and saw the brown bear roaming around its area. Aeron silently descended from the tree as he readied his bow and pulled an arrow from his quiver. The Brown Bear was unaware of the approaching danger as it sniffed around for low lying fruits or berries. Berries unlike fruits don’t have temporary cores so they are generally eaten immediately. As for low lying fruits, there were still a huge amount of regular growing trees in the Endless Forest, but most of them die off early as the larger trees limited the growth of their roots limiting the nutrition it could get from the soil.
Aeron silently knocked his arrow and aimed at the Brown Bear’s left eye, although he couldn’t learn the techniques of Arthur and the Black Monkeys like diminishing his presence, he still learned a thing or two about hunting, the first shot was very important. Just like how he hunted the Jungle Cat, although the first shot didn’t hit the Jungle Cat, it was still one of the outliers on why Aeron could continuously fire at the Jungle Cat. This time it was even more important, if the hit misses then the Brown Bear wouldn’t be injured enough for Aeron to wear it down. But if he could injure it on the first hit, then the following battle wouldn’t be as hard.
Twang!
Although the bowstring’s sound wasn’t very loud, the Brown Bear could still hear it enough to react, but it was already too late, unlike the Jungle Cat, the Brown Bear wasn’t as fast.
Siik! Roaaar!!
The arrow pierced through its eyes but not deep enough to damage its head further, the Brown Bear roared from the pain as Aeron approached with his spear. The Brown Bear calmed down quickly as it knew that it was in a perilous situation. It tried to look towards the area where the arrow came from with its right eye, but there was no one to be found.
Siik!
Aeron had successfully sneaked behind the Brown Bear, stabbing its head with his spear.
Roaar!
Aeron had planned to pierce through the Brown Bear’s head through its damaged eyes, but the Brown Bear was able to move its head making Aeron miss his mark. The Brown Bear’s head was protected by its thick skin and skull, the spear was lodged on the Brown Bear’s head, as Aeron backed away to dodge the Brown Bear’s paw which was imbued with [Accelerated Strike], losing the spear didn’t worry Aeron as he continued to fire arrow after arrow.
Siik! Roar!
The Brown Bear’s right eye was hit by another arrow but it was pierced through, the Brown Bear was enraged by the pain as it stood up and roared towards Aeron’s direction. But this was a mistake.
Twang!
Aeron released another arrow that directly lodged itself inside the Brown Bear’s mouth, this time the arrow pierced through its brain. The Brown Bear suddenly went quiet as it fell with a thud.
“Huu!”
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Aeron exhaled as he saw the Brown Bear fall, the Brown Bear was certainly not an easy opponent. First of all, was its size, this Brown Bear was at least five meters tall, and when it stood, height more than double, it made Aeron look puny. But as big as it was, it was slow, beasts with speed and ranged attacks would be able to deal with Brown Bear’s, though killing it was a question as it had an excellent defense, from its skin to its fats, all the way to its bones, making a Brown Bear go down without Aura was something to be proud of.
Aeron felt a gush of mana flow through his body. Seeing the dead Brown Bear made Aeron remember Ursa, Ursa was truly an anomaly, unlike other bears, Ursa’s speed was remedied by its skill, a Fast, Strong, and Durable bear would probably destroy most other beasts. Aeron was actually looking forward to Ursa’s evolution. Aeron knew from the original’s memory, that beasts would set its growth path when evolving to a High-Grade Beast.
Say for example Arthur, unlike other beasts, Arthur was small, and although Arthur evolved into a High-Grade Beast, its size only doubled which in comparison to other beasts like the Bloody Hyena, Grey Eagle, and Golden Eyed Snake was small. But Aeron knew that the power hidden beneath Arthur’s body was not inferior to those larger High-Grade Beasts. Arthur was also a prime example of a tamed beast adjusting its path towards its owner, beasts, in general, didn’t do this but it still happens. And if Aeron wasn’t wrong then there was a small chance for Ursa to go towards a humanoid form. Aeron could say this because he had seen Ursa walking on two legs instead of the normal way Bears did even after becoming a Mid-Grade Beast and recovering his limb. If it continued to evolve as such, then it would definitely use Arthur or Aeron as its model or image in its evolution.
‘But it should still be a long time for that to happen’
Aeron thought, although Ursa was almost always asleep, it was actually training very hard. It would wake up, eat till its full, and when Aeron was around then Ursa would play for a bit, following or nudging Aeron, otherwise, it would just go to sleep immediately to process the mana it had eaten.
“One more should be fine.”
Aeron said to himself, though the battle didn’t look very difficult, it was in fact very exhausting to do, the pressure and the continuous use of skill drained Aeron very quickly. Each arrow after the first was imbued with the skill [Accelerated Strike] which made Aeron exhausted after using it a number of times and the way he used it. Now that he was at level 5, he could at least use the skill 20 times without rest, but exhausting himself to that point was dangerous.
Aeron could, in fact, let Arthur help on his leveling, but he had planned to at least hunt by himself for a month, this was so he could make use of what he trained hard for in a true fight. This month would also be used by Arthur for mapping at least 50 kilometers of the forest from his new base.
“Next one Arthur.”
Aeron said as he finished collecting his arrows, they quickly found the next target which was a Vine Snake, this snake’s body looked exactly like a vine, its head was long to resemble the tip of a vine. The Vine Snake closes its eyes and waits for its prey to roam near it before striking. This was a terrifying experience to its prey, what was even more frightening was the snake’s ability to quickly strangle its prey. It was commonly known that snakes that don’t have venom specialize in strangling its prey to death, but it wasn’t known that snakes had already developed a certain technique to put pressure on its prey and stop the prey’s blood flow hence killing it faster. On Aeron’s past world, a snake called Boa Constrictor would constrict a rat to death with enough pressure to stop the blood flow of a human arm.
Aeron saw the Vine Snake on the ground, it looked exactly like a vine essence, this was one of the ways Vine Snake hunted. The Vine Snake would either lay motionless on the ground or hang itself on a tree. The Vine Snake would then wait for a beast to approach near enough for it to strike. If a Vine Snake failed to hunt, then it would climb on trees and feed on the fruits, but unlike bears and monkeys, Snakes usually preferred meat, this was also the case for Eagles like Agila.
‘But beasts like this vine snake is also one of the easiest to kill.’
Aeron thought as he knocked his arrow and aimed at the Vine Snake’s head, there was a small slit on the tip which was the Vine Snake’s eyes.
Twang!
Aeron released the arrow which pierced through the Vine Snake’s head, its body writhed on the ground, after a few minutes of struggling, Aeron felt the mana flow towards him. After the easy kill, Aeron suddenly realized that there were many snakes around his base, these snakes were at least level 4 and 5.
“Arthur let’s go.”
Aeron said as he took the arrow from the Vine Snake’s head, the nearest one was another bear, this one was more alert compared to the first bear. Aeron’s first arrow didn’t hit the brown bear’s eye but got lodged on its head instead, but it was hardly injured as it charged towards Aeron.
“This one is experienced.”
Aeron said as he fired another arrow, but this time Aeron’s figure suddenly retreated after he shot the arrow. This was another style Aeron had developed through the year, before the skill [Accelerated Strike] ends, which was the moment the arrow left the bow, Aeron would back away. The timing of doing so was very hard to master, it was a very small interval not even lasting a second. After training for about nine months, Aeron had successfully mastered the technique, which he called [Flash Step], this skill could also be used with his spear.
Twang! Twang! Twang!
Aeron kept firing while he was retreating rendering the Brown Bear enraged. It had kept on chasing the puny creature firing arrows on it, but the distance between them seemed endless. Aeron kept aiming at the Brown Bear’s eyes and nose, but the Brown Bear was able to dodge most of it.
Twang!
Aeron’s arrow grazed the Brown Bear’s nose as it stopped and roared in pain. This was Aeron’s aim before the Brown Bear could roar Aeron had already nocked his arrow to shoot the Brown Bear’s mouth.
Twang! Crunch!
But this time Aeron’s attack failed, the Brown Bear crushed the arrow with a bite. It suddenly stopped in place and looked at Aeron. Its black beady eyes stared at Aeron’s figure; Aeron would’ve capitalized on the chance but suddenly stopped.
Grrrr!
The Brown Bear suddenly turned around and walked away. Aeron stared at the Brown Bear’s receding back as he contemplated what to do.
“Should I stop it master?”
Arthur suddenly asked.
“Sigh, no need.”
Aeron said, if they continued fighting then Aeron wouldn’t have won and the same was true for the Brown Bear. It had seemed to realize this and retreated instead, though Aeron could order Arthur to stop or kill it, the eyes that stared at him struck him as strange, this was one of those intelligent beasts. It wasn’t even Mid-Grade and it was already that intelligent, if Aeron didn’t have Ursa then he would’ve chosen to tame this Brown Bear instead. Aeron could, of course, choose to tame two bears, but he was unsure which skill he was going to get with a second one. A Tamer's build was not something to play around with, he currently needed a strength-enhancing skill so taming another Brown Bear didn’t have that much attraction to him.
‘But there is a benefit if I tamed two beasts of the same kind.’
Aeron thought, there was another thing that happens when two beasts of the same kind were tamed by one Tamer. Skill Layering, this was a phenomenon which enhances the level of skill, this was actually a very famous method to other Tamers. For example, Alexis, he had tamed four Tigers instead of just one. Aeron knew that Tigers had a skill called [Tiger’s Might], it gives a massive boost in speed and strength, even Aeron wanted one, but finding Tigers were very hard, they would usually live deep inside forests, they were also very prideful creatures so taming them must be done alone, and the hardest part was finding them. Skill Layering [Tiger’s Might] gives the Tamer inhuman speed and strength, of course, to sustain such speed and strength requires a huge amount of stamina which was one of the cons, but the benefit far outweighs the loss.
Aeron had thought of getting at least one Tiger as his pet. Of course, Aeron could go and explore forests where Tigers were found, but it would take a long time to do so, and he’d also have to travel through different areas where Tigers were found, there were actually Tigers in the Endless Forest, but so far Aeron had yet to find one, instead he found Panthers. If Aeron could use his family's power to find Tigers for himself then it would’ve been easier, but doing so would further shame his father, thus he opted from doing so.