Kali next woke up to someone poking her with a stick. She cracked her eyes open with a groan and glanced down at the long wooden stick poking at her boobs and then up at the human holding it. Just great!

Her body still ached and the position she slept in wasn't the best nor that her arms were tied together behind her back. She almost forgot to act meek due to the annoyance but she caught herself before a Kinetic Strike could end the bloodline of this moron.

"Food and water," the unwashed man said, glancing down at the stuff in his hands then back up at her again, "I'll remove the gag but Boss said I can hit you if you speak even a word."

With a last poke at her boobs, he pushed the refreshments into her cage and went around to be able to reach her head through the bars, "Stay still."

Kali did so, more out of curiosity than due to the order, she only ate a day or so ago so she could go another five days without it at least. Why didn't they want her to speak though? Did they think she'd charm them or something?

Disgusting, I'd rather die.

She shivered in revulsion as the goon's calloused fingers brushed against her face to untie the cloth blocking her mouth, Get on with it asshole!

He painfully slowly managed to untie it after which Kali spat out whatever they stuck into her mouth too. Distasteful humans couldn't even use normal gags.

"Remember no speaking or chanting, whatever the fuck that is," the resident moron ordered, "I'll tell the Boss if you try."

Kali trembled for real this time, whatever that spell was, the pain it caused was horrendous. Now that she thought about it it must be some sort of Arcane Spell, maybe one using Lightning as an elemental base, if the spell matrix only activated once inside her body and then it started dumping electricity into her nervous system that might cause pain like that.

Damnit, I should have sensed it when it got within a meter of me!

She even had some foggy memories of the last time the spell was cast on her and how she barely managed to crack the spell matrix.

Such a stupid fucking spell.

It relied on the assumption that the victim was both unable to sense the spell coming towards them and as such incapable of putting up a defense and that once the spell was active, they wouldn't be able to smack it apart since they were overwhelmed by the pain.

Dumb. Idiotic shit spell.

Kali fumed inside. She had to suffer through it not once but TWICE and she knew damned well that if she as much as put up a thin film layer of mana as a barrier under her skin — which should be as easy as breathing with her control — then the spell would have only tickled her. In essence, she was angry at herself.

Why didn't she think a spell like this would exist? How did she get fooled by it twice?

Fool me once, shame on you … fool me twice …

The only real way she could ever think this spell would be useful was when her enemies were either untrained like her or so far below her in level that the amount of mana she put into a spell like this would be too much for them to smash apart. It was a perfect spell for those who preyed on the weak, though.

Mana sensing and training to put up internal barriers is now going onto the top of my list!

She was still livid, and the only way she knew to make the feeling go away was to get better and make sure that whatever she did, she wouldn't be fooled a third time by the same damned spell.

Flaying him alive wouldn't hurt, either.

She eyed the goon for a bit, her arms still tied together behind her and then the food he put on the other side of the cage, at least it wasn't too cramped, it was around two meters long and one wide while one and a half meter tall so she could huddle into one end of it or lie down without a problem, still it was a pain.

She stared at the moron as he observed her; she strained her shoulders, getting her tied wrists as far as she could then she pulled them forward under her legs. It hurt with the coarse ropes digging into her skin, but it was manageable.

"Huh," the moron intoned, "I knew yall were flexible but that's crazy."

She ignored him and instead brought the small flask to her nose, smelling it. Okay, smells like water and I can't smell anything else in it so it might not be drugged.

She gulped down a small mouthful at first, tasting it for anything weird but when she felt the same after a few seconds she drank the rest too. That should last for a week.

The food was some sort of bread, she grabbed it and grimaced as the thing felt no less solid than the iron bars surrounding her. Just great.

Still, it was food. She bit into it, her jaw easily pushing her teeth into it and separating a small bite from the rest of the bread. Tastes like dried mud. She noted absently.

She huddled into the side furthest from the observing goon and kept her attention on the food while she strained her ears to listen in on anything happening around the camp. I have to get used to the increased information, getting ambushed like that was humiliating but avoidable if only I spent time training.

She knew she messed up hard, she's been far too thrilled at seeing such a different scenery and ecosystem than the mountains that she disregarded pragmatism and let her emotions drag her around. Damn it, Kali you need to think to survive, this can't happen again.

Her current situation was both humiliating and infuriating but she wasn't taking it too seriously, that might be a problem but from what I saw only that 'Boss' of theirs is dangerous and maybe some of his elite goons but without that bullshit spell he isn't much stronger than me, plus now I know about it.

She surveyed the camp a bit between bites, ah soo good, this is like eating bricks. The camp was more of a base, it had wooden houses and a shoddy wooden palisade surrounding it with guards walking around it. People were mostly gathered on benches and tables all around the place, eating, drinking and talking.

When she swallowed the last bite the annoying asshole poked her once again with his stick, now in her side which made her jump a little and hit her head again in the ceiling of the cage.

"Stuff that back into your mouth if you don't want me to do it," his stick pointed at the disgusting cloth she spat out previously but without any alternative she obeyed. She grimaced and gagged but the thing was back in its previous place, filling her mouth and blocking her tongue from moving too much.

"Now come here," he commanded, getting far too used to ordering her around, "OR do you want me to call the Boss?" he grinned at her when she didn't move an inch.

I will burn you slowly to death after I cut off your family jewels you disgusting son of a bitch.

While thinking that she reluctantly crawled over to him and laid her back on the bars, letting him tie the cloth gag around her face once again.

He gave her ears a flick once he was done which sent a shiver down her spine as she jumped away from him, she glared back at him, her gaze filled with hatred and a promise of a slow death.

"Huh?" the moron tilted his head like he didn't know how disgusting he's just been, touching an elf's ear is something you just don't do, even between lovers its a sign of trust as it is the most sensitive part of their whole body not to say very erogenous.

The asshole just shrugged his shoulders and went around collecting the flask before leaving without another word. I need to steal that Spell from that sadistic asshole just to use it on this one.

Kali sat down in the middle of the cage, staying as far from the bars as she could, she pulled her legs into a lotus position and closed her eyes. She's learned some meditation techniques before, hoping that their promise to 'strengthen the spirit and the mind' would help with her mana control.

She saw some improvement but the most efficient way was what she did with her mana sense when she tried to find the magical hare's core. Trying to do more and more straining exercises with mana was by far the best method she found for training.

Now she wasn't trying to train that though, she sank into a similar state as back then but instead of focusing on her mana sense she poured all of her focus into her hearing, both the regular and the spatial.

The most evident sounds came from the hundreds of humans talking, shouting, beating each other up and arguing. She paid attention to them first, making sure she heard every said word and it registered in her mind, they didn't talk about anything too important but some were discussing their last 'catch'-es.

Kali first thought all of those would be poor elves like her but it turns out runaway elves are something of a rarity, so much so that she was the first Winter Elf most of these morons saw aside from the one or two raiding parties that came down and demolished a few of their camps.

One of the bunch were survivors of one such attack and had less than kind intention towards her as a result, she noted who they were but she didn't care, none of the bandits here had anything good to say about her aside from her looks.

Back to the 'catch'-es some of the mentioned, it seemed the band of outlaws dabbled in everything they could in the forest. Mining restricted minerals in secret, hunting rare animals for their parts or capturing them to sell to some 'pompous noble in the core' as they said.

Most of their catches seemed to be juvenile magical beasts that they then sold to smugglers, Kali knew there was some sort of Rituals that could turn them into familiars but elves thought that to be a barbaric practice. Higher-leveled magical beasts had enhanced intelligence and while they had to be very high level to be on par with an average elf it was possible.

Due to this elves avoided killing high leveled magical beasts.

Kali agreed with that sentiment, killing low-leveled ones was one thing but bending their minds and then cultivating their strength while they slowly became more and more intelligent was torture of the worst kind.

When she was sure that she was listening in on everyone at the camp she expanded her focus, including the buildings in which she heard numerous animals whining and clawing at their cages. She was far from the only victim of these humans, there were even a few inside those cages that sounded like people instead of animals, but what made her so different from them that she was left out here?

She then remembered some of the conversations she overheard, that while she was the first winter elf they'd caught she wasn't the first elf, they were much more familiar with the Autumn Elves that had called these forests home for thousands of years before the humans came around and conquered it.

Still, conquering some of the towns was different from taming thousands of kilometers of dense and dangerous jungle. The Elves still lived freely in many hidden villages though they were preyed on by both bandits and imperials.

Where is the lead asshole though?

She didn't hear nor sense him anywhere in the camp but she put that out of her mind soon after, he must have been out hunting.

She slowly but surely expanded her focus without extending her range further than the palisades, she included any animal sounds first and the annoying chorus of human chatter got dampened by the sounds of animal life.

She took some time to get used to it, it was so easy to miss a single sound that might signal mortal danger when it was accompanied by thousands of inconsequential sounds but then again she couldn't disregard those either. One could become invisible without too much difficulty with the assistance of magic and dampening the sound of your footsteps wasn't easy but still possible with some Air magic.

She knew that just that was one of the genetical Talents of her race, when reaching one of the milestones Winter Elves had a chance of awakening that Talent which was called Soundless, it cut off any sound around the person using it but detecting that person based on the lack of sound was still possible.

Zadkiel once managed to divert a lecture about genetic differences between the different elven races to talking about True Talents, she found the topic endlessly interesting too. Some True Talents couldn't be replicated by magic, according to Zadkiel that was because no mortal mage can stand up to the ingenuity of millions of years of evolution.

She stayed there, meditating and listening. She heard the humans make some rude comments about her or wondered what was wrong with her head to be so calm inside a cage but she disregarded them.

She wasn't so weak as to break from a bit of pain, her dumb body reacted instinctively but inside she felt revolted at it, she wasn't going to break from this, she refused.

She wasn't some meek autumn elf that has been living under the imperial boot, hunted like animals for centuries. She was a Winter Elf and a Royal one at that, she'd get through this and these humans will regret ever being born.

Breath, come on Kali. You are meditating, clear your mind.

She didn't pay any attention to the time, she only noticed the sun becoming gentler on her skin. When she got used to the animal sounds she slowly included natural sounds too, creaking planks and doors, and the gentle wind as it whistled between the trees.

Slowly but surely she got used to it, the natural sounds were far too numerous even if she limited the range heavily. For now, her range was reduced to half, making it around 250 meters but she was satisfied, within that it was her domain. No sound would escape her again, if I can stay focused that is, that pain spell would mess it up quickly.

She opened her eyes and was greeted by an evening camp as the many bandits were readying guard patrols for the night and slowly heading into their beds.

She did learn some interesting stuff from listening in on conversations, one of which was that these humans thought that every mage needed to chant to cast spells. She didn't know what brought that misconception on but it was in her favor, they would be caught blindsided when she incinerated them with a silent Fireball.

Come to think of it didn't Master say the humans heavily restrict magical knowledge?

She thought it counterproductive but she wasn't the best at politics or sociology. Her gaze jumped all around the place, trying to take in everything she could see. The trees almost connected their branches above the houses, hiding the camp from anyone trying to locate it from above, most houses were either built from logs or planks of wood and she could tell with a glance that no architect was involved in the process of constructing them.

It was a far cry from the beautiful architecture of the Winter Castle she was used to but then again that was the seat of a King and this was a lowlife hideout, they also had dozens of these all around the forest too should either the elves or the imperials find them.

When a few of the humans headed her way Kali immediately noticed thanks to her better handling of her spatial hearing, she'd still have to work on it to bring out its full potential but it was a good start. She paid attention to them through it but didn't open her eyes, to them she might have looked like she fell asleep while sitting.

"It's such a waste," one of the morons said.

"What?" another barked back.

"I mean all of the elves we find are beauties but this one is something else," at this, she almost felt their gazes prickling her skin. Compared to you all, a pile of dung would be beautiful too.

"Don't even think about it," a third said despite also staring at her body intently, "I saw what the boss did when someone touched one of the elves."

"What?" the one she named moron1 who first spoke up asked.

She sensed the big one shaking his head, "Turned 'im into a rug."

"A rug?" moron2 asked.

"Yeah," said the big moron.

"Why can't we touch 'em anyway?" moron1 was playing with fire, even she could tell that.

"'Em noble cocksuckers like 'em fresh or somethin'," the big moron shrugged but what he said sent waves of revulsion through her body.

"Huh," moron one said intelligently.

"Let's just do our job and get on with it," the big moron said, "Boss'll let us play around when we raid a normal village."

Lowlife scum, preying on their own people.

To Kali's sensibilities that was deplorable, yeah her actions also might have negative effects on her kin but she was just putting herself first and not actively making anybody else's life miserable.

After that, with their byplay finished they covered her cage in some sort of cloth. Once they were further away she brushed her fingers across it to get a feel for it. Hmm, it feels rough and somewhat sticky, is it waxed? That should work for making it a bit waterproof. Is this all that will keep the rain out if it decides to make my life even more miserable?

That was better than nothing at least, though she couldn't tell for the life of her why she was placed in the middle of the camp, was she some sort of trophy to them? Or did it have any other use like making it harder to escape by placing her in sight of everybody?

The cloth dampened her normal hearing a bit but this just made it easier to focus on the spatial one, she didn't know how exactly it worked even Zadkiel could only make assumptions based on how they worked in what situation, despite being a bit crazy the old man wasn't mad enough to cut open elves to study them even after their death.

All he had to go on was what he could experience himself and others' recounts.

Her attention was pulled to a group entering the hideout, especially the large man leading them who she recognized to be the main asshole. He stood a head above even his 'elite' goons and was built like a bear, she started to suspect he may have had some Faun blood in him.

Something quickly averted her attention though, she wouldn't have noticed it before but after the group entered through the wooden gate something slipped through right before the gate crashed close. Now this is interesting.