Kali tried recalling her muddled memories from her time spent in semi-hibernation, she had to figure out which direction Mythral and his bunch left. She closed her eyes and focused, her eyebrows scrunching up in the process. She recalled brief images, glints through the leaves, and noises which she knew were voices but they felt like any other vibration aside from that.

She bit her lips hard as she guided her focus towards finding out which direction she heard these voices from. They were all around her hiding spot, they went around for a few hours and one of them even walked by less than 20 meters from her.

Later, she mentally searched for the latest she heard voices, finding them a little over a day ago.

As she opened her eyes, she frowned in the direction where the elves had departed and saw the turbulent river cascading down through the valley and disappearing behind some trees in a bend a kilometer away.

She glanced over her shoulder, considering turning back. She'd stay next to the river which helped in hiding her footprints but backtracking would get her nowhere, going forwards was a no-go, and following Mythral was stupid, she already had absurd senses so an elf further enhanced by essence would be monstrous. She didn't want to tempt her fate, she already felt super lucky with managing to hide from him once.

She swished her head around and looked left, seeing a tall mountainside extending upwards, reaching for the clouds but not quite managing to do it. It had trees spotting its side covering most of it with only the tip being barren. She looked right and saw a smaller peak which had some trees on it but they were nowhere as dense as the other one.

She nodded after thinking for a bit and headed for the larger peak on the left. The other one would be easier to scale but the cover the denser arrangement of trees would make for better cover, her twitchiness lessened a bit but she'd still rather choose the safer option over the easier one.

She walked with steady steps, frowning a bit as she felt the snow being flattened beneath her boot and leaving easy-to-follow footprints behind her. She considered jumping from tree to tree but that was even worse, she'd knock the snow down or even break some branches which would be even easier to notice mid-fight than some footprints.

For the first hour, she grimaced a bit with each crunch but afterward, she managed to distract herself from it. She hummed a song quietly, hearing not a single dangerous animal for kilometers around her. She has been told that while she has a great voice for singing her talents for it are lacking, not that she sang to entertain anyone besides herself.

I should figure out a name for that perfect hearing thing now, shouldn't I? It's getting annoying.

She decided on 'spatial hearing' for the 500-meter range in which she can hear every sound and tell their exact location in correlation to herself while deciding on calling the rest her normal hearing. Beyond the 500-meter mark, she could still hear sounds but could only tell the direction from which they came, like a human.

Though a human couldn't hear people talk from 3 kilometers away.

She heard smaller animals scuttle inside their burrows, hiding as she passed nearby, she could spot a few ravens on trees and even a snow white owl that was enjoying its sleep. She didn't go out of her way to find animals but she heard a smaller herd of reindeer change their course to avoid crossing paths with her.

Very few animals wanted to find themselves face-to-face with elves or any sentient species according to Zadkiel, Kali remembered feeling dubious about that but it was proving to be right.

Well, mostly.

Kali was curious about what the furry little thing she heard heading her way for a while now wanted so she didn't run or avoid it. It ambled out from behind a tree, kicking up snow as it rushed at her which looked hilarious to Kali. The animal had small legs that barely held its body above the snow and a furry little head with beady black eyes, its fur vas brownish red.

It would undoubtedly be cute were it not for the fact that its jaws were opened far too wide, baring its fangs at Kali as it stumbled through the snow. It let out growling sounds through it all and once it was within a few meters of her it jumped, flying straight for her midsection.

Kali sidestepped the murderous furball that was barely over a meter tall if it stood upright, the animal didn't let landing face first on the ground or getting a mouthful of mud and snow bother it as it quickly reoriented itself and charged at Kali again, growling throughout it all.

This time it decided that since jumping didn't work it'd run up to her and biting at her ankle surely would, unfortunately, Kali stepped back each time just as its jaws were about to close around her leg, leaving the little beast barking and hissing in annoyance before continuing its assault.

It was relentless, not letting itself be discouraged even though she was clearly out of its league Kali thought it might be because since its skull was so thick it might not have the largest brain.

She didn't know what to do with the furball, she didn't need meat and even if she did predators often had very unsavoury meat and this animal despite failing to make her its prey was unquestionably a predator. She didn't want to kill it just because it was bothering her, the thing was barely annoying, she even enjoyed playing with it as it interrupted her monotonous march up the mountainside.

She decided to head for the peak a while back to survey her surroundings, from the valley, she couldn't see much but this peak should give her a better vantage point. Without the river to guide her down the mountain she'd have to find her own way down to the jungle.

The animal barked again in apparent frustration at her still having the gall to be alive despite its continued efforts, not that it was discouraged even half an hour later. It jumped, bit wherever it could, clawed but it didn't have much else in its repertoire.

"I'm sorry friend but you are making quite a ruckus so I'll ask you to leave now," Kali petted its furry head, making it snap at her hand but she already withdrew it by that time, "Bye~"

Kali whistled as the Kinetic Hammer sent the little thing spinning through the air, she made sure it would land on a soft tree a hundred or so meters away. She enjoyed the interruption but all the other animals fled from the growling beastie so she decided to politely ask it to leave.

She barely walked for another ten minutes before she had to send the growling furball on another voyage through the air. Her next hour was spent repeating that same cycle until she started to grow annoyed rather than amused at the animal which resulted in her adding the Overcharge Rune at the end of the Kinetic Hammer spell she cast that time.

The animal went flying through the air for hundreds of meters, landing barely within the range of her spatial hearing, she initially felt a bit guilty, thinking that she killed it but then she heard it crawl its way out of the snow with a growl.

She assumed the only reason it didn't head straight back towards her was the sound of a normal lynx stalking through the snow near it. The murderous ball of fur seemingly took the feline as just as much of an eyesore as she was and rushed at it without further ado.

She left the bickering animals behind but still heard their fight from this distance and it seemed like the lynx was losing. Good on you furball~

Kali hiked through the snowy landscape for another few hours before a small hare caught her attention, at first she only wanted to take a look at it because she heard it make sounds like glass touching glass but once she got closer she realized that the hare was much more interesting.

It was large for a hare, its head reaching up to her knees while its crystalline horn could poke at her stomach without it needing to jump. Yeah, it had a half-a-meter-long crystalline horn on the top of its head which it carried around like it weighed nothing.

Since she didn't remember there being animals like this and she did read about magical beasts called Horned Hares existing she was suspecting this hare to be one of those. Her magical sense could feel the Core inside it but it only reached a meter from her body for now ad it was still rather foggy to her, it was much harder to sense things outside of her body for whatever reason.

So, since she was not a reckless person she'd have to find a way to test if it was magical or not without walking up to it and ending up impaled on its horn. She couldn't know how strong it was which was rather annoying so she had to be careful.

So, as a not-reckless person who is also being exceptionally careful, she quickly procured a pebble from the ground, aimed, and threw it at the overgrown hare. It impacted the side of its body, its soft fur absorbing most of the force carried with her lackluster throw.

The animal didn't as much as jump, only turning its head towards the pebbly in the snow, its little nose moving constantly which made Kali almost let out an audible coo. Ah, why are you so cute?!

Not that it would stop her from getting her hands on its Core if she could. Cute or not, essence was essence.

Seeing that it didn't have any reaction to the pebble she didn't know what to think, did it not realize it was an attack or did it just straight up disregard it because it was weak? Maybe it was such a strong beast that it didn't even understand the concept of being in danger, if that was the case maybe she was the one in danger.

She was crouching behind a thorny bush at the moment, peeking through its branches to look at the animal. It would be rather underwhelming if not for its crystalline horn, it was just a large muddy brown hare without that.

She decided to see if it'd react to her attacking it with a Spell but she didn't want it to know where she was if it shrugged it off. She was confident in her sprinting speed now and she was a good hundred meters from the hare so it'd have to be leagues above her in essence levels for its mana sense to reach her.

She started grinning once she remembered one of the modifications she found one night, she was playing with the Light Rune which let out a soft light and was trying to make it move by itself. The problem was that she only knew the Launch and Rapid Launch Runes for moving Spell matrixes so she could at most make the light fly on a linear path in a preset direction.

Now, the thing she found was that the Launch Rune had a range and after reaching it it'd stop and so she decided to chain a few Launch Runes together to see what would happen. It took a few nights of experimenting but she managed to make the floating light zig-zag through the air before dissipating.

She started forming the runes for the Water Blade Spell but added four Launch Runes at the end of it plus a Delay Rune. She calibrated the latter to only release the spell matrix once only the final Launch Rune remained.

Her grin was stretching from ear to ear as she expectantly let go of her hold on the Runes and soon enough the slightly glowing bundle of mana which was the spell matrix sped through the air. The first three Launches got it to around a hundred meters from the hare but on the side opposite to Kali, there the Delay Rune released and the familiar crescent blade of water formed quickly from the snow.

Kali stared expectantly at the Spell, eager to see its effect. Once the blade was formed it quickly shot off straight at the animal, cutting a few thin branches on its way which alerted the hare. Kali saw it turn away from her, showing its back to her as it looked towards the approaching blade which was only 40 or so meters away from it.

Damn that's too slow, should have Overcharged it.

Still, it was a good distraction even if the hare could dodge it. She quickly started casting again, this time a Twin-Kinetic Strike since it was nearly imperceptible without mana sense, calculations flashed through her mind as she calculated the angles needed so the two parts of the spell would strike at the beast from left and right.

Her speed was noticeably faster than before, her mana flowed faster, Runes were easier to form and the equations were just a bit quicker to solve. She activated the Spell just as she saw the animal twitch, with the blade of water being only a few meters away from bisecting it.

The Kinetic spell struck it right after the matrix left her hold, the animal stumbled from the bone-crushing force that slammed into its sides and just as Kali was about to celebrate her victory its horn shone and an iridescent beam of light leapt off of it.

The Water Blade collided with the radiant beam and got swallowed by the radiant light, Kali narrowed her eyes at the brightness and saw a bucketful of water reach the hare but it was more of a shower than a deadly attack by then, leaving the animal drenched but very much alive.

The animal stumbled around a bit, shivering as the water in its fur started freezing. As Kali observed the animal as it stumbled around frantically, seemingly the Kinetic Strikes hurt it enough to make it limp.

As her confidence started to mount the hare did something unexpected, well she could have expected it but she didn't think of it. The crystalline horn started shining and dozens of beams shout out of it, they were only as thick as her fingers but with how many of them there were she would be in danger.

She crouched low, crawled over to a thicker tree and hid behind its trunk. The continuous beams of light incinerated leaves, branches and anything that had the misfortune of being in their way. They flailed around randomly, striking in every which direction while the hare stood still.

Kali watched a branch as thick as her wrist fall after it has been cut off, her eyes widened as she saw the beam that did that head straight towards the tree she was behind. Everything happened so fast she didn't have much time to evaluate the strength of the beams so all she could do was hope for the best.

She crouched low behind the trunk and conjured the costly Shadow Cloak Spell to coat her body, she didn't think it'd stop the beam by much if it could cut through her water blade and the tree trunk but it was better than just praying for the best.

The beam reached the tree, incinerating its leaves and branches with a scorching hiss and a moment later Kali heard the trunk give off the same, haunting sound. She screwed her eyes shut and hugged herself tightly.

The agonisingly long fraction of a second the beam spent pointed at the tree passed and Kali cracked open one of her eyes. Oh, I don't hurt, arms? Ok! Legs? Ok! Head? My hair is burning! Oh, f--

She grabbed a handful of snow and coated her smoldering locks in it, snuffing out the fire. That's when she heard a crack above her and only because of her improved acuity did she understand that a rather sizable branch was just about to fall on her head in time to leap into a roll across the snow.

The branch fell and struck the ground with a thrum but it was lost in the hundreds of other branches falling and thinner trees also following along. Kali was breathing quickly, the adrenalin making her a bit jumpy as her gaze snapped in every which direction before she decided to go a bit further away from the hare.

She grabbed the spell matrix of the Shadow Cloak and forced it to disperse as she thought the hare would have to run out of mana at some point, offensive Light spells were horrendously expensive as far as she knew not to say complicated. They were usually not included in the repertoire of apprentice Elementalists like herself.

She stuck close to the ground, hoping that her snow-white clothes and hair would do what they were supposed to do for once and conceal her contour in the snow.

She suddenly flattened herself to the ground, letting a beam pass just centimeters above her head. Fuck, that was close!

She quickened her steps and threw herself behind a protruding rock and not two seconds later three beams converged on it, making the snow vaporize but the stone didn't give way. Kali let out a sigh of relief, It saw me, what do I do???

The three beams turned into five, then ten and slowly the dozens of beams started to converge on her hiding position. She was a good 150 meters away from the stationary hare but she could tell that it was facing straight towards her with her spatial hearing.

It didn't move an inch though but the stone hiding her was starting to give off disturbing, hissing sounds and Kali started to feel her surroundings start to heat up. It wasn't fast and far from unbearable, the temperature had to crawl up from -20 Celsius so it'd take some time.

Breath in; 1, 2, 3, 4,

Hold it in; 5, 6, 7,

Let it out; 8,

She calmed herself while muttering the instructions for the breathing exercise in her mind, her heartbeat was still soaring through the air but at least her breathing was calm and she could think more clearly. She'd have to get used to the stress of fighting if she wanted to survive out here. Panicking is unacceptable!

Just wait you little shit, let's see who can fry the other first!