As she followed the water, the small creek slowly but steadily widened and connected with a few other streams. By then, it was two meters wide and Kali realized she'd been traveling for well over a day again.

She was just so absorbed by getting better at the acrobatics needed to jump and swing from branch to branch while also keeping her attention on her surroundings. The many evergreens around her were from a variety of similar species — she noticed once she paid closer attention to them — blue and green spruces were the most populous with pines as a close second but as she traveled further and further down the mountain fir started popping up but those couldn't reach as high as their humongous cousins.

Fir trees were verdant green and their canopy started just half a meter above ground, providing a great hiding place for smaller animals, but they could only thrive now that the larger trees were sparser and didn't obstruct the sun so much.

This also had Kali ambling through the meter-high snow more often than not with there being fifty meters between some of the large trees. At least she could see much further ahead without the many obnoxious trunks in the way of her vision.

At one point in her journey, she came across a subspecies of fir tree that had vivid crimson red leaves and was completely devoid of snow. Her curiosity would not let her just walk past it and not do some research. She recalled a type of magical fir tree but couldn't remember its properties, so she dedicated a few hours to unraveling the mystery.

A bit of a fun interruption along her otherwise monotonous journey, a change of pace would keep things fresh, she thought.

She only needed about ten minutes to figure it out when she threw a snowball at it and the water turned into vapor as it reached within a meter of the tree, the vapor then seeped into the needle-like leaves as if it was a ghost possessing it.

She guessed it worked somewhat similar to her Water Gathering rune. maybe it was even the thing they based the Rune on. An ascendant entity that called itself Solaris gifted a set amount of Runes to most sentient races over 15 hundred years ago. The first ascendant that the world of Aetheria has ever had upon its surface.

Many elves were rather dubious about this occurrence as Cores just started popping up randomly a few centuries ago in people and just when nearly every newborn had Cores, this entity just popped up and told them how to use it. It called what the Runes were capable of by manipulating mana 'Magic' and while the Runes were put under severe observation and research, they weren't entirely kept under the hold of the ruling class.

For whatever reason, Solaris gave a 'starter pack' as it called it to the Rulers of larger nations under the magical contract that they would teach a large part of it to their subjects. This went differently for each nation. Some fell while others rose higher than ever on the back of magic. It also didn't help with keeping things peaceful that no two 'starter-pack' were the same. Each had some runes or techniques that only they had on the entire planet.

With time, people who were later called Rune Forgers managed to first alter some Runes and then make ones of their own. It was a time-intensive and secretive craft, so Kali knew no more than that about it, but it sounded like something she should look into in the future.

Kali's To-Do List:

* Learn to fly

* Learn Rune Forging

Ah, I should probably think about more short-term goals, no? Hmm

After reviewing her experience with the crimson fir, she started thinking about her next course of action. She could hunt, so food wasn't a problem and with the stream, neither was water. The shelter was a bit of a hit-and-miss, but she could keep going for another few days at this pace, so she'd leave that to her future self.

Neither of the countries bordering the kingdom near her was too good of a destination, the nearest was the Northern Water Province of the Corvus Empire which was what they called this part of the erstwhile Water Kingdom that was the home of the Autumn Elves after it was conquered.

It wasn't too bad of a place to hide, as the bastards oppressed their provinces both technologically and in education. They only had enough military in towns to defend them from wandering monsters, and even those towns were few and far between on the far shore of the continent.

The humans found the Karyst Jungle to be too much of a bother to tame so they just hid in their towns so while the Jungle would be just as much of a pain as this arctic forest she wouldn't have to worry about random humans finding her.

Zadkiel was more than thorough in his education in this, so she remembered it clearly. They shouldn't even have mapped more than a fifth of the jungle.

The only thing that probably held back the still-hiding elves from retaking their land was the threat of a legion arriving from the Imperial Core, and those wouldn't have much of a problem with putting down a rebellion. Even her father had trouble when a few legions tried their luck at invading the kingdom a century ago.

The other nation would require much more travel to reach as it was far to the north. When the jungle ended came a wide savannah and it was split around halfway towards the desert it shifts into, by the largest river on the continent. Active 1: They aptly named the River the Bloodraven River because of the large amount of blood shed by the Corvus empire while trying to push their border further beyond it. Those guys had a weird obsession with ravens. They even called the emperor the Raven Lord or something stupid like that.

Her father had a tenuous alliance with the republic about assisting each other against the empire, so she could either go hide under the nose of the humans or her father's allies.

The Empire it is!!

Okay, it might be a stupid idea, but who in their right mind would even think she'd do it? Wasn't it a genius idea if she thought about it like that? It was! Nodding to herself, she felt satisfaction at outsmarting her enemies.

Right, she was thinking about short-term goals. First, she had to reach the jungle, which if she remembered right, was called Karstirien by the Elves there, much better than what the humans gave it, Karst Jungle. They called it that because it had large karsts in it, very creative, though the elves weren't much better, but she felt like no one would fault her for being biased.

She opted for walking on the small riverbank instead of making a clear trail through the snow for any would-be pursuers to follow, this put her in a slightly dangerous position as any animal that frequented the stream for drinking would come across her but she hoped she'd be able to climb a nearby tree before they got to her.

Not that it would help with bears or other animals that could climb trees too. Maybe she'd have to fight them. She was apprehensive about that. The only thing she 'fought' so far was the wall of her bedroom when she used it for spell testing and that dumb bird. Neither fought back too much.

Kali ran thought-up scenarios through the back of her mind, trying to come up with good countermeasures for each of the beasts she knew to live in the area. She already avoided a bunch of wild animals and even a few magical beasts, the animals were mostly easy, and her physique let her sneak around them or just hide until they wandered away while for the magical beasts, she used what she did with the lynx a day ago.

She was mostly sure she could fight off a normal animal with little effort, but she didn't have any way of gauging how strong any magical beast was aside from what she knew of from her lessons. Those magical beasts had Cores just like sentient beings and they either evolved to absorb mana passively or from their prey.

The second type was the most dangerous and they attacked settlements as other beasts with Cores were much harder to find than a human child, for example, which it could find plenty of in a small town. The annoying old man once even told her that there was a mutation that happened in a rare few that allowed them to consume and absorb the essence of the target directly.

She refused to believe him at first, but the old man never lied to her before. He at most withheld important information. Like how to use the damned ring he gifted her. How useful it'd be if she could just make herself invisible with it.

Illusions were still far from her level of mastery in magic. Even a basic Minor Illusion was much more complicated than all of her spells combined as it was designed to blend in with its surroundings perfectly or mimic something.

The most she could do was Shadow Cloak which was a mana-intensive spell that cloaked her in shadows, as the name suggested. It was a Light elemental spell that would use mana to absorb light around her and the upkeep of that was taxing on her. She could cast two Water Blades out of the mana needed to keep the Cloak up for five minutes.

As her mind wandered once again back onto magic, she almost failed to notice the snow crunching softly only 200 meters to her right, a rather wide fir that sat in the snow blocked her vision of its origin. She jumped over the stream and landed softly on the other side of it to put something else between herself and the thing that made that sound.

Active 1: The crunching was soft, but it sounded like someone or something crushed a lot of snow. However, it was somehow dampened… fur; it was fur that dampened the noise and whatever it was, its furred feet should be large just based on the sounds they made. Kali eyed the tree warily as she crept closer and closer to the nearest tree on this side of the water to hide but she was still 30 meters away when a large furry head peaked out from behind the tree she was staring at.

It was covered in soft snow-white fur and she wasn't sure she'd have noticed it just by her vision if it was further away and without the verdant evergreen as a contrast. It was a Frost Wolf, one of the apex predators of the mountains aside from magical beasts, but they sometimes had magic of their own, though it was rare.

Its icy blue eyes that glowed a bit indicated this being one of those rare few, and at the same moment, Kali understood why people compared her to these beasts. Its soft and curly snow-white fur was the same shade as her hair and the eyes now glaring at her from afar resembled the ones that stared back at her from the mirror.

Though she hoped her dental hygiene was above the wolf as she glanced down at its large fangs still covered in dried blood as it bared them at her before launching itself into a sprint.

"Fuck," Kali exclaimed in horror as she realized that the tiny stream with its 3 meters of width would hardly stop the beast that already covered half the distance to her.

Her initial stun wore off just then, and she launched herself further backward with a heavy leap, while midair she made a hand sign that caused a strong kinetic force to slam into the snout of the angry canine, making it stumble for a moment.

Now that it was closer, Kali realized it was small for being a frost wolf. Those were supposed to be two or so meters at the shoulder on average but could grow to four if they had Cores and consequently essence enough for it. Beasts with Cores grew larger instead of becoming purely stronger while remaining compact like the elvenoid species.

Yes, that was a word, despite how egotistical Kali found it to name any other species that looked similar to the elvenoid. Well, back when the thing was first used, elves ruled over both east and west Iasira, which was the continent she stood on now. How far they'd fallen.

She landed on the ground a good twenty meters back, but the wolf was just now leaping over the water; she didn't have time to cast any of her stronger spells.

Ah, shit, fu-, what do I do?

Trying to suppress her rising panic, she rained down kinetic attacks on the beasts. They arrived near instantaneously after she activated the Spells so they were mostly the only Spells she knew that could reliably hit the thing while they were both moving this fast.

She landed five Kinetic strikes that delivered kinetic energy directly into the flesh of the beast, the force of it could crack the trunk of the thicker trees here and uproot the smaller ones but the only thing the five Spells managed was making the mutt whine in pain. Three assaulted its back, which turned its momentum mid-jump towards the frigid water, and the other two struck near its eyes, but she missed both as the thing flailed around from the previous three.

The other spell she cast was Kinetic Hammer, which did fuck all against the wolf. It would have launched her dozens of meters away, but the canine seemed to be much more … dense than her. The Spell was supposed to keep melee attackers away from mages, but elves designed it against humans at most, she guessed.

Taking this as a sign, Kali quickly ran towards the biggest nearby tree, an obnoxiously large red fir with crimson-tinted bark. Although it was much smaller than the towering trees she left behind, the thing still stood over twenty meters tall, which was sufficient.

She crouched, coiled like a spring, and released. Barely escaping the jaws of the beast snapping shut behind her ankles, she managed to grab one branch with her left arm, but her left slipped. Barely in time, she wrapped her legs around the trunk of the tree, followed by both of her arms. She hugged the tree like a koala.

Just as she was calming her thundering heartbeat, she made the mistake of looking down, the sound of claws digging into the bark catching her attention. The wolf relentlessly scratched at the tree's base, occasionally leaping and tearing chunks from it a mere three meters beneath her, approximately 8 meters above the ground.

Ugh, persistent mutt.

Kali crawled her way up the tree awkwardly until she reached a thicker branch that could support her weight, so she perched on top of it, staring down at the canine trying to make a meal out of her. This was a novel experience for her and she was happy with how she handled it so far.

She was still alive and despite the dog outclassing her in speed, strength and mass, she escaped from it momentarily. She even had all of her limbs attached without as much as a scratch on her.

"Ah fuck," she flattened herself against the trunk as much as she could as a few icicles as thick as her wrists sailed past her with one ripping the pants open on her left thigh and leaving a long gash. Despite the pain causing her to grind her teeth, she refused to release her grip. This is nothing compared to burning half of my body with a flame spell!

She glared down at the hateful mutt and started forming visualizing runes in her mind. The beast probably couldn't shoot those rapidly, as it would have done that before, or it had to conserve mana. She already thought it might be a juvenile male who had just been kicked out of its pack by the alpha wolf.

If she pushed it, the wolf would probably retaliate, even if it meant exhausting its reserves. She had to make her next spell count.

Rune after Rune crystalized in her mind and she even used a few somatic gestures to make the casting quicker, after four long seconds she let the Runes collapse into the Spell matrix and felt the scorching heat and devastation the spell promised upon her enemies with a twitch of her ears.

She grinned, and the matrix flew into her extended index finger and launched out of it like a bullet. A flaming bullet of fire and death impacted the growling wolf half a second later and exploded in a thunderous boom that made her ears ring.

The fires formed a glowing sphere for a fraction of a second, then collapsed upon themselves and were gone as quickly as they came, leaving only ash and the charred corpse of the canine behind.

Kali gulped at the sight while removing her hands from around her tender ears, which still rang a bit.

It was a good idea not to test that Fireball Spell in my room.

Although a bit shaken from the near-death experience, she couldn't help but feel a bubbling giddiness in her stomach. She'd done it. She used magic and killed a magical beast all by herself, yeah there were a few close calls and her thigh hurt like a bitch, but she was ecstatic.

There was no hiding her greed as she stared down at her defeated foe. She remembered while adventurers were even a thing since Cores became a thing, why it was so gratifying to hunt magical beasts even if one didn't get paid.

If it could use magic, then it should have a Core, and once it dies, it leaves it behind filled with its remaining mana and some essence.